Governmentalism: 20-Painful Irony: Obama Declaration of War and Monday Night Entertainment

'Boardwalk Figurine of
George Washington
Crossing the Delaware'.

Atlantic City, New Jersey,
2003.






{Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.}

Were you watching NBC Monday evening, March 28, 2011? Obama made change, in a break with tradition, by delivering his speech on the Libyan military action, not in the usual personal 'My Fellow Americans' style from the Oval Office of the White House, but from a podium in the Military Defense University Auditorium. Obama's oratory, was a long, noble, but rather vague explanation of the 136 Tomahawk missile US-led military action against Libya's Colonel Moammar Khaddafy. Obama's most immediate goal appeared to be the transfer of leadership to European and Arab 'partners' in the action.

What followed on the NBC channel was stunningly cognitively dissonant, even macabre. The usual Oval Office announcements of US war activities are sobering, given by somber US Presidents who appear somewhat discomfited by such involvement. The speech ends, the screen fades to black. Then the television journalists begin the analysis of the speech, what was meant, what this action may mean for the US.

Obama's Libyan address was a real change. Suddenly, following the speech, cameras pan an auditorium filled with men in 'black tie' tuxedos and women in party dresses. Then the lights came up, there was a choir of dozens, well-known entertainers performing music and announcing the presence of 4 former presidents and their wives. Former Presidents George HW Bush with wife Barbara and son George W. Bush with wife Laura were present. Husband of current Obama Administration US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, William J. Clinton, President for two administrations between the 1st and 2nd Bush Administrations, recognized the other former presidents and spoke briefly of US 'public service'. The viewers saw the benefits. To their credit, former President Jimmy Carter and wife Lillian appeared somewhat less comfortable than the others.

Despite the noble words of Barack H. Obama, the spirit of the United States of America was somehow sullied by the light rock concert which followed Obama's Libyan
address. There seemed to be a profound display of insensitivity in going to a rock concert after announcing a foreign war, violent air strikes to stop violence. The event may have been very unsettling to very many US citizens.

US citizens usually celebrate the end of war. War saddens many Americans, even if some hope to retain their military paychecks by going to war.

Obama's Declaration/Concert certainly confirms the foreign view, that the US often is perceived as, insensitive, arrogant, and invasive.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21'). See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Boardwalk Figurine of George Washington Crossing the Delaware', Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2003, copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 19-Where are US Dollars Better Spent? Over There or in America?

'Storm
Over
Mount Rushmore',

South Dakota,
USA, 1995.






{Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.}

Recently, Michael Barone wrote that the weakest part of American politics involves the selection of candidates for President/Vice President. Barone laments the lack foreign policy and military expertise in candidates. This assumes that the primary goal of American government is international politics and requires a military presence.

Going to war elsewhere is a well-known distraction from problems at home. The Romanovs, the last Russian family dynasty, went to war in what would become the soviet republics. In 1917, Russia fell to the Communists and became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Hungry, unemployed Russians fell under the influence of European Socialists and Communists while the last of the Romanov Tsars was off at war.

War has often been hypothesized to stimulate the American economy. Production of military weaponry, supplies, work for employed and unemployed men, traditionally, and domestic work for women while the men were off at war, sent money around the economy. The downside of WWI was the creation of the 'income tax', presented as only a temporary tax to pay for the war.

The costs of current wars is exorbitant: $1 million dollars for each of 136 'Tomahawk' missiles fired on only one day of the current Libyan 'no fly' military action. US military money definitely is moving, 'kinetic'.

Because of the enormous $14.3 Trillion dollar federal deficit, 93% of Gross National Product (GNP), it is vital to evaluate new expenditures. Perhaps new rules of engagement, beyond the older, simpler, 'it's ok to bomb if bombed', need to be developed before we are stuck in another 10-20 year conflict in yet another '3rd world', Muslim-occupied zone.

Libya is a particular problem because it is impossible to tell the 'white hats' from the 'black hats', the 'blue' from the 'grey', 'shirts vs. skins'. Television and Cable coverage reveals no one is in uniform, except Col. Moammar Khaddafy in that old brown tunic and floppy hat.

In recent coverage of a woman protester's removal from a Tripoli, Libya hotel, Khaddafy's Libyan army guards are guys wearing civilian clothes, grabbing a woman by linking her arm, forcing her into a black car. She could easily have been being abducted by a rival gang, given the innuendo and allegations involved.

This is a trend across the Middle East also. In Egypt, there were uniformed military driving tanks but Egyptian police took off their uniforms and mingled in the crowd of pro-democracy demonstrators. The same is true of videos throughout the region. Signs, placards, protesters with tattoos are on early videos. Then videotapes are full of people in civilian clothes rioting and running in the streets.

The lack of conventional warfare, lines of uniformed soldiers with muskets lining up to fight, make it hard to follow who is government supporter, who is rebel. Within the category of rebels: who is a true protester for democracy, who is a government police officer, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or Al-Qaida using the uprising against secular government to the advantage of Islamic religious extremists?

What should the US do when asked for support by foreign groups or Obama while demanding a foreign leader 'step down'? Perhaps the US, at least Congress and the Pentagon, should simply answer: we cannot go to war unless the rivals can take the time to find uniforms so we know who are our allies and who are our foes.

Four of the greatest of the American Presidents are engraved in stone at Mount Rushmore. George Washington, the founder of the nation, 1st President of the US (1789-1797), sacrificed his personal wealth to secure the independence of the original 13 colonies from Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson, Washington's Secretary of State, 3rd President of the US (1801-1809), the major author of 'The Declaration of Independence', left office before the onset of the War of 1812 against Great Britain. 'Rough Rider' Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the US (1901-1909), the most warlike of the four, said at the onset of the Spanish-American War, 'I should welcome almost any war, for I think the country needs one'. Abraham Lincoln, 16th President President of the US (1861-1865), was Commander-in-Chief during the Civil War and fought to Preserve the Union, arguably after sparking secession of a number of Southern states.

But the wars in North Africa and the Middle East are foreign wars fought in remote Muslim-occupied regions. These wars involve nations with long histories of dictatorships, some secular, many religious. And the people are from very different cultures, with different beliefs, who speak different languages, even eat different foods.

Fighting foreign wars may distract the American population. But this does not solve the problems at home. Domestic issues in the US, public and private debt, unemployment/underemployment, new hunger in 'new poor' from educated, previously working and middle classes, and cultures in conflict within the US, with over 13 million new immigrants, legal and illegal, overwhelm local, state, and federal domestic social welfare budgets.

Honesty, integrity, clear thinking, clear goals, and a real commitment to solving domestic problems in the US are required for US politicians, for the US to maintain a presence and represent democracy around the world.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through'21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Storm Over Mount Rushmore', South Dakota, USA, 1995, copyright mkrause381@gmail or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 18-The Paper Economy, Bill-Collecting, and Anger in America

'Jellyfish
in the Sand'

Galveston, Texas,
2001.







Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing government.

Despite the birth of the nation in 1776 from the violence of the American Revolutionary War against Great Britain, and the preservation of the nation in 1865 from the violence of the Civil War, modern America is not given to violence.

Violence involving the US militarily since 1865 has occurred elsewhere, during World War I and II, the Korean Conflict, Vietnam, Desert Storm and the succession of Middle Eastern and now Libyan, North Africa military actions.

What has occurred however is the growth of debt, unpalatable to most Americans. Federal debt has skyrocketed because of these wars and conflicts, and the concurrent population boom since the 1960s when Democrat Party President Lyndon Baines Johnson opened the door to uncontrolled immigration. The cost of the military-industrial complex and the social welfare-industrial complex has increased the federal deficit to $14.3 Trillion dollars.

The tax aggressiveness of governmentalists to bring in tax revenue to fund their salaries, of the older 'black civil rights' movements, and newer immigrants, legal and illegal, to fund social welfare services has overwhelmed local, state, and federal government budgets.

There is a trickle-down effect as governmentalists and politicians set attitudes, policies, and activities in the nation. Expensive, perhaps naively conceived, industrial bailouts like the student finance industry have created a bill-collecting aggressiveness in both public and private sectors.

The relative de-industrialization of the economy has reduced available jobs. And made it more likely that displaced, underemployed, unemployed workers and new entrants to the labor force will delay for academic or trade school education or training programs.

Thus debt and bill-collecting extend to more members of society. While this is good for the student finance industry and schools, it is not so good for those who, after college or trade school, face the same problem: how to find a paying job?

As more people are bill-collected, anger is generated in society. These have done as they were told to do to succeed, yet success still is elusive. And there are more problems, financial obstacles to homes, apartment, automobiles, business loans, created by bill collectors.

Also the more aggressive turn to bill-collecting, in home-based or other financial services businesses. While outlawed under the real laws of the US in the United States Code as 'Racketeer Influenced Crime Organizations', extortion, extortionate extension of credit by those who do not lend or sell goods or services abounds.

People become meaner, 'taking from other people' by extortion and threats. The naive may at least initially send payments to those whom they do not owe. Bill collectors stalk, menace, harass, and often vandalize or commit other crimes against those who will not 'send payments' to their computerized home-based or other bill-collecting business.

Real and substantial harm is done to those who are bill collected, negatively credit reported in the denial of apartments, cars, business and other loans, or whose family relationships or friendships are harmed or destroyed by bill collectors.

Bill collectors take names from lists, demand money, and seek to destroy reputations and lives of those who will not send money to them, often randomly, often targeted at a person who they do not like or a person who belongs to a group they do not like.

Sometimes, no notice is sent to the person, but the bill collector seeks money by submitting computer 'cookies' or informant reports to businesses for payment.

Sometimes, someone who thinks a person drove too fast or to slow or parked in a space they wanted to park in tries to trace a vehicle or person through traffic police, DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), background check or other companies. Auto insurance companies may try to track cars. Car thieves often operate through these and other lists.

As more people, even officials like police and politicians, work on a commission basis, due to downsizing of budgets, or become more aggressive or greedier, the threats to people and property become more worrisome.

There are anecdotal reports that one of the largest names in the student loan industry works off lists of applicants to schools or students. The company sends out a brochure, lists the name as an account, assigns an amount, and off go the rounds of bill collection, then delinquency notices, negative credit reports, and sale of these lists to other companies.

The enormous number of accidental and deliberate errors in the 'credit reporting agency' (CRA) industry have created a 'white collar' racketeering industry, with extortionate extension of 'credit', stalking, menacing, harassment, threats of court actions, and even violence.

The large number of foreign immigrants, who do not speak or read American English well enough to understand these documents, which are often bought and sold as sources of large, immediate income only adds to the problem. Such 'bad paper' also is floated in the welfare, developmental/mentally retarded/emotionally disturbed, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, prison release, and other populations. Among these are many with 'anger control', aggression, and histories of violent behavior, whether crimes against property (like slashed tires, otherwise vandalized cars) and people (notice and phone call harassment, intimidation, threats of harm, home invasion).

'Dumpster divers' routinely 'dive' to find receipts. The divers then set up bill collection companies or gangs against people who have paid their bills and tossed their receipts into the trash. Some take company receipts home from work or take or use computerized information from employers or clients.

More 'official' trends, like automated lawsuit filing, only increase the mountains of 'bad paper'. This increases the likelihood that someone will be stalked, menaced, and harassed by an upset, desperate, or simply greedy person.

As the courthouse crowd looks for more bankruptcy proceedings for day to day case load 'business' or opportunities for profit by financially restructuring 'confiscated' businesses for members of the general population or of ethnic, racial, special needs, or special interest groups, the US becomes a meaner, less lawful, more dangerous, and angrier society.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynots21.blogpot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Jellyfish in the Sand', Galveston, Texas, 2001.

Governmentalism: 17-In the US and Abroad

'Sea Grasses
Fighting Beach Erosion'
Near Galveston, Texas,
2001.











Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

The US has been in Afghanistan for decades now. Recent news articles suggest US efforts may have been more costly and less influential than the US had hoped.

In 'The Washington Post', Sunday, March 6, 2011, Rajiv Chandrasekaran's 'As US war priorities shift, focus on Afghan women's rights dims' describes 'fluid, rapidly changing' conditions for US Agency for International Development contract plans for a $140 million Land Reform Program. The original program specified ways in which women were to be included in the new Afghan nation. The Land Reform Program called for a 50% increase in the number of deeds granted to women, allowing women to inherit and keep the land in their families or to obtain land. Another clause required the inclusion of women's rights high school and college materials.

There was no specified government in Afghan for about 9 years after the Soviets left Afghanistan and the US military presence predominated. There has been a succession of changing tribal alliances. While Afghanistan appears more stable under President Hamid Karzai as the US presence diminishes, alliances continue to shift.

Election voting fraud has been a problem. So has government finance. In September, 2010 'The New York Times' and other US newspapers carried numerous stories about the consolidation of banks and money by Karzai and his political allies and complaints of exclusion and fraud by other factions.

What began as 'nation-building' has become rebuilding. Much like the old Afghanistan, the women's rights initiatives are loosing momentum. The article describes the Afghan attitude toward women as only belonging 'in the house or in the ground'. Observers in Afghanistan mention that the Karzai government has agreed to return to fundamentalist conservative Taliban anti-woman views on women to bring the Taliban into his coalition. For example, government policy now includes denying women safe-housing in private shelters, and returning women from the 14 national shelters to conditions from which they have attempted to flee.

US AID now is working on a $600 million for the municipal government building project in Afghanistan instead of many of the women's rights issues. $600 million is a large amount of money to send to a country which does not recognize the civil rights of half of its citizens.

Recall that the Taliban is the conservative fundamentalist Islamist religious network which has opposed the secular 'western-influenced' governments supported by the US, UK, and Europeans to stabilize the North Africa-Middle Eastern regions. Al-Qaida, the radical action arm of the Taliban, was formed by Saudi Arabian Osama bin-Laden and others, to fight off the Soviets after asking for Soviet help in Afghanistan against rival tribes and religious sects.

Then bin-Laden used the The 'Cold War' rivalry between the USSR and the US to draw US military and money into Afghanistan. Similar conflicts have spread across the whole region since then, worsening in Tunisia in North Africa and Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and other nations in the Middle East. Of course most recently US involvement has increased dramatically in Libya. In what has been described as a muti-lateral action, a French plane purportedly bombed Libya, then the US released 136 $1 million missles. The term 'no-fly zone' has been confusing. Prevously news reports described such zones as areas off-limits to military plane surveillance. Now the term appears to mean a blockade of weapons to Libya or flights out of Libya to targets.

Bin-Laden is achieving the long-term Al-Qaida goal of working for collapse of the US economy by involving the US in multiple, serial military actions in different parts of the Muslim-occupied regions. Conflicts in North African and Middle Eastern regions are draining the US of military equipment, soldiers, and money. These comflicts have created unrest in the US, by pulling the US into Islamic religious government vs. secular government power struggles throughout these regions.

Remember that Osama bin-Laden is the 53rd son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian construction industry family who reportedly lives on a $7 million dollar annual family allowance. Bin-Laden is not a poor boy out on the hillside calling out for freedom and democracy.

Perhaps bin-Laden envisioned the endpoint of the regional Al-Qaida wars as construction project income for his family's businesses in the post-war Arab zones which fundamentalist Sunni Saudi Arabian Muslims would then control.

Somehow, the Muslim fundamentalists in North Africa and the Middle-East have led the US and allies on a whirlwind of military activity and expense. Recently Obama has shown that the US is helping to pull-down the very secular governments which the US supported or permitted in the region to lessen the Arab-Israeli conflict and stabilize the region.

There has been a failure to maintain regional stability, whether by diplomatic error or lack of historical knowledge or understanding. For centuries there have been wars between radical Islamic religious sects who fight to control people, money, and resources. Sharia law and government are religion-based. There is no historical separation of church and state.

Obama's dictates to Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to step down may reflect some shared opinion about the slow progress toward democracy in Egypt, historically the land of Pharoahs, dictators. The native pro-democracy protestors may themselves have de-stabilized the area. It is possible the protestors are joining with the Muslim Brotherhood fundamentalists and other goups to return Egypt to Islam. The protestors could be part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which could appear to be an oppressed group in Egypt, outlawed by Hosni Mubarak as a revolutionary Islamic anti-secular government network. And it is reminiscent of George Bush's demands that Saddam Hussein step down in Iraq over his refusal to allow inspection of nuclear power facilities.

The US does not have unlimited funds or soldiers to clean up the mess after dictating domestic terms of government to foreign governments. The issue arises again with Obama's demand that Colonel Moammar Khaddafy of Libya step down. Khaddafy does have a very bad record on human rights, recently threatening to kill his own countrymen and killing them in an early civil war. But we are somehow more involved because of George W. Bush's opening of the diplomatic door to Khaddafy to do business in the oil/gasoline and other industries wth Libya.

The task for the US here is to answer at least four questions:
1. What it is about the US Presidency that brings on these bouts of telling foreign leaders what to do?

2. How does this lead so quickly to expensive military conflict and could this be averted?

3. Why do so many in the US think we can do business with leaders and nations with whom we so fundamentally disagree, especially in military sales of planes, ships, guns, other weapons, nuclear power, and other governmental products and services?

4. Why doesn't the US rely more on the United Nations, NATO, and other groups of nations at these times?

Conflict in the North African and Middle Eastern regions has persisted since the 6th Century. The US cannot change what the Arab Sects have not been able to resolve over all these centuries.

In the case of Afghanistan, it is not clear where the US AID contract money is coming from. If from the US, government or private sector--many might no longer want to be involved if the funds are used to re-install a repressive, fundamentalist Taliban which denies civil rights to women, members of other tribes or religious affiliations.

If the funds are from Karzai government created banks, why involve the US any further in a conflict-ridden area which can support itself, especially one that is somehow destabilizing our society by exposure to repressive, restriction of the wealth of society to a select group?

If these governments can create their own banks and money, why should the US and Europe feel a need to be involved financially or otherwise. It would not be possible to recoup or 'recover' the amount of American money and lives lost in a region now returning to its fundamentalist strife without exposing the US to fundamentalist, including anti-woman, sentiments and other forms of repression.

If there is a concern about loss of military jobs and budgets, there are alternatives. US military could be employed along US borders to solve immigration problems, provide assistance in emergency/rescue missions, and other activities with clearer goals and endpoints.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com to '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Sea Grasses Fighting Beach Erosion, Near Galveston, Texas, 2001', copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 16-The Rise of Public and Private Bill Collecting

'Jellyfish,
Left by the Tide,
on the Shore',

Galveston, Texas,
2001.







Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

It is old news that the federal cumulative debt which climbed to $25 Billion from 1935-1981 now is $14.3 Trillion in 2011, only 30 years later.

Debt then largely was due to World Wars I and II, The Korean Conflict and other military actions, and the Vietnam War. The exponential rise in federal debt is attributed to military-industrial expense and the enormous growth of the social welfare-industrial complex.

What has changed to produce such exorbitant amounts of debt? Part of this may be attributed to the loss of voter and voter representative control of governmental policy and spending.

In the military sector, 'declared wars', after attack on the US, have become a thing of the past. Military expense can be incurred by the President of the US, acting as 'Commander in Chief', rather than by the consent of Congress. 'Who is to blame' strategies may deflect the anger of voters at election time, from Congressional Representatives and Senators to the current President and Administration. However, the debt incurred remains, and is increased by interest on the debt, year after year after year.

The same is true of the growth of the debt incurred by the social welfare-industrial complex. Court-ordered busing for desegregation happened through federal judges, political appointees, not elected officials. The impetus arose in metropolitan areas, where it was decided that 'inner city' colored students from low property value/low property tax neighborhoods were not achieving in school as were their suburban contemporaries. School districts were re-arranged to get tax money from higher value suburban neighborhoods and regions to support large metropolitan public school budgets. News reports revealed large amounts of lost money due to fraud in these 'inner city' area school districts. In some areas, state government took control of school districts to fund schools and provide standard education to all students in that state.

Education and funding continues to be problems. 'Inner city' students and parents have demanded vouchers to attend private schools. This is expensive and further complicates the problem of how to keep public school systems up to standards.

Part of the problem almost never addressed is the relative cultural value of education. The North Atlantic/European US population base values education and insists children go to school, do their homework, and try to do their best. This value is not uniformly held in ethnic populations. Many colored populations often believe 'getting along' or racial or ethnic 'community-building' is more important than literacy and basic school skills, in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Many Mexicans and other Central/South Americans in the US believe it is more important to get a vegetable cart, become a street vendor, or in some way go into business and start earning money early in life rather than go to school. Sometimes this may be necessary to have a place to live or food to eat. Sometimes it reflects a different view of society and how to survive or achieve.

Education too has become a focus for government contracting. Public schools as proposed by John Dewey were to provide teachers, basic supplies, books, paper, pencils, blackboards and chalk, and warm, dry rooms for students to learn how to read, write, and do arithmetic.

As budgets have dramatically increased, so have complaints about the educational efficacy and public safety of the public schools.

Taking issues too far for part of the population has produced unfairness for taxpaying voters who are told they are responsible for the new debt on a 'per capita' basis.

Yemen today is an example of what happens when government expands to take control of business and the entire economy. Riots and violence in the streets has spread there as in other North Africa-Middle Eastern regions. The Yemeni government seeks to quell the riots with socialist government style social welfare promises of more jobs, increases in job income, benefits, and assistance programs.

But when the government itself is in debt, what funds are available?

The UK has taken the remarkable stance of accepting that the British economy is not growing currently. The UK announced 4th quarter 2010 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has declined into the negative range. Social welfare programs are being reduced. British sales taxes have been increased.

The US still equates large money amounts with growth of the economy. Unfortunately, what is actually growing is debt. Cumulative debt, known as the federal deficit, involves interest on annual debt and is now 93% of GDP. Cumulative debt in the UK is about 50% of GDP.

Similar strategies to balance the annual budget, tax and other revenues with expenses are used in both countries. Clinton used this strategy during his administrations. Obama discussed this 'new balance' concept. But the cumulative debt continues to increase with interest, despite no new principal amounts added.

The bigger problem with government debt in Western countries is the basic assumption that tax payer revenues will cover government spending. When this does not happen a sort of tax aggressiveness occurs. Tax-collectors and people or groups who want funding attack taxpayers for money. Tax returns too frequently are re-written to put larger tax due amounts on government revenue accounts. This also is done to benefit tax-collectors; many now 'outsourced' in privatized tax-collection businesses of their own, seek wages, salaries, incentives and bonuses for themselves from tax revenue.

This is not an issue in 3rd world countries where socialists and military dictators make up their own budgets as they takeover governments. As the US immigrant population grows, this major difference in how governments are financed creates many disputes. Many European Americans, who have been in the US for 3 or 4 generations, have been more respectful of their countrymen, and do not demand more tax dollars from them. Unless they rely on government contractor income, they are wiser to not increase their own tax burden at tax time by demanding more government money or services for themselves or their causes.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Jellyfish, Left by the Tide, on the Shore, Galveston, Texas, 2001, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Reference: 'Tackling debt in the UK: Liberals and conservatives work together by David Kerr, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, VA, Sunday, March 15, 2011.

Governmentalism: 15-Where Is the Money?

Very Large Grackle
Flying to Tree
on the Gulf Coast,
Southern Texas, 2001.








Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

The rise of the 'social welfare-industrial complex' has involved the recruitment of social welfare recipients to tax- and bill-collect the taxpayer sector of the population to obtain more free governmental-administered welfare products and services. During the Clinton Administrations (1992-2000) this occurred officially through 'welfare to work' program jobs, computer-IRS database grants and small business loans. Clinton Administration staff encouraged an aggressive 'redistribution of wealth' mentality among 'people of color', other ethnics, developmental/mentally retarded/emotionally disturbed and other groups who feel themselves to be 'needier' or poorer than others, disenfranchised, or who simply want more free products and services.

'Dispatch Politics' reported a record 16% increase in federal spending during the recession. Federal domestic spending rose to $3.2 Trillion in 2009, the Obama Administration's first year.

Other data reveal social welfare spending increased to $744 Billion. The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS, 'welfare') receives over half of this amount, $444.9 Billion. Two major welfare programs, 'Temporary Assistance for Needy Families' ('TANF') and the Food Stamp Program, are funded.

By one estimate, 77.9% of domestic funding flows to HHS, the Department of Education, and the Department of Transportation.

The 'bail out' of the federal budget for social welfare has stimulated bill collecting by recipients in one department to cover spending in another. An example is the growth of privatized bill collecting companies, some initially funded by grants, then 'spun-off' as hybird profit/non-profit companies affiliated with the 'student loan industry' by Department of Education and Health & Human Services programs.

Students or applicants never involved with one or either department are researched, names and amounts are added to these new bill collecting files. New 'Amounts Due' are adjusted upward with extremely high finance charges. The individual's social security number is termed an 'account number'. And the menacing, stalking, and harassment, using governmental computers, databases, postage, and other resources begins.

The governmentalist 'student loan industry' is frighteningly Orwellian and revisionist. 'Big brother/big sister' is watching, even if the student is not really there to watch.

Political and bureaucratic friends have used these 'loss/default' insurance files to obtain 'default' money for themselves for 'house flipping' and other 'scratch' money for their own start-ups and other businesses. When they do not repay their business loans based on hoped for bill collections, they sell student names to their lenders and re-financiers. Then another cycle of unfair bill collecting begins.

Thus privacy rights are eroded everyday, as the real US laws against 'Racketeer Influenced Crime Organizations', extortion, extortionate extension of credit, under the color of government authority, are violated.

Meanwhile, real socio-econmic problems in the US increase. Despite the phenomenal growth in the social welfare budget, there are numerous stories of people suffering, without the basics of adequate food and a room, a place from which to look for a job, without assistance beyond encouragement provided by a truly concerned social worker.

Two recent stories in a small city newspaper highlighted homelessness. 'Offering hope to throwaway kids' is the first of a 2-part series on the rising number of homeless students. 19 year old Wilson Umanzor, walked miles to work and high school until he quit high school. He got a another job to continue to pay his room, then had difficulties at school and otherwise. He was paying 3/4 of his fast food job wages ($300 of $400 monthly) for a room rented from people he knew. After othr difficulties, he was being asked to leave his room. His story may be complicated by immigration issues involving his family, parents now divorced and living in 2 states, Virginia and Texas, who did not provide even a free room for him.

The other story involves local 'police getting tougher on aggressive panhandlers'. The article implied the problem was the 'panhandler' going to the same location everyday. The local solution involved changing the nuisance to a crime punishable by up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Only a small number of people appear to be involved, '12 of the 23 offenders were charged 2 or more times with aggressive solicitation'.

It is wrong for people who have rooms, food, and social services to go out to 'panhandle' or to demand money by verbal or physical aggression. But if they are truly in need of the basics, and going out to politely ask for help, it shows a horrible unfairness in society.

If the later is true, it seems to be a small enough number of people to be housed in a truly low-cost 'rooming house'. It is as if these panhandlers have been asked to make the choice of going into the hills to die rather than ask for help or become a criminal and go into debt to the local police or courts.

This is not an isolated problem in a small city in Virginia. It is important not to allow the US to slip into becoming a much meaner society in which many people, whether private citizens or governmental grant or loan recipients, do nothing positive to provide assistance unless it personally makes money for them.

It often appears that some people are being 'pushed down' to be 'data' for others, in the social services, and 'legal' services including police and courts, to get grants or loans, only for salaries for themselves. These lucky people then meet to discuss social welfare needs rather than provide direct services, like cheap rooms, food, or transportation to essential functions.

It is time to check these social welfare budgets to find out where the money is, what is done with the money. When so many people complain of needs for basics like food, shelter, transportation, the money should be used for direct services, not endless meeting schedules, data entry and elaborate equipment, statistical studies, and related but irrelevant information gathering and packaging. The grants and loans do appear to create jobs for people who fit this skill set. And the limited number of job openings make finding jobs more difficult

US families also should be reminded that 'charity begins at home'. Family members should be asked to provide for other family members, at least with a free or cheap room from which the distressed person can go out to apply for jobs, make new friends, and piece back together an independent living situation.

Many people have lost jobs, professional or occupational status and projected income, through no fault of their own, in this recessionary economy. It is not humanitarian at home to 'blame the victim' who did nothing wrong, but had the misfortune of returning to school or working for the wrong company at the wrong time in a fluid, rapidly changing workplace of short-term, temporary, part-time jobs.

Email mkrause@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21') on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of a 'Very Large Grackle, Flying to Tree, on the Gulf Coast, Southern Texas, 2001, copyright, mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Reference: 'The Free Lance-Star', Fredericksburg, VA, Sunday, March 13, 2011 p.1 and Sunday, March 20, 2011, p.1.

Governmentalism:14- And The Rise in Bill Collecting

'Jellyfish, Sea Grasses,
Driftwood, Artifacts
Swept Ashore'

Galveston, Texas
2001.









Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

Governmentalists have 'grown' tax-collecting and extended it into the bill-collecting industry. As government defense contractors were bankrupted, their 'state of the art' computer systems were 'confiscated' or 'taken' by government in bankruptcy settlements and re-programmed to tax collect on Americans. TRW, a defense and aeronautics contractor in the race to space, became a building block for Experian, the largest of the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs).

The governmental connection somehow gave legitimacy to the credit reporting/bill collecting agencies CRA industry. Like Retail Credit of Atlanta, Georgia, established in 1899, such 'tattletales' and 'snoops' were not uniformly respected in society. Such companies do not buy or sell an independent product. They produce or reproduce someone else's receipts or often questionable records or reports of transactions of buyers and sellers.

Operating in the South, CRAs were not accepted throughout the US, often considered to be parasitic in the business sector. In the North, retailers often sent customers positive 'letters of credit' when a transaction was complete. For example, after the last payment on a installment furniture purchase, the furniture store would send a good 'letter of credit', thanking the customer for their purchase or prompt payment. Such letters could be taken to other retailers to obtain store credit or for other credit purposes.

It is hard to understand how the CRAs were not put out of business. As the CRAs grew, they often were taken to court for libel and defamation of character. CRAs made many settlements in the 1970s for inaccurate and damaging information. As courthouse 'damage control', CRA business practices and structures became more anonymous with unsigned negative credit report letters, automated computerized systems to disseminate their negative reports, using other companies' customers names and information as products to sell to other retailers, banks, and lenders. Now there are multiple 'pseudo-scientific' scales of credit worthiness, or unworthiness, to drive up the cost of credit through higher interest and financial fees.

As CRAs extended into the insurance business with background checks and 'character references', CRAs have driven up the cost of insurance. The concept of higher premiums for 'higher risk' customers became a part of CRA businesses, now known as subsidiaries or affiliates of a diversified business or credit rating companies.

An independent observer looking at such businesses might see 'the big picture'. Insurance-affiliate CRAs often are insurance agents, defaming and libelling customers, to raise the price a customer must pay for government-mandated purchases of insurance.

Auto insurance became an issue for many people in the 1970s and 1980s as state governments began to demand proof of insurance to drive cars. It is true that a drunk driver who has caused accidents and injuries should be held accountable, and 'someone should have to pay' for these expenses other than innocent injured. But this mandate has given insurance agents a form of 'guaranteed income' through government intervention, enforceable for free through government representatives, like traffic police.

It also raises the question of whether politicians and bureaucrats themselves, family, friends, or supporters are insurance agents at some time in their careers or in some other way benefit from insurance mandates. In the late 1990s a major auto insurance company in Ohio subsidized police car computers. This helped the insurance company track insureds for payments or to forcibly sell more auto insurance. Cars not listed on this insurance company's payment files could be stopped and inquiries made, without any driving infraction. This increased the arbitrary nature of police power and possible business and profit to this insurance company. The insurance company stock rose from $10 to $100 per share around this time period.

As governmentalist intervention grows, the cost of products and services rises. As government and business form more interlocking money connections, the risk and the reality of loosing money, property, and true civil liberties also grows.

The 'real economy' has shrunk as government has grown through intervention. The loss of factory jobs in 'big steel', 'big auto', railroad, other major industries which have been by tax-collection or special interest group lawsuit settlement been forced out of business. This has produced profits for governmentalists, seeking to increase their own budgets and salaries.

The problem now is that these profits have now been spent by bankruptcy court personnel, clerks, administrators, attorneys, judges, governmentalist bureaucrats, and others. Many of these now are in financial distress themselves, having 'flipped' too many houses, who ask the government for mortgage assistance and low or no taxation.

Many of the big employers 'have been taken down'. Much business in America now is done in small private franchises of what formerly were large corporations. To stay employed, individuals have started their own small businesses. There is enormous growth of 'cottage industries', home-based businesses, which existed in the much smaller economies in Europe and elsewhere before the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago.

It is ironic that the left, liberal to socialist to communist, philosophies used by the 'black civil rights', 'special needs', alcohol/drug abuse, welfare rights, social welfare, and related special interest groups have used an outmoded philosophy to bankrupt much of the known world. Karl Marx, the political philosopher often referred to, himself believed that the goal of socialism was not a 'central party' soviet form of communism, but a participatory democracy. Socialism was a way of organizing the less politically interested or influential to participate in politics and in business.

Americans of many diverse backgrounds working in large businesses enjoyed higher wages, salaries, and better benefits than many are able to provide for themselves in a home-based business, post-liberal lawsuit agenda.

Home-based financial services companies which bill collect abound. Individuals, more aggressive for money, do not hesitate to try to ruin other individuals who will not agree to send money to them at their bill-collecting companies, by multiple negative credit report computer links. Such individuals can be viciously unfair to others.

One of the meanest examples is negative credit reporting based on current or past employment. Having obtained a 'wage page' from a court bankruptcy file or finance company 'restructuring', such companies pester former employees of now bankrupt companies for bill-collecting money and send these on as 'negative credit reports'.

There is nothing due to a company after the employee performs the work for which he or she was paid. If the company is not satisfied with the work, the employee is asked to leave the company, fired, taken off the schedule, or otherwise no longer paid. Special issues like sales 'charge-backs' for commission-based salespeople are by general agreement in the US to be specified at the time of employment or by employment contract.

It is as unfair to 'trick' a supposed employee into working for free as it is for an employee to not do their work during paid work hours.

As more angry ethnic groups, 3rd World, and foreign people who do not speak English well or understand usual business practices in the US enter business in the US, there are many problems with these basic concepts. The 'business loan' is taken out by the hiring employer not the employee. If an 'Independent Contractor' must take out a loan to become as an 'Independent Distributor, Salesperson' or in some other function, that must be done by that individual, not by a hiring employer signing a prospective employees name or forwarding a job application. These issues must be specified.

What is lost in society in general is the sense of fairness and trust that many or most will be fair. What also is lost is trust in government as a mechanism for righting wrongs. This instability is reflected in a 'boom and bust' economy, not based on supply and demand.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through '21'). See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or '19' for bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: 'Jellyfish, Sea Grasses, Driftwood, Artifacts Swept Ashore,' Galveston, Texas, 2001, copyright mkrause381@gmail or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism:13- And The Rise in Rent & Mortgage Costs

'After the Storm,
Plant on the Seashore',
Atlantic City, NJ,
2003.









The Soviet (Russian, USSR) economy collapsed in the mid-to-late 1980s. The US economy faced an enormous stock market crash in 1987. The purchasing power and value of the US dollar was falling. The federal debt had risen to a then frightening amount of over $25 BILLION dollars.

Wall Street, possibly in the giddiness of a bad joke about there being nothing else to sell, began to sell 'debt'. Over the next 2 decades, most US citizens have seen the consequences of these money maneuvers as the economy falters.

Many Americans have a lower standard of living. There are higher prices on everyday items as the dollar purchases less and less. There are fewer stable jobs. There has been a misguided attempt to bring money in to the US, 'to expand the economy', by encouraging uncontrolled immigration. Unfortunately these replaced Americans in jobs, were able to preferentially obtain mortgage, business and other loans, take over businesses, in part through 'race-based' agendas. These new immigrants, legal and illegal, then landed in the welfare offices as the 'housing construction boom' and other projects they were brought to work in as cheap labor or independent contractors collapsed.

One Wall Street strategy that has hurt the American economy, continues to to so in the 'unpaid mortgage as security' bundled debt sales. At the end of his administration, Bush worked out 1/2 billion dollar 'bail out' deals for major banks like Citibank, already in bankruptcy earlier in his Administration. Shortly after taking office, Obama continued this 'bank bail out' with another 3/4 of a billion dollars.

One of the early mortgage security package brokers at Salomon Brothers, Lewis Ranieri, told 'Parade Magazine's Joel Brenner he no longer felt proud of his role in the mortgage-based securitization market of the 1980s. Ranieri is still in the mortgage market, offering refinance packages to individual distressed home mortgage holders. As he explains it, he helps homeowners stay in their homes or offers rent/home sales plans rather than force them into the streets homeless, as often happens during the 'foreclosure' crisis.

To the financial non-expert, mortgage securitization has enormously increased inflation, the costs of basics like rent and home ownership, and relocation of people in the US.

It has added another layer to the American economy. On the lower layer is the 'real economy' where people work for $10 per hour or less, rent a modest apartment or home, drive a reasonably priced car.

The next level is the 'Wall Street investment economy', the hundreds of thousands to million dollar range, of banks and bankers, generating mortgage and business loans, stocks and bonds markets.

The new higher level is the 'house flipper' market, the hundreds of millions to billion dollar range, of mortgage securitization brokers, some banks and investment bankers, new alternative bonds brokers and lenders, who operate business to business among those who are included in the new wealth of the 'house-flipping' markets. Governmentalists are there too, working the details of the mortgage deals, which often force the original homeowner out into the streets and make new mortgage monies available to financial friends.

At this level, the brokers scrape the profit from the top of the table. Unlike the original homeowner, these brokers are not mired in the taxes, insurance premiums, refinance fees on a particular house.

The 'house-flipper' brokers do the package deals, work the paper, walk out of banks with bigger checks than msot people in the 'real economy' dream of. These brokers got rich in the 'house-flipping' economy while others went broke, homeless, if unemployed or underemployed, now without the house, less likely to attract another business or home loan for themselves.

When criticizing these money maneuvers, 'Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans...', insiders ignore the 'big picture'. Financial analysts refer to the layers of detail of scales related to the financial maneuvers, many times removed from the basics of the transaction. And the analysts tend to blame the lower level of transaction, an individual homeowner with an 'unacceptable FICO' score to qualify for a mortgage loan, involving a very small fraction of the multi-million transactions being questioned.

Where is the headline: 'Broker Steals House for the Afternoon, Borrows a Million, Boards Plane for Antigua'?

The audacity of these brokers who owned nothing, to not only get rich on someone else's house and house payments, is astounding. But adding insult to injury, the brokers punish the actual homeowners with negative credit reports to block loans to the actual homeowners, while taking the available loan monies for themselves.

The 'debt brokers' have made similar maneuvers in the credit card industry. The credit card payer's credit card bank or lender will not 'work with' the actual customer to keep the account. Why? Because the credit card company, at least on paper, appears to make more money by 'selling' the credit card account amount, putting that on their financial summary, and getting a loan against it for themselves from the credit card bank or a friend at another bank.

The greed for 'big money' at the current highest level of the economy, in business and governmentalists offices, has produced an unprecedented aggression, meanness, and unfairness in the US economy and society in general.

The Clinton Administrations (1992-2000) 'brought in' ethnic, racial, and special interest groups to help bill- and tax-collect for social welfare program benefits, including houses, to be given to them. Fueled in part by the anger of ethnic and racial minorities, there is no remorse for causing hardship 'by taking' from someone else--their house, their car, their job, libelling them, annoying or threatening friends, family or employers--by those who purport to be 'doing their jobs' in government-affiliated financial companies as bill collectors who seek to profit by taking from someone else.

With the huge increase in governmentalist involvement in home foreclosures and remedy programs which do not result in refinance for the original owners, the US has become Stalinesque. In the 1930s, between World War I and II, Stalin and his army forced people out of their homes during that phase of the Communist revolution in Russia and the Soviet satellite republics. In the US today, it is with an army of angry ethnics and others who use 'white collar' weapons--computers, billings, telephone calls--to ruin US citizens, particularly white mainstream Americans, financially, professionally, and personally.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through 21.) on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and 19 for bloglists of monthlynotes titles and URLs.

References: 'Cleaning Up the Mortgage Mess' by Joel Brenner, Parade Magazine, May 23, 2010.
'Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans in Securities, Panel is Told' by Gretchen Morgenson, The New York Times, September 27, 2010.

See http://monthlynotes20.blogspot.com for blogs on 'Can the Credit Consumer Survive the Credit Report Industry?'

Graphic: 'After the Storm, Plant on the Seashore', Atlantic City, NJ, 2003.

Governmentalism:12-And the Rise in Cost of Higher Education

Large Helmet Crab Shell
and Its Shadow,
with Starfish.

Atlantic City, NJ,
Beach, 2003.










In 2010 86.5% of all adults over 25 years of age had completed High School.
29.5% of adults had completed 4 years or more of college. 25% had a Bachelor degree or higher degree.

The price of a college education has risen from 1950 to 2007.

Year---------Public College/University---------Private College/University

1949-50----------$1,233------------------------------$1,430

1959-60----------$3,244------------------------------$3,904

1969-70----------$7,041-----------------------------$16,234

1979-80---------$21,031-----------------------------$41,434

2006-07--------?$60,000---------------------------?$100,000

(Prices appear to include tuition plus room & board, perhaps books, fees, other expenses.) Adapted from The NYT Almanac, 2010_____________________________________________________________

Higher Education is a good example of the cost of governmentalist intervention. The 'bail out' in education however was done through private citizens and the extension of federal financial aid programs to the general public, from early defense department programs to encourage degrees in science and technology.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s many if not most students and their parents paid for the student's college education. Private 'tuition plans' which allowed parents to borrow for the year, but pay monthly, and a variety of other plans were available.

Pell Grants for welfare recipients were available. The Federal Family Financial Assistance Plans for Tuition and other expenses were not developed, not available at many or mot private schools, or available only to military, Department of Defense, or other restricted groups.

Federal financial aid programs initially were regulated under the US Code of Federal Regulations, were not considered 'consumer credit', were unsecured, simple low-interest rates loans, and were not considered to be a 'bill collectors' bonanza.

Over the years as the 'real economy' has faltered, the federal debt and 'paper economy' has grown, federal tuition assistance programs have been 'grown' into 'the student loan industry'.

This is a huge computerized network of 'third-party bill collectors' who do not lend money, who do not honor the enticing student payment deferment and forgiveness options offered to applicants to 'get a signature', charge with high-interest, compounding interest finance fees, and generates an exponential number of duplicative 'accounts', billings, and negative credit reports through the consumer 'credit reporting agencies' (CRAs).

The financial aid programs are done with governmental seal of approval under the Federal Insurance Guarantee Corporation. For a 5-10% or more 'origination fee' and 'loss/default insurance premium' form signed, in advance, at the same time as the application or on 1 form which is considered to be both 'Application' and 'Promissory Note", the applicant becomes a target for the 'student loan industry' bill collection machine.

Despite violating Federal Trade Commission laws against advance payments required to get a loan and United States Code Annotated (USCA) laws against extortionate extension of credit under 'Racketeer Influenced Organized Crime', the student loan industry persists. It has become larger under looser laws for approving loans as the tuition amounts have increased. Now many are extended to involve parents and family property.

Obama involves cabinet departments, like the Department of Education, which now claims to actually lend money rather than sponsor loss/default insurance policies as students obtain actual loan money from banks and other lenders. Many 'third party' bill collectors invoke this department and others on their billings.

Under Obama, rewriting or revision of federal laws has occurred. For example, USCA rules on usury have been revised allowing outrageously higher interest rates. Modern usury rate limits previously had been increased from 8% in frequently cited cases to 25% for 'revolving loans', and compound in addition to simple interest. Compound interest previously was considered 'loan sharking', exorbitant interest rates on amounts borrowed.

Using paying students who borrow to attend college to subsidize the welfare class of students on Pell Grants, other 'no payment required' funding, the social welfare budget in general, or as 'start-up' funds for business grants, loans, or other governmentalist programs, is unfair and violates the civil rights of those who stay off 'the public dole' and try to pay their own way. Unfortunately, the value of a college education has not kept up with the cost of a college education for these students, if they cannot find a high paying job or a series of financial solutions which allow them an adequate standard of life.

Other violations of civil rights occur through automated filing of bankruptcy-type lawsuits, as is now done by attorney groups in New York and other states. Names are placed on lists and lawsuits have been filed in enormous numbers in computerized locations.

The enormity of the data errors on government files and those forwarded to the credit reporting agencies (CRAs), to bankers/lenders, to courts, police, and others is mindboggling. So is the harm these data streams can cause to an individual US citizen.

Government contracts to CRAs, and the Obamacare plan to join CRAs, IRS, and the health care industry, is beyond frighteningly Orwellian. Data put on these computers, whether accidental or with intent to harm cannot be undone, easily or at all.

It may be time to take as much valid official data 'offline', as is possible, and to reserve the Internet for advertising and the voluntary exchange of information and opinion.

Governmentalists may have to understand that 'yes, you cannot make money off of these things.' Government picks up the cost of those products or services which are not profitable for private businesses. Welfare medical care, public school education through elementary and high school, products of industries which have failed to stay solvent or make a profit, whether by demands for ridiculously high wages and salaries, management errors like too much or too extravagant construction at the wrong time, like higher education.


(See http://monthlynotes20.blogspot.com to read blogs on 'Can the Credit Consumer Survive the Credit Reporting Industry?')

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com) on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes19.blogspot.com for monthlynotes bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of a 'Large Helmet Crab Shell and Its Shadow, with Starfish', Atlantic City, NJ, Beach, 2003, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism:11-And the Rise in Consumer Prices

'Seashore Artifacts,
After the Storm'
Atlantic City, NJ,
2003.







Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of governmentalism.

The cost of the increasing intervention of government in business and the everyday life of the average American citizen is reflected in the decrease in the purchasing power of the dollar from 1950 to 2008.

The Purchasing Power of the Dollar:

Year---Producer Prices-----Consumer Prices

1950-----3.55-------------------4.15

1980-----1.14-------------------1.22

1985-----0.96-------------------0.93

1990-----0.84-------------------0.77

1995-----0.78-------------------0.66

2000-----0.73-------------------0.58

2005-----0.64-------------------0.51

2008-----0.57-------------------0.46
__________________________________________________________

In 1950, the dollar purchased more than a dollar's worth of products and services for Producers and Consumers, reflecting a strong dollar. The dollar was worth $3.55 for Producers and $4.15 for Consumers.

Recall that from 1935-1981, the federal deficit increased to $25 Billion, due to military costs, in World War II through the Vietnam War. By 1980, the value of the dollar had dropped to $1.15 for Producers and $1.22 for Consumers.

By 1990, with the increase in federal deficit to $167 Billion at the end of the Reagan Administration, the purchasing power of the dollar slipped below the dollar to 84 cents for Producers and 77 cents for Consumers.

Despite Clinton's claims to have balanced the budget, by the end of the Clinton Administrations in 2000, the value of the dollar had dropped to 73 cents for Producers and 58 cents for Consumers.

In 2008, near the end of the Bush Administrations, the dollar had slipped to 57 cents for Producers and 46 cents for Consumers.

Debt is inevitable for both producers and consumers when the purchasing power of the dollar has fallen to 57% of its face value for Producers and only 46% of its face value for Consumers.

'Growing the economy' with higher governmental appropriations for higher budgetary amounts, higher debts and higher interest on those debts is not convincing to producers who must pay more to produce goods and services and consumers who must pay more to purchase those goods and services.

It seems inconceivable that politicians more recently could have allowed the real estate industry and 'alternative banking and lending' networks to have further inflated the economy with debt on houses from $250,000 to $500,000 to $1 million dollars or more. Done to increase property taxes as a mechanism for paying larger salaries to themselves, it is unreasonable and financially naive.

The taxpayers in the real economy, with a minimum wage of less than $10/hour, cannot possibly be expected to provide any financial backing to 'bail out' such mortgages, for mortgage-holders or politicians waiting for projected property tax revenues.

Even with the African political model of demanding 100% of wages from wage earners in taxes to fund government officials' salaries, it would take 10 workers at $10 per hour, 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year or $20,800 per year, to fund a government official's salary of $200,000 per year.

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff at http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through http://monthlynotes21.blopspot.com) on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes19.blogspot.com for blog lists of titles and URLs for monthlynotes blogs.

Graphic: 'Seashore Artifacts, After the Storm', Atlantic City, NJ, 2003, An Original Photograhic, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

References: Table adapted from NYT Almanacs, 2006 and 2008.

Mini-lecture by Dinesh D'Souza, author of 'The Roots of Obama's Rage', on Glenn Beck, Fox News 9-29-2010, who spoke about the influence of Kenya, Africa finance official Barack Obama Sr. on Barack Obama. D'Souza cited a 1965 article in 'East Africa Journal' on 'Problems Facing Our Socialism': ...so long as people get benefits from government commensurate with their income which is taxed..nothing can stop government from taxing 100% of income.' D'Souza's comments implied Kenyans take the full amount taxed.
D'Souza believes 'Obama's Rage' stems from Kenyan anti-colonialist hostility toward Britain or Europe, imparted to him by his father. Obama, Sr's job was not well-described.

Governmentalism: 10-Governance & Profit through Bill Collecting

'Palm Trees'
near the Gulf Shore
Southern Texas, 2001.










Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, people, resources, and existing forms of government.

Ivan Ilyich and other writers from socialist/communist backgrounds warned of entanglement of government with business and the ensuing threat to civil rights in America in their books about the rise of the military-industrial complex. Writers who had defected from socialist/communist countries warned of the similarity of the 'central party' organization to the formation of a small, influential military-industrial 'elite', a group of people who controlled very big budgets, defense department contractors and government purchasing agents and their political and military connections.

The military industrial complex created a pattern of government/business contracting policies and procedures. The pattern was emulated and reshaped by the emerging Social Welfare government agency-industrial complex.

One bitter irony of the growth of the social welfare-industrial complex is that the 'ensuing threat to civil rights' was misinterpreted. This threat was meant to warn of a consolidation of money and power in a military-industrial elite, who could then control the US Treasury or overthrow the American Democracy in a military coup to install a socialist/communist military dictatorship.

What happened has been a true threat to overall civil rights. A continuing series of bankrupting 'black civil rights' lawsuits against 'whites'--individuals, businesses perceived as 'white-owned', and a US government perceived as 'white'--has produced a cabinet advocacy level of funding for this movement.

The 'free' items demanded by The Black Panther Party in 1965 match the demands for 'free' items of the social welfare state. 'Free' meaning at 'no cost' has been confused with the meaning of free citizens and the freedoms of US citizens, freedom of speech, religion, assembly, to associate with whomever one chooses, to pursue 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'.

Most mainstream Americans, perhaps most white Americans asked only for their traditional right to vote, to equally decide government policy, to control government spending, and to be taxed fairly.

Despite the stated 'post-racial' stance of many blacks seeking governmentalist positions, there is an undercurrent of belief among blacks and ethnics that whites somehow agreed to a 'colored takeover' with the election of Obama. Instead what is said privately is 'you can't stop us now'. What whites agreed to was the traditional belief in equality in America without regard to race, color, creed, nationality, or other difference among US citizens.

Clinton continued the racial polarization in the US and made his socialist statements of intent to 'redistribute wealth' openly. The problem now is twofold: 1. the American public has not agreed to a 'transfer of power' to socialists, communists, or 'internationalists', or 'coloreds', or to create a biracial or mixed-race society. 2. The US is facing an almost incomprehensible federal debt of $14 Trillion, there is only debt to 'redistribute'.

As the supposed per person ('per capita') share of that debt has risen to over $42,000, there is much unrest in society. Most taxpayers believe that the expenditures of politicians, for military or social welfare, to appease or to soothe racial or international tensions, for other 'special interest' groups or business, or other purposes are only that--the expenditures of politicians--and the taxpayer does not want to be unfairly taxed, taxed without representation, or viciously tax-collected.

The use of government acquired or stored information databases, computers, information technology, and personnel has not been approved by a referendum vote of a majority of US citizens. Most undoubtedly would not approve government contracts to the major credit reporting agencies ('CRAs'), the Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, and other networks of corporate or franchise bill collection businesses, the 'nameless, faceless' automated computer networks which have ruined their credit, blocked personal or business credit and loans, denied their car loans, new apartment rental or mortgage refinance packages.

The vicious cycle of governmentalist intervention in business and in the everyday lives of citizens uses the CRAs as mechanism. Bill- and tax-collectors, particularly 'privatized' tax collectors with IRS-type 'logos', use CRAs to negatively credit report US citizens to demand payments.

Obamacare would worsen this trend. Obamacare would subject US citizen's to IRS penalties, fees, liens, and other financial hardship for not accepting his mandate to purchase health care insurance or to declare insolvency by enrolling for the 'welfare card'. Either ruins credit.

The United States Code states 'extortion means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under the color of official right'. The enormity of the growth of US governmentalist networks, including privatized 'look-alike' IRS businesses, and the use of CRAs as mechanism have made this quite common, has damaged overall civil rights in the US, the trust of US citizens in the US government, and the American economy.

The US form of government, the participatory democracy, is the best form of government. But it depends on the honesty, integrity, and fairness of politicians and bureaucrats. If used by the greedy or angry ethnic and racial groups, it can take the form of 'mob rule'. And there is no king or queen to appeal to right the wrongs.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com) on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes19.blogspot.com for blog lists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Palm Trees', Near the Gulf Coast, Southern Texas, 2001, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism: 9-Governance, Profit & Social Welfare

'Croc in
Enclosed Tank
for a Swim'

Crocodile
'Chateau'
in Louisiana, 2002.








Many welfare recipients, new legal and illegal immigrants, and wage earners demand 'McMansions' and expensive housing. This social welfare movement appears synchronized with local politiican and banker deals to bulldoze old neighborhoods with truly affordable, 'cheap', housing and rebuild to increase local property value, projected property tax revenues, and so their own wages and salaries.

The US financial sector appears to be loosing to '3rd World' pressures and problems. In the US too there is overpopulation or population not sustainable by the local or domestic economy, unemployment/underemployment, actual or cultural illiteracy, contaminated food and water, hyperinflation, greedy authoritarian politicians and aggressive police, not unlike socialist/communist '3rd World' army-installed dictators, who live in mansions and eat big while many or most of their population is hungry and homeless.

The US is different because many of our current social problems have been created. Uncontrolled immigration, first allowed in the 1960s by Democrat Party President Lyndon B. Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, brought a large number of poor people to America, an ironic turn of events during LBJ's 'War on Poverty'. Recall that LBJ was from Texas, on the US/Mexican border.

Subsequently, there was growth of social welfare populations demanding programs and politician-proponents demanding funding for such programs. Both have been 'grown' by the Clinton Administration series of 'redistribution of wealth' lawsuits and settlements through ethnic and black race-based initiatives and reduced- or no-tax benefits to Clinton's 'dual citizenship' supporters. These policies have increased social, economic, and budgetary problems in the US.

Many politicians seem to believe that by increasing the budget, they increase their salaries, seen as commissions on budgetary amounts. It is a type of convoluted thinking in which the politicians envision themselves as bankers/lenders seeking increased interest profit by increasing principal with increased federal appropriations.

Welfare, special interest, developmental/mentally retarded & emotionally disturbed, alcoholic, drug abusing, and mentally ill populations and advocates have been permitted to attack the 'normal' segment of society. Such 'special interest' and 'special needs' groups have demanded too many benefits at too high a cost, including 'cash' benefits.

Formerly welfare recipients lived in free 1-, 2-, and 3-bedroom apartments in welfare apartment buildings ('the projects'), ate for free on food stamps, received free medcal and dental care, free public education through elementary school and high school, and other free social welfare assistance.

In New York City in 1994, average welfare benefits were worth about $34,0000 per year for welfare mothers with children. Social welfare demands spiralled into demands to live in 'better' working class and middle-class neighorhoods. Currently in places like Fairfax County, Virginia, now 'bankrupt' ('running a deficit') but too long perceived as one of the wealthiest counties in America, welfare recipients live in $250,000 - $500,000 town houses and million dollar single-family homes, now called 'McMansions'.

Social Welfare demands continue for free higher education in colleges and universities, beyond the already available Pell Grants which now have reached approximately $5,000 in cash value. There are further demands for free job skills programs, business grants and low-interest business loans, more food stamps, 'private school' vouchers, more welfare cash benefits, free bus and other transportation passes, and preferential hiring for jobs for which 'special needs' applicants demand or require 'reasonable accommodation' to perform the job.

When unemployment is high, and jobs are scarce, it is practical and humanitarian to hire 'normals' who can do the job well, without the cost of 'reasonable accommodation'. And because non-subsidized normals really do need the job to pay for rent, food, and basics of everyday life.

But where is the proft in social welfare?

For the welfare recipient the profit is in receiving free housing, food, education, transportation, and job training skills. Receivng $34,000 or more annually in free goods and services is the equivalent of profit, cash value above the cost of producing a 'sold' product or service.

For the wealthy, many of whom may be government contractors who construct, broker, finance, or otherwise provide housing, food, and services, social welfare related businesses are ways to make money and profit by qualifying for grants, loans, contributions, and other monies.

Consider an example from education. The working and lower-middle class, still must pay 'real' taxes from 'real' income, without a tax attorney to fight each denied, tax code deduction. These tax dollars are the local, county, state and federal taxes used to build the school, pay the teachers, and provide books, pencils, paper, blackboards and chalk.

But these taxpayers cannot cover the outrageous costs of even computer equipment in the schools. 'Mainstreaming' 'special needs' students has brought additional expense to local school districts for mobility-devices and special equipment requisitioned for students who require nursing care and special services for deaf, blind, and other handicappd students.

Wealthy computer company executives may donate or sell computer equipment to schools at cost or less 'to do business', and to 'profit by loss' line items on their corporate tax returns.

The actual tax-paying working and lower middle-class is tax collected into financial troubles during a time of underemployment and unemployment as is now true. The shrinking tax base cannot cover expenses for the welfare class, which continues to grow and demand more free products and services.

'Tax breaks' for upper-middle class taxpayers and businesses earning $250,000, now under debate, may allow the free items to continue to flow to the welfare populations. However, this group, said to create jobs in return for such tax breaks, may not really hire 'the general public', only family and friends. And they may not have to pay substantial tax monies if they employ a 'good' tax attorney who 'puts through' their deductions and allows them to keep their income or earnings.

Such businesses may benefit from the welfare voucher system in housing construction, food, education, computers. 'On paper' they could benefit at least until their suppliers begin to demand money, or more money for the supplies, rather than do 'credit' exchange and other deals as a way to continue 'to do business', while securing additional business loans for themselves.

The social welfare system works while there are still goods in the warehouses to sell to the working and middle-class. But what happens when banks slow lending to investors who stop investing in real products and services, given to the welfare class in governmentalist-mediated deals, because their 'loss' line items are 'maxed out' and won't produce any more 'tax breaks'? The 'voucher economy' comes to a close. And everyone waits for 'the next big thing' to stimulate the economy.

Ronald Reagan was very insightful in his 1961 speech opposing the Ferrand National Health Care Bill in 1961, recently published online by "Townhall Conservative Classics". Remembering the American people's rejection of Truman's compulsory health insurance program, Reagan said:

"Back in 1927, an American socialist, Norman Thomas, candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American poeple would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

One of the traditional methods of imposing 'statism' or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little bit reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it."

The problem we face is the 'hybrid private/state capitalism' governmentalists have developed in the US. Working and lower middle-class citizens are tormented by tax and bill collectors, national and international, for 'real money'.

The voucher system provides free basics of life for the social welfare class. The upper-middle class and wealthy depend on 'real money' tax revenue from the shrinking working- and lower-middle classes. These 'real monies' fund the welfare classes through free social welfare products and services. These products and services are produced and distributed by the upper-middle classes and wealthy, through corporate, philanthropic, and other groups, again drawing from tax revenues for their grant, loan, and other funds.

Reagan recalled James Madison's 1788 speech to the Virginia Convention:
"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation".

This is true currently in the enormous amount of duplicative erroneous information, accidental and deliberate, found in tax- and bill-collecting databanks, used to financially ruin the lives of US citizens to fund governmentalist programs and projects.

Viciously unfair tax-collecting has skyrocketed with the growth of 'privatized' Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 'spin-off' businesses, an industry grown with computer grants to welfare recipients during the Clinton years (1992-2000), unfortunately continued during the incentive and bonus days of the George W. Bush Administration (2001-2009), and now reinvigorated during the Obama Administration.

What is required is a referendum on the future of the American Democracy.

Why should any group be tormented for tax revenues if the majority chooses a social welfare socialist society with everything to be free to everyone?

Why should a vulnerable group (the working- and lower-middle class) be tormented for tax revenues by governmentalists who have overspent or create the illusion of providing money for social welfare programs at budgetary amounts in the gadzillions, 'illions' for which there are not even words to describe.


Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com on www.google.com (or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com). See http://montlynotes18.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes19.blogspot.com for bloglists of titles and URLs of monthlynotes blogs.

Graphic: An Original Photographic of 'Croc in Enclosed Tank for a Swim', Crocodile 'Chateau', Louisiana, 2002, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com.

Governmentalism-8: Governance & The Paper Standard

'Model Train,
Tracks, and
Town'

Exhibit Near
The National Tree,
The Ellipse,
The White House,
Washington, DC,
December, 2001.





Governmentalism is not an ideology. It is a method of taking control of money, resources, people, and existing forms of government.

Governmentalists rely on 'loss/default' federal guarantee insurance corporation programs, reinsurance, and other forms of 'paper' to fund the now enormous $14 Trillion federal debt for the 'social welfare economy' and other traditional programs such as defense.

Keep in mind that from 1935-1981, the federal debt was only $25 Billion. Federal Debt increased to $165 million during Ronald Reagan's administration from 1981-1989. Costs of the Vietnam War and later of Reagan/George HW Bush US military involvement fighting socialist armies in South America and the Middle East were blamed for this increase in debt.

Social Welfare expenditures originated during Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964-65'War on Poverty' and his concurrent loosening of traditional limitations on number of immigrants admitted to the US annually led to the phenomenal growth in the social welfare segment of the federal budget.

To fund themselves and their favored expenditures, governmentalists aggressively and unfairly tax- and bill-collected individual US citizens and businesses. Tax collection pressures drove many American companies to seek materials, factories, warehouses, and operations centers and to relocate outside of the US.

The seemingly ridiculous endpoint of 'off shore' business operations was the dissolution of traditional American companies which 'did it all' from product design, manufacture, sales, and dstribution. Producer companies, often major employers, were replaced by import product brokers.

Many companies went through periods of 'employee downsizing' during the change from producer to broker. These companies tried to lower or limit costs, to create, maintain, or increase profit for investors. The result was a net loss of jobs and therefore of sales of produts in the US. An enormous number of imported products and services replaced 'made in the USA' products, and later services.

The automotive industry is a good example of this change to an import product economy. Larger, more expensive labor cost American cars and trucks now had to compete with lower priced foreign, low-labor cost, sources. Japanese and Korean car manufacturers now compete in the US market with some of the lowest price cars on the market.

Major US car manufacturers have faced multiple federal bankruptcies and 'bail outs', which benefit the courthouse crowd. The financial 'magic' of creating something from nothing, profits from losses, during corporate bankruptcies is hidden in new financial 'tools', not so 'generally accepted accouting methods', and an 'in-crowd' of bankruptcy attorneys who are able to obtain loans under circumstances that leave the average American with 'nothing from nothing leaves nothing'.

Laws and general rules against accepting foreign campaign donations, because of concerns about foreign influence in politics and the economy, largely have been ignored. In a volatile economy many politicians and governmentalists have sought to benefit from these 'business trends' as have stock brokers, investors, and financiers.

Clinton Administration 'dual citizenship' individual and corporate tax breaks now helped foreign companies, new or bankruptcy replacement companies, do business in the US without paying taxes here. So there is further loss of tax revenue to finance exorbitant social welfare and other budget items.

To fund federal programs, governmentalists gobbled up even defense contractors for tax money and assets. Contractors with substantial early computer and 'information technology' capabilities were bankrupted. Whether to pay their taxes or in bankruptcy court compromises to survive, these contractors often became part of a gigantic tax- and bill-collecting industry.

TRW, for example, was a defense and space contractor to the federal government with other subsidiaries such as automotive parts. TRWs' computer capacities were tapped to become part of the 'credit reporting agency' section of the federally-affiliated tax/bill-collecting industry. TRW is now part of Experian, the largest database of consumer information on US citizens.

The 'paper standard' spread throughout the economy. In a frighteningly prophetic statement, the US government in the United States Code (USC 15, Setion 1681), said of the banking industry:

'The banking system is dependent on fair and accurate credit reporting. Inaccurate reports directly impair the efficiency of the banking system, and unfair credit reporting methods undermine the public confidence, which is essential to the continued functioning of the banking system.'

The US Federal Reserve reacted to the collapse of many major national banks with multi-hundred million dollar 'bail outs' near the end of GW Bush's administration in the fall of 2008 and the continued 'bail outs' at the beginning of the Obama Administration.

These appear to be empty 'bail outs', based on selling off performing as well as non-performing loans, to create the illusion of larger bank assets and holdings. The result is access to loans for 'more money to make money' for a smaller and smaller group of 'house-flipping' and other profiteers operating under traditional bank logos, signs, and store fronts. Many financial services companies simply are groups of 'bill collectors' without any real assets, who have access to loans through friends in banking.

Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs) who collect consumer data and bill collect consumers also have developed scales for denying credit to the average American. The scales are arbitrary and contradictory, credit denials for no credit history, no credit out or too much credit out. But presentation of such scales as statistical data in glossy brochures somehow has given these scales an illusion of legitimacy. CRAs then add 'bad credit risk' consumers and amounts, already in their consumer files, to their asset statements and off they go to their 'go to' friendly bank for a business loan.

CRAs appear to be bank 'ty-in' service companies', subsidiaries or affiliates who help loan officers increase projected bank profit by offering higher interest loan packages to most customers for the benefit of a few. Such companies, as well as in-bank brokerages, previously were illegal under banking laws to prevent theft of customer accounts and manipulation of bank assets and balance sheets.

CRAs also have destabilized the financial sector by supporting the trend toward usury profits for bankers. Banks cause stagnation or financial loss even for savers by offering only 1-4% interest on savings accounts, Certificates of Deposit accounts, and often charge other fees. CRAs cause ruination for borrowers by charging 20-35% compounded APR interest on credit card accounts, plus other penalties and fees.

Banks earn money through savings accounts by not paying any significant interest. Banks also earn money in what appear to be 'pure profit' credit cards with high compounding interest and fees.

Governmentalists have increased interest rates permissable under usury laws in The United States Code and other official documents. Old rules restricting interest to simple, singe-digit interest have been replaced by double-digit, compounded interest. Thus the spiral into hyperinflation has been 'enabled' by governmentalists.

Banks appear to earn enormous amounts of money in 'fluffed-up' loan to collection account 'asset' accounting. Yet banks have collapsed. Why? Money taken from the till by bankers for unsold 'house-flipping' profits, favorite 'loss' investments, inflated commission-based wages and salaries for existing checking, savings, and other accounts and internal/external bill collecting schemes, loan payments for 'bail outs' and other deals, are all factors.

The horrible urge to greed may have overcome 'the reasonable person' view and control of American society, including banking.


(See http://monthlynotes20.blogspot.com or the original http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com for blogs 1-5 on 'Can the Credit Consumer Survive the Credit Reporting Industry?')

Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to comment or request copies of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com (or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com through http://monthlynotes21.blogspot.com) on www.google.com. See http://monthlynotes18.blogspot.com and http://monthlynotes19.blogspot.com for monthlynotes bloglists of titles and URLs.

Graphic: "Model Train, Tracks, and Town' Exhibit near The National Tree, The Ellipse, The White House, Washington, DC, December, 2001. "An Original Photographic, copyright mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com, 2011.