An Elder's Persective of this Election

My opinions of Obama, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Congress, the Supreme Court, and Federal Reserve Bank are based MUCH less on what they say than what they do. To cover all of that would fill a large book, but I will simply list here a few of the actions of each that seem most important to me.

Obama lawyers submitted a forged birth certificate with intent to prove he was born in Hawaii, and later admitted it was forged (after investigation had exposed the forgery). The “real” birth certificate has never been made available to the public by Hawaii. Obama sealed all his school records, presumably to hide the suspected fact that he was enrolled as a foreign student. The democratic controlled congress rammed through Obamacare (in my opinion a major disaster). (The Supreme Court, inexplicably, approved it as a “Tax” by split decision). Obama appointed Eric Holder then Loretta Lynch as Attorney General, both of which in my eyes completely failed to enforce critical laws related to gun control (fast and furious), border controls, and many immigration laws. Obama ruled primarily by executive order when congress refused to pass the laws he wanted (Medicare benefits funding, welfare for undocumented immigrants, etc.). Some of these executive orders were ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme court. The IRS unlawfully targeted Tea Party organizations and contributors, to protect Obama’s re-election.

Obama’s foreign policy is a mystery to me. He seems antagonistic toward Israel, and supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood (which is a strong advocate of Sharia Law, and maybe Jihad). His leadership seems very weak, and he is generally apologetic to Muslims (blaming the Benghazi attack on a video). He is generally nearly silent regarding atrocities in the east (murder of Christians, beheadings of non-Muslim citizens, Islamic women’s rights), but very quick to use his bully pulpit to comment negatively against the police in cases of violence in the US. Obama also utilized his bully pulpit to rant against “Christian” atrocities around the end of the “dark ages” or “middle ages”, as if to justify the anti-Christian activities of present day Islamic Radicals. The nuclear treaty with Iran disturbs me greatly.

Hillary Clinton is a proven, repetitive liar. She lied to the public for a week about the cause of the Benghazi attack, even after she had been clearly informed in the first 24 hours (probably motivated to obfuscate and avoid the real terrorist issues impact on the 2012 re-election of Obama’s 2nd term). She lied to the FBI repeatedly in the investigation into her email subterfuge. She very obviously has a LOT to hide, especially about her political connections, the 2 Billion dollar Clinton Foundation, and extremely profitable deals with many foreign governments motivating very large donations to the Clinton Foundation. There are still thousands of missing and destroyed emails, so much remains hidden. Her campaign budget for the 2016 election is well over 100 million dollars, compared to Trump’s less than 10 million. She is very strongly backed by a huge Deep State political machine, which seems determined to maintain the status quo.

Donald Trump is a hard-nosed, hard driving, charismatic and competent businessman, with big dreams, big accomplishments, and a few big failures. He has taken significant advantage of rules, laws, political connections and access to capital only available to large, privileged players such as him. Many people love him, and many hate him. My opinion is that he is generally honest, invariably speaks bluntly, without regard to “political correctness”, and stands firmly for his convictions. His political experience so far is limited to utilizing the political system to facilitate his businesses (openly, not illegal or hidden). He expresses his serious dissatisfaction with our current government (unfavorable trade deals, anti-business rules, Obamacare, Radical Islamic Terrorism, failed law enforcement, potential terrorist immigration, incompetent military and leadership, etc.). His blunt criticism of congress (both democrat and republican) and the current state of our country apparently rang true with enough to clearly win the republican primary and nomination for president, in spite of serious opposition from MANY established and powerful republicans.

Ahh, finally, the Federal Reserve Bank! If you have been paying attention to me for the past 10 years or so, you will recognize the “Money Masters”, predicted ominously by Thomas Jefferson shortly after the birth of the United States of America, and clearly identified by some as a critical issue over three decades ago. More currently identified as the “Deep State”, which has actually been around for a very long time, but only really recognized as such recently. A major milestone for the “Deep State” was the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank (with a secret or at least very limited vote) by Congress late at night on Christmas Eve in 1913. Signed into law (with later regrets) by President Woodrow Wilson to help finance World War I, it turned over sole responsibility to create “money” from Congress (who had that responsibility in the Constitution) to a privately owned bank known as the “Federal Reserve Bank”. The law was deliberately written to provide very limited oversight by the government, to avoid political influence of the money supply, leaving almost total control to the private bankers.

A few analysts have noted connections between Federal Reserve Bank control of money to a serious recession around 1920 and the market crash in 1929 starting the great depression, which lasted until 1940. From 1913 through 1933 the value of the dollar was very stable, as it was still backed by gold at $20.67 an ounce, but fractional reserve banking, enabled by the FED (Federal Reserve Bank) allowed banks to issue more dollars than they had gold to back them. This ultimately led to many bank failures, and prompted President Franklin Roosevelt to make it illegal to own gold, require all private gold to be returned to the Federal Reserve Bank for $20.67 in paper notes per ounce before May 1, 1933. (You could be arrested and jailed if you didn’t comply.) In 1934, the government price of gold was increased to $35 per ounce, effectively increasing the dollar value of gold on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheets by 69 percent. This increase in assets allowed the Federal Reserve to further inflate the money supply, and thus devalue the existing dollars.

The government held the $35 per ounce gold price until August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon announced that the United States would no longer convert dollars to gold at a fixed value, thus completely abandoning the gold standard. In 1974, President Gerald Ford signed legislation that permitted Americans again to purchase and own gold bullion.

This is a good place to note that in the 1920s you could buy a fine tailored man’s suit with an ounce of gold, worth $20.67. A model A Ford automobile at that time was $500 or 24 ounces of gold. In the 1960s the price of the fine tailored suit was about $35, the value of an ounce of gold. In 1967 I purchased a brand new Chevrolet Camaro, V8, automatic transmission and all options for less than $1,600 (value of 45.7 ounces of gold at that time, and about 6 weeks of my salary in 1967). 45.7 ounces of gold today is worth $60,415, way more than six weeks of any middle class salary. I remember in the early 1960s regularly taking my wife and three children to “Sandy’s” (a nearby drive in restaurant) and purchasing each of us a very good cheeseburger (25 cents), french fries (15cents), soda (10 cents) and soft ice cream cone (20 cents) for total less than $4 (for all 5 meals). Sandy’s was later overcome by “McDonald's” with even lower prices.

You may believe that Roosevelt’s one-time devaluation of our money was necessary and acceptable, or foolish and unacceptable (after all, it did NOT end the great depression, even 6 years later). Actually, it was relatively insignificant compared to Nixon’s 1971 removal of the gold backing of the dollar altogether. That action removed ALL restraint on the FED, and gave unlimited power to the “Deep State” (the un-elected private individuals who now have full, unfettered control of ALL the fiat dollar money and through this, extremely powerful control of almost all of our government). Unlimited “free money” (credit) is created at will, used to finance unlimited government programs and wars, without regard to the fact that the “credit” is so massive that it is mathematically impossible to repay the debt. The unavoidable result is dramatic devaluation of the dollar due to huge increases in the amount of “free money” created by the FED.

A simple example should make the point clearly. In 1971 $35 was worth an ounce of gold. Today, that same ounce of gold costs $1,341. Simple math ($35 / $1,341 = $0.0261) reveals that a dollar today has the equivalent purchasing power of less than 3 cents in 1971, at least as measured in the value of gold. My total annual salary from IBM in 1971 was $23,745, equivalent to over 678 ounces of gold. Today’s value of 678 ounces gold is $909,198.

Between 1971 and 1990 my IBM salary had increased to $63,600 (due to several job promotions and cost of living adjustments based on CPI by IBM). That’s the good news! When I retired in 1991 I received a reasonable pension ($28,880/yr.) from IBM, and a nice medical benefit (promised for life for both June and I, and paid in full by IBM). In 1993 the medical benefit was withdrawn by IBM, and replaced by a fixed annual limit for medical expense coverage from IBM. Neither the annual pension nor the fixed medical expense limit has been or will ever be adjusted for inflation, so my pension income is fixed and my buying power continually decreases because of inflation. In 1990 the gold price was hovering around $400/ounce, so my annual salary was then only worth 159 ounces of gold (down from 678 ounces in 1967). Even much worse, my annual pension was worth 72.2 ounces of gold in 1991, but only 21.5 ounces of gold today. Put in other words, the value of my IBM pension in terms of gold has been reduced by over 70% from 1991 to today. Unfortunately, that trend must inevitably continue for the foreseeable future.

It should be pretty obvious that I strongly disagree with the FED’s strategy that forced inflation is necessary and good. Actually, inflation is simply a blatantly used tool to steal value from my income and savings (and yours, as well) to pass along to the Deep State cronies and secure ultimate control.

So how does the “Deep State” (the private unnamed owners of the Federal Reserve Bank and their unnamed cronies, the “Money Masters”, the top 0.1%) benefit? By simply creating accounting entries in the FED balance sheet adding bonds (free money) which they “loan” to government programs, banks, cronies, political campaigns, (at extremely low interest rates, after all the bonds cost the FED nothing).

Actually, with unlimited money you can buy anything, including politicians and even governments. The only cost is the situations described above. Even more sinister is the fact that the Deep State benefits greatly from wars and conflicts that continue to plague the whole world since WW2, as they dramatically increase the need for more spending by governments and defense industries. All they need to do is support the politicians to engage in the process.

A few serious politicos, most notably Ron Paul and later his son Rand Paul and very few others, have championed proposals to “Audit the FED” or even “End the FED”. They always get a lot of support, and sometimes even majority, bipartisan support, but guess what! The FED has NEVER been audited, and most likely never will be audited until AFTER our money system inevitably and disastrously crashes due to either the bursting of the credit bubble or hyperinflation. At that time the “great depression” will seem like the “good old days”.

(Note: There have actually been a few very high level cursory audits of the FED, but none at nearly the level required to address the major issues described above.)

And note carefully: The “Deep State” engineered economy DOES crash and collapse from time to time. A very early example was the fall of the Roman Empire. More recent and timely examples include the hyperinflation and collapse of the Weimar Republic (Germany) at the beginning of the 20th century, the serious recession in 1920, market collapse and great depression in 1929, serious recession in 1970s, dot com bubble burst in 2000, real estate bubble burst in 2008/2009. Still to come is the enourmous credit bubble of the present day, teetering on the edge of a long overdue correction.

So finally, here are my opinions regarding Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in this election.

I believe the Clintons have long been favorites of the Deep State, and I believe a major portion of Hillary’s huge campaign budget comes from there. Hillary thinks everything with our current government is heading in the right direction, and intends to “improve” it further. She is nearly as much a “Democratic Socialist” (Communist) as Bernie Sanders, and strives for even more government control. Even ignoring her clear record as a liar, and suspicions of cronyism or questionable dealings with foreign actors, I cannot support her or her ideology.

I did not support Donald Trump in the beginning, as I much prefer return to Constitutional government as supported by Rand Paul (the FED is actually in violation of the Constitution). In my opinion, the “Deep State” easily defeated Rand Paul early in the campaign, and no other candidates picked up his ideals. On the other hand, I strongly feel great dissatisfaction, even disgust, with our current government representatives, both Democrat and Republican. Donald Trump has recognized that dissatisfaction such as mine is quite widespread (and I really think he shares the same feelings), and has won the Republican nomination handily (in spite of significant Republication forces against him.

So for me, Donald Trump promises to resolve SOME of the issues that concern me, but will probably NOT tackle my issues with the FED. In truth, I believe that if he did take on the FED he would probably be defeated. So, Donald Trump gets my vote.

This was published by a fellow former IBMer today.

Exceptional post! Really enjoyed reading it. He has a future as an author, IMHO ~ send my best regards to IBMer ~ I’d like for us to have a beer together...

Thanks! I sent him a link to this posting so he can follow any comments made here.

I believe he can be “followed” and commented to at the medium.com link above, as well.

(He’s not a follower of Free Republic himself, though I send him links from time to time.)

I know a lot of people in very similar situations. Their pensions were reasonable to start with but have not kept up with inflation. These days in the Obama economy very few people outside of government have any pension at all. With low interest rates and a risky stock market environment this situation is unlikely to improve.

But, but, but, I was told by one of our fellow FReepers that I was wrong when I posted about how the price of gold versus its purchasing power hadn’t changed.

I was told that comparisons like that were irrelevant and misleading.

Hmmm, could he have been a troll?

"I know a lot of people in very similar situations. Their pensions were reasonable to start with but have not kept up with inflation. These days in the Obama economy very few people outside of government have any pension at all. With low interest rates and a risky stock market environment this situation is unlikely to improve. "

Seems that Mr. Steele is trying to tell us that this situation is deliberately engineered by the Deep State and that targeted inflation along with funding governments for wars with easy money, are among the primary and essential methods of its power, wealth and control. A tried and proven method, like the funding of Napoleon's war that ultmately bankrupted everybody, except the funders.

"But, but, but, I was told by one of our fellow FReepers that I was wrong when I posted about how the price of gold versus its purchasing power hadn’t changed. I was told that comparisons like that were irrelevant and misleading. Hmmm, could he have been a troll?"

Well it is certain and obvious that the purchasing power a dollar has changed (negatively) far more than the purchasing power of an ounce of gold. And those changes seem to track closely with both the changing government declared values of an ounce of gold, and then changing at an accelerated rate when it was untied from the value of gold altogether.

Seems that Mr. Steele is trying to tell us that this situation is deliberately engineered by the Deep State

Yes, he does seem to imply this, and it is possible that there is a bit of truth here. But my father and others have a saying, “Simple stupidity rules the world.” And this seems to be a more universal explanation that covers most of what hppens

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.