Joe Sixpack's Letter To Congress

A forum I frequent, Life After the Oil Crash, has the following excellent letter by member Joe-Bob Henry-Bob, to his congressional representatives posted over there. It explains things better than I could by a long shot. For your information:

QUOTE Dear (congresscritter),
There is one main reason that America has been a prosperous nation. Transparency. Both citizens and foreigners have devoted capital investment to our country over many decades because, simply put, we have rule of law and companies that want to do business in our country must tell the truth.

Consider a banana republic, in which accounting books are cooked, property is seized, markets are manipulated, currency is printed, and entire portions of the economy may be nationalized at any moment. Crooks tend to win out and the average citizen's wealth is destroyed. This is because they are not able to rationally plan for the future. ...so no one invests in such a country, as at any moment, one's hard-won wealth could be erased. Having a chance to rationally weigh the facts and make a sound judgment call allows wealth to be created. It is transparency that allows for prosperity and everything else we might want to achieve as a nation must stem from that.

Our current economic crisis is due to lack of transparency and a consequent absence of trust. Where once a person could make choices with one's money with some degree of confidence, this is no longer possible. Oversight and regulation were removed from our financial institutions. Our country's financial institutions are hiding liabilities and refusing to mark worthless "assets" to their market value and our Fed and Treasury are ASSISTING in this instead of stopping it! The entire system is seizing up because no one can trust anyone else. Moreover, if someone is attempting deceive me, if for instance they are trying to convince that something that is worth only $0.10 is actually worth $100 so that I will buy it they actually ARE trying to steal from me.

A lack of trust would be warranted! It is not merely a matter of "spin" or public "perception"

Please take steps to restore trust, transparency, and the rule of law in our nation.The Fed and Treasury have cooked up this 700 Billion bailout which can easily balloon to several times greater size, which will burden the taxpayers and benefit those who started the problem.

Moreover, their proposal contains this clause: "Section 8, ReviewDecisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

Think about what that means. Regardless of whether they manage to keep this in the approved version.... THIS IS THE SPIRIT IN WHICH THE PROPOSAL WAS MADE!
Please take some time to review the following materials, at least the short youtube presentation.

It offers, briefly, a far superior solution to the most recent bailout. ...it is an alternative to what we've been doing so far - fruitlessly spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, nationalizing companies, and changing the rules of investment every week. That is NOT the rule of law, and it is NOT transparency. It leads to chaos.
Sincerely,
(joe-bob)
UNQUOTE

Please watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KYtD-Ff_eM&eurl=http://www.fedupusa.org/

http://www.denninger.net/letters/mortgage-mess.pdf

http://www.denninger.net/letters/2008-07-19-Lawmakers.pdf
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Spring Has Sprung

What a fabbo day! The air is soft, 72 degrees farenheit or so, the sun is shining, and Earth Day is being celebrated early. I started the day with church, then visited a drum circle in honor of Earth Day which the enthusiastic and quirky local Unitarians held on their patio. Then home for a bite to eat and to meet up with my husband and daughter, and then off to the Antelope Park Earth Day festivities.

We roamed around the park, seeing SmartCars, backyard electricity generating windmills, solar panels, water sysytems, straw bale home builders, sustainable agriculture and enthuiastic jazz musicians. Then it was off to the East Campus of UNL for ice cream and flower viewing in their nearby botanical gardens.

Now our daughter is busy making an Earth Day cake, which is a sphere. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, I hope that Lady Spring has touched you today too. Enjoy.