The Trickle Down Jurist™ Is Buried

Antonin Scalia
Visiting University of San Francisco School of Law

Antonin Scalia once said, "Originalism says that when you consult the text, you give it the meaning it had when it was adopted, not some later modern meaning." By that paper thin theory of law, modern gun muppets could only rely on the protection of the 2nd Amendment for black powder muskets of 1787. 

The "Originalist" interpretation arose from the University of Chicago that gave us both Justice Scalia and the master economist Milton Friedman, guru for the upper classes of big money and gigantic corporations. The darling of the Reagan conservatives and Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman invented the Trickle Down theory of economics. Basically Trickle Down economics says the wealthy few of a society will let their spare money trickle down to the less lucky. Friedman won a Noble Prize for his efforts, and he spent the rest of his life lecturing on this sure fire theory of wealth.
The one big problem with Trickle Down economics is that it focuses myopically only on money and interest rates and banking for controlling and boosting and trimming the giant economy of the nation. Anyone can see that such a theory ignores humans and their everyday needs like food and healthcare and clothing. Such single-minded economics gave us the breakdown of 2007 and all the banks and the stock brokers who were just too big to fail. The failure and inhumanity of Trickle Down economic theory can be easily seen in the destruction of the once grand American city of Detroit, Michigan. 

Trickle Down jurisprudence allowed the present Michigan Governor to demolish fresh water supplies for the nearby City of Flint. 

Human Rights like money do not really Trickle Down from on high. 

Why did this happen? There is an old Southern expression, "Rich as a Crooked Judge" that applies well here. 

Antonin Scalia and some of the other Justices lived like jet set kings for many, many years. A few months ago the Koch brothers were flying Scalia and Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito around to their places in Vail and in Aspen and even Palm Springs for little meets and greets and schmoozes. The Kochs would also send Scalia on little hunting weekends. 
That Scalia liked to hunt and kill small animals says a lot about his character. So Scalia died down in Texas at Cibolo Creek Ranch as a guest of brave huntsman billionaire Tom Poindexter. All these patrons all had monetary and political interests in decisions to be made by the Court. Just two weeks ago, Scalia was hanging out in Hong Kong on who knows whose tab. 

Yes, living the high life paid for by a potential litigant in your court is grossly unethical. But why not, since the Supreme Court has no formal ethical standards. The Supreme Court may never have any rules because of their very own Citizens United decision, and the resulting fringe benefits from the Koch Koch Klan™ and the like. 

California and New York and most other states have written rules of ethics for all judges. The American Bar Association published a "Model Code of Judicial Conduct." Look it up and read it. Using a phrase from the Trickle Down Jurist Scalia, the Code is not "gobbledygook." You do not have to have legal training to understand the rules. The Code is an ethical template for all American Judges. The Code makes rules of ethics based on the western morality of all Americans. Here's the rules, or canons, of the Code from the ABA pages.

CANON 1 A judge shall uphold and promote the, independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary, and shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety.

CANON 2 A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially, competently, and diligently.

CANON 3 A judge shall conduct the judge’s personal and extrajudicial activities to minimize the risk of conflict with the obligations of judicial office.

CANON 4 A judge or candidate for judicial office shall not engage in political or campaign activity that is inconsistent with the integrity, or impartiality of the judiciary.

©2010 by the American Bar Association. All rights reserved.
The Supreme Court has no such Code. Justice Samuel Alito recently said that the US Senate should not appoint a replacement for Justice Scalia. By making such a public declaration Alito was clearly engaging in political activity. And thereby Alito was in violation of the ABA's Code. See Canon 4 above. But there's no problem for Alito because there's no Code for the members of the Supreme Court to follow.

Justice Clarence Thomas wife, Virginia Lamp Thomas is also a lawyer. For several years, Mrs. Thomas worked for the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove at the Heritage Foundation. Then she decided to start up her very own non-profit, LibertyCentral.org, to extoll the Tea Party, that in turn was a creation of the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove. According to reports Mrs. Thomas has earned almost a million dollars from these organizations over the past decade. By Canon 3 above, Justice Thomas is thereby in violation because his close family member, Mrs. Thomas causes Justice Thomas to be in direct conflict over decisions made that may benefit the Koch Brothers and their Tea Party.
The Citizens Untied decision that allowed unlimited secret money to be used in American elections is only one such example of a conflict benefiting the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove. And that decision reaffirmed the legal concept of any corporation having the same equal rights granted any individual human being by our US Constitution. 
It has been lovingly reported by tea party media muppets that “Antonin Scalia Was a True Wit and the Best Comic on the Supreme Court!” Antonin Scalia and the other male partisans on the Supreme Court were placed there to overthrow Roe v Wade by embedding theocratic law into our legal system.
That cruel plan has not yet played out, and hopefully the passing of the Trickle Down Jurist Scalia will stall the theocracy for another decade or two. 
So our Supreme Court decided there should be no limits on the cash in American politics and that Corporate ephemera are people!
Let's get some written ethical standards for the Supreme Court! 
This story will be told far into the future about those corrupt Trickle Down times of the Supreme Court's five to four majority kowtowing to corporate and religious doctrine.

Once a Family Home in Detroit, Michigan
Now a Victim of Both Trickle Down Economics
and Trickle Down Justice

The War On Drugs

My El Chapo Cap DTLA

Geez, is El Chapo on the NRA board?  When El Chapo was captured he was armed with machine guns and assault rifles and pistols along with thousands of rounds of ammunition.  Was El Chapo invited to speak at the next NRA convention?  Just like El Chapo, the NRA is entwined in the cluster of intrigue and violence of the "War on Drugs" that began in the past century.  

For many decades the NRA has been an essential advocate of the US arming up for the failed "War on Drugs."  The "War on Drugs" was splattered on the world in 1971 by the despotic and racist cabal of the Nixon Kissinger Whitehouse.  Of course, the NRA gets 100% behind anything that sells more guns.  

The "War on Drugs" was part of the Nixon Kissinger propaganda spin to distract the American rubes from their own heinous criminal acts including paying for murder in Southeast Asia and in Chile and Argentina and later in Columbia and El Salvador.  

Just like redneck speed traps in southern towns, the DEA and other federal and local police agencies have quotas to keep the money coming in.  Local cops confiscate everything found in drug arrests including homes and even the silverware in "Drug Houses."  After the conviction the agencies auction off the bounty. 

An additional benefit was how the "War on Drugs" could be used by local law enforcement and judiciary to lock up brown and black people to stop them from voting.  The felony convictions for drug possession for millions of Americans prevented them from voting in elections.  In most Southern and Mid-Western states, to regain voting rights requires a lengthy process and legal fees out of the reach of most poor black or brown people.  

And are we in America not sick of the fear factor of the tea party republicans and their shills?  Again listen to what Gore Vidal said about the "War on Terrorism" that is exactly the same scam as the "War on Drugs:" 

"You can't have a war on terrorism because that's not an actual enemy, it's an abstract.  It's like having a war on dandruff.  That war will be eternal and pointless.  It's idiotic.  It's not a war.  It's a slogan.  It's a lie.  It's advertising, which is the only art form we ever invented in America.  And we use it to sell soap, wars and presidential candidates in the same fashion." 

Money transforms lies into truths.  Thank you tea party libertarian Pay-Per-Vote™ republicans all over America. 

The "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror" are both dire sicknesses caused by ruinous billionaires who don't want to pay their taxes and the criminals they put in positions of power. 

The "War on Drugs" is a war on freedom and human values. 

The abuse of drugs, all and any drug, is an illness. 

It is a horrible illness.  But Illness is not a war. 

Gunshot Murder and Religion in America

Gunshot Murder and Religion in America

Dateline:  November 29, 2015

Put aside for a moment the terrorist horrors in Paris and in San Bernadino and in Orlando a few days ago.  The tragic event in 2015 Colorado reveals some very cruel truths about our America.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs are the direct result of screams for media attention by all of America’s republican candidates for President.  Words are wolves.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs are equally the direct result of many, many years of effort by the National Rifle Association, or the NRA, our premier gun lobby in Washington.  Guns cause gunshot murder.  

The gunshot murders and injuries at a Planned Parenthood office silenced all of America’s republican Presidential candidates for a few days.  For the first time in over a year, they halted the dog whistles and open rage for encouraging violence and the closing all Planned Parenthood offices.  

Borrowing a tactical move from the NRA, all the candidates take a break while the media sturm und drang subsides over the gunshot deaths of three and the gunshot injuries of nine others.  

Gunshot murdered Policeman Garrett Swasey, was once an Olympic class athlete.  Officer Swasey died trying to protect others in the Planned Parenthood offices.  

Gunshot murdered Jennifer Markovsky was simply a good neighbor at the clinic with a friend.  

Gunshot murdered Ke'Arre Stewart was an Iraq War veteran.  

Each of the dead victims had two children.  That's four fatherless and two motherless children.   

Maybe it is because our America has been at a corrupt and misguided war off and on since 1991, and human life is not as sacred as in the past.  Our America has more people in prison than any other nation.  Our best friends the Saudi Arabians beheaded more than thirty people last year.  Only last summer the Saudis ordered a girl to be stoned to death for infidelity.  The Saudis recently ordered 200 lashes for a girl who was gang raped.  The Saudis also privately help fund the ISIL gang.  Our collateral damage rate for drone strikes must be in the range of thirty bystanders killed for every target identified dead.  

Stoked by screams of Christian pastors, state and local legislatures and governors create laws to precisely regulate all birth control methods and thereby all women’s bodies.  

Before Roe vs. Wade in 1973 gave America legal abortions, Our Bodies Ourselves the women’s organization, estimates about five thousand women died each year from abortion attempts.  Many religious people all over America vehemently advocate a return to those murderous days.  

Over twelve thousand Americans died from gunshot over the past year excluding gunshot deaths by police and gunshot deaths by suicide.  Americans privately own over three hundred million guns adding up to about one gun for every man, woman and child in our America.  The hospital costs for gunshot injuries are approaching a billion dollars a year.  Many of the pious religious who fume about birth control and abortion, encourage the patriotic ownership of firearms for all.  

Guns are like cigarettes. Guns maim people and we all pay for it.  Guns kill people and we all pay for that also.  Because of multiple gunshot injuries every day, Americans pay for treatment in emergency rooms everywhere.  So we all are paying a hospital tax for some gun manufacturer in Europe?  How much do we taxpayers spend on police investigations and ER's for gunshot violence?  

Most Americans are sick and tired of the media playbook by NRA gun fools, and how American murder by gunshot has become so quaint and so everyday. 

The NRA and all their shills aid and abet gunshot murder every hour in our America!  

Religious zealots endorsing violence by dog whistle or by sermon are directly responsible for more and more gunshot murder and injury in our America!   

Likewise, at first all the republican candidates bide their time and wait off camera, shrewdly preparing to delight their base inhumane and racist faithful.  Every single one of the chosen then leap into close ups all over the dime store cable TV channels where they scream for more and more biblical payback.  

This is not acceptable, America!  

**********************************************

Gunshot Murdered at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs

University of Colorado Police Officer Garrett Swasey

Jennifer Markovsky and Ke'Arre Stewart

**********************************************

What Now Netanyahu?

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano with 
Vice President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ali Akhbar Salehi

Flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran

There's a TV commercial airing on all the major US networks from a group called "Citizens For A Nuclear Free Iran" (CFANFI).  The commercial bangs the drum with stunning patriotic visuals and a movie trailer voice-over plus dire symphonic music.  The spot declares that the proposed Iran nuclear agreement is a fraud.  Network TV commercial time like this costs millions of dollars.

The Israeli lobby, the non-profit "American Israel Public Affairs Committee" (AIPAC) founded the non-profit CFANFI.  Just like other religious based lobby operations including Scientology and Jehovah's Witness, AIPAC has branches all over America.

So let's ask the question to both AIPAC and to Bibi Netanyahu.

With the Iran agreement, can Israel come out of the nuclear closet and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

How many inspectors from the IAEA have been allowed in Israel?

Answer:  None.

In the spring of 1965 famed columnist, Drew Pearson ran a story about the Israeli Nuclear Weapons factory in the Negev desert.  Strangely almost nothing has been noted about the Israeli nukes anywhere in American media since.  Israeli media spin weenies have been hard at work for all these years.

Hey Netanyahu and hey AIPAC!  You must realize that Israel unlike most nations has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?  And Netanyahu calls for war against Iran who doesn't even have nukes yet?  Virtually every nation on planet earth has signed the treaty or pledged to abide by it's provisions save these:  Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, India, and South Sudan.

Hey citizens of planet earth, it is time for Israel to come out of the nuclear closet and face the music.

The Fox TV media spin weenies keep on twirling.  The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Citizens For A Nuclear Free Iran spin weenies keep on turning out propaganda for the TV networks.

Hey Israel and Netanyahu!  Hey AIPAC!  Hey John Boehner!  You keep on shouting war, do you know nothing else for your children?

John Boehner Posing with Binyamin Netanyahu

Israeli Kids with Uzis

James Brady Was Murdered By Gunshot

The Biblical Constitution
Dateline:  August 8, 2014

James Brady and the Brady Bill
On August 8, 2014, thirty years after James Brady was shot with a dime store handgun, a Medical Examiner in Virginia ruled that the death of Ronald Reagan's former Press Secretary was an act of homicide. After the shooting, Brady spent the rest of his life with partial paralysis and slurred speech. Brady and his devoted wife Sarah lobbied nonstop for improved handgun controls and assault weapon restrictions for twelve years until the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, known as the Brady Bill was passed finally in 1993. In the decade long process of enactment the Brady Bill overcame wave after wave of legal maneuvers and media ridicule, all darkly bankrolled by the NRA and other gun people. 

Since it was passed, the Brady Bill has been further corrupted by those same NRA and gun people. In one crude sidestep of the law, gun people can attend a gun show for buying weapons and many of the Brady Bill rules do not quite apply to those ostensibly private sales. To help their guns and gun sales promotions, the NRA and gun people originated the slogan, "Guns don't kill people. People kill people." That catchphrase has now gone beyond overused, and sensible people know it is meaningless. Another trivial motto is the NRA and gun people's constant and rigid refrain of the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment as if it were a biblical commandment. Here is an exact transcription from the original document of 1787. 

The Second Amendment  

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security 

of a free State, the right of the people 

to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
Exactly like the founding Fathers of our nation, let's apply good American common sense to reveal and flesh out the contorted legal twists that have been used to justify personal ownership of deadly weapons in our nation. The Preamble is the beginning and the biblical guide to everything that follows in the U.S. Constitution. 

The Preamble

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form 

a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic 

Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 

promote the general Welfare, and secure 

the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and 

our Posterity, do ordain and establish 

this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Preamble is the basic structure of our U.S. Constitution including our first commandments, our ironclad rules for all the rules that follow. The Preamble trumps any of the later "Amendments."  That means the Second Amendment is secondary to the Pre-Amble. So the Preamble demands that "Justice" and "Tranquillity" and "common defence" and "Welfare" and "the Blessings" for our children not be further destroyed by the NRA and gun people across our nation with their grossly flawed interpretation of our U.S. Constitution.

Now let's dig even deeper into a few concepts of Constitutional Law that are used by our U.S. Supreme Court in their decisions. Sometime after the days of Chief Justice Earl Warren and the tremendously important decisions of the civil rights era, the Court majority changed from progressive to regressive. The Court majority came to rely on a new theory of microscopic and extreme interpretation of the U.S. Constitution named by Justice Antonin Scalia as "originalist." 

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
Served on SCOTUS 1969 - 1986

Chief Justice Burger was first a trial lawyer in St. Paul, Minnesota and then Assistant Attorney General under President Eisenhower. He was a professor of law and a deep thinking jurist who certainly knew what he was talking about. Chief Justice Burger was an early iconic "originalist" who used that theory of constitutional law to exactly determine the meaning of any provision. Conservative republican President Richard M. Nixon nominated him to the Court. 

Chief Justice Burger was a most severe conservative. He voted for the death penalty. He voted for life imprisonment for the convicted perpetrator in a $100 check fraud. He saw nothing wrong with the Watergate burglaries of the Nixon scandal. However, in a 1991 PBS interview, Chief Justice Burger twice called using the Second Amendment to justify anything-goes gun policy a fraud. The right to bear arms cannot be separated from militia service. The right to own guns is not individual. The U.S. Constitution exactly allows only a group, a militia, to own a gun. That important "originalist" interpretation was later ignored by the Court in the infamous mistaken decision for District of Columbia v. Heller in which the individual right to keep and bear arms, or in our era own a gun, was allowed counter to the wishes of the people of the District of Columbia. 

Compromise And Parsing Death

"The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts," said the Berlin School of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt has an organic, living power in our modern world. To combine all the parts of our America into a more organic and humane and productive society, the time has come to severely restrict all personal gun ownership. We need to severely regulate how guns are sold. We need to severely restrict all gun ownership. We need to completely outlaw the ownership of any military or assault weapons. We need the U.S. Army to confiscate and destroy all unregistered guns and deadly weapons.  

We must disarm America now before it gets any worse. Our children, our teenagers, the best of the best die because we do nothing to regulate guns. Many gun people say we need to find a compromise. There is no compromise. There is no middle ground between life and death. We must save lives now by confiscating all deadly weapons. 

The Brady Shooting

At this moment alongside President Reagan six agents and police officers were armed with various handguns and one agent with an Uzi submachine gun. Shootings are over in seconds. No officer or agent was able to stop the shooting. There was not enough time.

Over the past two hundred years and more, the U.S. Supreme Court has relied on many, many different interpretations and moral codes to sanction it's rulings. But each Justice certainly agrees that all of the law in our United States of America is based on the Judeo-Christian bible. The biblical and the legal of the U.S. Constitution must be reconciled with respect to the Second Amendment. The Preamble takes first position. 

We Americans must do our duty set in our Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. We must "...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence..."  and protect all the citizens and all their children from deadly weapons all over our America. We need rigorous laws to control each and every deadly weapon in our America and we need to do it now.

To research and write this essay, let's say any regular person would spend about one hour. That hour is sixty minutes.  During this sixty minute period more than three people will die from gunshot in our America according to F.B.I.'s data. Every hour on the hour, every day after day, during every hour of our entire lives in our America three of our people die. That is three friends, girls, boys, fathers, mothers, police officers, first responders, regular people. That's three regular people that you may know and you may love. All of these people are dead. Dead because we do not have effective realistic legal controls on deadly weapons in our America.    

Hey NRA.
Here's the body count for kids gunshot murdered in October 2014.
Twenty-Five children dead.
White kids, brown kids, black kids, all dead.
Stand their faces in your mind in your next miserable life. 

_____________________________________________________________

(Please note this post updates for the fourth time, the commentary originally published in January 2011. The story of guns and gun people has become a continuing American cliche of horror and unremitting disgrace. The NRA has found a way to stop any legislation in the U.S. Congress, and the NRA is targeting Colorado legislators who voted for gun regulation. The NRA is clearly a propaganda cabal that aids and abets murder.) 

Macroeconomics In Our Modern America: The Big Picture 21st Century World Update 2016

Hong Kong Harbor 2010

The 21st Century Asian Hub  

In Economics 101, we all learned that Macroeconomics in America is a big deal. It is the analysis of literally all the transactions that take place every nanosecond for some given time period over the entire economy of our nation. Therefore it's complicated and many geometric progressions beyond the normal calculator in your head. The speedy supercomputers of the present day can chart the lines or bars to see what's going more accurately than ever in world history. So why are there so many competing stories about the economy? 

Let's look back to the financial crisis of late 2008. To get what's going on I think we must look at the Japanese economy circa 1992. They were over-extended, and there was a real estate collapse, and their stock markets crashed, and the central bank made the borrowing rate very cheap mainly because the central/federal government had very little power to stimulate the economy with fiscal policy. Japan's Central Bank even tried negative interest rates paying companies to borrow money. Things moved better, but very, very slowly in recovery. The central banks like our federal reserve bank can only help so much, then we need fiscal policy, or the government paying for refurbishing our rusted bridges for example or building a national high speed rail service for another good example. 

To better understand what happened in Japan, read some John Maynard Keynes, because Keynes applies well. When you read Keynes keep in mind that in 1919 he predicted the rise of a fascist Germany because of the forced austerity of the Treaty of Versailles. That same scheme of austerity mirrors the simplistic almost Randian, certainly delusional, "voodoo" by Wall-Street-And-Big-Bank shills Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek and Alan Greenspan. The three mythic names of Friedman, Hayek and Greenspan were touted by every International Banking huckster from the 1980's and on to justify their criminal schemes to literally steal money from both private clients and our federal government. 

Now here's some market advice. The US stock markets are today doing pretty well. Maybe the stocks are a bit overpriced. So my advice is to sell any bitcoins you have, and watch the market vacillate just like Japan for the next twenty years or so until we get rid of the fake patriots like the Koch brothers and green card Rupert Murdoch and all their Pay-Per-Vote™ politicians and Judges. 

Please be careful not make the mistake of saying that because the markets follow a certain chart upward and then downward, it will repeat the curve. Each time the market moves upward or downward it is by definition an "independent event." Basic probability says that it may or may not repeat. 

The thing to watch on the 1929 charts is how the economy went up for a while, and then crashed hard again in the late 1930s. If we follow this then we are in for a bad ride any day now. Put that with our Pay-Per-Vote™ egoist US Congress members who are used to making killings on shorting the US markets and we have a problem, Houston. 

The single grand solution is for the National Government to start spending some money unlike the Pay-Per-Vote™ politicians and the Koch-Murdoch media cartels all say we should do. Those creeps think they are living in Greece or someplace that doesn't make massive amounts of stuff like we do. 

About that, here's a little dialogue I made about how our government spends it's money, and how we should not worry too much. A FB Friend asked about the trillions of dollars of debt owed by our federal government. I told my friend, "Don't worry. If the Federal Reserve comes up short... they'll just print more money to make it up. Promise! That's how the Fed works." Now look for where all our treasured USA money may have gone. Look closely to the Federal Budget that is originated and written finally in the US House of Representatives, not the US Senate, and not the White House. Then in that budget:  The Department of Defense is by far the biggest spender in Washington. 

Then someone asked: What about our gold reserves? Remember, it's only money. The gold doesn't matter. Look closely at the top of any US bill in circulation now. It says "Federal Reserve Note." That means there's nothing other than "The Full Faith and Credit of the USA" backing the bill.  So when the tea party Republicans in congress say they're not going to raise the debt ceiling the value of the US dollar and US Treasury Bonds drops in world markets. That's why those same tea party Republicans like Ryan and McConnell were probably shorting US treasury notes and the US Dollar when they say... "We're not going to raise the debt ceiling because we don't want to spend any more money." Then when the market falls those tea party Republicans make a killing on their shorting the bonds. Very, very unethical. But somebody voted for those hustlers. Ugh and pity those tea party muppets! 

But what about inflation? And how we compete across the world? Don't worry about other countries out-producing the USA because they still make stuff here that is valuable in all world markets... like rice and corn and soy beans and Fords and Chevys and lots of other stuff.... trillions and trillions. Hyperinflation comes from no control at the national income and central banking level and corruption as in Argentina sometimes. For all those billionaires out there and the Saudi Kings, the US Dollar is and will continue to be a good shield against inflation. And it is safe because hopefully the tea party republican congress members will not continue to ruin our credit rating which in turn is really a measure of confidence in the US Economy. I would worry much more about some warhawk like John McCain or Ted Cruz who wants to fight a war with Iran and then one with North Korea and then Syria and then on and on. That is the most horrible scenario brought to you by sad tea party Republican muppets in power. 

One more thing: Of course you all know that China holds USA bonds to the tune of about US$1.6 Trillion. But what you probably don't know is that there's a lot of other countries playing that game. For example, Japan holds about US$1.3 Trillion in USA bonds. So don't worry if some rube who watches a lot of Fox TV says "Oh, the Chinese own us!" It's not just the Chinese. Everybody owns us. And we own them. All ties together in this small world of creeps in jets. Look at Donald Trump and look at Mitt Romney and look at Rupert Murdoch and the Koch Brothers and all their sewer of billions in secret banks all over the planet. 

Just so you'll understand about the bonds, the nation of the People's Republic of China has extra Kwai's, or RMB's or Renminbi's (in Mandarin, People's Money) because  their factories shipped a lot of iPhones to Hong Kong last month, and the Hong Kong bank made a payment for the gadgets, so they need a place to put all that money while they are deciding on which type of French fighter jets to buy. So they buy US Bonds on the Bond Market in Hong Kong or New York or wherever... the bonds pay a little interest so they make a little.  But in the PRC case a $1.3 trillion dollar US bond can lately pay about $1.3 billion a month or more in interest. But that's not a lot for the truly huge amounts of money in International banking. The real advantage is that US Bonds are very, very, very safe investments. You will not lose your principal (as in your capital). As I noted in my reputedly "dogmatic" post earlier, a lot of nations have some US Bonds in their savings portfolios. That guy in North Korea, Kim Jung Un and a lot of other wealthy world leader people own some bonds personally. Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal who until recently, was the all-American number two owner of News Corporation (Fox News and such) along with that other pluperfect patriot Rupert Murdoch certainly have some personal money in US Bonds. 

But buying bonds are different from buying Dollars in the currency markets. A nation or an individual can buy say, dollars because s/he believes the dollar will increase in value relative to say the Euro where s/he had some holdings last month. So the buyer gets some dollars and holds on to them for a month. If the Euro falls a little relative to the dollar then s/he can make a little bit of money. The currency markets are an extreme sport rather like the derivatives in mortgages and such that cued the breakdown in 2007. 

Now let's look at what exactly is meant by "increasing the debt ceiling." It means only that the Government of the US will allow an increase in the amount of money it can borrow in order to service (pay) it's debts. That includes all debts... paychecks for soldiers, rent for the FBI offices in Memphis, F22 parts from Lockheed, Senator Ted Cruz's new girl intern assistant from San Antonio, and everything else the Government of the US needs to keep functioning. Every cent of the money to be paid came through and was approved by the budget committee in the House of Representatives and then passed by the whole House of Representatives and then to the Senate for a nod and then to the President for a signature. The House originated and completed the spending. The House is controlled by Speaker Paul Ryan. He controls it along with his other tea party Republican people. But we have seen that Paul Ryan and his sub rosa group of tea party Republicans may be gaming the credit rating of the United States as a political stunt. Please note China is not the only owner of US debt... there are lots more. The Japanese for example own about as much as the Chinese. But the PRC (China) gets a lot more fearsome press, probably because tea party Republican people in power like Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell are delighted by more TV time on cable news shows. 

A credit downgrade by a Chinese agency serves even more text for cable TV blurbs and little else. The rates for our bonds are determined by the worldwide market controlled mainly by enormous mutual funds and shady investment banking cartels owned by shady people who may even be Americans holding off-shore accounts. 

Now here's some information about big-time corporation and government accounting operations and the differences for you to learn about: Most large corporations run their financial operations exactly the same way as the US Government. DuPont has an agreement, for example with Citibank in New York to cover their payrolls for the month of July when revenues are a little short because the sales of fertilizer are less than in spring planting. So DuPont pays Citibank a fee to cover the payroll funds borrowed. Citibank is assured of payment by DuPont putting up some of their assets as security. The same for film and media companies. Comcast's people at Universal studios need the cash for their production calendar for the summer. They call Bank of America or City National Bank here in LA and ask to borrow the funds and they put up their film library as collateral. So the bankers give them the money that Universal then uses for production.  Revenues (income) from movies in theaters everywhere will bring in the money to pay the money back to the banks. 

For the US Government tax revenues (income) are coming in the spring (from the IRS) to pay the money back. Next, because of it's unmatched reputation over more than two hundred years the US Government does not need to put up collateral. That is our credit rating.  It is the credit rating for all the people of America, and that is why the tea party Republican people who disparage and attempt to exploit it for politics should be tried for treason.  

Of course the possibility of default is near zero. And any default would come from the House of Representatives which controls the money. It's like judicial acts in courtrooms. Judicial ethics requires judges* to never, ever appear to be biased to one side of a case over another. The operative is "appear." For a trial to be fair it must "appear" wholly unbiased. Same for financial markets. No appearance of problems for payment ever can be seen. The appearance of problems to jittery financial markets world wide is as bad as really having a problem in payments. So exploiting the "Full Faith and Credit" of the United States is a truly criminal act. 

It took me years in upper level economics work plus financial statistics and probability in grad school plus years of picking through all the media hucksters all over the planet to get a handle on this. So there you go, enjoy the dismal science at it's darkest. Note that Einstein gave up economics because he thought it was too easy. But the brilliant British philosopher and physicist, Bertram Russell gave it up because it was too hard. I abandoned economics for media mainly because the entire realm of economics in those days was an inhuman wasteland for ethics thanks to the rising dark stars of trickle down.  

*Please note that most judges have pretty tight ethical standards except for our US Supreme Court that has none.  Please see my March 3, 2016 blog post "The Trickle Down Jurist™ Is Buried."  

Los Angeles Skyline 2011

The 21st Century Western American Hub  

The Neo-Know-Nothings

The Know-Nothing Flag of 1850

Long time Republican good old boy Ed Meese was Attorney General under Reagan. Nowadays Meese is part of Heritage Foundation... a John Birch Society clone from the Koch Brothers legacy (Poppa Koch founded the original). In the 1960s Civil Rights times, the Birchers wore respectable suits and ties, but if you scratched one you'd find a hooded white robe and a burning cross tattoo. 

As for our modern John Birchers, the Tea Party Republicans, to find any comparable movement I think you must go back in time to another Republican skin disease in the early days of our republic.  The stylishly named Know-Nothings had a run from about 1845 to about 1860. Nationally they called themselves both the American Republican Party and the Native American Party. In those days a "Native American" meant a white person born in the USA. They were a big deal in Ohio in the area that is now Boehner's district. Their big issue was immigration and they hated the Catholic Irish people invading America in those days. They were a violent sect, and they even burned a Catholic church in Maine. They had chaotic shoot outs over governor candidates in Kentucky leaving twenty-two dead. They were very secretive and even sounded like a fraternity. They probably had a secret handshake. In their twilight Lincoln quashed their candidates in Illinois. 

The Know-Nothings one saving grace was Congressman Nathaniel P. Banks who helped buy Alaska. Old Nathan served in the Union army where in perilous battle he learned well the corporate raider instincts that in our century young candidate Romney very safely picked up at Harvard Business School. All those business people in Washington knew there was certainly a lot of mining money to be made up north to Alaska. Just like the Mitten, the pluperfect patriot Nathan served a time as Governor of Massachusetts. 

Much later after the great Civil war some of the Know-Nothings Southern "nativist" members were founders of the Ku Klux Klan. Finally in our time, Martin Scorsese used one sordid killer Know-Nothing character in his "Gangs of New York" movie. All of the smelly Tea Party Republican creeps in congress are basically Neo-Know-Nothings. 

Really all these Tea Party Republican types and John Birchers should just move on down to Texas... where all are sheltered from everything Western civilization has discovered in the past thousand years. 

But please, please everyone... know about this: The present-day Tea Party Republican rave is not because of beliefs or opinions or philosophy. 

It looks like they really do not care about the polls. They must be getting their payoff some other way! And I believe it is all about the money. Everybody knows we have a Tea Party Republican Pay-Per-Vote™ US Congress. 

If the Tea Party Republican crew in our Congress can cause the market to tank or to rise they stand to make millions. Tea Party Republican skippers Ryan and Boehner and McConnell and Cruz and the Koch Brothers are all short-selling America and manipulating the stock market. 

Plus the whole scam is timed to be in the center of the Tea Party Republican Congress's term. They are counting on their constituents back home forgetting about all the disruption they caused. Very treacherous but probably very true. 

They should all be in jail with old Bernie Madoff... we could build a new prison in Texas.  

The Klan Parading in DC 1926 

Paul Ryan Posing in DC 2012  

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Special thanks to Terraplane Marquez for his evocative comments 
on Ed Meese the original Neo-Know-Nothing pinup.