Ok. Maybe the new decision to impose "net neutrality" is not a full fledged takeover . . . yet. But it is the camel's nose under the tent.
Although the very recent 3-2 vote to impose FCC's Interpretation of "Net Neutrality" on the nation has been in the news recently, it is not really a new development. The FCC has been belligerently moving toward regulation of the Internet for some time. Back in June, we wrote the story, Rogue FCC Seeks to Regulate the Internet (Jun. 20, 2010).
The new House promises to conduct hearings to stop the FCC regulation. One Circuit Court told them in April they lacked statutory authority to regulate the Internet. SeeComcast Corp. v. FCC, No. 08-1291 (Apr. 6, 2010). That federal district court decision didn't stop them. They spit in the court's eye and moved ahead with their liberty squelching regulatory effort.
The unemployment here is also sky high, despite the productivity of the American worker. Is there a connection?
Corporate tax rates are popular with politicians because they facially appear to increase revenue without taxing voters. However, they are more like a stealth tax on the people. Corporations are profit motivated and any taxes are avoided or passed along to the the customers of the corporation. Thus, to the extent a corporation sells products or services, the tax rates are baked into the prices people pay. In this way, corporate taxes are passed along to the people.
Corporations also are rich enough to hire very smart accountants and tax lawyers. These advisers tell the corporation the best way to avoid the United States tax rates . . . even if the corporations operate here. The result is that capital is diverted away from the United States to overseas where the rates are lower and the confiscatory tax rates here are avoided.
The incentive not to bring capital to the United States has an indirect impact on unemployment. The corporation looks for alternative nations in which to invest its capital. The United States, because of our productive workers, huge markets, security, and way of life, may be otherwise the best place to invest in a new plant or project. However, when taxes and cost-increasing regulations are taken into consideration, the corporation chooses to build its plant elsewhere. With education levels increasing inside other countries, the productivity there is approaching ours.
Japan, according to the article linked above, has just decreased its rates by five percent, giving us the status as having the highest rates of any economic power. That rate must be cut to bring unemployment down to a more reasonable figure. It is urgent that the cut occur soon too because the longer the unemployment rates--some say as high as 20 percent by real data--the greater will grow the government deficit.
The treasury bubble is the last bubble that we will experience before economic collapse. We need to reduce that bubble by increasing revenue for the federal government. They will only happen if our economy starts to grow soon.
Bradley Manning, pictured to the left with Julian Assange, is the Army soldier who released documents to WikiLeaks. Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York, has written an opinion piece on his continuing incarceration at Special Quarters 2, in the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico. This links the Greenwald piece, Glenn Greenwald, The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, Salon.com (Dec. 15, 2010).
The article quotes people that know Manning who say he leaked the material to WikiLeaks after working on translations of allegedly insurgent literature in Iraq. When Manning completed the translation, he discovered the written material was a scholarly political discourse about corruption by the U.S. backed Iraq Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki. Manning took the discovery to an officer, but the officer, according to the account from Wired Magazine, did not wish to hear the truth about the allegedly insurgent material.
The discovery of our government's role in propping up a possibly corrupt regime in Iraq, led Manning to release the data to WikiLeaks. This suggest that Manning's purpose was not espionage, but rather patriotic even if misplaced. He has not been granted a trial by the government.
On the Dylan Ratigan show, Christopher Whalen, Institutional Risk Analytics, says don't let the Wikileaks story distract us from the even bigger document drop bombshell. The Fed's document drop, pursuant to a Federal Court order, is breathtaking in the scope of its revelations about Federal Reserve bailout mischief. The media, for some reason, is not covering the 12.3 Trillion bailout, including bailout money to foreign banks and many players in corporate America. The Fed Doc Drop story is huge; although perhaps not so sexy as international spying.
At one point in the interview, Whalen says, "The Fed was set up to help the real economy when Wall Street periodically destroyed itself. So the folks at the Fed have become so corrupt, and so captured by the banking industry, that we've turned the whole thing on its head."
Dylan: "What does that mean for my mother?"
Whalen: "Well, the Fed is now there to support the speculators . . . and they let the real economy go to hell."
On Pearl Harbor Day, Tuesday December 7, 2010, a day that will live in infamy, Greenville County Counsel decided to close a public meeting. The trembling Counsel feared the grass roots political group, RINO Hunt, that was gathering to protest $300,000 of earmarks.
The Earmarks are allowed because each Counsel member has a $25,000 fund he or she may spend at his or her discretion. The fund is like "walking around money" for the Counsel Members, who spend it and acquire votes.
It was Ned Sloan. A citizen who operates a small business road-building company. Years ago, Sloan fell victim to County Counsel cronyism in road contracts. Now, he brings meritorious, liberty-preserving citizen suits.
Sloan filed this lawsuit to challenge the slush funds, and the illegal earmarking practice. It would have gone unknown but for Ned Sloan.
The County Counsel has now filed an appeal to challenge Gary Hill's ruling. County Counsel hired outside counsel to prosecute the appeal of Judge Hill's Order.
As a trial attorney myself, I know that the cost of the appeal will likely be at least $50,000, depending on the defense firm County Counsel favored with a generous hourly rate for procedurally complex appellate work.
The controversial website run by Andrew Breitbart, who broke the story of ACORN corruption by sending in undercover pimps and whores, has been focused on the Pigford law the lame duck Democrat Congress has enacted. Investor's.com calls it "reparations." (See Investors.Com.) Here is more from Breitbart's site:
Although the Pigford settlement story is a complex one that has major political implications, at the heart of it is a very simple question: does the settlement contain a significant amount of fraud?
If the Obama administration is telling the truth and there are only three cases of fraud out of 15,000 settled claims, then there’s no story here. If the fraud does exists, the attempt to silence people like Rep. Steve King or Andrew Breitbart aren’t just wrong but are a clear sign that some people will say anything to keep the truth about Pigford from coming out.
But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Eventhough the mainstream media has been silent on this story, there are witnesses. One brave whistleblower is Arkansas farmer Jimmy Dismuke, who recently sat down for an extensive, exclusive interview about Pigford. That entire interview will be made available on BigGovernment in the near future but today’s clip is powerful testimony about how simple it was for people — and by extension, their lawyers — to collect those $50,000 Pigford payments.
It took a lawsuit to get to it. Finally, months after the Fed was ordered by a federal court to produce the foreign bank bailout data, it coughed it up today at noon.
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