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[bob ford <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>]

I ran across this commentary today on another site, I don't know anything 
about the author except that he has been visiting U.S. and posted this 
message this a.m.  I'm an unsure of his conclussions, I just thought it was 
interesting.  I went ahead and posted the entire commentary.....


The Last Day
Sam Mathid
Sep 29, 2008

Last week, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke announced that taxpayers money would 
be expropriated to bail out the bad loans of bankers. Despite the appalling 
scale of greed, fraud and incompetence, that is the deal that is being rammed 
through Congress as I write. I assume that outcome based on Congress' long 
record of having the collective spine of a jellyfish.

The banks, by their actions, have ensured that many people who could not 
afford houses were sucked into the market. When the last person was in, 
housing prices started their inevitable tumble. Prices are falling hard, and 
will continue to fall hard into the foreseeable future. Those who are already 
underwater will soon be underwater a lot further. Those who are marginal will 
soon be joining their ranks.

A friend approached me today. The dollar value on his house was $600,000 12 
months ago. He had a $320,000 mortgage. Today his house is worth $300,000 and 
falling.

He has a perfect credit rating, and has never missed a full payment on his 
house. His family is one of the many that the current structure is penalizing 
in order to support those who bought houses that they could never afford. He 
asked me what he should do. My advice was to walk. There is no moral 
responsibility for him to continue to pay people who have shafted him in such 
a manner.

Why would anyone pay their mortgage when legislation is being drafted to make 
non-payment acceptable? If responsible people who didn't over commit are 
penalized for the actions of those people who did, then the rules of the game 
are corrupt. If the rules of the game are corrupt then don't play the game. 
If you do, then you end up as no better than a banker or a Wall Street used 
CDO salesman.

Today in my in-box I found an email suggesting that instead of giving $700 
billion to the cronies of Hank Paulson, that we should break it up and 
distribute the money to every adult in America. The email claimed that would 
be an amount in the region of $400,000 for every man and woman in America. 
That won't happen of course and for one very good reason.

The current system has collapsed because of the inflation of the currency. 
The beauty of inflation for the rich is that they are first at the spigot 
when the money is released. They get it at full value and use it to send 
asset prices up and off to the moon. It appears that the economy is booming. 
It's not of course, but it looks that way to the true believers in the 
bizarre world of Keynesian economics.

How much inflation has there been? From the signing of the Constitution right 
up until landing a man on the moon the whole American experience, every 
house, car, television, freeway, airplane, war... everything, cost one 
trillion dollars. Then consider that the debt ceiling has been raised 2 1/2 
trillion dollars just this last 12 months. Do you see the value in that? Of 
course not; that is because you didn't get it. The rich bankers and their 
Wall Street friends that you are now being told you have to bail out got the 
lot.

By the time that the money filters down to the poor suckers in the street, 
the prices of goods have finally started to rise in line with the rate of 
inflation of the currency. The pittance that trickles down to Joe and Suzy is 
never enough to cover the higher prices caused by the full amount of 
inflation. Inflation ALWAYS causes higher prices, but only after a delay. The 
delay is always long enough that Joe and Suzy fail to make the connection 
between cause and effect. The already rich elites get the money, Joe and Suzy 
get lumbered with the bill via higher prices.

If Congress distributed the inflated currency to the tune of $400,000 to 
every man and woman, then ON THE SAME DAY that the money arrived, a coke 
would be $20- and it would cost $300- to fill the car with gas. Joe and Suzy 
would instantly make the connection between inflation and higher prices. In 
one day that would signal the end of the greatest and most insidious scam 
that governments the world over play on 'their' citizens.

The inflation in America has been greater than anywhere else over a more 
sustained period. That is why the pain of higher prices will be greater here 
than anywhere, with the possible exception of Zimbabwe. Joe and Suzy Lunchbox 
must never be allowed to understand the inflation scam. That is why cheques 
for $400,000 are not going to arrive in anyone's mailbox.

The rising grocery and gas prices that Joe and Suzy are now paying are simply 
the repayments due on the vast amounts already given to those first in line 
at the spigots years ago. The repayments will go on for a long time. Beyond 
the life span of anyone alive today. How high will prices have to rise to 
accommodate the infusion of $700 billion in new dollar bills (not counting 
the fact that it will end up as $7 trillion after our banks work their 
fractional banking magic)? Impossible to know for sure, but my guess is 
really scary.

The bankers and Wall Street investors have lost Joe and Suzy's money, now 
they want passage of legislation to ensure that Joe and Suzy have to pay them 
back. There can be little doubt that Congress will pass it. There will be 
electoral rage at the decision with unforeseeable consequences in November.

My wife went to the gas station in Clearwater, Florida yesterday. There was 
no gas, so not being desperate she went home. Today she went out again and 
found a gas station with a long queue. She queued. Whilst waiting she chatted 
to another woman in the queue. This other woman informed my wife that there 
was no gas between Ashville in N. Carolina and Charleston in S. Carolina. She 
claimed that in Georgia people were fighting over gas it was so short. Maybe 
that is not the whole story, maybe it is. Who knows what is true in America 
anymore?

Things are falling apart very quickly in America. The downright lies, and 
omissions and twisting of the truth, are being continued right up to the end. 
There will be a great deal of bitterness if Joe and Suzy ever realize the 
nature of the con trick that has been pulled on them. Never forget that Joe 
is armed in this country, and oft times Suzy also.

Our children have been in school here, and tonight we went to the Homecoming 
dinner. A drum band pounding out the rhythm whilst beautifully gowned ladies 
with fantastic jewellery and sundry glitter walked around the room. Men in 
beautiful and expensive suits accompanied them. We feasted and drank and made 
conversation. On a giant screen, film of the High School football team 
(quarter-back has the best stats in the whole US) was played. People were 
light-hearted and merry and it was a great night in the American tradition.

I could not help but have the thought intrude upon me that it was like an 
'end of America' party. Maybe it's the end of something that had become 
rotten, and the re-birth of something far more decent. There are very hard 
times coming. When TSHTF [the s*** hits the fan] remember that it is Congress 
who is your enemy, not your neighbour.

None of the bankers and Wall Street crooks could have done what they did 
without the support and backing of Congress legislation that not only allowed 
such actions, but by the nature of government intervention in markets, made 
it impossible to survive in those industries without becoming corrupted by 
the legislation.

Whilst it does not excuse the lack of moral fibre of those who participated 
in this greatest of ever frauds, it is good to remember that we all have 
things in our youthful past that we are not proud of. Without a Congress who 
completely ignored the Constitution there could never have been the 
legislation that created this fraud. Without Congress, America would never 
have reached this impoverished state. Without Congress, Americans would 
already be living much better lives, with far fewer enemies in the world.

I shall be writing from overseas after tomorrow. I'll look from a distance at 
the implosion of America. My family and I have loved living in America these 
last nine months and are very sad to leave. I came to chronicle at first hand 
the decline of this once great country. The people are wonderful... warm, 
friendly, honest and hard working.

I have come to understand much about Americans in the last nine months, and 
found nothing that I did not like (apart from the food and coffee), but I am 
still a million miles away from understanding why you elect the no-hopers 
that you do to your Congress. We all want to be able to come back again one 
day. No matter how much my family and I will miss America, it will not be as 
much as the world will miss America.

***

The brilliant Professor Antal E. Fekete, economist and mathematician, is 
conducting a seminar in Canberra, Australia from the 11th to the 14th 
November this year. It is the ONLY seminar anywhere in the world where all 


Sep 27, 2008
Sam Mathid
email: sammathid AT yahoo.com

© Sam Mathid 2006-2008