Mail Brane Blog: Readers Seeking Answers To Questions

Once more a selection of some of the best readers' questions to do with posts on Brane Space:

Q. I was keenly interested in what happened in Colorado with the recent floods. What will happen there if the government shuts down on October 1st? - Veronica L., Toronto

A. Basically, a disaster would ensue, with FEMA funds then held up and the 40-odd miles of roads, highways and bridges that were destroyed unable to be completed. More than $2b of FEMA funds had been allocated to repair key highways such as 36, which connects many for example, to jobs in Denver. Until the key highways are repaired workers have to drive north to get 60 or more miles south to Denver - adding hours to their transport each day.  With bridges in disrepair, as well as key highways, whole towns such as Lyons and Jamestown will remain islands with no one able to live there because there is no way to get supplies in, or even basic services. All in all a shutdown would be much worse for citizens of Colorado than most other states - exactly because of the destruction wrought in the flood disaster.

Q.  Can you give me one reason not to go to Florida and teach your fat cracker racist brother some manners? I accidentally came across his website hate blog:  http://mytalkandthoughts.blogspot.com/
and it made me so angry I had to get a beer to cool off. He calls black people every stinking name in the books, like 'jungle jooks', 'black fucks' and even says he can 'smell a nigger in a woodpile' while denying it's racist. All you have to do is see the shit on his site to see this cracker is racist to the bone. As one of my homeys put it, 'the boy is inbred Southern white trash', What say you about learnin' his fat cracker ass some manners? - Davantae Hoyte, (location withheld)

Q. I can actually give you several reasons. First, what you consider "teaching manners" may not be considered so by any cops down there.  Second, he has " high powered weapons all with high capacity magazine clips" if you believe his bilge (he claims he needs them, as opposed to a .38 special because he "lives near Miami Gardens which is full of gangs", sic)  Third, Mike is no where near as tough as he portrays, as I have it from a sound source, the same one that exposed he never really traveled out of the country while in service, other than on a ship (USS Coronado).  The guy,  just out of the Marines- actually fled from a looming bar fight (where another jar head wanted to start something in Miami) leaving my source behind to fend for himself. According to the source: "He ran his ass out of there so fast he left a cloud of dust behind."  Fourth, he is not really "Southern" (born in Milwaukee)  nor "inbred" (which would mean I am too) but he is rather ersatz or pretend Southern.  This was probably from living in Mississippi a number of years, where he actually went broke from gambling in Biloxi casinos. So why he has such a hard on for that place and the Stars n Bars is beyond me.

My basic theory is the guy somehow became or always was a necrophilous personality. See more at:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/09/more-on-necrophilous-personality.html

My best advice, is "let thy heart not be troubled" and simply avoid his website, just as you might stay clear of any toxic waste dump full of potassium perchlorate, benzene, atrazine, lead and dioxin.  While the latter chemical waste dumps can be injurious to one's physical health, there are blog sites that can be injurious to one's psychological health. Mike's so-called 'straight talk' is among them, and it's more hate talk.

Q. I am somewhat confused. In your last post on Honoring JFK's accomplishments you included Kennedy challenging the Federal Reserve control of the money supply. But when I google "JFK and Federal Reserve" or "U.S. Notes" I pull up page after page claiming its a "myth" especially from one MacAdams website and from some South Carolina professor of economics, Edward Flaherty. Flaherty claims JFK actually wanted to increase the Federal Reserve notes not reduce them. What gives? - Terrence J., Roanoke, VA


What gives is that what I call  obfuscation from the "ambiguation brigade", which wants to sow ambiguity to keep people confused. (John MacAdams site is one of the known disinfo sites, btw).  But ask yourself this: If Flaherty and his contingent are really correct, why the need to have U.S. Notes printed in the year 1963 at all, some 50 years after the Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913?  Surely, if Federal Reserve silver certificates were intended to dominate JFK would not have printed some $4,292,893,815  (e.g. about $4.2 b)  in such notes in 1963.

The full statement of his Executive Order 11,110 (which is still in effect to the extent any president could re-enact it if he or she wanted- but not one ever will after the Nov. 22 lesson)  is:

AMENDMENT OF EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 10289 AS AMENDED, RELATING TO THE PERFORMANCE OF CERTAIN FUNCTIONS AFFECTING THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY. By virtue of the authority vested in me by section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, it is ordered as follows:

 

SECTION 1. Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended - (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): "(j) The authority vested in the President by paragraph (b) of section 43 of the Act of May 12, 1933, as amended (31 U.S.C. 821 (b)), to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury not then held for redemption of any outstanding silver certificates, to prescribe the denominations of such silver certificates, and to coin standard silver dollars and subsidiary silver currency for their redemption," and (b) By revoking subparagraphs (b) and (c) of paragraph 2 thereof. SECTION 2. The amendment made by this Order shall not affect any act done, or any right accruing or accrued or any suit or proceeding had or commenced in any civil or criminal cause prior to the date of this Order but all such liabilities shall continue and may be enforced as if said amendments had not been made.

 

JOHN F. KENNEDY THE WHITE HOUSE, June 4, 1963

Now, like Kennedy's National Security Action Memoranda the wording is deliberately obscure and generic.  Kennedy was obviously wary and the cautious wording reflects that. But read between the lines and you see - in concert with Kennedy's actions - he is giving himself permission to issue silver -based notes outside the Federal Reserve system. Why do this at all? Because the Federal Reserve brokers notes into the money supply upon their creation. This means they emerge with interest on them which is passed onto the distributing banks - which in turn pass it on to borrowers (or savers) via the 'spread' - the difference between what banks earn in interest, say for a saver, and what they will actually give him. Or the interest they earn, and the interest they charge a borrower for a loan. In this way, mammoth debt is generated. Most of the debt that exists in the private sphere is based on interest - whether from home mortgages, car loans or whatnot. Kennedy knew all this which is why he had U.S. notes created interest free.

The Executive order meant effectively that, for every ounce of silver in the U.S. Treasury's vault, the government could introduce new money into circulation based on the silver bullion physically held there.

And so, over time, U.S. notes would gradually increase in number (like an organism conferred genetic advantage in a biological environment)  and gradually make the Federal Reserve paper redundant. At that point, interest-bearing currency would be a thing of the past. Thus, the demand for Federal Reserve notes would disappear. Again, IF the skeptics are correct, why were so many non-interest bearing U.S. notes floating around in 1963 and being made in 1963? Yes, the U.S. Notes did originate earlier, in the Lincoln era, and this was because the printing of money at that time was done according to the Constitution - the U.S. Treasury as the only legal creator - and no Federal Reserve existed. When the FR came into being in 1913, then logically-  if the skeptics are correct- the printing of U.S. notes would recede into the background owing to the paramountcy of the FR notes. So if one plotted a graph of notes and value printed, it ought to be something like at least a linearly decreasing function with time. But what one finds is suddenly increased gradient in 1963!

Here's another thing the skeptics don't consider: The power of perception to override reality.  Author Donald Gibson, in his monograph: Battling Wall Street - The Kennedy Presidency, notes that overriding all central banks (say like the Federal Reserve in the U.S.) is the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland. Also, as Gibson puts it,  this über-Bank would (p. 72): "have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."

  More critically, is how Gibson shows the internal linkage of the central banking monolith to the intelligence community (ibid.).  Since these interests already had it in for Kennedy, after firing Allen Dulles (after the Bay of Pigs), and rapprochement with Castro, a putative kill order from that über-Bank is not beyond consideration. Why would such an order arise?  It could have if the Bank of International Settlements, not fully understanding the intricacies of the U.S. system, really DID believe JFK was undermining its Federal Reserve link in the U.S. via issuance of U.S. Notes. This theory, while not widely held, jibes with Michael Parenti's take ('The Gangster State' essay) that Kennedy could well have been assassinated even if his affronts to embedded power, i.e. in the military, intelligence, central banking spheres, were only "imagined" or exaggerated.  Thus, so fearful were the powers that be of being one-upped, that the mere misinterpretation of JFK's actions could have warranted Executive Action.  These exaggerated or misinterpreted perceptions would have doubtless been reinforced by Kennedy's already documented real actions, including: his threat to U.S. Steel in the spring of '62 to cut its defense contracts if it raised steel prices, his firing of Allen Dulles after the Bay of Pigs, and his refusal to invade and bomb Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis - as well as making a secret deal with Khrushchev to remove U.S. Jupiter missiles in Turkey. And we won't even get into NSAM 263 to withdraw all personnel from Vietnam by 1965.

My point is that - even if the skeptics are right on the surface- it still doesn't mean that banking interests were not complicit in the need to see Kennedy eliminated, or to have provided the funding - including for the cover up. Is this subject complex? Yes, but that's exactly why so many of the elites don't wish Americans to examine it too carefully!

Q. In your blog post with the answers to the Caribbean algebra 2 questions, there was one, 8(b) with a simultaneous equation, but you didn't really show how to solve it. Could you provide some details? - Maurice V., Speightstown, Barbados, W. Indies

A. Yes. Recall that the two equations were set up as:

7x + 5y = 11.60

5x + 3y = 7.60

Now, we need to eliminate at least one variable, say 'y' and solve for the other one. To do this, we examine the equation set and see we can get rid of the y variable by multiplying through the top equation by 3 and the bottom by 5. This will yield:

21x + 15y = 34.80

25 x + 15y =  38
-----------------------

Now, subtract the bottom from the top and obtain:

- 4x  =   - 3.20

then: x =  -3.20/ -4  =   0.80  or 80 cents.

We merely need to substitute this back into one of the equations to get y, i.e.

 5x + 3y = 7.60

5 (0.80) + 3y = 7.60

or:

4 + 3y = 7.60

and: 3y =  7.60 - 4  =  3. 60

y = 3.60/ 3   =  1.20

Or:  y = $1.20

So wait, I'm Supposed to Renounce Superior Profs for a MORON?

Professor Ronald G. Smith  (top) from Yale University. If readers wish to learn about the global climate system and global warming they're far better served getting his online Yale (Open University) lectures, than listening to a crackpot like Terry Lovell!


Sorry, but I have to howl with laughter at these reeptard morons- one of whom now advises me to ditch my "jungle jook professors" (presumably the ones I had from the Univ. Of London who also taught physics courses at the University of the West Indies) and that I'd have profited instead from a "former NASA" prof, Terry J. Lovell. Really? People might want to take a gander at who this crackpot is here:

http://www.freethought-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25526

And again, it brings to mind another pseudo-scientist, Jason Lisle, who I pilloried several times before, exposing him as no more than a neo-Creationist fraud and certainly not a real astrophysicist. See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/07/jason-lisle-astrophysicist-dont-make-me.html

also:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/12/jason-lisle-uber-clown-or-uber-genius.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-jason-lisle-is-wrong-in-his-solar.html


Now, why on Earth would I any more go to Terry Lovell for global warming science than to Jason Lisle for astrophysics? Only a committed and certified dunderhead would do that. Like Lisle, all Lovell does is regurgitate  typical pseudo-scientific claptrap. In Lovell's case, the standard denier, flat Earth fare - which is part of what's keeping us back from making the changes needed to avoid the runaway greenhouse.

And if we don't make those changes, we're going to see a LOT more disasters like the Colorado flash floods and Superstorm Sandy. I already explained the global warming link to the latter in the first answer to a question on this Mail Brane blog: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/maile-brane-seeking-answers.html

As regards the Colo. Floods, we already know what launched them. It began (Denver Post, Sept. 15, p. 6B, 'Conditions Collide to Launch Flooding') with  a series of sweltering 97-degree days on the Front Range - with temperatures up to 15 F above normal. (As we know warmer air holds more water vapor)  This is tied directly to NOAA and other projections linked to climate change, which forecasts longer, hotter, drier summers for the Rocky Mountain West.. But in this case, the delayed searing heat (into September) ran into the usual monsoon rains, also delayed. A cool down effect from a low over Nev. then unleashed the floods, when the (cooler condition) monsoons blew into the Front Range. According to the Post article:

"The collision formed a giant, stalled wet weather system".

Worse, neither of the conditions "wants to give up".  In a way, this flood event is every bit the "black swan" that Superstorm Sandy was last October. And again, one can link both to the warmer, wetter world on store for us with global warming. See also: http://www.salon.com/2013/09/18/colorado_flooding_yes_its_climate_change/

Those interested in a real, qualified online course in the global climate system are invited to watch this series of video lectures from Ronald Smith of Yale University here:

http://oyc.yale.edu/geology-and-geophysics/gg-140

In many respects they are similar to the climate science lectures, courses available at the University of Alaska- Fairbanks when I was there over 1985-86, except obviously much more updated. Needless to say, you're much better served watching these than palaver spouted by some crackpot belonging to "the Patriot Network".

For those interested, a link which gives a pretty good idea of what people in Colorado have had to deal with can be found below:

 

http://media.reporterherald.com/2013/09/12/photos-massive-flash-flooding-along-front-range-of-colorado/#28

The Upcoming Debt Ceiling Deal: There MUST be HIGHER Taxes!

Graphs showing how wars and tax cuts have contributed to most of the deficit - and why Obama must not let himself (or the nation) be held hostage to the repukes again in the debt ceiling coming increase.

"Beltway insiders are brandishing the phrase "national security" like a rusty scabbard, but it is impressive that they can do it with a straight face. It is estimated that each of the hundreds of missiles that we intend to attack Syria with costs around $1 million.

One has to wonder: Where are the deficit hawks? You know, the "courageous" ones that step up to the plate to make the "difficult choices" for fiscal probity, such as cuts in meals for needy seniors, cuts of school lunch programs for children, gutting our mail delivery, undermining pensions, letting cities go bankrupt. The ones that destroy our government's credit rating by balking on payment of debts already incurred.

The silence is deafening. It is challenging to avoid the conclusion that all the commotion about the deficit is a lot more about shifting income up to the .01 percent than it is about budgetary integrity. We should never listen to it again." - Letter from  Steve Milligan, in The Colorado Springs Independent, Sept. 13


As the next deadline for increase in the debt ceiling approaches - in less than 3 weeks-  the Reeptards are screaming for even more spending cuts - in order to approve meeting  debt obligations already on the books (which is what the debt ceiling increase is about) . Of course, this will invite a crisis and likely credit downgrade such as transpired 2 years ago.

According to a Denver Post piece 10 days ago the government is set to run out of money by mid-October. However, more recent estimates put it at the beginning of October.  As the Post notes:

"The mid-October date creates a new cliffhanger for Washington, one that's earlier than many analysts had expected. 

In exchange for raising the $16.7 trillion debt limit, Republicans are demanding significant new spending cuts and some are insisting on defunding or delaying Obama's signature health law."

 Of course, the reeptard demands are absolutely insane. First, because the debt limit raise isn't about mainly getting new money into the federal pipeline, but paying off existing debts to our creditors, such as China etc. Refuse to do that and the nation is placed in the same precarious position as a person who refuses to pay off credit card debt- the credit rating is destroyed. In the case of the country, the parallel is "credit default" -   which would be catastrophic. Don't the Reeps care? I doubt it, as their past actions in 2011 disclosed they prefer to be traitors to the nation's general welfare.  Will they now (again) ignore Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's warning that serious consequences will ensue if we do this again, with a likely credit downgrade?  Make your own bets!

Second, because reeptard  policies, legislation -  mainly tax cuts and wars (actually extended  occupations)-  have created nearly one half the deficit. This is shown in the accompanying graphics. Examining the left side chart we see that current debt without the tax cuts and wars would have been about 40% of GDP.   Add in the effects of the Bush II "Medicare Modernization Act" (2003)- which disallowed bargaining any for lower prescription drug costs (like the VA does) and paved the way for private "Medicare Advantage" plans to bleed the standard Medicare and you get to 45% of GDP by 2019.With the wars, unpaid for tax cuts,  the projected deficit soars to 85 percent by 2019. (See right side chart) Add in projected additional defense expenditures and security budgets and you're at more than 90% by 2019.  Attribute any minor decreases in total percentages to the current sequester, mainly affecting the domestic side of the budget. (i.e. total Medicare spending cut via Obamacare.)

Let's also get clear the Reeps are hypocrites more than anything else! They had no problem living with huge deficits during the Bush Junior years, but then those were all about THEIR kind of deficits - for wars and unpaid for tax cuts!   In the fiscal year ending 2011 alone, according to CNBC, there were more than $530 billion in government contracts awarded to defense contractors. That's almost as much revenue as will be raised in a decade by the recent fiscal cliff deal: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42494839/10_Companies_That_Make_Billions_From_The_US_Governmen

 Did Democrats block any debt ceiling increase during the Bush Jr. years? NOOOO.....! Congress instead voted SEVEN times to raise it ! But now, with a DEM in the WH, all bets are off and these gutter rats refuse to see their own contradictory behavior, as they hold Obama and the nation to a different standard. No wonder wifey said she wants to drop all the reep- turds off at Komodo Island to fend for themselves without any guns, and only a pocket knife to share between them,  vs. 4,000 monster reptiles .....hungry for human reptiles.

Part of the problem also, let's concede, is Obama and the Dems' failure to demand higher taxes nine months ago when the "fiscal cliff"  deal emerged. Instead of sticking to what he promised during his 2012 campaign : raising taxes on all incomes over $250k/yr. (which would have pretty well covered a lot of the deficit, Obama punked out and agreed to remove the Bush tax cuts only for the top 1% - those earning $359,000 or more per year (increasing their marginal rates to 39.6%). Instead, as The Financial Times noted three years ago, ALL the Bush tax cuts  (i.e. including for the middle class) ought to have been expired when their termination date arrived, instead of being renewed. See e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/08/democrats-must-stop-playing-politics.html

The other failure had to do with not seeing madness when it's staring you in the face, i.e. Obama and Dems approving a sequester deal, in order to be the putative "stick" to make both parties come to an agreement on the last debt ceiling fracas, with the stick being $1.2 billion in cuts supposedly shared equally between defense and domestic support. Well, we saw how that turned out! One side, the reepos, actually were mad enough to say 'Fuck the deal' and allow the sequester in - hurling us nonstop toward austerity as it slows growth.

Now, we're in an austerity environment, a seriously low aggregate demand environment - in which whole states - like here in Colorado - are facing nearly $50 billion in repairs, maintenance and re-building costs after these floods are finished. Consider: over 40 miles of highways and roads smashed and washed away, 30 bridges destroyed (20 seriously damaged), 20,000 homes destroyed, and whole towns (e.g. Jamestown) so utterly mashed up by floodwaters they will have to be relocated. Anyone believe private enterprise will step in to do all this? If so, I have a plot of land in Barbados to offer you for a buck! Nope, the only logical source is the federal government.

But what is really rich, what half amuses me, is these reeptard assholes who sit in their little dens in Florida, feeding on the government tit, say with a VA disability check, then howling about how "liberals and socialists want to keep people government dependent by soaking the rich". Are you kidding me? The latest econ stats show the rich are now doing better than ever! The Gini coefficient for inequality is now worse than for the Philippines! The reason? Too low taxes to pay for the expanding needs of a nation, including for disaster relief and hey .....repairing the crumbling infrastructure. Yet these jackwads want to cut everything ....oh, except for defense....while they collect checks which themselves would be sliced or nixed if they got their dumb wish!

In her guest blog from Jan. 3rd this year, Jayne Lyn Stahl put it superbly:

"There is rape, and there is legitimate rape. So, when you hear legislators from the right wing side of the aisle cry out for the urgent need for "deficit reduction," to make much needed changes to Medicare, Social Security, end extensions to unemployment, and curtail food stamps; if they're allowed to prevail, consider yourself raped, America, legitimately or otherwise."