Have you ever had the feeling that someone in your life that tells you "do whatever you want, I won't try and persuade you" isn't being truthful? They really have made little comments here or there to alter your opinion and get you to choose one restaurant or event over another? This is the feeling I get when I look at the presidential race how it is all shaping up... This article really spells it out quite nicely. The media frames the argument then says "ok, what you do YOU think"... as soon as we(the American public) gets off track, something happens to get back in the direction they want us. The 24-hour news cycle is leading to short news clips that get sensationalized and examined with a fine tooth comb. On top of this, as referenced in the article, the National Journal polled "insiders" and the overwhelming opinion was that we, the general public, aren't smart enough to pick who should be our candidate. While I definitely agree to an extent, the fact that the elite and media hold this opinion while controlling the flow of information at the same time is a scary thought. The moral? We shouldn't allow the media to shape our opinion of the candidates... we need to do a real investigation ourselves and truly identify who we think best represents us and can move this country in the right direction. In this case... they certainly don't know best...
Now on to other topics...
I'll be jumping around a bit, as it has been a while since I posted.
The Fed loaned banks $7 trillion in secret loans... which the banks used to profit. To get this money, the banks essentially lied. As the article says, it would be like you saying you make $200,000 a year and no debt to get a loan. But in all reality you have $1 million in debt and a mortgage you've failed to paid. On top of this, they used the money to pad their bottom line, not cover bank deposits like it is originally intended. This again shows the pitfalls of bailing out companies and should stress how much we need to audit the FED.
Many agree our education system is screwed up. This is a great look at some out of the box solutions. I've supported charter schools and the public voucher system... but the article makes a great point. Why not copy the nations that are having great success? Truthfully though, I think the education problems in America come down to one thing... the family. In other countries, parents and children alike value their education. Here in the US, children don't care and parents aren't there pushing the children. The teachers, while doing their best, are left out to dry and attacked from all sides. So not only are we not rewarding them with pay, but we're also extremely critical of what they are doing wrong... and not how we as a family/group can fix our attitude. Until there is a fundamental change in the way the parents and children view their education, our children will continue to fall behind the rest of the world... slowly chipping away at the power stance of America.
Is the dollar as solid as we think? Going forward, I plan on making a post or two about the strength of the dollar. I hope to inform and really point out some pitfalls I see with the current system and how I think the dollar could be scrapped as the reserve currency in the future. A book I've just started reading called Currency Wars talks about this very thing. The writer of this book was involved in a "war game" at the Pentagon where he lays out a strategy of Russia setting up a new currency based off a gold standard and refusing to accept any currency other than that. The implications of other countries joining into their system are scary and really could be more of a reality than we in America want to admit. The tearing apart of our financial system and currency could definitely be the next great attack to this country.
On that note, this article says Iran & Venezuela plotted a cyber-attack on the US. The next attack on the US won't be planes flying into buildings. It will be a cyber-attack on one of the cities or an attack on our financial system. A cyber-attack, in my opinion, would most likely come in the form of infecting a power plant/network with a virus. With many grids being online, a power grid could be hacked, opening up all operations to this power plant to the mastermind of the attack. For example, they could turn off any heat sensors the power plant has, then controls to certain components could be altered causing them them to overheat. With the sensors and alarms off, this would lead to a shut down or explosion. Because of the stress already on the system, a failure at a big plant could cause chaos over a large region. Loss of electricity in a major metropolitan area(say LA) would create mass hysteria, and open the door for riots and other small scale attacks that would put stress on the emergency responses. Once power is out, many different things could happen and you would essentially have a "fog-of-war" situation.
Sorry for the wide range of topics, and please let me know if you are interested in an individual post on any of these topics!
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