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Banned
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Originally Posted by reconmike
Nice map you have there Host, is that the areas of the country with the highest concentration of welfare recipient's? Because if it is not, I bet you could superimpose your map over the welfare map and they would be dead on. What does that tell you there Host, with your dems are smarter that repubs?
And so now you are also getting into name calling of Republicans? Cause if the mods allow this I have a whole bunch at the ready for the Dems.
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reconmike, Bill Clinton elimnated "welfare" as a significant problem , according to this article from 12 months ago:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...rm-cover_x.htm
.....on the red vs. blue voters map in the thread OP, you can see the red concentration in the west central part of the US. That spot has the most concentrated population in that region. It is the extremely republican voting area called Utah. What do you think the stats in the usatoday article do for your "welfare" comments.....the ones that show a dramatic reduction in the numbers of welfare recipients since the Bill Clinton led, 1996 reforms.... with the exception of...... Utah?
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State Aug. 1996 families Dec. 2005 families Pct. change
Guam 2,243 ........................3,072 ..................37.0%
Ind. 51,437 ................. 48,213 ......... -6.3%
Kan. 23,790 ................. 17,400 ......... -26.9%
Tenn. 97,187 .............. .....69,361 ................... -28.6%
Ariz. 62,404 ....................... 41,943 ...................-32.8%
Utah 14,221......................... 8,151 ....................-42.7%
Mass. 84,700 ....................... 47,950 ...................-43.4%
Calif. 880,378...........................453,819 .................-48.5%
Mich. 169,997 ...................... 81,882 ...................-51.8%
Minn. 57,741 ....................... 27,589 ...................-52.2%
N.J. 101,704 ....................... 42,198 ...................-58.5%
N.Y. 418,338 ....................... 139,220 ............... -66.7%
Ill. 220,297 ....................... 38,129 ............-82.7%
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reconmike, why are you concerned enough to post about "welfare" spending that provides a vital safety net of last resort for families with children, and not concerned about the welfare that the elite insiders receive, especially since it was described so eloquently by the most decorated US Marine in history, and in 1929, the youngest USMC Major General. Smedley Butler:
Quote:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/ar...risaracket.htm
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
....It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying "for some time" methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn't suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure........
Quote:
http://www.mises.org/web/2024
War Collectivism in World War I
By Murray N. Rothbard[1]
[This essay available in PDF]
More than any other single period, World War I was the critical watershed for the American business system. It was a "war collectivism," a totally planned economy run largely by big-business interests through the instrumentality of the central government, which served as the model, the precedent, and the inspiration for state corporate capitalism for the remainder of the twentieth century.
That inspiration and precedent emerged not only in the United States, but also in the war economies of the major combatants of World War I. War collectivism showed the big-business interests of the Western world that it was possible to shift radically from the previous, largely free-market, capitalism to a new order marked by strong government, and extensive and pervasive government intervention and planning, <h3>for the purpose of providing a network of subsidies and monopolistic privileges to business, and especially to large business, interests......</h3>
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Why isn't supporting or giving a pass to parasitic scum like those named below.....an actual sign of "fringe" politics?
Quote:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ce#post2246346
.....Blackwater Becomes a Player
Erik Prince, 37, Blackwater's ambitious founder and sole owner, could have taken over his father's billion-dollar auto-parts empire. But he was attracted to the battlefield from a young age. He enrolled in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and although he finished college at a school closer to home, he eventually became a naval officer and was attached to the élite Navy seal Team 8 based in Norfolk, Va. He served in Haiti, Bosnia and the Middle East. In 1995, when his father died, Prince left the Navy and returned to Michigan. He and his sisters sold the company, and Prince took his share and founded Blackwater USA.
Before 9/11, Blackwater mostly trained swat teams and other specialized law-enforcement officers at its 6,000-acre campus on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina. With the war on terrorism, however, a new niche business developed. The State Department did not have the internal resources or Marines to protect all of its diplomats and overseas embassies, but Blackwater had access to a deep roster of former special-forces soldiers who, it argued, could do the job. It wasn't long before Prince was offering a broad range of services, from protection by bodyguards to aerial surveillance, for the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies. In 2003, Blackwater landed its first truly high-profile contract: guarding Ambassador L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, at the cost of $21 million in 11 months. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion, five-year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service, which protects U.S. officials and some foreign officials in conflict zones.
Prince's political connections may well have helped his company win these crucial contracts from the Bush Administration. He was a White House intern under George W. Bush's father. His family have long been G.O.P donors; his sister Betsy Prince DeVos chaired the Michigan Republican Party from 1996 to 2000 and from 2003 to 2005. And Blackwater has hired U.S. national-security vets onto its executive staff. Among them: Cofer Black, the onetime head of counterterrorism at the cia, and Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon inspector general whose duties included investigating contractual agreements with firms like Blackwater.
The Pentagon didn't plan for the contractors going so heavily into the war theater, says Lawrence Korb, Department of Defense manpower chief under President Ronald Reagan. "When they went into Iraq, the assumption was they had won," he says. "They did know there was going to be continuing fighting. This thing grew far beyond where anybody thought it would."....
.......The highest-paid independent contractors are known as tier-1 personnel. These are the former U.S. special-forces soldiers. On Helvenston's tour in Iraq, he was making about $600 a day. He was on a 60-day rotation and stood to make some $36,000 in two months.
http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/d...rld-nation.htm
<h2>Bush uncle benefits from war spending</h2>
By WALTER F. ROCHE JR. , Los Angeles Times
Date of Publication: March 22, 2006 .....
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9433
US: Neil Bush's Business Dealings
by Thomas Catan and Stephen Fidler, Financial Times
December 12th, 2003
....Today, Neil Bush's business partners have a new venture, in keeping with the times. <h3>New Bridge Strategies was set up this year to help companies secure contracts in Iraq following the war</h3>. Mr Howland is chairman and chief executive of the company, while <h3>Mr Daniel</h3> is a member of the advisory board.
The company briefly hit the headlines this autumn because of the impressive roster of Republican heavyweights on its board, most of whom are linked to one or other of the Bush administrations or to the family itself. The company's website has not been shy about advertising its contacts in both the Middle East and Washington.
"The opportunities evolving in Iraq today are of such an unprecedented nature and scope that no other existing firm has the necessary skills and experience to be effective both in Washington DC., and on the ground in Iraq," it said. That phrasing has since been changed.
The list of directors and advisory board members is indeed impressive. Joe Allbaugh, the chairman of the company, was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) until March 2003 and before that, chief of staff for George W. Bush while he was Texas governor. As national manager for the Bush-Cheney election campaign in 2000, he was one side of the "Iron Triangle" of aides credited with propelling him into the presidency.
Ed Rogers, the company's vice-chairman and director, was a top aide to George H. W. Bush while he was in the White House. Lanny Griffith, another director, also worked in Mr Bush senior's government and on his election campaigns. Haley Barbour, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee who was elected last month as governor of Mississippi, was on the board of Milestone Merchant Partners, a Washington-based private equity fund affiliated with New Bridge, according to the New Bridge website.
A spokesman for Mr Barbour, who is also close to the Bush family, said he resigned from that position in February.
All three are partners at Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, a Republican lobbying firm in Washington, DC. The firm shares an office with New Bridge at 1275 Pennsylvannia Avenue, on the 10th floor.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
The Relatively Charmed Life Of Neil Bush
Despite Silverado and Voodoo, Fortune Still Smiles on the President's Brother
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 28, 2003; Page D01
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush...
... Meanwhile, back home in Texas, Bush serves as co-chairman of a company called Crest Investment. Crest, he revealed in the deposition, pays him $60,000 a year to provide "miscellaneous consulting services."
"Such as?" Brown asked.
"Such as answering phone calls when <h3>Jamal Daniel</h3>, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Bush replied.
Ah, it's nice to be Neil Bush, who seems to be living the lifestyle immortalized in those famous Dire Straits lyrics: "Money for nothin' and chicks for free." ......
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/print...503/S00019.htm
Neil Bush & Crest - Another Profiteering Scheme.....
.....<h3>Crest's co-chairman, Daniel, sits on the advisory board of New Bridge Strategies, a firm set up in March 2003, just in time to cash in on the Iraq reconstruction contracts, by a group of businessmen with close ties to the Bush family, </h3> and both Bush administrations. The firm's chairman is Joe Allbaugh, who was W's campaign director in the 2000, and who was appointed Director of FEMA once Bush took office.
In addition to paying him for "consulting" work, Crest has provided funding for Neil's educational software company Ignite! In fact, Daniel sometimes introduces himself as a founding backer of the company, and has persuaded the families of prominent leaders in the Middle East to invest in Ignite, according to the Dec 11, 2003 Financial Times.
.....Neil Bush, has a $60,000-a-year employment contract with a top adviser to a Washington-based consulting firm set up to help companies secure contracts in Iraq, according to the Nov 11, 2004 Financial Times.
Neil disclosed this employment during a divorce deposition on March 3, 2003. He testified that he was co-chairman of the Houston-based, Crest Investment Corporation, which invests in energy and other ventures, and said he received $15,000 every three months for a average 3 or 4 hours of work a week doing "miscellaneous consulting services." "Such as?" his ex-wife's Attorney asked, "Such as answering phone calls when Jamal Daniel, the other co-chairman, called and asked for advice," Neil answered.
<h3>Crest's co-chairman, Daniel, sits on the advisory board of New Bridge Strategies, a firm set up in March 2003, just in time to cash in on the Iraq reconstruction contracts, by a group of businessmen with close ties to the Bush family, </h3> and both Bush administrations. The firm's chairman is Joe Allbaugh, who was W's campaign director in the 2000, and who was appointed Director of FEMA once Bush took office.
In addition to paying him for "consulting" work, Crest has provided funding for Neil's educational software company Ignite! In fact, Daniel sometimes introduces himself as a founding backer of the company, and has persuaded the families of prominent leaders in the Middle East to invest in Ignite, according to the Dec 11, 2003 Financial Times.
Overall, Crest goes to great lengths to show Neil how much it values his membership on the team. For instance, when Neil got remarried in 2004, Daniel held a wedding reception at his home, and Crest arranged a 5-year rent-free cottage for Neil and his new bride in Kennebunkport, Maine, so they could spend time near Mom & Pop Bush whenever they wanted to.
Another Jackpot - Thanks To Brother W
As usual, during his deposition, Neil forgot to mention a few facts about his earnings potential with Crest. First of all, he didn't mention that he attached his signature to letters soliciting business for New Bridge in obtaining contracts in Iraq, and two, that he attached his name as a reference for an extremely lucrative proposal submitted by Crest to obtain a lease on a parcel of property located on the island of Quintana, Texas, that will result in payments of at least $2 million a year to Crest.
When W took office in 2001, he vowed to make it easier for companies to build coastline facilities to store liquefied natural gas (LNG), a cooled and condensed form of natural gas, shipped in from countries around the world.
That promise sent US companies scrambling to secure coastline property on which to build the LNG processing facilities. One company looking to enter the market was Crest. Although the firm had no experience whatsoever in LNG processing, it had a very influential asset, a co-chairman by the name of [hide= Neil Bush.]
One property of specific interest was Quintana Island, located in the Texas gulf, because it was accessible to cargo ships. The right to grant a lease to the land belonged to the Brazos River Harbor Navigation District.
If it could gain approval, the Crest LNG facility would be the first such facility in Texas, and only one of a few in the entire country.
The Harbor Commission was so enthralled with a proposal from Crest, that it offered the company an all-exclusive lease without soliciting for any other bids. The proposal was approved even though ExxonMobil owned the right to a first refusal on that part of the island, under a 1998 agreement, and even though the Commission knew that another company, Cheniere Energy, was interested in building a nearly identical facility on the exact same parcel of land.
When asked why the commission chose to grant the initial deal to Crest, Phyllis Saathoff, managing director of the Commission, said, "We worked it out and could accommodate [the Crest proposal], so we did," according to the LA Times on Oct 29, 2004.
To this day, Neil's connection to the firm is not widely known. However, Saathoff said that when Crest approached the commission with the project, it provided Neil's name as a reference.
How Did Crest Pull It Off?....
......James Smith, director of Public Citizen-Texas, a watchdog group focused on energy issues, described the Crest profiteering scheme correctly when he told the LA Times on Oct 29, 2004, that the deal appeared to be "another classic example of Bush family cronyism paying off.".....
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I do not know "nice names" to describe a "closed loop" political ideology that I see is killing the country....via the destruction of it's currency through ramping the annual treasury and trade debts, as a policy decision, and by the destruction of relations with the rest of the world.....and without a currency that was stable and valuable, as recently as in 2002, and without open and amicable foreign relations, evident as recently as on 9/12/2001, when the headline of Le Monde read, <a href="http://www.ambafrance-us.org/news/statmnts/2002/remembering.asp">"We are all Americans"</a>, I see my country as "dead".....killed in less than seven years......
Last edited by host; 08-04-2007 at 03:40 AM..
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