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Funny, I just got this in the mail
Subject: ResumeGeorge Walker Bush:Past work experience: I ran
for congress and lost. I produced a Hollywood slasher B movie. I bought an
oil company, but couldn't find anyoil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly
after I sold all my stock. I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a
sweetheart deal that took landusing taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded
Sammy Sosa to the Chicago WhiteSox. With my father's help and
nearly the same name, was electedGovernor of
Texas.Accomplishments: I changed pollution laws for oil and power
companiesand made Texas the most polluted state in the nation. I
replaced LosAngeles with Houston as the most smog ridden city in
America. I cut taxesand bankrupted the Texas government in billions in
borrowed money. I setrecord for most executions by any governor in
American history. I became president after losing the popular vote
by over 500,000 votes, withthe help of Republican appointments to the
Supreme Court.Accomplishments as president: I attacked and took over two
countries.I spent the country's surplus and bankrupted the treasury. I
shatteredthe record for biggest annual deficit in history. I set
economic recordfor most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month
period. I setall-time record for biggest stock market drop in its
history. I am thefirst president in decades to execute a federal
prisoner. I am the firstpresident in US history to enter office with a
criminal record. Inmy first year in office set the all-time
record for most vacation daystaken by any president. After taking the entire
month of August off forvacation, I presided over the worst security
failure in US history. I setthe record for most campaign fund-raising
trips of any other president in US history. In my first two years in
office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment
benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US
history. I set the all-time record for the most mortgage
foreclosures in a 12-month period. I appointed more convicted
criminals to administration positions than any president in US
history, set the record for the lowest number of press conferences
thanany president since the invention of television. I signed more
laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in
US history. I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and
refused to intervene when corruption was revealed. I presided over the
highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national
reserves as past presidents have. I cut healthcare benefits for war
veterans. I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to
simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people),
shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of
mankind. (<A
href="">http://www.hyperreal..org/~dana/marches/)I
dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history. My
presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history. Members
of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The
'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tankernamed
after her). I am the first president in US history to have all 50
states bankrupted at the same time. I presided over the biggest corporate
stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the
world. I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and
military occupation of a sovereign nation. I created the largest
government department bureaucracy in the history of the
UnitedStates. I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget
spending increases,more than any president in US history, while at the same
time proposingtax cuts. I am the first president in US history
to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove
the US from the elections monitoring board. My administration has
the least amount of congressional oversight than any in US history.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law. I refused to allow inspectors
access to US prisoners of war, as prescribed by the Geneva Convention.
I hold the record for most corporate campaign donations. My
biggest lifetime campaign contributor, who is also one of my best friends,
presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world
history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation). I spent more
money on polls and focus groups than anypresident in US history.
I am the first president in US history tounilaterally attack a
sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world
community. I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the
people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world
peace and stability. I changed US policy to allow convicted
criminals to be awarded government contracts. I set all-time
records for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by
not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government
contracts. I failed to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive'. I failedto
capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of ourcountry at
the United States Capitol building. After 18 months I have noleads and
zero suspects. I removed more freedoms and civil liberties
forAmericans than any other president in US history. In a little over
two years I created the most divided country in decades, possibly the
mostdivided the US has ever been since the Civil War. I entered office with
thestrongest economy in US history and in less than two years every
economiccategory plunged.Records and References: I have at least one
conviction for drunkdriving in Maine (Texas driving record has been
erased and is not available).I was AWOL from National Guard.
Records from my tenure as governor ofTexas are in my father's library,
unavailable for public view. All records of any SEC investigations into my
insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed and unavailable for
public view. All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served
on the board are sealed and unavailable for public view. Any records
or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy
policy are sealed and unavailable for public review. For personal
references please speak to my daddy or uncleJames Baker (They can be
reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group
forwar-profiteering).
<BLOCKQUOTE
>
----- Original Message -----
<DIV
>From:
Mark Simms
To: <A title=realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
href="">realtraders@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 4:44
PM
Subject: RE: [RT] GEN: VON MISES &
THE ECONOMY
EXACTLY, THE
GOVERNMENT IS GETTING IN THE WAY.
<FONT color=#0000ff
size=2>
Look at what
Bush did for the steel industry. He's holding them "bums" up with the import
tariffs and restrictions.
Interestingly,
the OPPOSITE is true for the IT services industry with the multitude of H-1B
and the L-1 visa issuance of the past 2 years.
That industry
in the US has declined to nothingness....never to return.
What gives ?
Why this UN-EVEN treatment ?
Answer: dumb,
poorly thought-out legislation and more importantly, slow reaction
time to correct these "mistakes".
<FONT color=#0000ff
size=2>
If everyone in
business for themselves took as long as the government to correct their
business "mistakes",
there would be
no commerce, everyone would be out-of-business !
<FONT color=#0000ff
size=2>
<BLOCKQUOTE
>
<FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----From: Charles Meyer
[mailto:chaze@xxxxxxxx]Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 9:55
AMTo: REAL TRADERSSubject: [RT] GEN: VON MISES &
THE ECONOMY
----- Original Message -----
From: <A
title=article@xxxxxxxxx href="">Mises Daily
Article
To: <A title=article@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
href="">Mises Daily Article
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2003 8:12 AM
Subject: Recovery or Boomlet?
<A
href="">http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1265
<FONT color=#002864
size=1>
<FONT
color=#002864>Recovery or Boomlet?
by William L. Anderson
[Posted July 8, 2003]
<IMG src=""
align=right border=0 NOSEND="1">In recent weeks, the stock market has staged
a mild rally. Though the most recent unemployment numbers are well over six
percent, Republicans, as well as a few market analysts, are claiming that
the long overdue economic recovery has arrived. While I wish that were the
case, the facts demonstrate otherwise; this is not a recovery, but simply an
unsustainable mini-boom that makes the long-term economic picture even
worse.
That is not how we hear things from the government, not
surprisingly. Administration officials, hopeful that a strong economy next
year will boost George W. Bush's election chances, have been trumpeting the
end to the longest economic downturn in this country since the Great
Depression of 70 years ago. His media supporters, such as <A
href=""><FONT
size=2>Larry Kudlow, and <A
href=""><FONT
size=2>Neil Cavuto also agree and have called
for the Federal Reserve System literally to open the money spigots.
According to Kudlow:
No matter what the investment -- be it corporate profits
paid out as dividends, or capital gains, or new capital-goods orders and
shipments by large and small businesses, or new high-risk venture
start-ups -- higher after-tax investor-class returns will place new
liquidity demands on the financial system. The Fed must accommodate
them.
A shock-and-awe liquidity-expansion policy from the Fed
will counter our underperforming economic recovery, offset the forces of
worldwide deflation and recession, and stomp out deflation fears at home.
An aggressive liquidity stance will also accommodate rising transaction
demands following the latest Bush tax cut. And it will even counter the
negative effects of any potential breakdowns in the investment portfolios
of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the troubled loan institutions.<A
title="" href=""
name=_ednref1>[i]<FONT
size=2>
Of course, "liquidity expansion" in Kudlow-speak is nothing
more than a burst of inflation, and the Federal Reserve has followed suit,
lowering its discount rate to something not much above zero. (Kudlow and the
other inflationists wanted the Fed to cut its rates by more than what was
actually done, but it would seem that the next logical step for the Fed
would be simply to dump money from helicopters or hand it to passers by at
the street corners.)
Kudlow is hardly the only offender here, and while his
"shock and awe" analogies are over the top, the truth is that economists and
pundits, both left and right, have been calling for basically the same
solution: inflation, and more inflation. This not only reflects the total
misunderstanding of the current economic situation by both the economic
mainstream and political pundits (Well, what would we expect?), but also
demonstrates ignorance both of business cycles and of money
itself.
As Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises tirelessly pointed
out, an economic recovery occurs when consumers and investors begin to
direct investment into sustainable lines of production. A recovery can only
happen after the malinvestments that accumulated during the
previous boom are substantially liquidated. Of course, <A
href=""><FONT
size=2>a liquidation must be permitted to occur
in the first place, something that the Bush Administration and the Fed have
fought at every turn, which <A
href=""><FONT
size=2>I note in previous articles.
Given that the government has done everything in its power
to prevent the full liquidation of malinvested capital, and given that the
Bush Administration and Congress have substantially increased the burden of
government that must be borne by individuals, it seems clear that the U.S.
economy is not poised for a recovery. Indeed, from airlines to
manufacturing, the liquidation has a long way to go before the economic
downturn hits bottom.
Thus, any upturn whether in economic statistics or in the
stock market is almost certain to follow the patterns not of economic
recovery but rather a mini-boom. I say "mini" because there is no way that
this particular boom, as pathetic as it is, can be sustained for a long
time, unlike the boom of the late 1990s. In fact, the Fed's recent actions
can only force more malinvestments which themselves will have to be
liquidated in the future.
There is historical precedence for a mini-boom. During the
early days of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, which were marked by
the passage of legislation like the <A
href="">National
Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, the economy also experienced a small boom. In fact, the rate
of unemployment, which stood at about 25 percent when FDR took office in
1933, fell to about 15 percent two years later.
The Roosevelt Administration was not the only active entity
in Washington. The Federal Reserve System had lowered its discount rates to
near-zero and the government was trying to force up the inflation rate,
using tactics like destroying the gold standard and confiscating all gold
money that individuals possessed.
The strategy worked, sort of. As noted earlier, some people
were put back to work (although thousands also found employment doing
government-sponsored tasks), but the boom was only temporary. Government was
growing quickly, along with the tax burden, the regulatory state was taking
form, and FDR openly savaged businessmen and his comments, as <A
href=""><FONT
size=2>Robert Higgs has written, had a
dampening effect upon the private investment needed to bring real
recovery.
Roosevelt's mini-boom came to a screeching halt by late
1937, as the economy fell into the trenches again, the unemployment rate
zooming to about 20 percent. To put it another way, FDR achieved a first: he
helped to create a depression within a depression.
One hopes that the Bush Administration does not seek to
emulate FDR, although, like Roosevelt, this administration has forced
through huge increases in government expenditures and with the recent
Medicare bill, has dumped a gargantuan unfunded liability upon U.S.
taxpayers. (At least FDR did not send the armed forces all over the world –
at least during the 1930s. In the 1940s he helped launch the biggest and
most destructive war in world history.)
As we hear the political pundits and mainstream economists
debate the current economic climate, perhaps terms like "shock and awe"
truly are appropriate. One is shocked at the economic ignorance that is
demonstrated time and again by the "experts," who are still stuck in a
Keynesian time warp that while discredited, still seems to rule the
intellectual roost. And one is in awe of the truly bad policy prescriptions
that emanate from the White House, Congress, and the mainstream
press.
Yes, 2004 is an election year, and the Bush Administration
is desperate to make voters believe that the long-awaited recovery finally
is here. Furthermore, there is no shortfall of Republican pundits trying to
publicly make the case that the economic policies of Bush II really are
better than the policy disasters of Bush I.
However, there simply is no way that the policies of the Fed
and the Bush Administration are going to give us an economic recovery. As
Mises and Rothbard wrote time and again, an economic recovery within a free
market economy occurs as a matter of course once the government steps out
of the way. That clearly has not happened for the past three years,
and now that Bush is desperate to manipulate the economy in order to pave
the way for re-election, it is not politically possible for this president
and his underlings to take the needed hands-off approach to the
economy.
Instead, we will be given the news that the wise policies of
the Fed and the meager and back loaded tax cuts that the Republicans have
given us will be enough to bring recovery. However, pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain (whether it be George W. Bush or Alan Greenspan), for
he does not know what he is doing. We are not in recovery; it is nothing
more than a little boom that ultimately will turn into a bigger
bust.
William Anderson, an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute,
teaches economics at Frostburg State University. Send him <A
href=""><FONT color=#000080
size=2>MAIL. See his Mises.org <A
href=""
target=_blank>Articles
Archive.
<A title=""
href=""
name=_edn1>[i] Larry Kudlow, “Pour it
On,” <FONT
size=2>www.townhall.com, June 17, 2003.
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href="">[Print
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