Pork Belly Futures

A pork belly is a term of convenience, first coined by pig farmers and commodity traders to designate that part of the porcine creature from whence comes bacon.  Pork bellies are a mainstay of the Asian diet.  The Chinese love pork bellies – so do others.

Now what, on earth do pork bellies and bacon have to do with an essay website devoted primarily to financial and fiscal responsibility?  To financial and fiscal discipline?  To living within ones means?

Please read on.

Why are the Chinese buying America’s largest pork producer – Smithfield Foods?  Well the Chinese are several things for certain – they are numerically huge – over one billion of them and they are growing.  Two, they are forward planners, something Americans have never developed the patience for – it was once upon a time called long range planning.  For the Chinese a thirty or forty or even fifty year time period has the same relative time and attention span that an American teenager will assign to a long awaited social event occurring this coming weekend.  The Chinese know that things unfold over years – over decades – over centuries.

Oh, and one more thing about the Chinese – they love pork – the belly, the loin and even the parts closer to the ground.  They eat more pounds of pork per person – a lot more – today that we Americans eat of our rooting, snouty four legged friends.

So when the Chinese do something involving a group of people that they do not particularly admire and envy one could sit back, observe, think about it and maybe learn something.  We prefer to do that “sit back, observe and think about it” activity in the form of essays – and asking some questions.

So, here goes with our questions:

1.    How would you like to be Japanese today? You disarmed 70 years ago – were forced to accept the occupation of American troops.  They became your protector.  They wrote your constitution – established their form of governance on your island(s) nation and they have insulated you from external threats from those who may harbor ill will or ill something toward you and your past imperial designs and behavior.  One of those who may harbor ill toward you is that looming giant – that massive mountain of humanity with their insatiable appetite for pork and with the long view toward everything.  In the past you did not treat them well.  They remember.

2.    How would you like to be an Israeli today?  Again, your protector has just been designated to be the official pork producer and pork droppings processor for the growing Asian and world force seeking power, perhaps even domination in its rather large sphere of influence.  You, of course, don’t inhabit this sphere – you inhabit a sphere dominated by the world’s second largest growing and very angry group of tangling religious dominated zealots who just happen to envision you in the same ultimate destination as that of the billions of pounds of pork consumed by the Chinese.  You too look to America for support – America is busy feeding the Chinese and cleaning up the mess left behind.

3.    How would you like to be Canadian or Australian or a New Zealander or, for that matter, a Brit – a citizen of the mother country, today?  What does history have in store for these long standing allies of China’s designated pork producer and porcine waste disposal unit?  Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in the high halls of government power in these countries that watch America take on tasks like becoming China’s feedlot and contemplate just what this means for you in 30, 40 or 50 years from now?

4.    How would you like to be a citizen of China’s pork producer/waste disposer and be looking forward to a country side of flowing, smelly, difficult to dispose of pork droppings (fecal matter)?  On the other hand, who knows, that could well be the least of your problems, huh?

The Chinese today annually consume about 85 pounds of pork per person – they love the stuff.  Their vision goes out 30, 40, even 50 years from now.  They see America as a good place to grow pork – and leave the droppings behind.  Americans eat about 50 pounds of pork today – per capita consumption for Americans has actually declined a bit – your government attributes the decline to the growing Latino population which is a bit less pork inclined.

Source:  http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/326138/ldpm13001_1_.pdf   (everything you ever wanted to know about American pork consumption, and more...)

For those of you who like to read between the lines, you will detect that this essay is not about bacon, or pork bellies or even pig droppings although all those events do raise the question about just who in America has the foresight, the planning interest to match that of the patient but focused folk in the far east and the middle east.  This is an essay about time – about trends – about relativity – about long memories and short sighted people lacking the patience gene – about friends and allies and the future – and the knowledge that those thousand mile trips do indeed get accomplished one small step at a time.  Or one not-so-small dropping at a time.

 

 

Patriot and Traitor – Captain Nathan Hale (1755 – 1776)

Today we hear politicians, bureaucrats and observers by the thousands bandying about terms such as treason and traitor – espionage – sedition.  Well, we would like to tell you about a young man who was called both a patriot and a traitor.  What follows should be taught in every school in this county – if you seek a hero, read on, read about Captain Nathan Hale as told on the webpage’s of the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the America Revolution –

http://www.connecticutsar.org/patriots/hale_nathan.htm

“Nathan Hale, a martyr soldier of the American Revolution, was born in Coventry, Conn., June 6, 1755. When but little more than twenty-one years old he was hanged, by order of British General William Howe, as a spy, in the city of New York, on September 22, 1776.

“Nathan Hale’s father was Richard Hale, who had emigrated to Coventry, from Newbury, Mass., in 1746, and had married Elizabeth, the daughter of Joseph Strong. By her he had twelve children, of whom Nathan was the sixth.  He sent to Yale College at one time his two sons, Enoch and Nathan, who had been born within two years of each other.

“In his commencement address Hale had considered the question whether the higher education of women were not neglected. And, in the arrangement of the Union School at New London, it was determined that between the hours of five and seven in the morning, he should teach a class of “twenty young ladies” in the studies which occupied their brothers at a later hour. 

“He was thus engaged in the year 1774. The whole country was alive with the movements and discussions which came to a crisis in the battle of Lexington the next year. Hale, though not of age, was enrolled in the militia and was active in the military organization of the town.

“So soon as the news of Lexington and Concord reached New London, a town-meeting was called. At this meeting, this young man, not yet of age, was one of the speakers. “Let us march immediately,” he said, “and never lay down our arms until we obtain our independence.”

“He was commissioned as First Lieutenant in the Seventh Connecticut regiment... Hale marched with the regiment to New London, whence they all went by water to New York. On that critical night, when the whole army was moved across to New York after the defeat at Brooklyn, the regiment rendered effective service.

“Washington had been driven up the island of New York, and was holding his place with the utmost difficulty.  On September 6th he wrote, “We have not been able to obtain the least information as to the enemy’s plans.” In sheer despair at the need of better information then the Tories of New York City would give him, the great commander consulted his council, and at their direction summoned Knowlton to ask for some volunteer of intelligence, who would find his way into the English lines, and bring back some tidings that could be relied upon. Knowlton summoned a number of officers, and stated to them the wishes of their great chief. The appeal was received with dead silence.

“But Nathan Hale, his youngest captain, broke the silence. “I will undertake it,” he said. He had come late to the meeting. He was pale from recent sickness. But he saw an opportunity to serve, and he did the duty which came next at hand.

“Hale landed while the city was in the terror of the great conflagration of September 21st. In that fire nearly a quarter of the town was burned down. The English supposed, rightly or not, that the fire had been begun by the Americans.  Two hundred persons were sent to jail upon the supposition that they were incendiaries. It is in the midst of such confusion that Hale is taken to General Howe’s head-quarters, and there he meets his doom.  No testimony could be stronger against him than the papers on his person. He was not there to prevaricate, and he told them his rank and name. There was no trial, and Howe at once ordered that he should be hanged the next morning.

Early the next day he was led to his death.  He asked for writing materials... He wrote two letters; one to his mother and one to a brother officer. The Provost-Marshal destroyed the letters, and assigned a reason that the rebels should not know that they had a man in their army who could die with so much firmness.”

Aside - Please reflect on that statement for a moment.  The British officer was afraid that knowledge of Hale’s courage would embolden the rebels – the Americans; the traitors; the patriots.

“Hale asked for a Bible, but his request was refused. He was marched out by a guard and hanged upon an apple-tree in Rutgers’s orchard. The place was near the present intersection of East Broadway and Market Streets. Cunningham asked him to make his dying “speech and confession.

“I only regret,” he said, “that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

The Know Nothings - FBI Chief Mueller Displays His Ignorance and ...

What word(s) can describe this ill prepared know-nothing?  Clown?  Arrogant?  Contempt for and, perhaps, of congress?  How about just another dopey, overpaid, unaccountable bureaucrat.  Listen to this pathetic man who is in charge of America's premiere police agency display his ignorance - or his contempt for a government accountable to the people - or both.

 

 

 

Kevin Cullen, co-author, "Whitey Bulger", recently stated, "The FBI needs an enema."  Does Obamacare cover it?



In His Own Words - Kevyn Orr Describes the Detroit Situation

Attorney Kevyn Orr - Detroit's Emergency Financial Manager

 

It is neither hyperbole nor propaganda when TheFundamentals describes the simple finality of our founding principle:  Deficits = Debt = Destruction = Detroit.  Detroit is living in this situation and this one man has the task to clean up the destruction.  We can only wish him well - and to all the elected officials and hired bureaucrats and their public employee union masters in Illinois and elsewhere, offer this observation - it is only a matter of time.

DEBT - Much Worse Than We've Been Informed

Please ignore the link below for now, just read on, we'll come back to it:

 

http://www.iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files_new/research-policy-papers/states%20project2012_Part1.pdf

  

TheFundamentals consistently brings you two reminders -

 

One, at the very top of our website page - you can read what America's number one military man had to say during a time of great wailing and hand wringing over the various threats to America's national security.  Some said it was fundamentalist Islamics.  Some said it was WMD.  Some said it was government bureaucrats (put us in this category).  Some said it was global warming.  Some said it was high sugar content soft drinks - cigarettes - cheap whisky - California wine - rap music - Hillary Clinton's pant suit color schemes.  In a few very understandable words, Admiral Mullen delegates all these other concerns to second place, or lower, status and focuses our attention on the key concern:   DEBT.

 

Always.  Always, remember:   Deficits = Debt = Destruction.

 

Our second reminder is in the right column.  The up-to-the-minute debt tally reminder.  At this very moment we are drafting this essay, the debt tally reminder says we owe:  $16,738,767,256,596.67

 

If you look now, it is most likely higher.  The debt goes up and up and up which means the threat to our national security goes up and up and up.  Stop blaming the Muslims - blame the bureaucrats who overreact to the Muslims which is why this essayist says its government bureaucrats who are to blame.

 

Into this fray now arrives additional information and it is not good.

 

We vaguely know that the federal reserve is buying up debt - a lot of it at very low interest rates.  Never a good idea.  Common sense would tell you that no one should be buying up any debt issued at a historic low point in interest rates.  The reason is simple - when rates rise, the value of the debt declines.  Regardless, the geniuses at the federal reserve keep buying more and more debt.  Meanwhile our savings keep losing value.

 

But lets get to the heart of the matter, as the Eagles would say.  We frequently compare our debt level to GDP or national income or some such metric to show that we are not as bad off as others.  You know who the others are, the usual suspects:  Greece, Italy, Spain, Somalia, etc.  We always say - we're not there - we're not like you - we are in control of our situation. 

 

Nonsense.   Pure, unadulterated propaganda.  Be it David Axelrod or his mouthpiece, Barack Obama.  Be it Ben Bernanke or his mouthpiece, Barack Obama.  Be it John Maynard Keynes, Paul Krugman and their mouthpiece, Barack Obama.  The situation is dire.  And here is why.

 

America has a lot more debt out there than is represented by the number the federal government discloses - $16,738,767,256,596.67.  We have 50 states and we have hundreds of cities, counties, school and park districts and they all have one thing in common - debt.  They love to issue debt.  They have gone crazy issuing debt.  And, on top of issuing debt we can account for - they create future obligations which are much more difficult to count.  How much you ask?   Well, remember that link at the top of this essay - please go back and click on it now.

 

That link takes you to this report which tells you the following:

 

• The states spend $2.5 trillion annually, employ 19 million people or 15% of all working Americans. 

• They estimate than nearly every state in America has accumulated future obligations of between 1 and 3 trillion dollars.  (Aside:  many of these states today are insolvent - obviously many more are on the road to insolvency.  The road to insolvency leads to bankruptcy.) 

• The report includes a chart showing the ten best states for dealing with their employee pension obligations and the ten worst.  We encourage you to click on the report link and, at a minimum,  read this chart.  If you care to know where commerce and income and employment and economic growth will most likely be occurring and where it most likely will be struggling - glance at the chart.  Caution:  teaser to follow.  Guess which of the ten worst states has the highest unfunded pension liability?  Hint:  it has something to do with your great leader and no, its not Hawaii.

 

This report is an indictment of America's governing personnel.  There is no other way to look at it - those of us who work in the private sector - who go about our business, pay our taxes, hold up our end of the compact - have been taken to the cleaners by those we have elected to office and those who we have hired and paid to run the public sector while we run the private sector.

 

The report doesn't say it quite as directly as we just did but here is a direct quote from the report: 

     "States do not account to citizens in ways that are transparent, timely, or accessible."

 

In other words, they deliberately mask and delay reporting facts and then they withhold the information so that we don't really know what is going on.  If you are part of the 49% that attempted to change things in November 2012, good for you.  We encourage you to stay the course.  If you are part of the 51% that voted for the majority party candidates and, this is important, consider yourself an INFORMED voter, all TheFundamentals can ask of you is this, "What are you possibly thinking?  What does it take to get you to wake up?"  You have now been informed!

 

 

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In His Own Words - Rep. Trey Gowdy Addresses IRS Nonsense

 

We heard this man speak these profound words to the IRS - "A cultural, systemic, character, moral issue.  Training cannot fix a character issue.  There's not a webinar in the world that will fix it.  Start over - its allowed itself to be used as a political tool."

David Axelrod, Dreamweaver

Let's say your profession is message and media management.  Well known past professionals in this field include Karl Marx, Herman Goebbels, Tokyo Rose and Baghdad Bob.  Now, you may recognize the name of our title character - he founded AKPD Message and Media.  His number one client is our great leader under whose regime employment has plummeted, private sector income has precipitously dropped and debt has skyrocketed.  So, if you're David, you've got your work cut out for you.  Not to worry, David has done his job well and managed to pocket millions in the process of managing what the media choose to cover.  Possible topics include:

·         dropping income

·         skyrocketing debt

·         massive unemployment – a lot of Americans just don’t work anymore

·         devastating societal conditions in urban neighborhoods resembling 3rd world countries like Somalia and Ethiopia

·         rapidly rising health care costs previously promised to decline

·         current as well as looming city and state bankruptcies

·         or, none of the above.

So, what has the media covered?  None of the above.  Good job, David.

Here is what America's Hollywood media, led by two of America's key information sources - PBS and Comcast/NBC chose to cover -

• Claimed increases of cases of sexual assault in the military - see the happy faces below (Gee, General Odierno, don’t you just love those gal senators and all their brilliant ideas?)

A few years ago the fellow who would have been seated in the middle of this gathering of top military brass pondering the "claimed rise in sexual misconduct" uttered a comment that should have changed America's system of governance - literally turned it upside down.  His words are memorialized at the top of this page.  When he made the statement designating debt as our nation's top national security threat, on that day, the US government told us that it owed $13,375,222,710,985.08.  We don't know if that number even represents 10% of what we truly owe if you add all the obligations of all the cities and states as well as all the future commitments to do this and that - in Washington, in New York, California, Illinois and so forth.  What we do know is whatever the true debt number is, it is a lot higher today – even their own number above has risen to $16,738,778,336,691.59.  (Aside:  think about it – the treasury department adds the pennies to their debt number but they have no clue who told the Cincinnati IRS office to give the tea party and patriot folk a hard time.)

In other words, the threat to our national security has grown and these fellows are called in front of a group of pampered senators who cannot wait to do David Axelrod's bidding - deflect all attention away from real problems and substitute a contrived but media embraced issue. 

David now works for NBC which is owned by Comcast.  Just imagine where America is headed when a low quality, high priced, monopolistic outfit like Comcast not only controls the distribution of media, Internet and information into a large portion of America's homes but also controls the content and decides which issue(s) to favor and which issue(s) to disregard (see above list.)  All supported by corrupt government policies and bureaucracies.  All supported by the very senators and congressmen who want us to think about sexual misconduct in the military instead of anything of real consequence.

Congratulations David – job well done.  Your dreams have come true.

It's Not Just the IRS That is So Darn Politicized

The pattern just keeps repeating itself - over and over again.

 

The recent kerfuffle arising from petty bureaucrats favoring their personal political view over the opposing political view seems to shock some viewers, readers and other observers of the American governance system.

 

Baloney.

 

There is no such thing as a two party system when it comes to a bureaucracy and any such propaganda (just listen to David Axelrod spin this situation and, more importantly, just watch his nose extend as he does) to the contrary is simply bureaucratic hogwash.

 

Let's take a couple of bureaucracies:

 

1.  PBS - you know who they are - they beg for public money to bring their high level programming - their unbiased news stories and their constant caterwauling about global warming, homosexual marriage and the horrible behavior of the Catholic church.  When the minority party was suggesting some Washington DC belt tightening, how did PBS report and otherwise stay above the fray?  Well they used their publicly funded airwaves and publicly funded news rooms and their publicly funded propaganda machine to develop a publicly funded propaganda movement called, modestly, the 170 million movement or some such thing, to repeatedly tell us what a fine job they were doing for 170 million PBS loving Americans and it would be very un-American-like to cut even one penny of financing to this fine effort of theirs.  Now, in our world, that is a conflict of interest.  In any normal world it is politicization.  At the Corporation for Public Broadcasting it is business as usual.

 

2.  Department of agriculture.  This bureaucratic cesspool has a life, a purpose, a mission that can make the IRS seem to be a gathering of rational thinking workers.  The Department of agriculture - to be more exact, the tens of thousands of bureaucrats who get a paycheck, get a benefits package that would bring embarrassment to Marie Antoinette and pensions to match, have done something most bureaucrats dream of but few accomplish - they have taken a very limited concept of distributing America's excess agriculture production to a limited group of needy people; a program that started out with several thousand recipients in each state - to a virtual no restriction, electronic debit card usable on almost any manufactured food product in a grocery store, regardless of nutrition or lack thereof; regardless of cost and advertised it - yes, folks promoted it to where 25% of all Americans, 70 million Americans now use it to finance their trips to Kroger, Publix and Safeway.  Politicization - you gotta be kidding me - do you think even the lowest IQ Department of agriculture employee is going to vote for a Republican and admit it?

 

There are a few things one can learn even growing up in Chicago or Washington DC.  One of those things is that a bureaucracy is politics - through and through.  The top bureaucrat, be it a guy or gal, depends on politics for his/her job which means all reporting to her/him depend on politics for their jobs.  The only voice raised against this reality is that of the great leader - who tells us they operate independently because he says so.  Is he nuts or just lying?  Both?

 

Ultimate politicization is Chicago.  One party - no ifs ands or buts about it.  Drive around a Chicago neighborhood a few days before an election and count the front lawn signs that promote a Republican candidate and a Democrat candidate.  Make a bet with great leader - you will pay him a quarter for each Republican sign if he will pay you a dime for each Democrat sign.  You'd make money even if you settled for a nickel.

 

Can we track the movement of government employees from "independence" to leaning one way to complete politicization?  By complete, we mean IRS politicization - PBS politicization - Department of agriculture politicization?  Of course we can -  January 17, 1962, John F. Kennedy, by a stroke of the pen - his signature authorizing the unionization of federal government workers (see:  TheFundamentals, March 9, 2010.)   Political payback for votes?  What do you think?

 

There is no place in a republic form of democracy for the unionization of any government workers.  The US constitution guarantees that the form of government in America and each of its states shall be a republic - the people rule - not the bureaucrats - not one political party over another - and most certainly not some union boss/thug who runs the place the way the union boss/thugs run Chicago.

 

Here are the main culprits:   NAGE, AFSCME, NEA, NRLCA, AFGE, NALC, AFT, NTEU, AATU, IBPO, NAON, APWU, SEIU and NFFE. 

 

Words , even words flowing from the mouth of great leader, mean nothing.  If you want a government of, by and for the people, you must limit it just as our constitution limits it and that means limited employees and no unions.  If you want to depoliticize America's vast bureaucracies all you need do is one of two things:

 

1.  Limit the budget - i.e. drastically cut them back, or

2.  Get rid of the unions (most are listed above)  - i.e. undo JFK's signature on executive order #10988

 

We recommend #2.  In the meantime, just keep on kidding yourself - there is no politics at the IRS or PBS or the Department of ___________ (fill in the blank.)   And always keep repeating - they work for us.

 

Arrogance

Have you ever watched a little kid try to act like a big kid?  See them straighten their spine, look right at you, use adult words, deliver them with anger or a sneer or disgust or all of the above?  When this happens one can wonder, where did this kid learn this behavior?   Who taught the kid that the way to be an adult is to huff and puff and shout and act tough?

 

Well, this essay is about the people who teach kids how to deflect and depress fear.  Behind the kids actions is fear - very, very high levels of pure fear. 

 

What happens when you cover up fear - let it control you - instead of facing it?    Anger, sarcasm, secrecy, disdain, withdrawal, most of all, arrogance.  Examples, please.

 

The Daley boys in Chicago have mastered the art of letting fear control them.  Their successor, Emanuel, is getting there. 

 

In Washington DC, the last president was good at letting fear control all aspects of his behavior.  That character flaw in the Bush kid has cost America a lot - it has destroyed a lot of lives and families; perhaps more than any American since Lyndon B. Johnson.  Many of those lives and families are not Americans.  It also started us on the debt bandwagon.

 

if you watch politicians closely, you will see the consequence of suppressed fear - the one sure sign, the more they talk, the more fear they are suppressing.  Four senators immediately come to mind - McCain, Durbin, Graham and Schumer.  All they do is blather - about darn near anything and everything - as if they have a clue about everything and anything.  What they show us is their deep seated fear and how it controls their behavior.

 

We are witnessing the fear of bureaucrats - some have been caught in their know nothing - say nothing - be accountable for nothing way of life. Publicly caught.  Bureaucrats will do anything to not be exposed.  This way of life is fear based - there is no comfort in acting as if you are doing something worthwhile when you know you are useless and unneeded.  You could come clean - fess up - admit to whatever nonsense you have been doing or pretending to be doing - or you can get your back up - look your challengers right in the eye and say, "I did nothing wrong."  Reminds one of,  "I am not a crook."  Or, "I did not have sex with that woman."

 

Government bureaucrats are the most unneeded fear based fools we have and we have millions of them.  For the last four years they have been offered spectacular cover for their unneeded and damaging behavior by one person - Barack Obama.   Barack needs their unions to support him - heck, his entire political party depends on government union life support.

 

Barack Obama has not even attempted to manage the bureaucrats and the bureaucracies.  And he knows it.  But, as long as they vote for him and get the others to vote for him, he could care less what they do.  Just don't bring it to his doorstep.  For over four years, American media, what we call the Hollywood media, has provided cover for this corrupt man and his corrupt practices -  behavior that he learned watching those Daley boys cover up their fears.   The Daley boys have destroyed the financial condition of a city, a county and a state.  Most of us would be a bit spooked with that on our record.

 

Arrogance - be it Daley arrogance or Obama arrogance (really, Axelrod arrogance, Obama is a mouthpiece) - be it McCain or Schumer arrogance or the unneeded bureaucrats at the departments of justice, state and defense (or, for that matter, the IRS), it all comes down to this one simple connection - cover up of fear.

 

They do not know what they are doing - they are perched on the top of a house of cards - they don't want it to collapse on their watch - so they huff and puff and hope that we will think they are in charge.  That they are needed.  That they know what they are doing.

 

How would you like to live a life based on hiding out from your fears?  Would it make you act arrogantly?  Be secretive?  Huff and puff?  Act as if you know what you are doing when you don't?