The reality is that Obama's "recovery" is a financial asset bubble just like Bush's "recovery" was, but the fallout will be much worse

The Federal Reserve and Obama have created a financial asset bubble that is already 20 times larger than Bush's housing bubble.

The Federal Reserve is still inflating the bubble at the rate of $1tn a year.

Bubbles have now been created in :-
Sovereign (government) debt
Corporate debt
Junk bonds
Municipal debt
Stock markets
Housing
Student loans

When this bubble blows the fall out will be far greater than the so called "financial Armageddon" of 2008.
The bubble is much bigger and will burst in a far more fragile economic environment.

The long term, 200 year, average of the interest rate on U.S. government debt is 5 to 6%.
The current interest rate is 2.6%.
Eventually the market will revert back to mean (usually markets over correct for a while).
So we can expect U.S. 10 year notes to go above 6%.
The Fed and the CBO are planning on a gradual rise in interest rates to 5%.
But markets do not correct slowly after bubbles, the correction always happens very suddenly in a financial crash.

So why the Fed asks, have we not seen major price inflation with all this printing we have been doing?
The answer is very simple and very similar to why all the voodoo economists could not see the 2001 and 2008 crashes coming.

The answer is that the massive Fed printing has been counter balanced by other things.
Principally it has been counter balanced by a massive global over supply in cheap labor.
So we do not see any wage inflation pressure whatsoever.

In the run up to 2001 and 2007, globalization (principally China and India) exported price deflation to the West.
This counterbalanced the Fed's printing and we saw very low rates of Western price inflation.
But none of the voodoo economists were mentioning this in the run up to 2000 or 2007.

Globalization added 1 billion potential new workers to the global cheap labor supply, that could now do Western type jobs in manufacturing and servicing.
China still cannot create enough manufacturing jobs to satisfy the demand for migration from poor rural areas to the cities.
India is now getting into economic trouble.
There are very high levels of unemployment throughout Europe and in America itself.
China is now starting to use even cheaper African labor. They are building a massive factory complex that will eventually employ 10,000 people and manufacture $4bn worth a year of cheap shoes for export, in Ethiopia.
There are other under utilized cheap labor supplies in the rest of SE Asia, e.g. in Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.

In the run up to the end of the 2000 and 2007 there were mal-investments and the misallocation of capital.

In 2000 it was the internet bubble where people put money into lots of worthless internet stocks and over inflated the price of stocks generally.
There was also a massive amount of IT hardware spending, to replace old equipment to resolve the Y2K problem. Spending that was merely brought forward from future years.

In the run up to 2007 there was a speculative bubble in housing, bank shares and government debt.
A lot of Southern European government debt but also elsewhere in Europe and America itself.

The bubble in housing was obvious to anyone with even a modicum of economic knowledge or financial history.

The bubble in Southern European debt was also obvious to anyone with a small amount of economic knowledge.
The free market interest rate on any sort of borrowings is NOT 2%.
The free market interest rate on loans that are considered "safe" is 5% to 6% see above chart.
If you go even farther back in history - safe loans were made in the Middle Ages at around 5% interest.

The fact that the Greek government were lying about the state of the government's finances (with the considerable assistance of Goldman Sachs).
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/02/greek-debt-crisis-root-causes.html
The massive Spanish housing bubble etc.

The Situation Today

The situation today is very similar to the Bush "recovery" from 2003 to 2007.
So similar in fact as to be an almost exact duplicate, except that the bubble is already 20 times larger than Bush's bubble and the overall economic conditions are now far worse.

Jobs and Unemployment
Bush's "recovery" saw the weakest job creation record of any President since World War 2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms

Bush's record will probably be surpassed by Obama by the end of his term.
In addition most of the jobs created during Obama's term are minimum wage, low paid or part time.
While a lot of the jobs that have been lost were relatively well paid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/business/majority-of-new-jobs-pay-low-wages-study-finds.html?_r=1&

If we were able to compile a chart of TOTAL American wages by Presidential term, Obama's record would now be considerably worse than Bush (who would of been the previous holder as the worst President since WW2).
But such data is difficult to compile.
The Federal Reserve and the government do not collect it and don't want the public to be able to see it.  
It might cause a riot.

Meanwhile real unemployment is now much worse than it was under Bush.

Even the government's own
BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says that unemployment is much worse than it was under Bush.
See the grey U6 unemployment line in the above chart.
The headline unemployment number (red line) merely reports the number of people that are claiming unemployment benefits NOT the actual number of unemployed or under employed people.
(If you work 1 hour a week, you are not unemployed - but that is hardly going to get you a livable income.)

Labor participation rates show no signs of recovery

 Malinvestment and QE 

The massive printing by the Federal Reserve is not helping the economy or job creation - quite the reverse.
With the appointment of Janet Yellen as the next Federal Reserve Chairman we can expect things to get much worse.
81.5% of all the currency printed in QE has gone straight to the banks balance sheets and nowhere else.
The big banks already have $1.7tn of excess reserves.
They could loan out another $17tn tomorrow, but with current economic policies nobody wants to borrow it.
$1tn of the Federal Reserve's currency printing has gone to partially bail out insolvent European banks.
About another $20tn will be required to bail out Europe.

The velocity of money has slowed to below the worst  levels seen in the Great Depression of the 1930's.

The excess of currency printing is being used for short term speculation and malinvestments - just like it was during Bush's tenure.
It is being used to further inflate bubbles, just as the excess printing was during Bush's term.

The currency being printed is not going into productive investments like Capex (Capital Expenditure) by Corporations, which would create well paying jobs.
Large Corporations are sitting on their $2tn cash pile and not spending it.
Economic conditions do not warrant gambling on increasing capacity.
The economy is contracting in real terms, not expanding and the average American has less money to spend every year.

How Federal Reserve policy is lowering future GDP growth and raising unemployment.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-2tn-of-excess-bank-reserves-is.html

Paul Krugman admits that the Federal Reserve is damaging the US economy
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/07/paul-krugman-admits-that-china-has-been.html

How the Federal Reserve is expecting the American taxpayer to bail it out on it's multi trillion dollar future losses.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/02/there-is-no-way-out-for-federal-reserve.html

America's economy is contracting, not expanding in real terms.
Everybody in America is becoming worse off in real terms, except for the speculators and the owners and boards of the crony Corporations.
Real inflation is between 6% and 9% not the 1.5% that is the official cpi rate.

The solutions to America's Problems

The solutions to America's problems are relatively easy.
But neither extremist party has any inclination to fix anything - it would hurt the profits of their large Corporate donors.

Cut Corporate Welfare by $1.3tn a year.
Cut taxes on the poorest workers - raise the income tax thresh hold to $45,000 from $8,500.
Cut the Corporate Tax rate to 25% (and close all the Corporate tax loopholes and crony tax breaks).
Make the first $100,000 of profits tax free to help small businesses (as Singapore does).
Reverse the payroll tax hike.
The above will reverse recent trends and get bottom up spending and recruitment going again.
The above tax cuts will only cost $650bn a year. What do you want to do with the other $650bn a year?

Stop the Federal Reserve from printing $1tn a year to bail out the big banks.
Break up the Corporate cartels that now operate in each major industry.

End the Federal Reserve and the IRS.
Reinstate the Constitution and the Bill of rights.
As two of America's top Generals have recently called for.
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/u-s-generals-now-take-action-to-watch-obama/

Reinstate the Rule of Law on large Corporations and wealthy elites.
Punish wrong doing and fraud with deterrent penalties. 
Send the CEO's of the major banks to jail for 30 years and see how quickly Wall Street can be cleaned up.

More details on the solutions to America's problems are at the bottom of this, together with many more economic charts and  more details of Obama's policies :-
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-of-policies-of-federal-government.html

Debt Ceiling deal - winners and losers
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/debt-ceiling-deal-losers-and-winners.html

Scrap Obamacare and do some things to actually make Healthcare more affordable in America.
Obamacare is the worst scheme that anyone has come up with so far for providing Healthcare, anywhere in the world
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/11/obamacare-is-worst-scheme-that-anyone.html

 

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The Revisionist History of how the Iranian Nuclear Deal came about is already being written in America

The Iranian Nuclear Deal came about after :-

War Plans in Syria Were Forced Into Being Dropped

There was a massive public and Congressional outcry against bombing Syria in support of  Islamic Extremist terrorists funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar
Thousands of phone calls were made by ordinary members of the public to members of Congress, demanding that the plans to bomb Syria be dropped.
The public was overwhelmingly against America starting another war in Syria - at least two thirds were against and possibly as high as 90%.
The British Parliament voted against military action in Syria
The Russians initiated a diplomatic deal to resolve the chemical weapons issue

These events forced Obama to drop his war plans in Syria which started with, but were definitely not limited to, a series of cruise missile strikes.
He could not get a vote approved in Congress and was extremely isolated.

The planned bombing of Syria had nothing whatsoever to do with the chemical weapons attack in Damascus on August 21st.

The Iran, Iraq, Syria gas pipeline and the Syrian conflict
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-iran-iraq-syria-gas-pipeline.html

The facts behind the Syrian conflict that Obama and John McCain do not want you to see
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/08/action-in-syria-what-would-it-achieve.html

Iran elected a less bellicose President 

After the American Syrian war plans collapsed, the new Iranian President started a diplomatic initiative to try and resolve the on-going dispute and sanctions with America, regarding Iran's nuclear activities.

Despite initial reluctance, America eventually accepted Iran's new dovish approaches and sat down to talks with the Iranians.

Iran has been developing a civil nuclear program, since the 1950's.
It's oil production is declining because of a lack of investment.
It does not have enough oil refinery capacity to meet it's domestic demands.

The Revisionist History of how the Iranian Nuclear Deal came about
None of the above actual facts, are even mentioned.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/24/iran-nuclear-deal_n_4332835.html

Appendices, References and Background

Iran wants to develop both it's oil and gas production, but sanctions have played a large part in preventing this.
In July 2013, Iran signed a deal with Iraq and Syria to build a major gas pipeline (see above link).

Iran is getting around of the worst of the U.S. oil sanctions by selling oil to China and India.
China and India are getting cheaper oil, while America, Europe and other oil consumers are paying more.

Iran has been using up the uranium it has so far enriched, in it's domestic nuclear program.
Ehud Barak admitted that Iran has recently used 30% of it's semi enriched uranium for civilian purposes.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9643647/Israel-says-Iran-has-pulled-back-from-the-brink-of-nuclear-weapon-for-now.html

A timeline of Iran's nuclear activities
America helped Iran start it's civil nuclear energy program.
http://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/timeline-irans-nuclear-activities

Ex-Mossad Chief: ‘US-Iran nuclear deal is good for Israel’

In November 2011, Halvey was quoted saying: “The US-Iran war could effect not only Israel, but the entire region for 100 years”. He also added that the “Jewish extremism in Israel poses a bigger risk than Ahmadinejad“.

http://rehmat1.com/2013/11/14/ex-mossad-chief-us-iran-nuclear-deal-is-good-for-israel/

There is zero evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability.
Even if Iran did develop a nuclear weapon, Israel already has 80+ nuclear weapons and has the materials to quickly build 120 more.
The mullahs in Tehran may be mad, but they are not suicidal.
If Iran did ever launch a nuclear weapon against anyone, Tehran and much of Iran would be annihilated by a swift and massive Israeli and Western response.

If Iran ever did develop a nuclear weapon, it would be a deterrent, not a first strike weapon.
It would be a deterrent against Israeli and American aggression.

N.B. Israel has issued repeated numerous warnings that Iran is within 6 months or a year of developing a nuclear weapon for past 20 years.
So where is it? Even Israel states that Iran does not have them.

The real reason for so much tension with Iran, is that Israel wants to remain the only nuclear weapon power in the Middle East.
Although Israel's ally in the region Saudi Arabia, is now attempting to start it's own nuclear program with America's help.

Saudi Arabia and Israel want to remain the largest regional powers in the Middle East.
Since America's invasion of Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein as a counter weight, Iran has become a much stronger regional power.

Iran is the leader of the Shia Muslims in the Middle East.
There is an on-going sectarian war going on between Shia's and Sunni's (similar to the European wars between Catholics and Protestants from the 1500's).
Saudi Arabia is the leading power for the Sunni's, with it's extremist Wahhabi sect.

The conflicts between Saudi Arabia and Iran are also about oil and gas.
There is a global surplus of carbon energy reserves at current prices.
There is a shortage in distribution and refinery infrastructure.

There is competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran to supply the major markets of Europe, China and Asia.
(There is competition with Russia for energy supplies as well.)

Bibi Netanyahu & Ehud Barak tried to hijack a war with Iran in 2010. IDF & Mossad chiefs disagreed with them

There were several articles in November 2012 about Bibi Natanyahu and Ehud Barak trying to start a war with Iran in 2010.
Both the Israeli Defense Chief and Mossad chief disagreed with them and prevented it.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/report_netanyahu_barak_ordered_preparation_for_iran_strike_in_2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/9655097/Israel-planned-Iran-attack-in-2010.html

http://www.bicom.org.uk/news-article/9869/

http://www.ibtimes.com/israel-considered-attacking-iran-2010-report-859796

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Keeping people poor and/or in massive debt means that they have less time to think

Less time to think about :- 

Government policies that are deliberately wiping out the middle class and creating more poor people. 

Federal Reserve policies that have deliberately created the greatest financial asset bubble in history, which when it bursts will cause the greatest depression in history. 

The fighting of wars, whose purpose is simply to create more enemies, in order to fight further wars.

The secret trade treaties that hand over National Sovereignty to Corporate profits. 

The media that dis-informs on a daily basis on all TV news channels and in all mainstream print publications. 

The Mass Surveillance programs that spy on everyone, whose only purpose can only be to harass and intimidate future domestic political dissenters. 

Government and Federal Reserve policies that are a deliberate redistribution of wealth. 
A redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the crony Corporatists in the top 1% 

The handover of global hegemony to Asia centered on China, by the American government.

http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-of-policies-of-federal-government.html

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Obamacare is the worst scheme that anyone has come up with so far for providing Healthcare, anywhere in the world

It was specifically designed to increase the profits of large insurers and drugs companies by the Heritage Foundation.

It does this by reducing the competition in the marketplace.
Each State is becoming a de facto monopolistic Health Insurance cartel.
The insurers are and will take advantage of their monopolistic positions to hike their prices and profit margins.

There are a great many things that could be done to make Healthcare provision in America much cheaper.
Healthcare already costs double in America per capita, compared to every other developed country.
Obamacare is set to make this dire situation even worse.

The Federal government is still protecting the profits of the large drug companies through a series of protectionist laws on specific drugs.
Congress is forever passing another law to protect another drug.
Prescription drugs cost at least double in the U.S. than they do elsewhere.
Half the drugs companies are foreign owned.
How does protecting foreign companies help America? 

Just some of the ways that Healthcare provision could be dramatically improved are included at the bottom of this.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-dems-on-huffy-post-are-incredibly.html

America will pay the price for making the least efficient system of Healthcare provision even less efficient.
And Obama knows it.
The effects of Obamacare will really only be felt when the business roll out begins.
Only 5% of people are affected by the private plan roll out.
Ten times as many people will be adversely affected when the business plans start rolling out.
Obama has just delayed the start of the business roll out by an additional month until after the mid-term elections in 2014. See this.

He knows that 3 weeks of non-stop reporting of the business plan roll out problems, premium/deductible hikes and the number of people losing employee coverage, would be absolutely devastating for the Democrat vote.

Most of the expected $400bn annual increase in Healthcare spending as a result of Obamacare will be paid for by middle earners - those earning between $40,000 and $100,000 a year.
(The subsidy limit is currently $45,000.)

Someone who earns $50,000 will pay as much as someone earning $250,000+, but relatively few people earn over $100,000.
Someone earning over $100,000 will probably get subsidized employee Healthcare coverage, the increased costs of which the company will pass on to it's customers - mostly the middle class.

Some of the extra $400bn cost will be paid for by the working young.
Those earning above around $27,000.
The way that Obamacare is set up, young are expected to subsidize the healthcare costs of older people.
The young (with decent jobs) are already struggling with massive student loan debts. 
There will be all sorts of negative indirect impacts of this policy.
These people will start fewer businesses, marry later and have fewer children because they simply cannot afford it.
These people are America's future, they and America, just got screwed big time by Obamacare.

Around $100bn a year of the government subsidies will be paid for by the rich.
There is an increase of 3.8% on the tax on investment income.

There are another well over $100bn a year of 19 other stealth taxes.
These will mostly be paid for by the middle class and middle class seniors.

Details of the Obamacare stealth taxes.
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/2012/06/29/full-list-of-new-obamacare-tax-hikes-20-in-total/


Obamacare myths, facts and unknowns - cost $3.5tn+, 800,000 fewer jobs, lower GDP and higher unemployment (over the next 10 years)
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/obamacare-myths-facts-and-unknowns-cost.html

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America's coming financial disaster and it's Demographic time bomb

Federal spending is planned to rise to around $6tn by 2023 (from $3.6tn now).
Well over $2tn of this expected increase in spending is planned to come from the following 3 items (in almost equal amounts) :-

Debt interest payments
Social Security
Healthcare spending

The deficit in 2023 will be over $3tn.
The National Debt will be $40tn+ or 250% of GDP.

The Social Security trust fund does not have any real money in it.
It only has government IOU's.
IOU's that are set to lose more than half their value in the next few years.
The IOU's are called non tradeable US Treasuries.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/09/5-facts-about-the-national-debt-what-you-should-know/

I am not in favor of either the GOP or Obama's plans to render Social Security payments almost worthless over the next several years.

The way to sort out the government's pending financial disaster, Social Security and Medicare funding, is detailed at the bottom of this.
Start by cutting $1.3tn of annual Corporate Welfare.

http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-of-policies-of-federal-government.html

Things will get much worse after 2023 - due to demographics.
There will be far fewer people of working age that will be paying into the SS fund to pay the large increase in the number of seniors.

The Demographic time bomb that is just starting to hit every developed country (and China) - the problem will get really severe after about 2020.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-fall-of-rome-was-due-to-unfunded.html

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How America works today & what Janet Yellen didn't explain at the Senate Confirmation hearings

What Janet Yellen didn't explain at the recent Senate confirmation hearings 

Current Federal Reserve policy of massive printing is enriching the banks, but it is also lowering GDP growth and increasing unemployment.
The banks already have $1.7tn in "excess" reserves.
The banks could lend out another $17tn tomorrow, but nobody wants to borrow it.
Printing more currency with QE doesn't help
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-2tn-of-excess-bank-reserves-is.html

The Federal Reserve private bank is set to charge taxpayers, via the Treasury, with multi trillion dollar losses arising from it's balance sheet, because of the massive amounts of debt it is currently buying at record high prices.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/02/there-is-no-way-out-for-federal-reserve.html


The same applies to almost all major industries and almost all Washington DC lawmaking - including Obamacare. 

Just substitute :- 

Lobbyist cash for the Fed 
Congress and WH for Wall St 

The result on Main Street is exactly the same. 

It is sickening what is happening in America Today 
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/09/america-today.html

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The Dems on Huffy Post are incredibly naive - they think rules in Obamacare will limit Healthcare profits LOL!

It is patently the case that Obamacare has been specifically designed to INCREASE healthcare profits (which will make it more expensive - pre-subsidy). 
It was designed that way by the Heritage Foundation.

Obamacare is turning the Healthcare Insurance market into a de facto monopolistic cartel of a very few suppliers controlling over 80% of the market in each State.

The Healthcare market has now been brought under the control of the Federal government and will now be subject to the corruption which is endemic in Washington DC.

The tricks used by every other monopolistic cartel in every other major industry can now be much more effectively employed by the large Healthcare Insurers and providers.

The politicians will be bought by campaign donations and other bribes and inducements (most of them have already been bought to get the disastrous Obamacare bill through in the first place).

The bought politicians will insert loopholes and get out clauses into bills, to get round any irritating regulations they don't like. 

Further measures will be taken to further squeeze out any small players that remain. 
Such as new regulations being inserted into future bills, where the cost of conforming is relatively low for large companies but high for small ones. 

The bought politicians will ensure the large Corporations don't get prosecuted for any criminal activity or violations of rules and regulations. 

(Or they will only get a token small shareholder fine, which is much less than the profits from breaking the law or regulations. This is occasionally done for PR purposes to try and con the American people that the Rule of Law still applies to large Corporations. 
No board members will get sent to jail, whatever white collar crimes they choose to commit.) 

The large Corporations ensure that their own ex-senior managers are appointed to whichever regulatory body is supposed to oversee government regulations. 
The purpose of this is twofold - to go easy on the large Corporations and go hard on any small or new entrants to squeeze them out.


In the specific case of Healthcare :- 

The massive cost of changing policies and IT systems to conform to the numerous Obamacare diktats was a prime example of a massive dis-inducement to the large numbers of medium and small insurance players in each State. 
Most have already, or intend to, drop out of the market for 2014.  
There will be a further shakedown of small players when the business fines come into effect for 2015.

Large insurers and healthcare companies are buying up subsidiaries in low tax foreign countries in order to divert American sourced profits and get round the 80% rule. 

Schemes for which the insurers want to put up the prices by more than the limits set out in Obamacare will be cancelled. 
New product names will be set up in their place at the higher prices the insurers desire. 
Now that Obamacare is making the Health Insurance market far less competitive than it previously was, this will be easier to do. 

Lines will be inserted into future bills to render any limits that do cause some irritation in Obamacare toothless. 
Much like the bill that is now going through Congress to remove some of the Dodd-Frank regulations so that when the next bank bailout happens, the bank losses will again be socialized and paid for by the American taxpayer. 

The insurance and large healthcare companies will ensure that their own ex-senior managers are appointed to whichever regulatory body is supposed to oversee the Obamacare regulations. 

The CEO's of the 5 largest Health Insurers have been consistently raising their future profits forecasts as it becomes known just how effective that Obamacare will be in :-

squeezing out competition 
allowing the large insurers to increase their prices and profit margins 

Obamacare Costs 

Using the CBO estimated costs and their assumptions as a base, the estimated costs of Obamacare are $3.5tn+ and 800,000 fewer jobs over 10 years, plus lower GDP growth, higher unemployment and lower tax revenues.
Other people's estimates of the costs will catch up with mine over time.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/obamacare-myths-facts-and-unknowns-cost.html 

My solutions :- 

Healthcare in America costs double what it costs in every other developed country and Obamacare is set to make things even worse.

Make the Health Insurance and Healthcare provision into efficient industries like Motor Insurance already is. 
Motor Insurance pays out 100% of premiums in claims and reduces the cost of car repairs through hard ball negotiations with garages and bulk buying. 
There is no practical reason why Healthcare Insurance should not be made as efficient as Motor Insurance, if lawmakers had the will to encourage Healthcare to be a competitive free market industry and not turn it into a monopolistic crony cartel with Obamacare.

Healthcare Insurers are not interested in making Healthcare provision more efficient - there are not enough incentives to do so.
They are more interested in signing up as many Healthcare providers as possible to enable a monopolistic position in a particular regional market.

Impose the Rule of Law with deterrent penalties on large Corporations. 
That includes sending CEO's to jail for law breaking or monopolistic racketeering. 
When was the last time a CEO of a large company went to jail? 

Martha Stewart did, but that was only because she inadvertantly helped expose the massive and endemic insider trading that goes on in the stock market and stepped on Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan's patches. 
Martha Stewart wasn't that large a company to be able to afford to pay out millions of dollars in bribes to DC politicians.

Stop the protectionist and racketeering laws that increase the profits of the large drugs companies at the expense of the American consumer. 
Make the drugs companies charge the same prices that they currently charge in Mexico.
It would cut the prices by at least 50%. 
Congress is forever passing laws that make drugs even more expensive, e.g. by extending the length of patent protection on specific drugs. 

Stop the over prescription and over treatment which is endemic in American "Healthcare". 
Stop the over charging for common routine procedures, by making hospital services a competitive industry. 
Stop the endemic Medicare fraud.
Stop the bribing of doctors by the large drugs companies.   

Part of the solution to make Healthcare provision and insurance a more competitive industry is to make it a competitive national industry, across State and regional boundaries.
The least competitive markets are now those in relatively small States or regions with low population densities.
But even in highly populated cities like New York, costs vary wildly between different hospitals in the same precinct for the same treatment.
Inefficient hospitals with high charges should be allowed to go out of business - they would in a free market.

The high costs associated with IT development and maintenance make providing Healthcare Insurance to low volumes of customers an impractical and inefficient proposition.

Reducing the number of government rules and regulations would also make the provision of Healthcare Insurance less burdensome and encourage new entrants.
The government does not mandate numerous rules as to how Motor insurance should be provided.
The free market decides the best way of providing Motor Insurance, not the government.
The free market also decides the best way of delivering car repair services to the insurers because car insurance is a highly competitive market and car insurers are always looking for ways to reduce their costs.

There is no reason why an insurer could not mandate a claimant for non emergency treatment to travel to an efficient low cost hospital for treatment.
Just like they make car accident claimants travel to an insurer approved car repairer in order to keep car repair costs down.
Garages are well known for trying to rip off consumers with excessive charges - but car insurers don't let them get away with it.

N.B. The government only mandates that each car and driver be insured to protect others from the harm that you might do to them (by crashing into them and injuring their persons or property).
House insurance isn't mandatory.

It is easy to see many other ways to make Healthcare provision in America far more efficient.
American Healthcare costs at least double what it costs in every other developed country.

Stop making doctors spend half their time on filling out insurance paperwork.

Reduce the cost of malpractice insurance and the reduce the payouts for mistreatment.
Both of these are multiple times the cost incurred in other countries.
(This is a symptom of the lawyer disease, ambulance chasing and lack of personal responsibility that infects America today. There are over 1 million lawyers practicing in America - many times higher the number of lawyers per head that there are in other countries. Drastically cut the number of lawyers that it is economic to employ in America.)

Get a group of experienced Healthcare professionals (front line doctors and nurses) together, that do not derive income from drugs companies, and see what they can come up with.
I'm sure they will have loads of good ideas.

Stop buying loads of unnecessary expensive medical equipment like MRI scanners.
The hospitals make large profits for charging for the use of this equipment so encourage their use (compare the charges made for similar testing in other countries).
The managers of hospitals (and senior doctors) are bribed by the medical equipment manufacturers to buy their equipment.
The number of tests using expensive equipment like MRI scanners, far outweighs their efficacy in preventing or treating medical conditions.
The overuse and over purchasing of expensive medical equipment is another symptom of an inefficient healthcare market.

There are a great many ways of making Healthcare in America more affordable and broadening coverage.
Obamacare goes in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction and makes Healthcare provision even less efficient and affordable.

Nobody in any country calls for Motor Insurance to be run by the government.
The Free Market in the Motor Insurance industry provides a much better product to consumers than any government ever would or could.

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Karzai invokes the main reason that America started it's own revolutionary war & rejects warrantless searches by Foreign Troops

What a bar steward.
And
The poetic irony of it all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/18/us-afghan-security-pact_n_4294976.html

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Obama lost all trust and credibility with the American people well before the disaster that is Obamacare

Obama lost all trust and credibility with the American people when he :- 

Failed to prosecute Bush & Cheney for war crimes 
Failed to investigate 9/11 
Failed to prosecute for the lies told as to the reasons for launching the war on Iraq 
Failed to jail the senior bankers for their multiple frauds 
Appointed ex Monsanto employees into the FDA 
Appointed Tim Geithner as Treasury Sec 
Bailed out Goldman Sachs AIG bets at 100c on the dollar with taxpayer money 
Allowed the Fed to embark on QE which just makes the bankers richer & actively prevents job creation 
Increased military spending to above even Bush levels 
Continued with $1.3tn of annual Corporate Welfare 
Increased taxes on middle earners and below 
Failed to uphold the Rule of Law 
Continued the Bush programs of destroying civil rights and expanding Mass Surveillance 
Expanded the drone warfare program which has recruited millions more Islamic Extremists 
Signed the Monsanto Protection Act 
Negotiated the subjugation of the American people to Corporate profits in the secret TPP & TAFTA "trade" treaties
Supported Islamic Extremist terrorists in Libya and Syria
Launched his war on whistle blowers, journalism and transparency 
Declared that Magna Carta no longer applied to Americans or anyone else in the world
Repealed Posse Comitatus to allow US troops to operate on the streets of American cities. Just as Julius Caesar had done 2,000 years before when he crossed the Rubicon.   
Used the FBI to harass and intimidate Occupy protesters and the NYPD to beat them up. The FBI branded Occupy as "Domestic Terrorists".

Etc. etc. etc.

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It's about time we took this country back from the extremists

The extremists are those that advocate :-

$700bn+ deficits rising to $3tn+ by 2023 
$1.3tn a year of annual Corporate Welfare 
$1tn+ a year of bail outs & subsidies to the big banks 
$1.2tn a year of military spending 
NDAA indefinite detention 
The repeal of Posse Comitatus to allow the US military to operate on the streets of American cities 
NSA Mass Surveillance on every electronic communication of every American & millions in Europe & elsewhere to suppress future political dissent
Perpetual war & the drone warfare programs that create more enemies to perpetuate the wars  and keep military spending at astronomical levels 
The subjugation of National Sovereignty and ordinary people's rights in favor of increasing Corporate profits, as in the TPP and Tafta so called "trade" agreements that are currently being negotiated 

The extremists are :-
Barack Obama
John Boehner 
Hillary Clinton
John McCain 
Nancy Pelosi
Mitch McConnell
Harry Reid
Lindsey Graham
Dianne Feinstein
Paul Ryan
Reince Priebus
Joe Biden
Dick Cheney
etc. etc. etc. ...............

What 30 years of increasingly extremist policies have done to America.
How it is relatively easy to fix things, but neither extremist party wants to fix anything.
It would hurt the profits of their large corporate donors.

How Big Business and Big Government is Taking Over America and subjugating Americans 
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-of-policies-of-federal-government.html 

The moderates are those that advocate the principles upon which America was founded. 
The principles that led to America growing from almost nothing to the most powerful and wealthiest nation on Earth in a little over 130 years :-  
The Bill of Rights 
Free competitive markets, not monopolistic cartels and massive government distortion of the markets 
The re-imposition of the Rule of Law on large Corporations and the wealthy 
Small government 
Low taxes    

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Economics 101 : The Federal Reserve private bank

The Federal Reserve is a wholly privately owned company.
Like all private companies, the Federal Reserve seeks to maximize the profits of it's major shareholders.
It is basically a giant money making scheme for the big banks.

The major influencers of Federal Reserve policy are those with the largest share ownership.
Chief among these are :-
The Rothschild family which owns just over 50%
JP Morgan (N.B. the Rothschild family own a large percentage of JP Morgan)
Goldman Sachs
The Rockefeller family (since the merger of JP Morgan with Chase Manhattan Bank and the Rockefeller's large family shareholding in Chase Manhattan - see 1).

N.B. The ownership of the Federal Reserve is more complicated than the above summary.
The detailed ownership is deliberately kept secret.

The Federal Reserve was set up in 1913 in order to extract interest payments on the money borrowed by the U.S. government as a result of it's future budget deficits.
The Federal government could print it's own currency and pay zero interest on it's borrowings (as was the case prior to 1913).
Increasing the amounts of government borrowings, naturally increases the amounts of the interest payments to the banks that lend to the government.

The Income Tax was also set up in 1913 in order to generate the revenues to the Federal government to pay the interest to the big banks. Prior to 1913, the revenues available to the Federal government were very small. A much larger revenue generating system was required, in order to pay the large amounts of interest on the very large amounts of money it was envisioned the Federal government would be encouraged to borrow in future years.

The 100 years of the Federal Reserve and the 100 years before.

For centuries, there has been no better way of increasing any government's borrowings than to encourage that government to pursue large scale or long term wars.




The Federal Reserve is forced by Statute to return any excess profits to the U.S. Treasury, so it has to use other means to generate large profits for it's shareholders.
As the big banks now make the vast majority of their profits from speculation, not from traditional bank lending, the Federal Reserve sets out to deliberately manufacture large booms and busts.
It does this by manipulating the money supply and interest rates.
It is very difficult to make large profits from speculation in flat markets.

The Federal Reserve is also guaranteed by Statute to pay a 6% dividend every year to it's owners.
The only private company in the world with this guarantee.
This dividend is paid by U.S. taxpayers.

The Federal Reserve makes money in other ways too.
E.G. It charges exorbitant rates to print dollar bills. (The Federal government could print dollar bills itself.)

The Federal Reserve can hide it's profits, losses, expenses and loan activity.
Also by Statute the Federal Reserve's accounts are not audited - it can put more or less any numbers (within reason) into it's annual reports.
Nobody, by Law, is allowed to check the numbers the Federal Reserve reports every year - not even Congress or the President.
Neither are they allowed to know the Federal Reserve's lending activity (the Fed publishes summaries, without any details of who it is lending to, which may or may not be accurate (no one can check).
Hence the recent proposals in Congress to pass Laws that enable "audit the Fed".

The Federal Reserve is now printing $1tn of additional currency every year, which it lends to the big banks at near zero interest.
81.5% of all the money printed in QE1, QE2, the current QE3 and QE to infinity has gone to bail out the balance sheets of large banks. It has not gone to expand lending or improve the economy.

High-Level Fed Official: QE Is “The Greatest Backdoor Wall Street Bailout of All Time”

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/11/qe-wall-street-bailout.html

It is no good printing more currency if NOBODY wants to borrow it.
The only credit expansion is in student debt and subsidized car loans (and by government borrowings).

Officially American Banks already have $1.7tn of "excess" reserves.
The banks don't need any more money to increase normal bank lending - they could increase bank lending by $17tn tomorrow with the money they already have (if anybody wanted to borrow it).
The large American banks are using this "extra" money for various forms of speculation.
This increases the prices of various financial assets - mostly stock and bond prices, but also the prices of commodities like oil and food.
Pushing up the prices of oil and food reduces the disposable incomes of ordinary people, lowers GDP growth, increases unemployment and puts the American economy into the vicious circle we have seen over the last 12 years.

The current policies of the Federal Reserve private bank are :-
Massively increasing the profits of the big banks
Hurting the economy with lower GDP growth and actively increasing unemployment

The Federal Reserve has now created the largest financial asset bubble in history.
It is now around 20 times larger than the asset bubble of 2007 and the Fed continues to inflate it at the rate of $1tn a year (plus other Central Bank printing).

There are now huge financial asset bubbles in :-
Sovereign (government) debt
Corporate debt
Junk bonds
Stock markets 
House prices
Student Loan Debt (now larger than the sub-prime mortgage market in 2007)

The bubble of 2007 supposedly led to near financial Armageddon in 2008.
When the current bubble bursts, as it has to at some point, the effects on the global economy will be truly devastating. 

N.B. The $1.7tn of excess reserves is the illusory product of creative accounting trickery.
There hasn't been any proper pricing (mark to market) of bank balance sheet assets, particularly derivative assets, for several years.


References 

1. The Chase Manhattan Bank: Rockefeller's Bank   
http://thecounterpunch.hubpages.com/hub/The_Chase_Bank

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Obama's statement that existing policies will be acceptable for Obamacare is simply not going to work

The insurance companies have spent 2 years rewriting their IT systems in preparation for Obamacare. 
They are not going to be able to change them back again in 30 days. 

Many of the cancellation notices have already gone out or are in the pipeline. 

The Insurance companies are not going to pass up the opportunity of canceling unprofitable plans and the opportunity of issuing higher priced and more profitable plans. 

Many of the smaller players have already decided to withdraw from the market in many States as the costs of Obamacare implementation was too high. 

In many States ,Obamacare has created a de facto Health Insurance cartel with only a few players. 
This will further erode competition and increase the price of Health Insurance even more in the future. 

In many ways Obamacare is making Health Insurance more like the scam that is loan / credit card payment protection insurance, which was a cash cow for the banks and the insurance companies and was linked with a whole heap of mis-selling scandals. 

Obamacare makes the Health Insurance market even less like the Motor Insurance industry. 
Motor Insurance is a highly competitive industry and pays out 100% of premiums in claims. 
The Motor Insurers actually reduce the cost of car repairs by doing hardball deals before including garages in their approved list of repairers.

Just over 4m cancellation notices have now been issued for people that previously had health insurance. 

A mere 100,000 have been enrolled in Obamacare. 
The government is trying to make the numbers look better than they are by including those who are being transferred from Medicare/Medicaid plans. 

So the nett effect of Obamacare so far is that 3.9 million FEWER people have Healthcare Insurance. 

It was known back in 2009/2010 that over 60% of existing Insurance plans would not meet the criteria that Obamacare dictates and that there would be many millions of cancellations.
But Obama went ahead anyway.

Obamacare increases the cost of Health Insurance (pre subsidy).
The real fun will start when business health insurance plans are included. 
Obama delayed the business fines because he knew the chaos it would cause and how many votes it would lose in the mid terms. 

Obamacare dramatically increases the profits of large health insurance and drugs companies. 

Obamacare is expected to cost $3.5tn+ and 800,000 jobs over 10 years. 
It will lower future GDP growth, raise unemployment, lower tax revenues and significantly increase the budget deficit and National Debt. 

There are a great many ways of improving American Healthcare and broadening coverage. 
Obamacare is the worst scheme anyone has come up with so far.

The first thing that should be done is to halve the cost of Healthcare.

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Give the top 5 big banks 6 months notice & then take their banking licenses away

They are criminal enterprises and therefore unfit institutions to gamble in the derivatives market or to manage other people's money. 

They are the sword of Damocles over the economy and the country. 
They will need to be bailed out with even more taxpayer money than in 2008, next time around if they are not shut down.

The normal retail banking functions can be picked up by the hundreds of smaller banks and credit unions. 

The derivatives market is now over $700tn. 
It is nothing but a zero sum casino, with the big banks taking a cut in commissions - like holding 5 double zeros at the roulette wheel. 
The entire global economy is only $70tn a year. 

The top 5 big banks exert undue influence over the government & are receiving $1tn a year of taxpayer subsidies & bail outs. 
For this reason alone they should be shut down. 

The top 5 big banks are : 

JP Morgan 
Goldman Sachs 
Bank of America 
Citigroup 
Wells Fargo 

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Who is the most powerful person in America today?

a) The President 

b) The chairman of the Federal Reserve
N.B. the chairman of the Federal Reserve can wreck an administration by a few well chosen words or by wrecking the economy through policy. 
He/She can help decide elections - Bernanke helped Obama by announcing QE3 just before the election (rather than waiting until just after).
Romney said he was going to replace Bernanke before the election (silly boy). 

c) Keith Alexander 
Knowledge is power. 

Just like J. Edgar Hoover held power over every significant person in America through his surveillance dossiers. 
No politician dared to say anything against Hoover.

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In a great many ways Chris Christie is EXACTLY the same as Mitt Romney

He has a very poor economic and job creation record in his State. 
In fact Christie supports policies that actively destroy American jobs - just like Obama.

He is best friend to banksters. 
He supports large scale and widespread cronyism and corruption. 
He supports massive government spending and out of control deficits. 
He supports $1.3tn of annual Corporate Welfare.
He supports the Neocon doctrine of perpetual war. 
He supports anti American and unconstitutional laws. 
In short he supports Fascist policies.

He is unelectable. 

No wonder the Dems & the Dem supporting media are licking their lips at the prospect of Christie as nominee. 

Just like they licked their lips at the prospect of the walking train wreck that was Mitt Romney. 

Chris Christie endorsed Romney early on, even though with Christie's knowledge of Romney, he knew that Romney was an EXTREMELY WEAK candidate and had ZERO chance of winning. 
So in part, Christie is responsible for the GOP losing in 2012. 

As demonstrated by Romney losing to the incumbent who was running with a record high 14% U6 unemployment. 
No incumbent has ever got re-elected with unemployment anywhere near that high. 
Romney was without doubt the weakest GOP nominee for at least 50 years.

Chris Christie did not bat an eyelid against the Stalinist rule changes and tactics at the RNC Convention in Tampa. 
So Chris Christie may also be a fan of Stalinist political control - who knows.

  

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Why Socialism has not and will NEVER work - it takes no account of the human condition

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.

Read More at:-
http://armstrongeconomics.com/2013/11/06/socialism-brought-home/

If there are insufficient inducements to work hard and insufficient penalties for not working hard, people will not even work, let alone work hard.
It's called carrots and sticks.

It begins with government run education systems.
Competition between peers has largely been taken out of government run schools.
Competition between peers is an extremely effective inducement for children to work harder at school.

Look at sports, particularly professional sports. The standards of professional sports have risen exponentially in the last 100 years, due to more competition, especially more global competition.
A competitive sportsman or team would slaughter any strong opponent from just 20 years ago.

Look at private school education systems.
Competition between peers is encouraged to a high level in almost all possible areas.

When young people leave school or college they face extremely strong competition - it's called the jobs market, which is now global.

If you want to see a failed experiment in Socialism - look at Europe's relative decline.
If you want to see a successful experiment with more Capitalism - look at China.

This data and forecast is from 2009.
It dramatically understated America and Europe's relative decline since 2009.
The US is already down to 22% of global GDP, as at end 2011, due to poor governance, poor economic policies, increased regulations and overspending on the military. 

Europe operates an increasingly centrally planned Socialist system, particularly since the advent of the Eurozone in 1999. 
The results of which are plain to see, with the economic mess that Europe is now in. 
The Eurozone (excluding Germany) has massive debts, massive unemployment and increasing levels of poverty.

Central Planning is always bad - it lends itself to mismanagement and corruption, both of which are prevalent in the undemocratic European system of governance in Brussels. 
The European Union is undemocratic because power resides in unelected European Commissioners - not in the elected representatives in the European Parliament. 
The European Union is a particularly bad example of Central Planning because of the disparate nature of the populations in various regions (countries). 
Hence the undoubted speed of Europe's relative decline.
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/10/eurozone-problems-its-structural-thing.html

The Eurozone and the European Central Bank are now completely controlled by private banking interests. 

Central Planning leads to a lack of competition between different systems of governance and different systems of economic and social policy. 

Central Planning is ALWAYS bad. 
Devolved regional governance is ALWAYS good. 
It sets up a set of competing systems of economic, monetary and social policies.
Each region is then responsible for it's own well being and economic prosperity.
Just like a bunch of kids in a competitive classroom in school. 

If one particular set of policies (governance) is demonstrably a bad system, that region will rapidly decline and if not adjusted be reduced to almost nothing, e.g. Detroit or the USSR.

If one particular set of policies (governance) is demonstrably a good system, that region will rapidly prosper and grow, e.g. America in the 1800's. 

Jobs and people will flock to well managed regions and leave poorly managed ones. 
Several countries in Europe are now seeing population declines as more and more people emigrate from the Socialist wreck that is Europe, to find better economic prospects elsewhere - particularly the wealth creators of the future, such as college graduates.

A set of relatively small independent and competitive economic units (called Nation States) was how Europe came to dominate the entire world in the first place (from the late Middle Ages). 
This despite the obvious economic disadvantages of almost perpetual war between these Nation States. 
While the large economic and political units of the Chinese and Caliphate Empires, which had been the major economic powers, suffered stagnation and eventual complete and utter decline due to a completely monopolistic and anti-competitive system of governance.     


N.B. The United States no longer operates a Free Market Capitalist system   

No country has yet managed to institute pure Free Market Capitalism. 
It requires a very strong application of the Rule of Law in order to deter large Corporations or very wealthy individuals from using their wealth to abuse their power in order to further their own enrichment. 
But it is possible. 
It requires a strong principled leader and very good governance, such as President Andrew Jackson, to limit the power of large Corporations. 
Andrew Jackson took away the powers of the international bankers and was the last American President to see America's National Debt at ZERO.    

The U.S. came closest, with varying strong degrees of Free Market Capitalism, up to 1913. 
   
The U.S. set a world economic record for the fastest ever growth and for the increase in it's people's standard of living  - it went from almost nothing to the greatest power on Earth in a little over 130 years (from 1784, the end of the Revolutionary War).  
It took Rome over 500 years to do that. 
It took Britain around 700 years. 

Just because something is difficult to do, does not mean that we should not aim to get as close to it as possible. 
The benefits of the system of governance originally set up by the Founders are absolutely plain for all Americans to see. 
The Founders also warned on numerous occasions about how difficult it would be to actually set up and maintain the system of governance that they wanted to see. 

Since 1913 the U.S. has operated a system of increasingly monopolistic Corporate cartels and governance. 
It started with the inception of the Federal Reserve private bank which operates completely monopolistic and anti Free Market power over the money supply and interest rates. 

It started with the inception of the Income Tax, which was imposed to pay the interest on the debt to the international bankers, which the U.S. government was going to pay in the future on the massive amounts of debt it was going to be encouraged to rack up. 

The U.S. has now deteriorated to such an extent that large Corporations and extremely wealthy individuals and families now operate a series of monopolistic cartels in each major industry. 

The Federal government now increasingly operates a monopolistic position in governance, with the consequent lack of competition between the several States and consequent greater opportunities for large scale and widespread bribery and corruption, by those with wealth. 

The large Corporations have completely bought the Federal government with campaign contributions and other bribes and inducements. 

The Federal Reserve private bank is 50% owned by the Rothschild family.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the Rockefeller family own sizeable chunks. 
These entities operate complete monopolistic powers on the U.S. money supply and interest rates and almost complete global control with their control over the ECB, the Bank of England and nearly all other Central Banks.

Banking - 5 major US banks now control 80%+ of the U.S. banking industry. 

Arms companies. The top 20 suppliers to the US government are consistently making an average of 10% on sales. Name me another industry that manages that.

Oil. The big oil companies have had a decade of record profits, yet still receive sizeable government subsidies. End them.

Pharmaceuticals. America pays by far the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world. Lower the price or go generic earlier. Half the large drug companies are foreign owned and making huge profits on the backs of the American taxpayer.

Food Production - 3 major companies increasingly hold a monopoly position on U.S. food production, through their control of seeds, pesticides and fertilizers - Monsanto, Dow Chemical and Bayer.
Monsanto. The Monsanto protection act has just been passed by Congress - reverse it. Ban all ex Monsanto employees from working at the FDA. 

Healthcare (soon to be a cartel of a few large companies controlling most of the market with Obamacare). 

The merger of Corporate and State power is called Fascism. 
This is the system that now operates in America.

Free Market Capitalism operates on the principle of strong competition in the marketplace. 
It rewards innovation and efficiency improvements through profit generation as a result of competitive advantage. 
Free Market Capitalism requires the strong application of the Rule of Law on the powerful, to punish with deterrent penalties any harm that is done to others. 

Competition is always good - it gives the best product at the best price to the end consumer. 
Monopolies are always bad - they only benefits the monopolists. 

The United States set up the best system of government ever devised. 
It was a system of friendly competition between the "several States" who each had their own monetary, economic and social policies. 
This system of governance is now almost completely defunct in the United States. 
The Federal government now collects around 80% of all taxes and exerts well over 80% of the power and lawmaking in America. 

The Genius of the United States is DYING - if it is not already dead
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-case-against-barack-obama.html 

America is now increasingly :- 

Poor
Average wealth has steeply declined from 1st in 1980 to 17th now. The rate of decline is accelerating. 

Fascist 
With increasing power for crony Corporations

Oligarchic 
The remaining wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands 

Kleptocratic 
Where the wealth of the country is stolen from ordinary people and handed out to wealthy crony elites  

Corrupt 
All of the Federal government - the White House, Congress and the leadership of BOTH parties are now completely owned by large Corporations and wealthy elites 

Not subject to the Rule of Law 
Even on mainstream measures of the strength or otherwise of the application of the Rule of Law, America is rapidly slipping down the league tables and is now bettered by HONG KONG.  
The heinous and serious crimes of the Obama regime - the utter failure to uphold the Rule of Law 
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-heinous-and-serious-crimes-of-obama.html
Obama's Catalog of Civil Rights Abuses and preparations for massive civil unrest
http://ian56.blogspot.com/2012/11/obamas-civil-rights-violations.html

Socialist
With millions now dependent on some crumbs from the table - handouts and jobs from the Federal government  

Weaker economically 
It's relative economic decline is steep and accelerating 

Weaker militarily 
After draining it's strength and being defeated in a series of totally pointless and ill advised wars. 
Even though America spends more on the military than the Rest of the World added together and far more than it ever did before.

Weaker Strategically
America now has far fewer allies and friends than it did 10 or 15 years ago. 
China now has many more friends and allies than America.

The results of 30 years of fundamental mismanagement by the Federal government:-  

How Big Business and Big Government is Taking Over America and subjugating Americans 

http://ian56.blogspot.com/2013/10/all-of-policies-of-federal-government.html

America is now a million miles away from the system of governance envisioned by the Founders and which was so successful for well over 100 years. 

As per Macchiavelli and the Prince - "only the semblance and not the substance of the old Institutions remain".  

 

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