Allison Bricker

In his weekly update, Dr. Ron Paul of Texas illustrates the disastrous consequences of following the Keynesian economic model, which advocates in perpetuity. Just last week, the House voted to raise the debt ceiling by another $1.9 Trillion, a move undertaken to avoid defaulting on current obligations, but nonetheless just delaying the inevitable. In reality, no one can merely continue borrowing funds in order to service the interest on the existing debt and make payment on bill that are currently due. This simple idea universally understood by the People, seems to escape those in government, who care more about reelection than charting a fiscally responsible course for the nation.

Wire Report

William F. Shughart II – Senior Fellow, The Independent Institute

William F. Shughart II is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and the Frederick A. P. Barnard Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of Mississippi. A former economist at the Federal Trade Commission, Professor Shughart received his Ph.D. in economics from Texas A & M University, and he has taught at George Mason University, Clemson University, and the University of Arizona. Professor Shughart is Editor in Chief of Public Choice, past President of the Public Choice Society, President-elect of the Southern Economic Association, Associate Editor of the Southern Economic Journal, and Book Review Editor for Managerial and Decision Economics. His books include Taxing Choice: The Predatory Politics of Fiscal Discrimination; The Elgar Companion to Public Choice: The Organization of Industry; Antitrust Policy and Interest-Group Politics, Modern Managerial Economics (with W. Chappell and R. Cottle); Policy Challenges and Political Responses: Public Choice Perspectives on the Post-9/11 World (with R. Tollison); The Political Economy of the New Deal (with J. Couch); The Causes and Consequences of Antitrust (ed. with F. McChesney); and The Economics of Budget Deficits (with C. Rowley and R. Tollison). A contributor to numerous other books, Professor Shughart is the author of more than 100 articles for scholarly journals and his popular articles have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Oklahoman, San Francisco Chronicle, Investor’s Business Daily, San Jose Mercury News, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Examiner, Kansas City Star, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Washington Times, Detroit Free Press, Clarion-Ledger, Vision Hispana, National Post, Providence Journal, and many other publications.

Put a New Tax in Your Pipe and Smoke It.

(Wire/Ind.Inst.) – I am a college professor. My job description therefore requires that, among other things, I wear a tweed sport coat with leather elbow patches, grow a beard, spend two days a week in the classroom, and smoke a pipe.

H.R. 4439 Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010 (PDF 156KB)

That last essential trait is now under attack. A bill before Congress proposes to increase the federal excise tax on pipe tobacco, making it equal to the recently enacted tax on loose cigarette tobacco purchased by smokers who “roll their own.” If passed, the bill would tax pipe tobacco at nearly $25 per pound, an increase of 775 percent over the current level.

Tobacco smoking is bad for one’s health. To my knowledge, however, no scientific studies have been conducted showing that pipe smokers (or cigar smokers, for that matter) have shorter lives than nonsmokers. There certainly is no evidence that nonsmokers who are exposed to environmental pipe or cigar smoke are harmed by it. Indeed, every person who smells the ambient odor of my pipe says that they are reminded of their fathers or grandfathers.

So, why are pipe smokers selectively being targeted by Washington? The answer is political opportunism. The federal government has been on a spending binge since George W. Bush occupied the White House. Over the past nine years, America’s taxpayers have been burdened with unprecedented expansions in the federal budget to finance new educational mandates (“No Child Left Behind”), new healthcare initiatives (Medicare Part D, to pay for granny’s meds), two wars on terrorism (Iraq and Afghanistan), failed economic “stimulus” plans and the bailouts of irresponsible financial institutions.

With annual budget deficits now running at $1.4 trillion, Washington is desperate for revenue enhancements (i.e., new sources of tax revenue). Rather than increasing taxes on a broad basis, which predictably would elicit broad-based opposition from already overburdened taxpayers, it is politically expedient to single out minorities who cannot bring effective power to bear in the legislative marketplace. And so we have seen proposals to tax those who have sacrificed wages in return for generous, “Cadillac” health-insurance plans, to tax the consumers of junk food and carbonated soft drinks, and to tax transactions in common stocks.

It is naïve to think that our elected representatives are attentive to the public’s interests. What presidents and the members of Congress do in practice is to transfer wealth to the special interests that are critical to their re-election prospects. It is therefore not surprising that they finance those wealth transfers by taxing groups that are not important to them electorally.

And so the tax burden falls most heavily on anyone, anywhere who is politically impotent, especially if they can be portrayed as the consumers of products that, on the flimsiest of scientific evidence, harm themselves or impose costs on others.

That mindset unleashes the nanny state to run amok. Pipe and cigar smokers are no threat to the public’s health. Even if smoking a pipe or a cigar harms the consumers of those products, that harm is borne privately and thus is not an issue of public policy concern.

But it unfortunately is if tax policy is predatory, with the aim at raising revenue from any group that cannot marshal effective political opposition to it. Perhaps it is time to add pipe tobacco, junk food and soft drinks to the agendas of the tea parties now being organized to oppose a government that is everywhere more intrusive.

Copyright 2010 The Independent Institute

The Smoking Argus

WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL STATEMENT: The President discusses the state of the economy amidst positive signs from the GDP. Making clear that this is little comfort to those struggling, he notes that we appear to have averted an even worse disaster and offers hope for the time ahead. August 1, 2009. (Public Domain)

—End OFFICIAL STATEMENT—

Source(s): The White House • Official White House YouTube Channel

Guest Contributor

Howard Riell
	Howard M. Riell is a 31-year veteran journalist, author and host of the popular “Riell Truth” radio show on The American Freedom Network, station KHNC 1360 AM in Johnstown, CO. The show is streamed live at America News Net

An exclusive interview with John Perkins, the author of the New York Times best-sellers “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” and “The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”.

Background: Throughout the 1970s, John Perkins was a highly paid Economic Hit Man (EHM) working for the Corporatocracy – a conglomeration of American corporate, banking and governmental interests. Perkins’ job, as he puts it, was to cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars and funnel money from the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet’s natural resources. His tools included fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. He was usually successful, but when he was not – as in the cases of Ecuador’s Jaime Roldos and Panama’s Omar Torrijos — his masters would send in the “jackals,” experts in destabilizing governments and, as in these two cases, assassinating uncooperative leaders. Perkins retired in 1980, published Confessions in 2004 and Secret History in 2007.

Veteran journalist and FrontPageMag contributor Howard M. Riell spoke with Perkins about how his former colleagues inside the Corporatocracy view Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In recent weeks Hugo Chavez has, among other things, seized seaports and airstrips in at least four Venezuelan states, offered Russia’s Air Force the use of an entire island to park its long-range strategic bombers, called President Barack Obama an “ignoramus” for saying he had exported terrorism and obstructed progress in Latin America. He has also severed diplomatic ties with Israel in protest of its military campaign in Gaza, and possibly arranged for the arrest and prosecution on corruption charges of his political rival Manuel Rosales.

Howard Riell: How is Hugo Chavez viewed by the Corporatocracy? When they look at him, what do they see?

John Perkins: Let’s start with the United States. We’ve made him the bad guy, basically. The press in the United States is extremely misled and misleading about Hugo Chavez. First of all, he’s often depicted in the press as ‘the dictator from Venezuela.’ He’s been democratically elected and a number of times won democratically carried out referenda, which have been overseen by international committees. And while there have been voter irregularities there are voter irregularities in every election everywhere.

Even his opponents, people who really don’t like him in Latin America – I spend a lot of time there, as you know – will tell you, ‘Yes, he’s a democratically elected president.’ In this country, though, we have tried to depict him as something other than that. The Bush Administration was particularly onerous in doing that, and I think it’s very unfortunate. I don’t particularly like Chavez’ personality, and there are many other aspects about him that I’m not very fond of. But you can talk about a politician like him in honest terms and disagree strongly with his policies, but you don’t have to misstate whether he was democratically elected or not. He was.

HR: Have you ever met Chavez?

JP: He waved around my book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in public. On the BBC he talked about how he’d been contacted by people like me. Twice he’s invited me to be on a television show with him, and both times I’ve declined. I don’t really think it would be to either of our advantages for that to happen. Given the fact that I really want to reach people in this country — I want to reach conservatives and Republicans as well as liberals and Democrats — for me to appear on television with Chavez wouldn’t help. And I don’t really think it would help him to endear himself to certain of his opponents in Venezuela to have me on a show, either.

HR: Are you still in touch with EHMs and Jackals? If so, are you privy to any inside information from them?

JP: I do get inside information. I’m writing another book now where I talk a lot about one Jackal in particular who has become a fairly good friend of mine. He is living in Dubai right now and working in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, I’m sitting here in my office with photographs that he took. He was involved in a big gun battle in the Seychelles back in 1981. He had come to assassinate the president of the Seychelles and hijacked an Air India 707. This is a real guy. His name is actually on the record. His real name has been in the New York Times, and he was put on trial in South Africa. He is one of a number of people like that who I keep in touch with.

Quite a few people have come out of the woodwork since I’ve written the book. One of the things I have to be careful of is, if I haven’t known them for a while or don’t know them through someone that I trust, are they pulling my leg? You get emails from people and you don’t really know if they’re for real or not. So you have to be a little bit careful about that, and I am careful.

HR: What are the Corporatocracy’s plans for Chavez?

JP: I think you’d have to say there is a lot of difference of opinion there. It’s a complex issue. The oil companies, oddly enough, want to keep him in power, as far as I can determine, even though that seems counter-intuitive. But they are frightened that they’re going to lose the oil fields of the Middle East. Therefore the oil in South America becomes infinitely more important, not only because there is a lot of oil in what’s called the Amazon Crescent, which stretches from Venezuela to Colombia to Ecuador through parts of Bolivia and possibly into Brazil, but also because it’s very close to us. Transportation is easy and safe. You don’t need all the protection that you need to get oil out of the Middle East, through the Hormuz Straights and around Africa.

So we’re being very, very careful with Chavez, and also with the other nine recently elected presidents who have taken stands against exploitation by foreign corporations — including (Rafael) Correa, the President of Ecuador, who wrote a beautiful endorsement for my last book, Secret History, Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, whom I spent New Years eve 2008 with, and the new presidents of El Salvador (Mauricio Funes), and Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega).

Our oil companies, particularly, are having to be very careful. Some of the other corporations are less careful, would like to see these people gotten rid of. So there is not necessarily a consistent opinion among various members of the Corporatocracy on exactly what to do about this.

HR: Like thunder up on Mt. Olympus when the gods argue amongst themselves?

JP: Absolutely. What’s happened in Latin America is completely revolutionary. Ten countries now, representing more than 80% of South America, have democratically voted in presidents who are saying ‘No – no more exploitation. Ecuador’s oil has to help Ecuador’s poor people. Bolivia’s gas has to help Bolivia’s poor people.

 There is a revolution going on, and it is not against the U.S. government. It’s not against the people of the United States. These presidents wave around our Bill of Rights and our Declaration of Independence and hold these out as great, sacred documents. And they recognize it’s not about the U.S. government, but that there are aspects of the government that get involved. That’s why people like Morales or Chavez kick some of our diplomats out periodically. But they recognize that this is really about the corporations, the Corporatocracy. They understand that it’s the corporations that dictate U.S. government policies in places like Latin America.

HR: If you were still in the business and had been given the assignment of turning Mr. Chavez around, how would you do it?

JP: I’d quit. I wouldn’t want to try and do it.

HR: Have they attempted to assassinate him?

JP: Yes, there have certainly been attempts to assassinate him. We attempted to overthrow him in the coup of 2002, but he’s extremely clever. He was a military man himself. (The coup attempt) was unsuccessful, but he learned a lot in the process.

You know, when the coup occurred in 2002 we took him out of power for almost 40 hours, but he was very, very smart. As he was being held captive his captors were also being held captive. He had his own private guards hidden in secret passageways at the presidential palace. Once his opponents had shuttled him out of there and taken over, his own guards came out of the secret passages and put their guns to the heads of the people who had overthrown him. At the same time, tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets, so the world saw this huge demonstration in favor of Chavez. But while that was going on, what most of the world didn’t realize was that there was also this inside counter coup executed by his own people.

Chavez is extremely clever. That’s not to say he couldn’t be assassinated, but I doubt he would ever succumb to economic hit men. I think the possibility of assassinating the man – difficult as it might be — is much more probable than the idea of bringing him around. I can’t imagine economic hit men getting through to him. I couldn’t get through to Torrijos of Panama. I couldn’t get through to Roldos of Ecuador. I was called off the case with (France-Albert) Renee in the Seychelles and the jackals were sent in because we determined that he wasn’t corruptible. When you’ve got a guy like Chavez there’s not a hell of a lot of point in continuing to try to corrupt him and bring him around in these ways.

HR: Pull out your crystal ball: what’s going to happen in Venezuela with Chavez?

JP: I don’t have that kind of crystal ball. You know, he’s just run this recent referendum. It’s the second time he went out there to try and change the law to extend the time he can be president. The first time he was voted down. He accepted it, but like any good politician he went for it a second time and this time he won. So he can run for election again.

I have no idea where he’s really coming from. I can say at this point that he is democratically elected, and he has done an amazing job for a lot of Latin America. If Chavez hadn’t been elected and hadn’t survived that coup I don’t think we’d have a lot of these other presidents in Latin America. He is also sending medical aid and money to many other countries. One of the reasons he was despised by the Bush administration was that he had ties with Cuba. Part of what he was doing was paying Cuba to send their very good medical doctors out to some extremely poor parts of places like Bolivia where they couldn’t get doctors any other way.

One reasons we hear so many bad things about him is that the majority of the Venezuelans who live in the States, speak English, and get interviewed by the press come from relatively wealthy families. For decades they did not pay taxes – or at best paid very low taxes – in Venezuela. Chavez is now forcing them to pay taxes so that the lower classes can attend schools and receive food and medicines.

And so throughout Latin America, in many, many areas he’s seen as a real hero. On the other hand, in Latin America like here people fear that he might be trying to become another Simon Bolivar (1783-1830) and create a huge dictatorship throughout Latin America. Maybe that’s his intent. Who am I to say it isn’t? I’m not his psychiatrist. But he certainly has done very little to demonstrate that that is, in fact, what he’s intending to do at this point. Who knows what comes next with him?

I think it’s fair to say that Chavez has to be a very eccentric human being, perhaps you could say bordering on some sort of unusual psychological profile. Because you don’t take on the most powerful empire in the world the way he took on the United States unless you’re a very big risk taker. He’s taken huge risks and he’s been successful so far.

What comes next? Who knows. But I will say that the continent as a whole, both Central and South America, has had tremendous, significant changes for the better for the people of all those countries. And Chavez has to get some of the credit for creating an atmosphere where that could happen.

Joseph Marohl

Step One. No employee or executive of a given company can earn more than fifty times what any other employee or executive in the same company earns. No exceptions.

Step Two. Productivity and usefulness will always receive greater rewards than consumption and ineffectuality. Need will always receive greater compensation than cunning.

Step Three. No wealth is inheritable. Personal wealth dissolves upon decease. Survivors may purchase properties thus left in limbo—and in life, individuals are free to give gifts to whomever they please.

Step Four. Every college and university student will have to minor in some area to ensure that she or he can make and repair something of use to society or can provide another service that has demonstrable benefits to others.

Step Five. Nothing in the universe will cost more than a million dollars. Anyone who buys anything that costs a million dollars will know up front that he or she will never see a profit from reselling it. The cost of things will be adjusted to fit the new economy—no form of housing will cost more than $70,000, no bicycle will cost more than $100, no loaf of bread more than 25 cents, etc.

Step Six. Workers and investors will share equally in the profits of any venture—with exceptions for work and investments of exceptional value (provided such value can be supported in evidence). Workers and investors will share equally in the risks of any venture—with exceptions for workers or investors for whom the costs of the risk are demonstrably more severe than for other workers or investors.

Step Seven. Advertising will be restricted to the description of verifiable facts about the product (size, color, ingredients, etc.) or the service (time frame, processes, equipment, etc.). No promises will be made or implied that products contribute meaningfully to one’s sex life, sense of belonging, closeness to nature, patriotism, rebel image, desire for eternal youth, or admiration for small animals and children. Appeals to magical thinking or impulse will be strictly forbidden.

Step Eight. The porn industry will be recognized as a religious organization—in the service of the god Eros. Like other religious groups, it will operate tax free, yet remain free to encroach on legislation and judicial interpretation of laws uninhibitedly. If politicians and judges caught with their panties down are no more subject to censure or impeachment than a new President who commissions three Protestant prayers for his inauguration, the nation may spare itself the cost of investigating, censuring, and impeaching politicians over what they do with their willies and pussies with consenting partners.

(Of course, it would seem to make better sense to tax porn … and churches …, just to relieve the public debt, if nothing else, though arguably porn, anyway, provides a service to society.)

Allison Bricker

With 2009 only just begun, it is utterly disheartening to bear witness to the further crumbling of our economy and nation as a whole at the hands of the plutocrats and central banking criminals. The fervor of the past election cycle has already become mired in cynicism; standard operating procedure for a Republic in decline. Most unfortunate however, is that according to analysis by Gerald Celente and “The Trends Research Institute“, it is only going to get much much worse from this point moving forward.

Gerald Celente, for those not familiar, is head of “The Trends Research Institute” based out of New York. His organization has correctly forecast a mind boggling number of world events all prior to their actual occurrence. Some of the more notable events were the collapse of the former Soviet Union, the tech-bubble collapse, the War in Iraq, the then emerging housing crisis, and the “Economic Panic of ’08″.

Published in the institute’s “Top Trends of 2009″, the report forecasts the complete and utter collapse of the United States economy, followed by the beginning of the second American Revolution, quote:

“It is a matter of historical fact: When people are homeless, helpless, desperate, jobless and hungry, sooner or later they will rebel. And it won’t be any different in America.”

Vol. XVII, No. 1 – Top Trends of 2009 – Winter 2009
The Trends Institute¹

My default reaction to such statements is an immediate desire to cast them off as mere hyperbole, wild conspiracy, or publicity. While it most certainly would be instantaneously convenient to jettison such notions and the weighty ramifications therein, any attempt at doing such conjures up images from “The Ants and the Grasshopper” the Aesop fable my Grandmother use to read to me as a child.

For those of us who choose to delve past the soundbite constraints of the old media, it is not hard to see that the problems our Republic faces cannot be cured or swept under the rug with the premiere of another season of “American Idol”. This ponzai scheme of fractional reserve banking is tumbling. The talking heads who in the beginning of 2008 were still exuberantly advising investors to buy financial stocks like Bear Sterns, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs have finally been exposed as nothing more than charlatans and shills for the the criminals on Wall Street.²

Fellow readers, the same batch of Keynesian sycophants who kept condescendingly telling us the bailout was far too complex for “average people” to grasp are the same group of hacks who now instruct the masses that President-Elect Obama will offer Americans a miraculous salvation via the hands of even bigger government and continued deficit spending.

Honestly, there is no fix to the card game so long perpetuated against us and our posterity. The collapse is entering free fall status and will only be exacerbated by the impending default of commercial real-estate mortgages. My suggestion; educate your family and friends, buy food and toiletries such as razors and soap. Secure the things your family will need eighteen months from now, not iPods, BlueRay DVD players, plasma televisions, et al. If you have children, heed the advice of Peter Schiff, purchase the shoes and the clothes they will need next year – now, before the Dollar devalues.

If you can, also consider buying Silver. Whereas Gold is already out of reach for many, Silver is still attainable at the current approximate rate of $10 per ounce. As the paper currency RESERVE NOTES become little more than kindling for a fire³, coupled with a loss in demand for industrial Silver due to the implosion of electronic and appliance sales, Silver will continue to rise higher against the Dollar for at least the next twelve to eighteen months.

Whatever you do, just make sure you do something, this is not a drill. Inaction, inattention, ignorance is no longer an option. Unless of course you fancy becoming the grasshopper⁴.

Source(s): ¹Trends Journal – Vol. XVII, No. 1 • ²Peter Schiff was Right 2006 • ³The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: Hyperinflation • ⁴ Aesopic fables by B. E. Perry, Number 373 – Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press

Joseph Marohl

Barack Obama’s proposed stimulus package promises me, a single man earning less than $200,000 a year, a tax break of Five Hundred Dollars. That’s $41.66 cents per paycheck.

The phrase “stimulus package” makes me think of sex toys, and $41.66 falls $3.33 short of what a jelly vibe strap-on dildo costs.

Now, if I were a business I could get $3000 tax credit for every new employee I hired—at whatever wages a new employee could expect in 2009. Imagine my joy if, in addition to my $500, I would get a minimum-wage job with a company that pays fewer taxes than I do.

Nancy Pelosi reports that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the current Bush tax cuts, which mainly benefit the rich, is largely responsible for the great big deficit that appeared out of nowhere in the past eight years. That depends on whether you think having a $450,000 minimum annual income makes a person rich (from where I stand, I’d say I do) … and whether $10.6 trillion strikes you as great big.

Obama’s people are considering not pulling the plug on the Bush tax cuts, but rather let them expire naturally, in 2011. Pelosi wants them repealed “as early as possible”—whatever “as possible” means.

Every indication is that Barack “So Help Me God” Obama puts a lot of faith in both God and Reagan-era “trickle-down” economics. The truth is the money never did manage to trickle down … not under Reagan, not under Clinton or the Bushes, and probably not under Obama.

Somewhere high up there’s a clog. Perhaps Obama can unclog it, perhaps all we need is to dribble some Drano at Dick Cheney’s armpits—might work, might be good for laughs anyway.

Pumping government money into American corporations is not the answer—especially in the absence of adequate oversight to where the money’s going and how it’s being used. Every attempt so far to resolve the world financial crisis has been motivated more by panic than by thoughtful analysis leading to sound judgment.

The state where I live and work is currently experiencing its own financial crisis, and states, unlike corporations, are promised nothing in the package, so, forgive my lack of optimism here, I don’t think the $500 the federal government is willing to let me keep this year will go unclaimed for long.

Kelly

Let’s face it, the outlook is grim. To swallow the heaping pile of dung that has become our news cycle these days, I believe it is increasingly critical that we all take a minute or two of our day to laugh. Whether you require a simple chuckle or an all out wet your pants type laugh is, of course, up to you.

Welcome to the first installment of Monday’s Doom and Gloom, Followed by a Funny

Monday’s Doom and Gloom

Mike Adams: Where did the Fed’s Bailout Money Really Go?

Christopher Booker: President-elect Barack Obama Proposes Economic Suicide for US

Jennifer Corbett Dooren: FDA to Allow Trace Levels of Melamine in Baby Formula

Tim Shipman: Pentagon Hires British Scientist to Help Build Robot Soldiers that “Won’t Commit War Crimes”

Monday’s Funny, brought to you by The Simpson’s

*Editor’s Note: Monday’s Funny has been squashed due to Twentieth Century Fox’s copyright claim.

“Editor’s Note II: And now for something completely ridiculous

Joseph Marohl

Thursday, ExxonMobil posted record profits for the third quarter: $14.83 billion. This beats the company’s previous record three months ago and ranks as the biggest profit of any American company in history (1). This, in a period of economic slowdown.

That’s approximately 100 times the amount of money Barack Obama raised last month (2).

That’s equivalent to the 12-month salaries for 354,000 high school teachers or 237,355 registered nurses (3).

That’s enough to keep 334,174 prisoners in their cells for a year (4).

That equals the production budget of The Dark Knight times 82 (5).

If distributed equally amongst all 81,000 of ExxonMobil’s workforce, each employee would earn over $728,000 this year, above and beyond his or her annual salary (6).

ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson earns a salary of $21.7 million (7). But that’s only 7% of what the Obama campaign picked up in September alone, and would pay the annual salaries of only 500 teachers and nurses, and keep only 488 prisoners in their cells, and produce only the first 12 minutes of The Dark Knight.

…

(1) Smith, Aaron. “Exxon Mobil: Biggest Profit in History.” 30 Oct.2008. CNN Money.com http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/30/news/companies/exxon_earnings/index.htm?cnn=yes.

(2) Stoddard, Ed. “Obama Fund-raising Seems to Defy Financial Crisis.” 20 Oct. 2008. Tales from the Trail. Reuters. http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/10/20/obama-fund-raising-seems-to-defy-financial-crisis/.

(3) “Occupational Employment Statistics.” May 2007. Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.bls.gov.

(4) Associated Press. “Cost per Prison Inmate by State.” 19 Oct. 2008. OregonLive.com. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/elections-0/1224436757242730.xml&storylist=orlocal.

(5) “The Dark Knight.” 18 July 2008. Dark Horizons. http://www.darkhorizons.com/2008/darkknight.php.

(6) “Employment Data.” ExxonMobil. 2008. http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/about_who_workforce_data.aspx.

(7) Associated Press. “Exxon Mobil CEO Gets $21.7 Million Pay Package After Record Year.” 10 Apr. 2008. KTEN.com. http://www.kten.com/Global/story.asp?S=8148522.

Mandy Hyndman

I am a machinist for a major corporation. Each day I am surrounded by a melting pot of—well mostly under-educated white folks. This is not to suggest that these people are stupid (not all of them anyway) but simply that they have little interest in a world not summed up on the evening news. Therefore I was delighted when a co-worker (we’ll call her Janice) initiated a conversation with me based on the derailment of the economy. I was explaining why I think it is a terrible idea for everyone to withdraw from the market at once in a blind panic (I mean come on, didn’t anyone see It’s a Wonderful Life?) when her eyes started to glaze over. She explained that she had pulled out her 401K because she needed enough money to sustain her family for five months, and the economy would never recover anyway.

Intrigued, I encouraged her to elaborate. According to Janice, the Armageddon (about which she is thrilled ) has arrived. Satan will soon fly down from the sky (I neglected to ask what he was doing up there) and promise protection to anyone who is willing to join him. These people will be marked (with a chip) and Satan will rule for 5 months before Jesus returns and blasts their faces off in righteous anger. In the meantime Janice and her boyfriend plan to hide in the woods and live off of the land until Jesus (I’m guessing by way of some kind of bat-Jesus signal) tells them it’s safe to come out. I asked why she needed money if she were going to be living in the woods and she said “Just in case.” Just in case Jesus accepts bribes? Just in case they run out of toilet paper? I’m pretty sure woodland creatures don’t accept US currency. Come to think of it, does anyone these days?

Do I actually live in a world where people refuse so vehemently to accept reality that they must create scenarios even an intelligent five year-old would dismiss as fairy tale? I do, don’t I? Jesus Christ. Everybody be sure to put on clean underpants in case logic and reason have let me down and the Armageddon is actually here, that way those of us left behind won’t have to look at your righteous skid-marks.