A spoonful of sugar.....

.....makes the medicine go down. So we solve our threatening problems by sweetening
them with sugar, lots of sugar. This addicts and diverts us, and even turns us into
sugar junkies, some reaching diabetic levels.

The Tax bill which Obama and the Republican leadership have agreed to has sugar, lots
of sugar, for everyone. Some people didn't need the sweetener, some will suffer
declining ambition as a side effect. Although some need the boost the sugar will
bring, it may have a side effect of making our state of financial health more precarious when the present high wears off. Only a permanent return to a sensible diet of living within our means will cure us without killing us first. Unfortunately
the doctor (Congress) is out and won't return until November 2012. Until then Bert
and Mary Poppins are in charge.

Destruction by Rescue

What a fix we have gotten ourselves into! The severe recession/depression we
borrowed ourselves into requires mammoth stimulus to turn it around. That requires
mammoth borrowing which increases the deficit which thus gives us no spare resources
to invest in growing the economy, which prolongs unemployment, etc., etc. Maintaining a military establishment larger than the rest of the world's combined
in what is now a worthless symbol of power on the world stage, compounds the descent
into bankruptcy. A militantly reactionary Republican contingent in Congress and
a cowardly Democratic counter force refuse to make the hard choices needed to
deal with our fiscal problems. So we continue to bribe the voters with benefits and
goodies, and free lunch for the wealthy. We lull them into the belief that we can stimulate ourselves out of each crisis that arises. Instead we are stimulating ourselves into insolvency. The consequences of the Irish, Spanish, Greek financial collapses are small in comparison to what will happen when our economy collapses, and were within the capacity of the European Union to handle.
Nowhere will there be resources able to deal with our collapse.
Fasten your seat belts Americans, you are in for a bumpy ride!

Marty's Almanac Vol. 1, Number 2

It is said that faith can move mountains. I have begun to detect the spirit of
Christmas/Hanukah moving some small hillocks away from the economic gloom that
has weighed upon us. Let us make it so, and grow.

Marty's Almanac

WITH APOLOGIES TO BEN FRANKLIN:

How blessed are they who have received much from this country, when they give back
some that won't be missed so that those who have little will not end up with nothing.

Conservatives will call that socialist redistribution of wealth. What would Jesus
call it?

Between a rock and a hard place.....

....either way the nation suffers further economic damage, which hastens our already
oncoming default. President Obama has accepted a deal with the Republicans to extend
the Bush tax cuts for the affluent, and in exchange get what the Republicans could not have refused----an extension of unemployment benefits that are expiring for millions of Americans, and a reduction in FICA taxes which will further increase the deficit. No Republican would have dared to allow millions of Americans to completely run out of income, before the holidays. Obama didn't need to surrender, and didn't buy any good will for doing so. But, sad to note, the deal ignored the immediate
deficit budget crisis we face which will more than obliterate the benefit of the short term stimulus of more debt. The Republican leadership in Congress knows where
the nation is headed, and is working to have the coming bankruptcy shelter the
wealthy, at the expense of the middle class. But our country will not survive as a democracy on a class system with a tiny minority of very wealthy sitting atop a pyramid of an impoverished middle class.

Spartacus in Washington

The Colosseum of Rome should be moved to Washington to be the suitable venue for
the gladiatorial contest which is now under way. As in the ancient games there, gladiators battled to the death, not for noble purposes, but to entertain the masses and divert them from their problems. The ruler of the day (read Mitch McConnell) had the ultimate power of life or death for the losing fighter (read the hapless American citizens). With a thumbs-up, or down, the winner would administer the final fatal stroke to the loser or allow him to survive.

The middle class Americans, in a struggle for economic survival, is battling the
rich elite to determine on whose back the cost of approaching national bankruptcy will land. The hired hit men for the privileged are the Republican leadership in Congress. If there is to be a morsel of bread for the beleaguered there must first
be cake and caviar for the wealthy. That is only fair!
In the bleachers the Tea Party know-nothings are urging thumbs-down for everything
and everyone. Bring on the apocalypse so we can take back our country. From whom? We'll figure that out later.

Like the old time movie serials the U. S. economy is tied to the rail road track, and
a train is approaching. Even if Obama had the solution, the Republicans are determined to make him fail, at whatever cost to the nation.
Who else will play the hero and release us from the track?

What's Wrong With WikiLeaks?

The great to-do about the release of the purloined 250,000 State Dept. Emails,
cables and memos is a tempest in a tea pot. The authors of the documents know the
contents and purposes. Their opposite numbers who dealt with each other are pretty
much aware of the opinions about each other, whether or not couched in diplomatic language. So the release is a case of "bad manners", a breach of diplomatic form.

There is however a real danger posed by WikiLeaks, which is not so obvious. Machiavellian minds can use it to plant mischievous and untrue material designed to
be discovered and released. The damage that could result could vary from nuisance to calamity. Because of its success in gaining access to classified material, WikiLeaks
enjoys great credibility. That lends itself to material which it releases. So let us
consider a hypothetical scenario: WikiLeaks uncovers a top secret memo from the
Israel government to the U.S. President, planted by the Saudis, advising him that Israel has decided that for its survival it must eliminate nuclear weapons that would become available to Iran. Further, that if international pressure does not succeed in halting Iran's development of such weapons,
Israel will launch an all out attack to destroy Iran's nuclear manufacturing facilities. The deadline is the approaching Ramadan Muslim holy period.
When the memo falls into the hands of Iran imagine the consequences.

Such scenario is not far fetched. Recall the case of the "man who never was" in
WWII. The British planted a corpse on a Normandy beach, who had been disguised as
a high ranking officer, apparently lost from a sunken British vessel. Chained to his wrist was a diplomatic pouch containing the plans for the site of the D Day invasion.
That was not the site to be. Believing the very credible hoax, the Germans diverted their powerful back-up forces and assured the success of the actual invasion.

Could the "man who never was" be the Email that never was?