Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
I wish someone would explain to me...
How U.S. District Judge R. Barclay Surrick, when dismissing the case against Barak Obama requesting to have is birth records released, 'ruled that (Phillip) Berg lacked standing to bring the case, saying any harm from an allegedly ineligible candidate was "too vague and its effects too attenuated to confer standing on any and all voters?"'
What?
Now, as I'm sure the Obama campaign would agree, I don't really think this is the type of thing we should be discussing a week before the election. There are many more pressing issues to consider. However, I am offended by the implication that any voter lacks standing to question the eligibility of any candidate. The arrogance of the judge offends me at my core. The arrogance of the Obama campaign offends me more.
Do I believe Obama is a natural born citizen? Yes. Do I believe his actions are above suspicion? No.
Why is this even an issue? Give up the documents, prove you are who you say you are and be done with it. And while you are at it, release your school records. What do you have to hide? The unknown is making me ill.
We are about to elect a president whose actions indicate he believes he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. He refuses to sit for tough interviews. Whats worse, his gestapo threatens anyone who asks tough questions. (See Joe the plumber.)
John McCain is far from perfect. But with John, at least I feel like I know what I am getting.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
What?
Now, as I'm sure the Obama campaign would agree, I don't really think this is the type of thing we should be discussing a week before the election. There are many more pressing issues to consider. However, I am offended by the implication that any voter lacks standing to question the eligibility of any candidate. The arrogance of the judge offends me at my core. The arrogance of the Obama campaign offends me more.
Do I believe Obama is a natural born citizen? Yes. Do I believe his actions are above suspicion? No.
Why is this even an issue? Give up the documents, prove you are who you say you are and be done with it. And while you are at it, release your school records. What do you have to hide? The unknown is making me ill.
We are about to elect a president whose actions indicate he believes he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. He refuses to sit for tough interviews. Whats worse, his gestapo threatens anyone who asks tough questions. (See Joe the plumber.)
John McCain is far from perfect. But with John, at least I feel like I know what I am getting.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Friday, October 24, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
John Stossel gets it...
I have not always been a fan of John Stossel. In fact it wasn't until a good friend of mine lent (although I still have it) me his book "Give Me A Break" that I started to respect his views.
Prior to reading this book, I thought of him as a reporter version of the ambulance chaser. However this book is probably the single most influential reason why this blog is being written tonight. There was one section that really put things into perspective for me. This section was titled "Government Always Grows" and in this section Stossel points out that when America began government only cost $20 (in today's dollars) for every citizen.
Do you have any idea how much the federal government costs to run now? $100? $500? $1000? $2500? $5000?
No, none of the above? When his book was written in 2003, the federal government cost over $10,000 for every citizen to run. Are you kidding me? How is this even possible? It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Are YOU ready to get sick now?
Based on the FY 2009 estimated budget of $2.7 trillion and a 2007 estimate of 138 million taxpayers (including those who pay no tax), each citizen will carry an average tax burden of nearly $20,000. To make things worse. This is just the federal budget I am speaking of, we haven't paid for state and local governments yet!
Does anyone else find this rediculous?
What is worse, now we are just over two weeks away from electing a Socialist who is looking to further grow government and increase the tax burden on the US. I frankly don't care who he is planning on taxing, if he is incapable of paying for the programs he feels are needed, with the money they are already stealing from us, well then, I guess he is not nearly as smart and as gifted as many of you would like to believe.
Now that I have depressed you, and myself, let me recommend another John Stossel production from last Friday night on 20/20. You can find it at http://abcnews.go.com/2020 under "John Stossel's Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics."
If anyone could still feel like our government is looking out for us after watching this I feel sorry for that person. Our politicians have stacked the deck against you and me my friends. They think we are stupid and wont catch on.
If we decide to stand idly by and do nothing shame on us. I beg you, please, go to the polls in two weeks and one day and do two things...
1) Vote against all incumbents.
2) Vote against socialism. Vote against Barak Obama.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Prior to reading this book, I thought of him as a reporter version of the ambulance chaser. However this book is probably the single most influential reason why this blog is being written tonight. There was one section that really put things into perspective for me. This section was titled "Government Always Grows" and in this section Stossel points out that when America began government only cost $20 (in today's dollars) for every citizen.
Do you have any idea how much the federal government costs to run now? $100? $500? $1000? $2500? $5000?
No, none of the above? When his book was written in 2003, the federal government cost over $10,000 for every citizen to run. Are you kidding me? How is this even possible? It makes me sick just thinking about it.
Are YOU ready to get sick now?
Based on the FY 2009 estimated budget of $2.7 trillion and a 2007 estimate of 138 million taxpayers (including those who pay no tax), each citizen will carry an average tax burden of nearly $20,000. To make things worse. This is just the federal budget I am speaking of, we haven't paid for state and local governments yet!
Does anyone else find this rediculous?
What is worse, now we are just over two weeks away from electing a Socialist who is looking to further grow government and increase the tax burden on the US. I frankly don't care who he is planning on taxing, if he is incapable of paying for the programs he feels are needed, with the money they are already stealing from us, well then, I guess he is not nearly as smart and as gifted as many of you would like to believe.
Now that I have depressed you, and myself, let me recommend another John Stossel production from last Friday night on 20/20. You can find it at http://abcnews.go.com/2020 under "John Stossel's Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics."
If anyone could still feel like our government is looking out for us after watching this I feel sorry for that person. Our politicians have stacked the deck against you and me my friends. They think we are stupid and wont catch on.
If we decide to stand idly by and do nothing shame on us. I beg you, please, go to the polls in two weeks and one day and do two things...
1) Vote against all incumbents.
2) Vote against socialism. Vote against Barak Obama.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I have a purpose...
When I bought the domain name www.exchangeyourgovernment.com my motivation was to just get some frustrations out by getting my thoughts out in cyberspace and to see if there were others who shared my concerns. Since early August, just 10 short weeks ago, I have gotten my answer. Not only has the world and our economy changed since then, my opinion of our electorate has changed too.
I believed our voters were just lazy and apathetic. Why else would we continue to nominate and elect the wrong people? Though I believe there is a level of apathy out there far beyond what we should accept, in general it is not apathy but frustration our voters are feeling. More over, over the past 10 weeks, I have seen that frustration turn to anger.
Frankly, I love it. Now what can we do collectively to harness this anger and put it to good use?
I believe strongly that we need to create a third party. This party will not be named. This party will not have any "members." This party will only have one focus. This party will only have two tasks.
What will the focus be? Simple...the focus will be on defeating all incumbent politicians in the 2010 congressional election cycle. The task? Educate others about the danger of incumbency and vote against those same incumbents. Simple, right?
Now I understand that many of you may be saying to yourselves that you like your senators or representative or both. I realize that there are probably at least a few good members of congress. But the fundamental truth is this, as I wrote about last week, congress has failed us. So, if you really want to be serious about taking control back from the special interest and if you want to stand a chance of making real change, there will need to be casualties of this war.
The casualties may be YOUR senator or YOUR representative who you like and support. If you truly want change, I'm sorry, this is a necessary step. Unless and until we create a little chaos in the political system, there will be no change. Chaos!
Maybe we do need a name...the Chaos Party has a nice ring to it.
Remember, the average tenure for a member of congress is 12 years. Their length of tenure is exactly the reason why these special interest groups are able to peddle their influence all over Capital Hill. Relationships take time to develop. Representatives come up for election every two years. Lets face it, two years is not enough time to fully corrupt a well intentioned person. So, if we repopulate congress with a complete exchange of representatives in 2010 and then again in 2012, we may stand a chance of regaining control and sending a message.
Will you join me? Will you spread the word? Will you start early and begin voting against incumbents in the 2008 election cycle?
There is hope if we work together to spark this revolution in our voting booths!
God Bless Us All,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
I believed our voters were just lazy and apathetic. Why else would we continue to nominate and elect the wrong people? Though I believe there is a level of apathy out there far beyond what we should accept, in general it is not apathy but frustration our voters are feeling. More over, over the past 10 weeks, I have seen that frustration turn to anger.
Frankly, I love it. Now what can we do collectively to harness this anger and put it to good use?
I believe strongly that we need to create a third party. This party will not be named. This party will not have any "members." This party will only have one focus. This party will only have two tasks.
What will the focus be? Simple...the focus will be on defeating all incumbent politicians in the 2010 congressional election cycle. The task? Educate others about the danger of incumbency and vote against those same incumbents. Simple, right?
Now I understand that many of you may be saying to yourselves that you like your senators or representative or both. I realize that there are probably at least a few good members of congress. But the fundamental truth is this, as I wrote about last week, congress has failed us. So, if you really want to be serious about taking control back from the special interest and if you want to stand a chance of making real change, there will need to be casualties of this war.
The casualties may be YOUR senator or YOUR representative who you like and support. If you truly want change, I'm sorry, this is a necessary step. Unless and until we create a little chaos in the political system, there will be no change. Chaos!
Maybe we do need a name...the Chaos Party has a nice ring to it.
Remember, the average tenure for a member of congress is 12 years. Their length of tenure is exactly the reason why these special interest groups are able to peddle their influence all over Capital Hill. Relationships take time to develop. Representatives come up for election every two years. Lets face it, two years is not enough time to fully corrupt a well intentioned person. So, if we repopulate congress with a complete exchange of representatives in 2010 and then again in 2012, we may stand a chance of regaining control and sending a message.
Will you join me? Will you spread the word? Will you start early and begin voting against incumbents in the 2008 election cycle?
There is hope if we work together to spark this revolution in our voting booths!
God Bless Us All,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Trust...
I do not trust government. I do not trust the President. I do not trust the mayor. I do not trust the members of the school board. I do not trust politicians. I do not trust bureaucrats.
This is not a new revelation mind you. However my distrust has grown over the past several weeks. I am now to the point where I feel like a conspiracy theorist. I feel paranoid. Its almost to the point where I believe any person who holds elected office or draws a paycheck from the government is corrupt.
The sad thing is, I am not the only one who feels this way. There are thousands, if not millions of Americans just like me. How did we get here? Follow the money. Follow the power. Our answers will be found if we ask two questions to any problem.
Who got paid? Who gained power or influence?
These are the only important questions now, and we need to get the answers. The only problem though, is that it will require government involvement to investigate and gain answers to our questions. Is the problem worse than the cure?
The bottom line is, I do not want any more government under any circumstance. Government never solves anything. They are kind of like the pharma companies in that way. Since there is no money in a cure, big pharma researches how to mask or inhibit symptoms, not cure them. Got to love the recurring revenue.
Since there is no more budget if a division of government were successful in solving the problem they were brought in to address, they simply create a system of oversight and management over the issue. Got to love the recurring revenue.
Take for example the Department of Energy. This cabinet level department was founded under the Carter administration and was responsible for energy policy and nuclear safety. In the over 30 years since it was founded this department has grown to over 16,000 federal employees with an annual budget of $25 billion. For what?
What have these people solved? We now are in the midst of the worst energy crisis in our history. If we are out to make the CEO's of Freddie, Fannie, AIG and others pay, why not the politicians and the bureaucrats in charge of departments of government who are derelict in their duties?
Whats worse? Now we are three weeks away from electing a President who wants to nationalize health care. My God, what have you forsaken me?
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
This is not a new revelation mind you. However my distrust has grown over the past several weeks. I am now to the point where I feel like a conspiracy theorist. I feel paranoid. Its almost to the point where I believe any person who holds elected office or draws a paycheck from the government is corrupt.
The sad thing is, I am not the only one who feels this way. There are thousands, if not millions of Americans just like me. How did we get here? Follow the money. Follow the power. Our answers will be found if we ask two questions to any problem.
Who got paid? Who gained power or influence?
These are the only important questions now, and we need to get the answers. The only problem though, is that it will require government involvement to investigate and gain answers to our questions. Is the problem worse than the cure?
The bottom line is, I do not want any more government under any circumstance. Government never solves anything. They are kind of like the pharma companies in that way. Since there is no money in a cure, big pharma researches how to mask or inhibit symptoms, not cure them. Got to love the recurring revenue.
Since there is no more budget if a division of government were successful in solving the problem they were brought in to address, they simply create a system of oversight and management over the issue. Got to love the recurring revenue.
Take for example the Department of Energy. This cabinet level department was founded under the Carter administration and was responsible for energy policy and nuclear safety. In the over 30 years since it was founded this department has grown to over 16,000 federal employees with an annual budget of $25 billion. For what?
What have these people solved? We now are in the midst of the worst energy crisis in our history. If we are out to make the CEO's of Freddie, Fannie, AIG and others pay, why not the politicians and the bureaucrats in charge of departments of government who are derelict in their duties?
Whats worse? Now we are three weeks away from electing a President who wants to nationalize health care. My God, what have you forsaken me?
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
More? You have to be kidding me...
The pigs are back feeding at the troth. The Fed has made an additional $37.8 billion available to AIG as part of its liquidity rescue package. Apparently $85 billion was not enough. Is anybody surprised by this? I wish I was. I wish this type of news would shock me again.
I was surprised though by the McCain announcement last night that his administration would dedicate $300 billion to bailing out home owners who are in upside down mortgages. This guy is supposed to be the fiscal conservative of the two choices. Every day I become more disenfranchised with these idiots we have hired to be our representatives.
I am, however, no longer going to blame them for their corruption. I am taking off the gloves and placing the blame exactly where it needs to be, on the voters shoulders. This is our fault people. We are the ones to blame.
A few weeks ago I started researching approval ratings of the members of congress. At the time, congressional approval was at an all time low of 9%. (Congrats Reid and Pelosi, you must be very proud.) Can you guess what I found?
Of 100 sitting senators, I was unable to find an approval rating below 34% for any of them. Not only that, 80 of 100 had approval ratings at of above 50%.
What does this mean? Well, to me, it helps prove my theory our electorate is blaming the problems with congress on everyone except their own congressional delegation. Are you people insane? How does this make any sense?
Congress has 9% approval yet your congressional members have average approval of 54%.
What can we learn from this? Well first of all we need to stop blaming everyone else for electing these idiots. The sooner we as an electorate realize we only have control over three votes and three members of congress, the better off we will all be.
Simply put, if you are unhappy with congress, get rid of your own delegation. Simple, easy, done. If you do not start there, you have no right to complain. YOU are the problem.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Debate pre-game...
Well here we go. Debate number two of three. (I am still angry that Obama backed out of the other 10 town hall style debates, what a coward.)
You know what. It doesn't matter. I want to vote "none of the above." In keeping with my theme of wanting every and all incumbents voted out of Washington, I want BOTH Obama and McCain gone. Neither of them are worth my vote. McCain, the maverick, has lived his life straddling the fence. Obama, the agent of change, is spewing rhetoric from the Carter presidency from 1977.
Don't get me wrong, I will vote. It is my duty to myself and to the country. Unfortunately and fortunately though, it really doesn't matter who wins. My biggest fear heading into this election is that Obama and a Democrat Congress will be able to push thru socialized health care. Since there is no money left, Obama's socialist agenda has no chance of taking off. Thank god.
I'll be interested to see what is said in the coming moments, buts lets face it, unless McCain becomes Jeff Gitomer (Google him, great salesman) tonight the race is over.
God help us,
EG
You know what. It doesn't matter. I want to vote "none of the above." In keeping with my theme of wanting every and all incumbents voted out of Washington, I want BOTH Obama and McCain gone. Neither of them are worth my vote. McCain, the maverick, has lived his life straddling the fence. Obama, the agent of change, is spewing rhetoric from the Carter presidency from 1977.
Don't get me wrong, I will vote. It is my duty to myself and to the country. Unfortunately and fortunately though, it really doesn't matter who wins. My biggest fear heading into this election is that Obama and a Democrat Congress will be able to push thru socialized health care. Since there is no money left, Obama's socialist agenda has no chance of taking off. Thank god.
I'll be interested to see what is said in the coming moments, buts lets face it, unless McCain becomes Jeff Gitomer (Google him, great salesman) tonight the race is over.
God help us,
EG
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Credit default swaps...Huh?
I have to admit, I am no economist. I use reason and common sense to evaluate what is going on in our economy. I try to watch as much news as possible, both left and right, since there is no truthful news, and I try to read as much as possible. So when I was watching "60 Minutes" tonight and heard the term "credit default swaps" or "CDS" and their assessment that they will be the next shoe to drop in this financial meltdown, I had to get online and learn about what they are.
The long and the short of it is this, its an insurance policy a lender buys to protect against the default of a loan. It is not, however, an insurance product technically so therefore it is not regulated. Not that regulation would have helped.
Why will these CDS be the next problem to face the global economy? Well, the Wall Street Journal estimates the world wide face value of outstanding CDS at about $50 TRILLION!
Consider this, the estimated size of the US Stock Market is $20 trillion. Holy cow. These instruments are covering debt 2.5 times the size of the entire US market? I need a drink.
I am beginning to think the world economy is all a big Ponzi scheme. The more I learn, the more I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Unfortunately this is not an option for me or for anyone else.
I do have one option though, I will vote against every incumbent this fall regardless of party affiliation. I just don't think there is any other solution to this problem. Not only are the enemies at the gate, the enemies are guarding the gate.
Maybe if we start to get some honest people minding the store, we can stand a fighting chance. Maybe with a fresh start our politicians will begin to write laws with some teeth which will deter white collar criminals from ever trying these corrupt practices again.
I beg you all, please join me. Incumbents must go. The only way we stand a chance is if YOU take back your own voting booth.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
The long and the short of it is this, its an insurance policy a lender buys to protect against the default of a loan. It is not, however, an insurance product technically so therefore it is not regulated. Not that regulation would have helped.
Why will these CDS be the next problem to face the global economy? Well, the Wall Street Journal estimates the world wide face value of outstanding CDS at about $50 TRILLION!
Consider this, the estimated size of the US Stock Market is $20 trillion. Holy cow. These instruments are covering debt 2.5 times the size of the entire US market? I need a drink.
I am beginning to think the world economy is all a big Ponzi scheme. The more I learn, the more I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Unfortunately this is not an option for me or for anyone else.
I do have one option though, I will vote against every incumbent this fall regardless of party affiliation. I just don't think there is any other solution to this problem. Not only are the enemies at the gate, the enemies are guarding the gate.
Maybe if we start to get some honest people minding the store, we can stand a fighting chance. Maybe with a fresh start our politicians will begin to write laws with some teeth which will deter white collar criminals from ever trying these corrupt practices again.
I beg you all, please join me. Incumbents must go. The only way we stand a chance is if YOU take back your own voting booth.
God Bless America,
EG
erik@exchangeyourgovernment.com
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