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Originally published September 6, 2003
They say timing is everything. This speech made to the National Farmers Union 81st convention on March 1, 1983. Could have been this morning. It's time for the American people to know why the economy is going downhill. It was going downhill in 1983 and it's still going downhill. Why? We once were strong - now we are not. Why? Eddie Albert knew the answer in 1983. I believe it is still true today. What do you think?
-- Willie Nelson
Entertainer Willie Nelson is the president of FarmAid. FarmAid 2008 was held on September 20th in Mansfield, Massachusetts and included performances by Willie, Arlo Guthrie, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Steve Earle. For more information about the concert including a webcast, go here. For more information about Willie's tours and news, go to www.willienelson.com.
* * * *
Eddie Albert
81st Annual Convention
National Farmers Union
San Diego, California
March 1, 1983
There was once a strong farm policy. It developed during the other depression -- the thirties.
A lot of thought went on to figure out what went wrong -- why, how, when and where.
Some of the thinkers wanted to prevent another depression. Others had in mind making money out of it.
There were some good farm programs proposed, but there were some strong forces lined up opposing their adoption.
Although in 1941 the depression still continued, there was a war coming on and there were a few intelligent congressmen who realized that if we were to win this war, we must have a strong economic base.
Early in 1942, the Banking and Currency Committee adopted the concept of "parity". Congress then passed the Steagall amendment, which provided for 100 percent parity for all raw materials and the amendment was attached to the "defense act of W.W. II".
Hitler had already done the same thing. Germany had been destitute and gearing up for war, Hitler established a fair price floor for all raw materials. Within a year, Germany was on the road to recovery.
Our recovery started in 1942, the year of the Steagall amendment, but the war got the credit.
From 1943 to 1952, we had the Steagall amendment and economic stability. Farm raw materials were supported at 100 percent of parity. It provided a steady flow of earned income to buy government bonds to finance the war and post-war conversion to peacetime.
There was a sound dollar, no inflation.
There was approximate full employment.
Now, these circumstances didn't just evolve as the natural consequences of "supply side" economics, or "demand side" economics. They evolved as the result of some careful thought by some very intelligent people which resulted in laws and regulations enacted by Congress and certain wartime powers delegated to the president of the United States.
They included the Steagall amendment, wage and price controls, the temporary abandonment of the gold standard and other measures, plus the dedication of a proud and loyal citizenry determined to win the war and also to win the peace. And they worked!
However, as I said, some folks didn't like this. They didn't like restriction on their actions, their investment return, the growing political power of farmers and their friendship with labor. That bothered them.
They are powerful people -- well organized.
After the war, in 1952, (the Steagall amendment) was allowed to expire after ten years of economic stability.
In 1953, the Farm Act of 1953 took its place with sliding parity, 60 to 90 percent. The bad guys won. You and I know which of those figures it's going to slide toward.
That was their first important step. What these folks had decided was they had to have ownership of the land. That would eliminate government interference and they knew something about making money during shortages.
The shortages in the 80's and 90's will be mainly in food. Ownership of the land is where the power lies - political and dollar power. Land is collateral. Ownership controls wages, surpluses. Ask the South American farmers. This has been true for centuries.
So their goal, very clearly, was to get hold of the land and they decided to do this by moving 2 million farmers off the land into the cities and replace them with a small number of super farms, corporate-owned, a few large family managed operations, and several million small farms, financed primarily by off-farm income.
These plans were spelled out in literally dozens of reports, policy recommendations and studies that are available in almost any land-grant college library or the Library of Congress.
And so, the Committee for Economic Development (CED) was born. Let me give you some actual quotes from its papers - its approach was:
"Removal of excess resources (farmers) to be utilized in other sectors of the economy, to generate greater returns on investments. (Excess resources -- farmers -- were measured by return on investment).
"The movement of people has not been fast enough to take full advantage of the opportunities that improving farm technologies, thus increasing capital, create". (You are not moving fast enough, they have a plan).
Their plan, which was called "the adaptive approach," was almost identical with Russia's first ‘five-year plan' of ‘28-33. We, too, were to move millions of farmers and ranchers into cities for the advantage of industry. Never mind the city problems!
"The adaptive approach utilizes positive government action to facilitate and promote the movement of labor and capital where they will be most productive and will earn the most income".
"The support of prices has deterred the movement out of agriculture."
And, how about this?
"If the farm labor force were to be, five years hence, no more than two-thirds as large as it's present size of approximately 5.5 millions, the program would involve moving off the farm about two million of the present labor force, plus a number equal to a large part of the new entrants, who would otherwise join the farm labor force in the five years."
There you go kids.
They recommended:
"The price supports for wheat, cotton, rice, feed, grains and related crops, new under price supports, be reduced immediately." (3 cents a lb. on rice, 22 cents a lb. on cotton...). Never mind the market, the demand, your costs.
"The importance of such price adjustments would discourage further commitments of new productive resources to those crops unless it appeared profitable at lower prices." Profitable at lower prices? Whose?
The corporate presidents and academics who make up the CED, recommended the elimination of one third of the farm population within five years by enforcing low parity pricing. As they stated, the primary benefits of their recommendations would be:
1. Increased return on corporate investment in agriculture.
2. Over two million farmers and families entering the urban labor pool, which would tend to depress wages.
3. Lower prices of agriculture products which would both increase foreign trade and provide cheaper raw materials for domestic food and fiber processors.
4. "...invest in projects that break up village life by drawing people to centers of employment away from the village...because village life is a major source of opposition to change. Where there are religious obstacles to modern economic progress, the religion may have to be taken seriously or its character altered."
Eight years later they issued a report:
"The desired result--one-third fewer farmers--was achieved."
Two million farmers were moved off their family farms-by suppressing supports--were moved into the cities to look for employment, housing, depress labor's wages, bankrupt some cities. Bankrupt their rural towns and communities, close their schools, over crowd the city schools, hospitals. Over 200 years to build the greatest nation in human history, and in only five years, shattering our delicate economic balance by tampering with the farm prices and bringing on our greatest, and most painful and dangerous depression.
Back to the report--
Their evaluation was that their analysis and recommendations were fundamentally correct and that the government had faithfully implemented their recommended policies.
"We do not mean to overlook the poverty that still persists among many small farmers and other rural Americans." One third of U.S. families are rural and 40 percent of these live in poverty.
"Farmers who can neither attain a decent standard of living nor find an adequate non-farm job represent a strong case for direct income support.....assistance to low income farmers should be contingent, not upon farm production or a presumption that low farm prices are the cause of an adequate income, but upon need.... we believe development of adequate federal welfare programs." Not a fair price for production, but welfare.
Although the strategies and tactics of the CED are carefully spelled out, it is never hinted until the very end what their underlying goals and motivations might be.
"A recurrence of agricultural instability must be kept in mind so as to maintain an atmosphere relatively free of the political pressures from farmers in the past."
Minimizing farmers' power was crucial to the corporations for several reasons.
Farmers had historically aligned themselves with trade unions and urban workers, including the formation of farmer-labor parties, which held political power in a dozen Midwest and southwest states. The men who developed these specific programs to accomplish the aims of lenders and large corporations were mostly hired economists who were then placed in the necessary positions of power within the government (USDA), to bring into being their recommended programs.
Now, do you still believe that your problems result from what the economists call "supply and demand" and that nothing can be done about the surplus but lower the price even further?
Why did I stress all raw materials, and especially farm income? Is there something different, something we haven't discussed?
Let me go back for a moment to those ten successful stable years of parity, from '43 to '52, and the Steagall amendment.
What did we learn from those ten years? What lessons?
An economist named Kuznets, later a Nobel Prize winner, noticed that there seemed to be six most important sectors that dominated our economy. They were:
1. Farm income
2. Wages
3. Interest income
4. Small businesses and professionals
5. Rentals
6. Corporations
Hubert Humphrey expressed it even shorter: "A 3 legged stool -- capital, raw materials and labor. Short change any one of those three legs and the stool falls over". He was talking of balance.
Go back to six sectors. Kuznets states that to provide a healthy economy, they, too must exist in a reasonably precise balance in relations to our national income. For example, (1) farm income, which they intended to suppress, should share in about six to 8 percent of our national income; (2) wages, labor, etc. 66 or 67 percent, (3) interest income 1.2 percent; (4) small business 10.5 percent; (5) rents 3.8 percent; (6) corporations 12.6 percent.
Those were roughly the shares of those sectors of our national income during our prosperous base period, ‘43 - ‘52.
For example, 40 years of statistics show that (1) if farm income falls one percent, then unemployment for labor rises one percent; and (2) if farm income rises one percent, then unemployment falls one percent. All six sectors are connected. Touch one and you affect the other five.
They intended to suppress farm income to achieve their plan. Now, to tamper with farm income, raw materials, is foolish and dangerous.
Unlike the other five sectors, farm products are "raw materials". Raw materials -- grain, oil, minerals, coal, timber, fish, etc., etc. -- they are the base of our economy, the foundation. When they are harvested, dug up, cut down, whatever, they are new wealth for our nation, something that did not exist before. In the case of farm products, they are new every year, are perishable, non-storable, are consumed every year - unlike metals, for example -- and farm products are 70 percent of all our raw materials.
I'm indebted for this information, by the way, to the Raw Materials National Council and the National Organization of Raw Materials........
Back to raw materials - grain, oil, iron ore, coal, minerals, cotton, wool, tobacco are raw materials.
As I said, new raw materials are the base of our new growth each year, our prosperity. A factory wheel does not turn until some fellow drives up in a truck, up to the factory door, unloads some raw materials, gets a receipt and drives off.
Only then can the processing start. Labor takes over; oil is turned into gasoline, plastics, fertilizer, energy. Grain is turned into bread and Twinkies. Iron ore into steel, steel into cars, planes, skyscrapers, concrete into highways and all into prosperity wages for consumers. And let us not forget that although nothing happens to the raw materials until labor gets her or his hands on it and starts the raw materials up the processing ladder.
The raw materials rise in value as they are improved, worked upon, transformed, creating jobs for labor, wages turning workers into consumers with money in their pockets, enabling them to buy the farmer's produce and surplus and enabling the farmer to have money to buy industry's production of tools, trucks, combines, etc.
Now, what is of equal importance and can not be exaggerated, these raw materials must have a price, not only a fair price to the producer, but a correct price, to carry out that balance correctly -- neither too high nor too low.
By the time those raw materials reach the top of the processing ladder, those base price dollars for the raw materials will multiply themselves five times, all the way up to contribute five-to-one to our nation's annual income and that raw material processing and national income figure represents our strength, our health, our wealth, our security, our livelihood, our democracy, our freedom, our civilization.
Another bit of good news. Raw materials multiply-five-to-one. But, agricultural raw materials multiply seven-to-one.
This is known as the "multiplier effect." It is known as the lever. I'll tell you why.
Let's say the base price is 3 dollars a bushel. Multiply that by 7. That's 21 dollars. But, you multiply 21 dollars by 12 billion bushels and you get 252 billion dollars.
That's serious money, but the lever works both ways.
Suppose the price is suppressed to $2. Two times 7 is only 14, not 21. 14 times 12 billion bushels equals 168 billion dollars. By dropping the farm price $1, we have robbed the national income, jobs, wages, and consumption by $84 billion in one harvest.
Farm production is 70 percent of raw materials and, unlike five sectors of the economy, multiples itself seven-to-one. You can't short change a lever like this without causing a depression. And, you don't forget, farmers have been short changed in the past 30 tears --$2, $3, $4 a bushel. Using the average figures from our ‘43-‘52 base as a yardstick, and nothing that the farm sector's 6.6 percent share at the national income in ‘43-'52 was purchased downward for 30 years until today - it is no longer 6.6 per cent but 8/10th of one percent, multiply that loss per bushel times seven times 12 billion bushels, times 30 years and you are talking very serious money, around $5 trillion -maybe more- lost forever to the people of the United States.
Imagine $5 trillion held back from the economic processing ladder, held back from creating jobs, wages, construction, consumption taxes, our world leadership actually - because a few clever fellows decided they would rip off the farmers.
If you start chopping away at the roots of a tree you have no right to be surprised when you see the leaves and branches whither and die, the roots are not fed and almost die.
They don't realize that 12 million workers are idle, out of jobs, because the farmer has not been getting enough money to buy the industrial tools those workers had been making. The plants were closed down and workers were put out on the street. Idle. Now the shoe is on the other foot. Those 12 million idle, hungry American workers have no money to buy the farmer's food--his grain, bread, cereals, corn, and beef-- so the farmer has a surplus.
Debt. Easy credit. Land prices going up. Remember "get big or get out? Remember Butz? Open up marginal land. Seventy million acres. Plant fence row to fence row. Right up to the doorstop, debt.
After 30 years of this, our public and private debt over $6 trillion. Who knows? Some say over $11 trillion. What's the annual interest on that? How, who will pay it? Our national deficit this year around $200 billion, and growing. And next year, worse.
Two hundred billion dollars is your farm loan this year. Interest, say $20 billion. But did I hear correctly? Your income is around 19 billion.
Six trillion; 11 trillion. Nobody seems to know. A debt has to be paid and will be paid, either by the borrowers or the lenders or the taxpayers.
Who pays it? My new granddaughter? Yours? Our great grandchildren? Our great, great, great grandchildren? How?
What have we done with this rich continent that god gave us, free? These beautiful United States of America. What have we done?
What are we going to do?
Thank you.
70 Comments so far
Show AllOk, let's understand this article in terms of todays food crisis and the recent farm bill.
The basic policies for the Commodity Title of the Farm Bill that are described here are now led by the National Family Farm Organization, nffc.org., and their member organizations. They include* price floors with supply management and price ceilings with commodity reserves. When these policies are adequately implemented, no farm subsidies are needed, because the huge corporations (exporters, food and feed mills, processors including ethanol, animal factories and feedlots in the U.S. and in foreign countries) and other grain buyers pay full price for U.S. and world commodities. Today the push is for international implemenation, including international supply management as the Africa Group has called for at WTO. (Search "Africa Group" and iatp)
NFFC works closely with Via Campesina for world implementation. See also the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Price Floors and Supply Management continued to be weakened (lowered) post 1983 and were ended in 1996 with the "free market" Freedom to Farm (1996 Farm Bill), in the Republican "Contract for America."
Democrats were leading advocates for these policies* in the 1980s and 1990s, specifically, the Harkin-Gephardt farm bill. But when Iowa Senator Harkin became Senate Ag Chair in 2002, he changed over to a greened up "Freedom to Farm" approach, like we had in 2002 and again 2008. So did other leading farm state Democrats, including Daschle and Wellstone. The main "green" part, the Conservation Security Program entitlement (green subsidies with no price floors), was then gutted way way down in scope and funding by Bush. Probably the Democratic reversal was so Harkin could more assuredly sponsor something winnable.
During Harkin-Gephardt (80s, 90s) Democratic Presidential candidates mostly supported the policies* of this article and NFFC, for example, during the long Iowa caucus process.
Following Harkin's reversal, most Democratic Candidates have followed a green "Freedom to Farm" approach (subsidies to compensate farmers for below cost sales to processors, animal factories, and to foreign exports, instead of price floors). This includes Obama. He didn't go against Harkin, though he demonstrated in Iowa that in his farm bill listening he became aware of this issue. He told me after I hammered him during a Q & A, "but a price in the marketplace is what farmers really need." Kucinich knows all about this and can be very good on it, but wouldn't introduce NFFC's bill and showed little leadership in Iowa. Nader used to hire Al Krebs (search him!) and knows all about this issue, but I don't see it mentioned at his campaign site. Iowa Greens had strong support for* price floors, supply management, price ceilings and grain reserves in about 2003, but I see no awareness of these policies on Green web sites nationally, including McKinney. But McKinney was on the House ag committee prior to 1996 when price floors and supply management still existed (but were set way too low), so she should know about them.
The article is about true antidumping policies*, to stop exporting at below cost and destroying farming economies worldwide where most of the world's poor live. See IATP online, U.S. Dumping on World Agriculture Markets: February 2004 Update. Also, 1981-2006 for most covered farm commodities, U.S. farmers lost money vs full costs nearly every year on nearly every "program" commodity (ie. corn, rice, cotton, wheat, barley, oats, sorghum grain, and soybeans, excluding compensatory subsidies, according to USDA-ERS). The U.S. lost hundreds of billions on farm exports in 2008 dollars. The online National Farmers Union November 2005 newsletter shows that as of September 2005, specific parity ratios were: corn 25%, cotton and rice, 26%, Sorghum Grain and Peanuts, 27%, Soybeans and Wheat 32%. So by this standard, for "fair trade" "living wage" prices, farmers needed fourfold or three fold increases, you know, to end all this garbage of living on $3 or $4 per day. We then got that from one of the historically infrequent free market spikes. Corn hit $7 one day here locally, then dropped by a third over two months, then rose back some.
The food crisis was caused long term by the dumping on the world's farmers, as in the lowering of price floors and farm prices this article. The world's poor couldn't even afford 25% parity commodities. Fair prices help long term (if they last), except that decades of devastatingly low prices are very hard to overcome. But then fair food prices put even more of the world's poor into malnourishment and starvation. But the solution is NOT to again dump on the world's farmers (in the local economies of these starving people) and make them subsidize the solution with below cost sales. We must feed the poor, all of them, and pay fair trade prices while doing so.
Most progressives advocated for "greened" and "reformed" Republican Freedom to Farm type policies in the 2007, 2008 farm bill process. They did not go with Willie, Eddie Albert and NFFC, as in this article. They didn't understand the issue. This includes much of the Sustainable Agriculture community, environmentalists, (especially Environmental Working Group,) mainline church justice staff (which were on board on price floors when Harkin was) and hunger orgs like Oxfam and Bread for the World. In contrast see the members of NFFC, including African American farmers at the Federation of Southern Land Cooperatives: Land Assistance Fund.
Farm Bureau and conventional commodity groups (ASoybeanA, NCornGA, NPorkPC) led the decline. National Farmers Union has followed Harkin in switching sides. However, the American Corn Growers Association belongs to NFFC and testified for price floors, reserves, etc. (and for Global Farmer, for the world).
McCain: I forgot to mention that McCain's (and Bush's) approach to farm policy is not like that in the Nelson/Albert article. He (and Bush) favors no price floors or supply management to address dumping and no price ceilings or strategic reserves to address the food crisis, as far as the commodity title of the farm bill.
My wife and I are involved with cotton farming in west Texas; we contract out land to farmers and work out arrangements. We live in central Texas (Austin). Third generation to do that. We're not considered very large farmers; four farms of about 500 to 600 acres each.
Perhaps my thoughts are simplified way of looking at the situation. Here it goes: Farm subsidy was result of war and now we're not at war (global, that is). I've often wondered why don't USA change the subsidy procedures to match the challenges of the world farming (as opposed to war). Like Willie, I am staunch supporter of small farmers. So why not USA divide subsidy into two types of subsidy. One subsidy that will apply to all farmers, big or small, where it will match the other country's subsidizing their farmers (don't ask me what the formula is, I leave that to the "experts"). The subsidy will not be significant amount, but enough to help USA farmers. This would help elvate USA farmers bit on more competitive level at the world level.
The second subsidy will focus on the small farmers. I leave to the experts to define what is "small" farmers. This type of subsidy be limited to small farmers, and not to the large corporation/mega sized farmers who can make money out of sheer volume of production. This subsidy would encourage further developments of small farmers and be competitive with mega/corp owned farmers. The subsidy for that should be comfortable where the farmers in time can become more competitive.
I realize that there are lot of other factors as several comments clearly bear that out such as crop insurance, etc. so this is just a partial suggestion.
Thanks for listening...
Ed B
Bring America Back !!!!
****YOU SING IT, WILLIE !!!! YOU MAY CALL THEM NEO-NAZI'S !!
THEY ARE THE SAME FASCISTS WHO BROUGHT US THE 'SHOCK & AWE' IN IRAQ !!
NOW THEY LAUNCH AN ALL OUT ATTACK ON OUR POCKET-BOOKS AND FEAR ATTACKS
ON OUR WAY OF LIFE !!!
NANCY PELOSI JUST SITS THERE AND SMILES ABOUT NO IMPEACHMENT !!!!
HOW MUCH CLEARER CAN IT BE NOW THAT THE ENEMY HAS ALWAYS BEEN WITHIN !!!
Hey, Willie Nelson, what a blast from the past! Perhaps it was a past that was valuable not like now when many folk would think about selling their kids for a few dollars.
How the world has changed. We're evolving backwards, becoming more primitive, more brutal, more selfish. I think I'll buy a club and learn to grunt!
I saw Bush on television. I thought it was the monkey cage at the zoo. What a fool. Why they haven't put him down beats me.
It's time to changed the social, economic and political paradigm.
P.S. Check my blog for details.
www.dangerouscreation.com
I expect Bush is going to threaten Obama with the need for him to declare Marshall Law if the $700 Million Bush is asking for isn't FREE. I hope Obama holds to what he has said. If the RIGHT WING EXTREME wants this much money, the owners of the institutions and corporations that have a need for this money, must borrow the money from the government and then have to pay it back to the government with interest. There is no other way that is responsible. Just like a poor college student would have to do.
Sigh, so many conspiracy theories, so little time.
Sigh... Willy's lying: "From 1943 to 1952, we had the Steagall amendment and economic stability. Farm raw materials were supported at 100 percent of parity. It provided a steady flow of earned income to buy government bonds to finance the war and post-war conversion to peacetime.
THERE WAS A SOUND DOLLAR, NO INFLATION "
Inflation during this period was 54%, in the nine years from 1998 to the present, inflation was HALF that, 27%.
But, hey, what do facts have to do with it?
In fact, as you can also easily see above, the speech was made in 1983, following a period of high inflation. It was not made with reference to 1998 to the present.
Ah...Mr liar is back. Sorry Mr Liar, but Mr Nelson wasn't giving that speech. Mr Green Acres did, as you'd known if you bothered to read.
"Treasury Sec. Hank Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan now has a name: the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But even as Capitol Hill debates TARP, few seem to have noticed the proposal item that puts taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts. It's in Section 6, and the key phrase is this: 'The Secretary's authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to $700,000,000,000 outstanding at any one time.'"
http://www.truthout.org/092308A
Capitalism Needs Regulation -- NOT FREE MONEY
The dream of capitalists, bankers, insurers and aristocrats is to have an irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated so called free market economy. An irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated so called free market economy rides on the backs of the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population of working people, ordinary Americans, like parasites, being supported by, but weighting down the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population of working people, ordinary Americans until the weight from the exorbitant greed of the 10% free market economy of capitalists, bankers, insurers and aristocrats weigh down the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population of working people, ordinary Americans with Federal restrictions, TAXES, LOW WAGES, fees and charges until the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population of working people, ordinary Americans are no longer able to support the irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated so called free market economy; and their irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated free market economy collapses; as has been happening; then the irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated free market economy's leaders whine to borrow FOREIGN MONEY to rescue themselves and further borrowing against the 70% majority "vile, vulgar and mean" common population, ordinary Americans descendants to even rescue foreign capitalists, after having exhausted our country's resources; whining their way into being rescued from the consequences of their own irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated and corrupt actions, which further extends the length of carrying time and the burden of weight on the backs of the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population, the working people, ordinary Americans who must not ultimately be duped into carrying the load of the 10% capitalists, bankers, insurers and aristocratic corruption, as has been in the past, as ordinary Americans are the base and only support structure for the economy to recover. When the 10% capitalists, bankers, insurers and aristocrats are allowed to make off with their "fire sale" haul without being accountable it will only breed more greed; and printing more money will only inflate the economy making it even more difficult for the 70% "vile, vulgar and mean" common population of working people, ordinary Americans. Make them borrow the money like anyone else, and repay like anyone else, then, in time, after the economy finally recovers, the whole dumb show of the capitalists, bankers, insurers and aristocrats irresponsible, unaccountable, deregulated so called free market economy corruption won't start all over again, because they were made to take responsibility for their actions. Capitalism doesn't have to be made to take advantage of the 70% majority "vile, vulgar and mean" common population, the ordinary Americans. Capitalism can and must be regulated.
Wild capitalism is institutionalized greed, supported by socialism when the cyclical collapse of the trough occurs from the feeding frenzy of the hogs at the trough; the liberal communal resources of socialism are always used to rebuild the infrastructure of the conservatives' trough, and, again, the whole dumb show starts all over again, but it must not be allowed again this time.
As of today, 9/23/08, the national debt is $9.8 trillion:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
Willie was referring to public and private debt which is now 53 trillion.
Also, using corporate accounting methods, the US Federal Government is -50 trillion in the hole, which includes our accrued liabilities.
Our financial system is entirely debt driven. Our debt is the bankers asset. Money at one time was backed up by something of value, now it is just a liability of the bankers. They profit from interest. Your taxes are to ensure the government can pay the interest on it's debt. They never have to pay back the principal like private debtors. If there is no debt, there is no money under our current system. Debt creates money by a multiple of 11 (in fact it is actually 33 times for reasons too complex to discuss here), due to fractional reserve banking.
Now when people can not pay back their debt, the banks assets get reduced on paper, so they seize your hard assets. If a nation does not pay back their debt, they get invaded.
Go back to France in 1788 they defaulted on their debt, which accumulated due to the many wars they fought over the previous 200 years. This led to the French Revolution and an invasion by Prussia and Austria. Today, 3rd world nations just get their economy attacked until they sell off their resources or open markets, or have a revolution led by the elite who seek to impose a puppet regime.
This is what will happen to America.
Re-slice the pie
Re-slice the pie.
Pleasure-nests need towers high.
Re-slice the pie.
Inequality is terrorists why.
Re-slice the pie.
It’s people rule that needs to fly.
Re-slice the pie
It’s Corporate rule that needs to die.
Re-slice the pie
Security ain’t missiles perched to fly
Re-slice the pie.
While a sweat shop of 3 billion try
to feed our (pie eyed) plunder.
Re-slice the pie
The beacon of the free world ain’t Abuh Ghraib
Re-slice the pie
Do we really need eternal wars .
so a few can live real high?
Re-slice the pie
Our space-ship home don’t need to die
"John McCain has, in consultation with Cheney and Paulson et al., used the pretext of a national emergency to suspend his campaign."
McCain is obviously terrified of debating Obama, of being rhetorically wiped out like a small Afghan village by an American airstrike. He is a political coward, which is no surprise given the vileness of his so-called campaign and cynicism of a pimp in his acceptance of Palin who was obviously chosen by Cheesedick Cheney and Co. who want to pass intact their Gestapo operation on to her so the gun toting redneck peckerwoods can continue to pick all our pockets and kill our youth in yet more wars against the hated fuzzy wuzzies. We are currently buried up to our noses in a vile pool of Republican vomit and excrement and yet the polls are still even. And there is no place to hide.
I'm afraid that vomit and excrement is the result of both dems and repubs drinking too much of the same corporate, free-market kool-aid.
John McCain has, in consultation with Cheney and Paulson et al., used the pretext of a national emergency to suspend his campaign. Bush will read their statement to the nation tonight. This is what coups look like in their early stages. This is how bourgeois democracies are tipped to fascist dictatorships.
The ruling class has crossed the Rubicon here. How can they go back now and say ok let's debate, let's vote? Even Obama presented them with too great a threat. No elections will be held. The struggle will take on a different character from here. Resistance!
IT'S ALL ABOUT GREED AND THE LOVE OF MONEY http://www.wisecountyissues.com
Being President would be a come-down for you Willie; would you run anyway?
Before you read my post please read this and ask yourself is it true that God gave us this land for free?
The following is taken from "History of The United States" By William M. Davidson, Chicago Scott, Foresman and CO. 1902.
Some readers may find the following very disturbing as we turn the pages of history back, back, back, back.
pg. 62, section 54. "Present Government Policy: Allotment Act: The Indian's Future.- The government has tried many experiments and plans in dealing with the Indian-some good, some bad. No Congress of the United States has ever convened without passing some "Indian legislation" and making an appropriation. There are those who insist that, after a century of dealing with the problem, "the United States has failed with the Indian." However, this failure is only an apparent one. The government is now rapidly abandoning it's reservation system and substituting therefor the present Indian policy of the republic-"To fit the Indian for civilization and to absorb him into it." The education of the Indian youth on one hand, and the allotment of homesteads to their elders on the other, are silently working their way. The allotment Act passed by Congress in 1887 has sealed the doom of the reservation policy. It is breaking up the tribe as a social and political unit and placing in its stead the family-with it's father, mother, and children constituting an Indian home-upon which a civilization can be built. In a few years, under this policy, the tribal authority will become extinct and thousands of industrious Indian households will be absorbed into the citizenship of the republic."
Now just do some simple substitution using Willies facts above. Replace Indian with farmer and village with farm etc.
You see this land was taken, and it's people displaced, but then it was taken again from the new people and they were displaced. Some may say this is divine justice, I don't know but it is certainly ironic.
Now if you want to read my post as follows regarding the "bail out" swindle, please do.
When an individual in our society is teetering on financial collapse, they must go through a process that is long and may lead to their ultimate collapse. It's a form of due process in reverse to ensure that that person is deserving of the help and not trying to defraud the system.
No institution should be put above individuals in their treatment and these companies that are crashing with the weight of their fraud need an especially long and glaring process of consideration to determine if the help that two individuals representing their ranks demand will be an action of bail out, or burn out. The desires that welfare goldmine be given to their own kind to save the world are burning strong, but to prevent total burn out by feeding that desire, the necessary question is what 'help' is needed to save the world from their kind?
This is where a congress, using their power, would circumscribe the corporate bail out demand, to keep it from being a congressional endorsement of total burn out.
This is where a congress would do their sworn duty, which is not to be a bunch of angry cinder bearers cleaning up the ashes of the fire of vanity, greed and depravity, but water bearers, carrying the only antidote to the path of hell America is being driven down.
This circumscription will take time to enact because of a failure to act prudently in the past which has led to an out and out fraudulent burning of epidemic proportions. The consequence of that necessary time will not ever be the dire threat that the Bush administration evidences that we believe, but a rush to do his bidding will pave the way to further guarantees of putting democracy in a dire and precarious position from which extraction will only get more costly. The inherent danger of this continued erosion of our foundations is one that cannot yet be envisioned.
Yes this situation is dire, but it is the threat of democracy that bears consideration not the threat of money markets.
And one simple question may be asked to clear up all confusion that the stench of greed is causing. Do we want wealth in corruption, or wealth in democracy which is the soul of America? America is indeed being tested on the mount of modern day morality and redemption.
The words of Mark 8:36 have never had greater meaning in our time. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and looses his own soul?"
What will it profit America to profit and loose their own soul?
Maybe that's why GOD has been PUNISHING the USA by not letting it find peace within itself all these generations. I say let the system COLLAPSE.
The system of greed must collapse for a system of justice to rise in the cleared out place.
God hasn't been punishing the people who are raping our country, and let me tell you I wish he/she would !
morality finds it's roots in a wish
Leea,
Excellent post. A 'comment' masterpiece. Congratulations!
.... thank you DogLeg, much appreciated.
Excellent recap of the Shock Doctrine's roots. The 1950s corporatist's inheritors are trying to do the same today. Write and/or call your reps to demand NO BAILOUT--NOT ONE PENNY. The election's in about 6 weeks. Your vote is your leverage--USE IT!!!
This speech by Eddie Albert.... Is it the same Eddie Albert as in "Green Acres"?
Yes, he is the same one. To save time I have pasted a Wikipedia entry regarding Eddie Albert's activism:
Albert was an outspoken environmental and humanitarian activist, supporting issues such as creating of gardens in inner cities. He was one of the first people to call for a ban on the pesticide DDT. In 1969, he and his son (Edward Albert) sailed to Anacapa Island off the coast of California to examine the effects of DDT on the pelican population.
Albert helped to launch the first Earth Day in 1970, which was designated on April 22 partly in honor of his birthday. He was also a special consultant at the World Hunger Conference in Rome in 1974 and a director to the U.S. Commission on Refugees.
HEMP!!! hemp would kick oil and coal and nuclear ass all together with one hand tied behind its back! GO HEMP!
hemp for victory link-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne9UF-pFhJY
You know, I am not a farmer and am pretty far from being a country boy but I remember reading an article in an educational journal some time back that told a story about Archer Daniels Midland offering scholarships to kids of farmers. Full ride scholarships that seem only to guarantee the kids would do two things:
1.) get a formal education
2.) never go back to the farm
ADM wrapped it all up as their being so attached to the farmers, wanting to assure 'our' future together and all the rest of the deceit of a PR firm.
It struck me then that this was a cheap way for corporate farming to free up a lot of farms by placing a serious wedge between mom, dad and kids in a really perverted way. After reading this article, I am sure that was their goal. How vile. How sad.
Thank you Willie Nelson. The same scenario is playing out all over the world.
The "profit margin" is human lives.
Ironically, Milton Friedman who's neoconservative theory is responsible for the current economic mess as well as for Pinochet, Suharto and millions of deaths, was in favor of marijuana legalization.
Growing MJ could have helped us greatly. Hemp oil for energy, hemp seed for nutritious food, hemp fiber for the best acid-free paper, for the strongest, finest natural cloth, for building materials, hemp resin for natural composites, cannabinols for medicine and entertainment and so on. All grown organically, without the need for chemicals.
That's why George Washington urged us all to grow it. That's why Thomas Jefferson grew it on his farm. That's why we have neurological MJ receptors.
The first American Flag was made of hemp.
Conservatives keep MJ illegal. After all the death and destruction they have caused worldwide, maybe conservatives should be made illegal.
I have heard a libertarian defined as a rich white conservative man who likes to smoke pot.
Joe
Why do you start with the word "ironically"?
You seem to be stereotyping people. You put the label "neoconservative" on him, then you extrapolate from that what you expect his ideas to be in other areas. Then you seem amazed when you find his real ideas don't fit your preconceptions.
Easy problem to fix. Get rid of the preconceptions and stop thinking in stereotypes.
----------------------------
"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
'Samson,'
'Friedman' was not a 'neocon' in the sense of Cheney, Rumsfeld etc. Bush isn't in their definition. Puppets are puppets, that's why they are puppets...
"Then you seem amazed when you find his real ideas don't fit your preconceptions." Are you an advocate of 'Friedman' economics? If ezeflyer's knowledge doesn't correlate with yours, how is that a preconception? Irony is derived from perception which is derived from where you stand and view.
'Friedman's' economic theories were shunted with good reason. He was preoccupied with being Ayn Rand's voicebox in academia. A rare event when a Doctorate in Economics prefers the philosophy of a fiction writer for his economic philosophy. I notice no John Steinbeck economic movements.
I wonder who got old 'Friedman' to start smoking dope?! Laugh meter sign goes on.
Besides, who cares if he did or did not? He was still a turd.
"The first American Flag was made of hemp."
Very interesting. I didn't know that.
"maybe conservatives should be made illegal."
We'd miss them if they were gone, they serve a very useful purpose just as liberals do. Just as the few communists and socialists do.
"[Conservatives] serve a very useful purpose"
Villages work best if there is no more than one idiot.
So you are saying Leftists are idiots?
Those "conservatives" are not really conservative. They're just radicals cloaking the word. Besides, true conservatives would preserve a good status quo and not let a bad one get worse unlike today's faux "conservatives".
"there is no such thing as left or right, Conservative or Liberal - all good Americans stand opposed to this bailout together, people from all labels. Those labels just exist to divide us. They exist to get us to support policies we don't agree with. "Conservative" economics was just a "voodoo" ponzi scheme. It used the label "conservative" to attract people, to get people behind it. There are no real labels for things, other than good, bad, right or wrong."
- Thomas Bico - http://www.moderateindependent.com/v6iSEPT242008bailoutupdate.htm
Nice post Frederick.
The people who created this crisis and behind the bail out are a bunch of miscreants against democracy.
This article is a prime example of how "private tyrranies" the CED, with the help of "our" representatives, manipulate the political process for private gain. All the while claiming that their actions are beneficial to "America" while in reality we missed a multi-trillion dollar opportunity to build wealth for all of us.
Because wealth will always and forever "game a system" we will never have true economic or social justice until capitalism is disavowed as the system that frees a few while repressing the many.
Wonder if our main debt carriers, like China and Japan, have hired collection agencies that call the White House three times a day demanding payment and/or offering payment plan options? Cause God knows they won't leave me the f**k alone for the paltry $60K I owe...
Willie, Just a plain old thank you, thank you for being you and thank you for being a true patriot!!! I forgot to mention a thank you for many hours of enjoyment of your music.
Kudos to that.
Of course the capitalists' designs to move farmers off the land and into the industral cities conflicted with their globalism designs to send industrial production overseas. The result has been a highly dysfunctional set of economic options for Americans: Either you become foot soldiers for the marketing rackets, subsist on marginal service incomes, or you live in poverty.
We progressives are changing this. We're obliterating the marketing rackets. We're demanding land, water and food rights, healthcare, education and shelter rights for all, strict limits on asset ownership and enterprise size (ten man-powers) (this effectively implements localism), full costs in retail prices, closed cycle production (recycling of everything), and full-tilt civics education, civic responsibility for all. The future is VERY bright for the left, for the people. Not very bright at all for the right, the elites.
Well when you dream you dream big huh?
"enterprise size (ten man-powers) (this effectively implements localism)"
Ten Man Powers? You must not understand how things work.
Most of the left, the "people" as you put it, have sided with the right, so in that way you are right, their future is bright, as long as they really are from the right, the elites.
Its good to see there is hope still out there though...
" I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country....corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
--Abraham Lincoln
Sioux Rose
Thank you Willie Nelson, I admire you for your musical gifts and commitment to human beings! I've never seen the numbers spelled out this way before. Certainly also explains why the same "treatment" applied to Mexico's heritage of subistence farmers has led to their risking life and limb to cross the border to this "rich" nation in search of whatever labors they can find. The masters of the financial game have really made life unnecessarily difficult for so many. Let's hope there are a few leaders of conscience who recognize the wisdom of the Steagall-Glass Act and put it back into high gear!
I wonder if the Million dollar bill I will have to use to buy a loaf of bread in the near future, will have George Bush's picture on it?
His picture will be on a file downloaded into the micro-chip permanently imbedded in your neck. When ever you need another dose of Dear Leader you will see a flashing of his image in your brain.
PS. Have you seen Fat Freddy's Cat anywhere lately? Jajaja
And please, no "even a blind squirrel will find an acorn in a snowstorm occasionally" comments...
Now for all you guys that keep stereotyping Texans and using the tired old cliche's.......lets see you disagree with this! Ignorant old red neck is he? HA!
To mas!
I wasn't sure you had a sense of humor.
WILLIE NELSON FOR PRESIDENT IN 2012 !!!!
There are many good progressive people in Texas like Willie Nelson and Jim Hightower. Sadly texans seemed to like putting clowns like Bush and Perry in power. And then you wonder why Texans are stereotyped.
Repeat
In what other state in recent history did the Democrats in the state Legislature leave the state to position and prevent vote on an issue of disagreement. And that was pushed until the Governor was preparing to have them arrested?
Texas Dems!
I remember it generally like that. Was I far Off?
In what other state in recent history did the Democrats in the state Legislature leave the state to position and prevent vote on an issue of disagreement. And that was pushed until the Governor was preparing to have them arrested?
Texas Dems!
I remember it generally like that. Was I far Off?
On the money!
I can't argue with that. Bush was bad enough, Perry isn't even as sneaky as Bush was.
Point taken. We'll see if we can't correct that in the future. Perry won't be reelected I guarantee you.
The hemp fanatics have struck once again. It sure gets tiresome listening to them spout.
Here, take a hit of this shit, dude.
rofl !
Lots of people do just fine, drinking the enjoyable glass of wine. Many people stay on point, savoring the occasional evening __________.
The "drug wars" are an immense waste of time and money. We pay with taxpayer money that is spent to hunt down, prosecute and jail small time drug users. That money and effort could be better spent on rehab of those whose drug and alcohol habits have become destructive. It could also be spent on non-chemical ways to reduce stress, like swimming pools and hiking trips for kids, parenting groups for overtaxed parents. Choirs and playing music are wonderful for creating natural highs. Also on giving those recovering from trauma, such as vets, supportive services.
The worst drug pushers, who arguably cause the most harm, are to be found in big pharma.
Joe
Excellent Post!!
Man created alcohol. God created hemp. In who or what will you trust in? I choose one of God's kindest creations, hemp. From medicine to the sails of ships..
All praises Willie Nelson. He is so humble, he did not even mention Bio Willie fuel. Readers may visit:
http://www.biowillieusa.com/
Saving the planet starts at home.
It also gets tiresome listening to the Drug Warriors who believe people should be jailed for a plant that the Lord made, while alcohol flows freely.
Willie my man ! You're awesome but you forgot to mention the 70+ year ban on HEMP that could have saved this country from the fall it's getting into ! Hemp can replace fossil fuels and nuclear 100% from manufacturing to fuel ! Let's shut down the phony "war on drugs" and get more people to join Ron Paul's braveheart attempt to TEAR DOWN THIS RIGGED MARKET WALL and LET HEMP COMPETE WITH PETROLEUM AND KICK ITS ASS ! NO MORE WARS FOR OIL !
You have just listed the reasons that hemp has been kept illegal by our corporation-dominated government.
q
That's why I'm known as a mix of being green and being libertarian. Government must be DISMANTLED and rebuilt as Willie Nelson's article clearly shows.