Letting the consumer pay off their OLD Debts INTEREST FREE is the only bailout that is needed right now.

What is needed BEFORE a bailout is interest free pay downs on all outstanding consumer debt. This would instantly infuse the banks with MORE of the consumers money as the consumer pays down their debt, interest free.

Money would be used to pay down existing debt, money would also be saved, and a third bonus would be the consumer would actually be able to afford to buy some goods with CASH, and NOT credit. How dare the government pay off Wall Street first while ignoring the consumer. How dare the government print up money it doesn't have and claim that newly printed money has more "value" than the consumer money that has been earned by the consumer performing a job.

No matter how much money is printed by the government, all that really matters is how much money is being generated by people working. What then matters most is, how efficiently is the consumer able to spend that money? Old interest debt on consumeable items that have been consumed and no longer exist is hurting the consumer, and the economy.

But we are led by elitists who think they must "save us" so they can continue their pampered lives of excess. The elite need to go on a diet, and leave more of the consumers money in the consumers pocket, that is how to get the economy going again.

The Media, Banks, and the U.S. government are either slow to figure out an economic solution, or they have a master plan to keep us Fearful.

Solution 101. If I could wave a magic wand and do one thing for the economy, it would be to allow for an immediate implementation of a full income tax deduction for both renters and property owners.

"Preposterous", the wall street muckety mucks would say, "that is double dipping"! Lol, and just what does the government do every second of every day when it comes to taxation, they double and triple and quadruple dip. The government taxes money coming and going, every which way they can.

Hospitalization costs (including insurance premiums), monthly apartment rental costs and monthly mortgage payments should ALL be completely deducted from a person's income prior to calculating income tax, and the income tax tables WOULD NOT be adjusted to anticipate this real deduction.

Is the government being honest, or is the government trying to trick us by blaming the economy on higher fuel prices and the sub prime mortgage fiasco?

The reason I ask is, if the average consumer is paying $2,500 dollars a year in all kinds of interest & finance charges, and considerably more than that in all kinds of state and federal taxes, why would paying an extra $600 dollars a year on gasoline be destroying the economy?

Wouldn't it make more sense to "re-evaluate" just what kind of interest and finance charges are being charged on the consumer, rather than blaming the economy on the price of oil?

Wouldn't it also make more sense to re-evaluate the fairness of state and federal taxation as well when it comes to assessing taxes on the place we call home, be it rental or otherwise?

If the government wants to blame the economy on the sub prime mortgage debacle, why not acknowledge that peoples' desire to own their own living space for just a few hundred more dollars a month than renting was too good to pass up! Once the home interest deduction was added in, it may actually have cost less to own a home then rent from someone else!

The government needs to make it economically sensible to pay rent or the economic instability that is taking over will continue. Some people may choose to own a home and have less money in the bank as a result, others may choose to pay rent and with the money they save per month, actually have a savings account. Both living methods should be equally honored by the government. As it stands, renters are being discriminated against.

If this idea were to be implemented, it is possible that those who rent properties may raise their rates because they know that their tenants will now be getting income tax deductions. However, that would just be ethically wrong.

Once the renters deduction is incorporated into the income tax code, the government could set up an escalating tax on a building owner to prevent the owner from overcharging.

These steps would allow all people to take a huge, deep breath, one that they deserve. People are entitled to reasonable deductions, whether they are home owners, renters or have serious medical issues.

Media Afraid to Tread where this Article Dared to go a year and a half ago.

This is my second reprint of this article. I warned about what was happening to the United States economy back in February of 2007. Pretty much everyone of my complaints has come home to roost.
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Here is a link to the end of the United States as we know it. Home Depot to sell Supply Services Division to make Wall Street "Happy." Below is the article with my comments interspersed.

News Story posted below with responding commentary by Alessandro Machi.
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Posted on Tue, Feb. 13, 2007

Home Depot to consider sale of division

HOME DEPOT SUPPLY SERVES CONTRACTORS, OTHERS; NEW CEO REVIEWING OPTIONS FOR CHAIN

By Harry R. Weber
Associated Press
ATLANTA - Home Depot, the world's largest home-improvement store chain, distanced itself further from the strategies advanced by former Chief Executive Bob Nardelli as it said Monday it will consider shedding its division serving contractors, home builders and other business customers.

The company's shares rose on the news.
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Home Depot's stock market "value" has risen because Wall Street has approved of a strategy that minimizes the value of American Citizens who do blue collar jobs such as carpentry, plumbing, landscaping and general home improvement for a living.
-A.M.
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Some analysts said the decision to possibly sell Home Depot Supply could benefit the company by allowing it to focus on generating value for shareholders, while others suggested it could put the onus back on the company's retail side, where it faces tough competition from Lowe's.
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How does one "generate value" for Wall Street stockholders? It appears that the Wall Street investment community sees the disenfranchising of Blue Collar American Workers who work in America for other American Citizens as having inferior "value" when compared to businesses such as WalMart that sell retail products imported from other countries.
-A.M.
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The announcement followed a decision earlier this month by the Atlanta company to give a seat on its board to an investment group that wants Home Depot to consider, among other things, a leveraged buyout of the entire company as a way to generate shareholder value.

The group, Relational Investors, had threatened a proxy fight over the home-improvement company's strategic direction, part of an undercurrent that led to Nardelli's resignation in early January after six years at the helm of the company.
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According to Wall Street "experts" it was unnacceptable for Home Depot to have a "supply division" that enabled skilled American Citizens who work with their hands to have a place to go to buy the products they need to do work for other Americans. Because Home Depot Supply Division could not create the kind of immediate profit that importing from other countries can create, Wall Street thinks the division should be sold off.
-A.M.
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Frank Blake, who replaced Nardelli as CEO, said Monday's announcement regarding Home Depot Supply was part of a strategic review the company conducted in November.
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What Mr. Blake calls a "strategic review" I call a sucide bomb placed directly into the heart and soul of the American Blue Collar worker. Wall Street supports the premise that it is not preferrable to sell supplies to American skilled labor because that will generate a smaller profit margin than selling product that is imported from other countries.
-A.M.
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Nardelli had said repeatedly that he believed the company's strategy under his watch did not need changing.
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Mr. Nardelli appears to be a controversial figure. While I wholeheartedly agree with his position that Home Depot should not shed it's Supply Division, Mr. Nardelli just received a huge, really huge severance package for his tenure at Home Depot. It appears that Mr. Nardelli understands that without a strong local economy which the Supply Division of Home Depot helps nurture; local community economies would stagnate. It just seems a shame Mr. Nardelli was paid so much darn money for that basic understanding. Home Depot Supply is the seed that bears fruit for local communities throughout the United States yet Wall Street seems to focus solely on quarterly profit margin reports and is unwilling to acknowledge that long term stability matters just as much.
-A.M.
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Blake said the company wants to concentrate more on its retail business.
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Retail business means the importing of product from other countries at the loss of local blue collar jobs, that's what is Good for Wall Street, but is that what is good for your local community?
-A.M.
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The company said it would ''evaluate strategic alternatives'' that also could include an initial public offering of the supply business. Home Depot did not say how much it could fetch for HD Supply, but some analysts valued it at $5 billion to $7.5 billion.
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Strategic alternatives is a code word for outsourcing, for buying as much product from other countries as possible at the expense of the local communities ability to create skilled labor jobs.
-A.M.
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Analysts had mixed reactions.

''While we had long been advocates of the Home Depot Supply business, the market never seemed to warm up to the strategy, viewing it more as a lower-margin, lower-return distraction from retail,'' David Strasser, an analyst with Banc of America Securities, said in a research note.
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Lower profit margin does not mean the Home Depot Supply division was losing money, it just means that it was making less money than Home Depot could allegedly make if it were to simply focus on importing products from other countries.

Do you see a dangerous pattern emerging here? No new United States business can be created that uses United States Labor and United States resources and still score as high a rating with Wall Street as a U.S. business that imports products and/or services from other countries.

At some point, do we dare ask if Wall Street's institutional practices and objectives are violating the constitution of the United States by aggressively advocating the outsourcing of all goods and services to other countries over the blue collar citizens of the United States?
-A.M.
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Strasser said Home Depot's stock should react positively to the news.

''This tells us new CEO Frank Blake is focused on value, and taking a fresh look at every aspect of the business,'' Strasser wrote.
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Increased value for whom? Perhaps increased value for those who are already worth millions and salivate for millions more from their Wall Street Stock holdings. How is this "fresh look" achieved, by focusing on the import retail business while downgrading the importance of the local blue collar worker.
-A.M.
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But Mark Rowen, an analyst with Prudential Equity Group, said in a research note of his own that without HD Supply as a growth vehicle, investors soon could start to focus more intensely on Home Depot's core retail segment, which he believes is close to reaching store saturation in the United States.
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Mark Rowen is a smart person. What Mr. Rowen is saying is the diversity of products and services Home Depot provides all over the United States fuels a huge amount of local economies by serving both the consumer with goods they can immediately use, and the blue collar worker with core products they require to do skilled labor, to have a job!

Home Depot is a company that has become an essential economic cog and valued member of local communities throughout the United States, whereas the same cannot be said of Walmart, which actually assisted in the rise and fall of a small town rubbermaid plant located in Wooster, Ohio several years ago. The rubbermaid plant was disassembled and the assembly line manufacturing components were sold to China, over a thousand workers in Wooster Ohio lost their jobs.

What Wall Street is saying to Home Depot is, "Be like Walmart and offer retail only products made from other countries or we will downgrade your Wall Street Value". What Mr. Rowen has intelligently pointed out is that companies that help the local community create and maintain jobs have an intrinsic value that cannot be easily measured by Wall Street. Ironically, it's smaller profit divisions within a company like Home Depot Supply that actually help stabilize a local communities economy and as a result help other Wall Street Stocks meet their bottom line because the local economy sustains more jobs, which results in more overall spendable income.
-A.M.
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''We believe that Home Depot will continue to struggle with the effects of a difficult housing market in the near term, as well as intense competition from archrival Lowe's longer term,'' Rowen wrote.
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Another excellent point by Mr. Rowen. Home Depot has a competitive edge because it offers a diversity of goods and services. Once Home Depot "cuts and runs", they may gain an instant increase in stockholder value for the investors who want to make a quick buck by selling their Home Depot stock. Afterwards Home Depot will simply blend in with their competition and most likely no longer hold any advantage. Meanwhile the blue collar workers who lose their jobs because of less supply availability won't be able to buy any product from Home Depot at all.
-A.M.
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Overall, Home Depot currently operates 2,159 stores in the United States, Canada, Mexico and China.
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Let us not forget, Home Depot not only sells products to consumers, but Home Depot Supply currently sells product to creators, innovators and blue collar people who use Home Depot Supply product in their own line of work. These jobs fuel the local economy so people have money to spend in their own community. Wall Street is insidiously proposing that it's always better to import product and services from other countries rather than creating the product in the United States. Wall Street is advocating an outsourcing paradigm because it will always create a larger profit margin than can be created with United States skilled labor. Wall Street is advocating this outsourcing motiff at the loss of blue collar jobs in the United States.

In a related scenario, since Wall Street has decided to completely embrace the importation industry over blue collar American Made Jobs, the War in Iraq takes on added significance. Having access to the worlds oil supply is imperative for any country intent on creating an import economy because it takes petroleum to fuel the huge number of ships that bring product from all over the world to our own ports. Yes, Wall Street, whether they realize it or not, appears to be a war mongering institution as well.

-Alessandro Machi

Stock Market Inflexibility, It's Their way or No way, same for the Government.

It just seems odd to this corner of the world that the stock market, the banking industry, and the U.S. Government seem to care only about long term profitability rather than short term consumer stability. I find this odd because in general these three entities usually seem to care only about short term issues.


Suddenly, when it comes to helping the consumer, it's a "this is going to hurt me, more than it is you" premise.

Short term consumer stability revolves around the banks, government, and wall street being satisfied that people can pay their monthly bills. One way to achieve this is to recognize that the interest charges on OLD, credit card debt is the first thing that should go. This would instantly give people hope that they could reduce their debts and start saving.

Banks don't seem interested in consumer stability if it means letting go of OLD credit card interest payments. Banks continue to hold on to their OLD credit card debt and are using it to further bury the consumer with OLD interest debt that the consumer has already been paid back over and over. This ill gotten money is then handed over to everybody BUT the consumer. Rather than use the ill gotten OLD interest rate charges to reinvest in the local community, the money is dumped in other countries, this investment then creates products that put more and more americans out of work while destroying the local infrastructure. These acts are approaching treason.

Our military uses more fuel than most nations, which in turn is adding huge debt on a daily basis while reducing the overall value of publicly owned real estate. This allows the Middle East to buy up our land with our own money at an even faster rate than can be imagined, is that a plan? We have always bragged about a separation of church and state, when do we get to brag about a separation of military and the politicians who financially benefit whenever the military goes to war?

How Far Would You Drive to Save a Few Cents per Gallon?

Just how far would you drive to find gasoline that was 8 cents cheaper per gallon? Eleven gallons of gasoline minus eight cents per gallon would save almost a dollar.

Or would it???



11 gallons would save approximately 88 cents at the gas station above. But when one factors in that the gas station was 1.5 miles out of the way, plus 1.5 miles for the return trip equals 3 extra miles traveled, or 1/8 of a gallon if your car gets 24 miles per gallon.

An 1/8 of a gallon costs approximately 60 cents nowadays.

So from the 88 cents in fuel savings we must now subtract the 60 cents in extra gasoline consumption, making for a grand total in savings of 28 cents!



The lesson is, if you buy gas from a gas station that is exactly enroute to where you are going anyways, you can offset slightly higher costs per gallon, versus going out of your way to find a slightly lower cost gasoline station.

Just what is the least amount of money you would be willing to save per tankful when the extra mileage to get the cheaper gas is taken into account? For my purposes, any savings less than 50 cents per tankful is probably not worth it. So I guess it was my bad when I went for the lower price but higher distance, as my net savings was approximately 28 cents.

Lou Dobbs Agrees, sort of, Impeach George Bush, just like WallStreetChange Reported a Week Ago.

Reported on this Blog one week ago, Impeach Bush over his inability to rally any government resources over REDUCING FUTURE FLOODING downstream that would be occurring over the next couple of weeks.

Lou Dobbs expresses impeachment concerns about tomato tainted salmonella. All I can say is if Lou Dobbs thinks George Bush should be impeached for salmonella tainted tomatoes, what about his non action in doing anything to REDUCE flood damage that is yet to happen.

Both of our stories came on the same day. I think the flood waters are an easier target to fight than salmonella, but either way, George Bush doesn't seem interested in making a real difference in his own country, just fighting wars elsewhere.

Lou Dobbs Impeachment Article
WallStreetChange Impeach George Bush Article

Why it Really is Later Than We Think When it Comes to Petroleum and the Worlds Addiction to Oil.

Imagine that ethanol had been invented before gasoline. The advantages of Ethanol would be pretty apparent, one can grow their own fuel while remaining independent of all other countries and entities. Seed, water, soil, and sun and one can grow corn to make ethanol, wow.

Now imagine the ethanol pioneers wanting to resell excess ethanol. To meet this goal, and to increase efficiency and profits, a huge ethanol plant is built. At first glance the ethanol plant is doing spectacularly well as all the local growers bring their corn in for processing. Sooner rather than later, the nearby seasonal supply of corn is depleted.

To keep the ethanol plant busy, and profitable, corn is pipelined in. Oh wait a minute, corn cannot be pipelined in, because it's corn. The lightweight, volume enhanced corn has to be trucked in. It soon becomes apparent that as the distance the corn has to travel before it is ethanolized increases, the potential profits are consumed simply supplying ethanol fuel to the truck that is carrying the load of corn in for processing.

The corn to ethanol ratio works best when the corn is nearby, and almost doesn't work at all as that distance grows. To make matters worse, not only does the truck have to go and get the corn from the farm and then bring it back, all the while burning ethanol, another truck has to then be used to transport the flammable fluid to it's final destinations. Ethanol also is used to harvest the corn, and sadly, the fertllizer used to help grow the corn uses petroleum products as well. The result is way too much ethanol being used, to produce ethanol.

Petroleum has always been able to mask the wrongness of using itself, to make more of itself, until now. The wrongness with petroleum comes into play when petroleum energy is used to make more products, that also are petroleum dependent. If petroleum was only used to create products that in turn run off of non-petroleum based fuel, the world and its future would look a lot better.

I happened to catch Tammy Bruce (June 22, 2008) on the radio last Sunday afternoon, and it was appalling to hear her try and claim that the United States' over consumption of petroleum is something the rest of the world should bow down to in gratitude because the United States fuels the world's economy. This is nonsense.

The worst thing the United States could be doing is encouraging every other country to follow our "petroleum addicted" lead. Sadly, we seem to be doing a great job of addicting the rest of the world to petroleum.

When we use petroleum to make products that rely on the burning of petroleum to function, we are no different than the farmer driving their load of corn a far enough distance to basically burn up all the product that was to be made from selling the corn for ethanol in the first place.

How does this relate to Wall Street?

Wall Street does not want to acknowledge the super simple rule that using petroleum to make other products that rely on petroleum will be the quickest road to a worldwide economic meltdown. If Wall Street continues down the path of rewarding petroleum based products that create more petroleum based addiction with higher stock value, the surface of the planet and the industrialized nations that enhabit part of it will just be wiped out at a faster than expected rate.

Those less addicted to petroleum will probably survive at a better rate than the industrialized nations.

Old School Thinking Types like Tammy Bruce helping to Destroy the Planet.

Coming Soon, a Response to comments Tammy Bruce made about the United States gasoline consumption. The rebuttal to Tammy Bruce can be found directly above. Or you can click on this link Tammy Bruce Rebuttal

Banks continue to Squeeze Consumers Credit Card Debt Dry.

Rather than make a bold move and encourage consumers to pay down their debt by eliminating interest rate charges on OLD DEBT, the Banks continue to cling to the only way they know how to make money, charging ridiculously high interest rates on old credit card debt. The banks may then use this never ending old debt indenturedness to invest in businesses in other countries.

When will this madness end? Will it take physical riots to uproot a system that is trying to pretend the status quo is acceptable? Wall Street continues to crumble yet clings to it's credit card interest rate fiasco as a prize of some kind. Long Term Credit Card Debt is no prize, it is an anchor that continues to sink the american economy, american citizens, and Wall Street.

What is bad for the american consumer SHOULD ALSO BE BAD FOR WALL STREET, but somehow that does not seem to be the case.

Should President George Bush be Impeached over the Rampant Flood Damage that is still Days and Weeks Away?

Nobody knows at this point how much damage the Flooding along Iowa and on down the Mississippi River and surrounding areas will cause. But the FACT that NOTHING by the government is being done to mitigate the floodwaters before they do new damage downstream, is very disconcerting to me.

Is the lesson learned from New Orleans to simply get FEMA in place as soon as possible and help flood victims, is that all has been learned? Of all the types of non-man made disasters, slow motion floods fall into a different category simply because their damage can go on for days and weeks as the mass of water moves downstream to new locations, causing more and more devastation.
If President Bush thinks his only responsibility is to monitor flood damage that has already occurred, acknowledge that more damage is to come, visit the flooded location, and dole out money that isn't his, he could be charged with reckless disregard for the american citizen, and I think this kind of reaction is worthy of impeachment charges being brought against him.

If you found out that 100 billion dollars in damage related to the floods was going to occur, and that damage could have been cut in half to 50 billion dollars with a 5 billion dollar influx of governmental resources, resources that would have both created jobs while reducing flood damages, wouldn't that mean that the government just squandered 45 billion dollars of taxpayers money?

Is George Bush's government about spending money to fight wars in other countries while disregarding the welfare of people in his own country?

MInimal, insignificant action on the homefront by George Bush as it relates to PREVENTING additional flood damage is not acceptable. I consider that to be reason enough for impeachment. Who in congress is on the president's case to do more? To make sure resources besides money are in place to reduce future flood damages? Or is congress fearful that if they speak up now, their region will get less funds after the flood waters have receded?

Is this the best that we can do?

Waiting to Exhale, Cedar Rapids, Iowa is just the tip of the FloodBerg.

I am completely floored that our government is basically standing by waiting for the flood waters to recede in Iowa so they can go in and "mop up" and dole out vouchers, water, and perhaps temporary shelters. But what when the waters recede in Iowa, do those waters just recede and disappear, or do they ease on down the road?

I feel like the government is engaged in some sort of ambulance chasing involving the flood waters. Rather than get ahead of the flood waters and try and do something to alleviate the flooding, the idea seems to be to wait for the flood to go on its destructive way, and then clean up and rebuild.

While nobody may have ever said "Slow motion disasters fascinate me, I just sit and look at one for days", it sure seems to be the modus operandi currently at work.

Is this the best that we can do? Really?

How does this relate to Wall Street? The less resilent we are as a nation to fix our own problems, to repair our own damage, to anticipate and minimize future known problems, the less reason there is to invest in our own stock market.

500 Year Flood, Dredging up Mountains of Mud might have prevented billions of dollars in Damages.

Apparently, there may be a "wave effect" from all the Mississippi River related flooding. Places farther north that are suffering right now, such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, may then translate into places further south having their flooding problems in the near future. Is it possible that some type of dredging or ground forces could make a difference farther south, except that perhaps we just are not prepared to fight wars against nature?

Is it possible that George Bush believes that the military is to be used only to fight in other parts of the world, but never to heal problems in the United States? In a twisted sort of way, is the government secretly pleased that the floods will cause a lot of damage, and that once the floods have receded the local economies will get a much needed boost from the insurance companies? Could that be the master plan?

I think we can do much, much better than that.

Tim Russert Passes.

Please leave a Tim Russert remembrance if you have one.

Cedar Rapids Iowa Flooding, How Long for the Media to Realize this is more important than the Presidential Race Daily Discussion?

I don't mean to imply that Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the only place that has had trouble this year. Tornados, Cyclones, Earthquakes and floods have been happening all over the world. 50,000 people and more have perished in earthquakes.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa is starting to look and feel like New Orleans and the news agencies are still too wrapped up in the presidential campaigns to switch gears and make this flood the real top story.
In coming days, Cedar Rapids, Iowa will be heard about more and more, but what about right now? This lack of complete focus on troubled american regions harms the american people and economy by not letting the proper attention be used to make a difference.

I heard that FEMA is out there, but why is MSNBC still going on and on about the presidential race that is still months away while floods waters rise to unheard of levels.

The United States Military uses a LOT of Petroleum, Are they Giving Away America Because of this?

These numbers may change as I do more research, but it appears that the United States Military uses 15,000 gallons of gasoline every second of every day! My calculator doesn't have enough digits but lets do some math. Assuming every gallon of gas nets the supplier one dollar, that would mean our suppliers, whom we are told don't like us, are being paid 15,000 dollars a second to do business with our military.

15,000 dollars a second equals 900,000 dollars a minute, 54 million dollars an hour, 1.296 billion dollars a day. Is our military really paying our supposed antagonists 1.3 billion dollars a day for petroleum to fight them, to protect us from them? Is this why the middle east now has so much money that they want to buy huge chunks of America?

At 1.3 billion dollars a day, that is a whole lot of real estate our oil suppliers can buy in the United States, especially as the high price of petroleum reduces real estate values! 1.3 billion dollars a day for Military fuel expenses may be controversial, and one could argue that 30% of all of that oil is from the United States, so that portion shouldn't be counted.

Yes and No. As our budget deficit grows because of our dependence on oil, we are paying interest charges on our national debt. But it's worse than that.

To show a positive bottom line. banks are hammering the american citizen to the tune of 30% credit card interest rates. So one could say that the 30% oil that we produce ourselves has been negated by the 30% interest rate that is being passed on to consumers on the ever increasing revolving debt and decreasing real estate value being caused in part by our becoming an import economy.

What the military consumes in one years time for petroleum could actually power the United States' entire public transit system for 14 years!

If the Military donated just 10% of their oil consumption to the United States public transit system, the public transit system could eliminate their entire fuel expenditures every year! We are reaching a point where less is more. The less foreign oil we purchase to power our military, the stronger we may actually be.

I think we have already crossed the point of less is more, but apparently nobody has bothered to notify the military.