The Biggest Game In town- You should probably watch this soon

Originally posted by Rhain
Hilary Clinton is millions of dollars in debt from running her campaign. Where does she get the money to pay it off and why would she go into so much debt to hold a job that pays a small fraction of what she spent.

I had a colleague years ago who founded a software company and got modestly wealthy. (Like millions; I don't mean a famous billionaire). Knowing him from the old days I found his frankness insightful. He had all the money he needed to be happy on the material level, yet he was still grinding away at the business, putting in long hours rather than relaxing or even retiring.

He explained that after your material needs are met, it's all a big and exciting game for the CEO, and the score is kept in dollars. Its like "why would somebody try to beat the previous record on a pinball machine when it pays nothing?". Because that's the game - you try hard to get the best score.

There was no toy his money could have bought him that was more engaging than the company he had built. Sure, he might also get a good car and take his family on good vacations - but he was still a workaholic because he was in the game that mattered most to him. But the growth in dollars (for himself personally, and for the company as a whole) were really about keeping score. It made sense and I've seen many examples in the years since.

Politics is similar. The payoff is often psychological rather than financial (it can be both). Millionaires will sometimes spend their own money (not just that of investors and contributors as you mention), because it's more exciting than anything else they could spend their money on.

Others take up formula racing, or become philanthropists.

In politics, it's usually not about the salary; most politicians could make more money in private industry (and sometimes do after retiring). It's about being fully engaged in something that's personally rewarding. We can call it a game, as I did above. But science or sports or art also bring out that same streak of trying full out to get as far as one can, and feeling the rewards of succeeding when one does.

I hope all of us taste some of that focused engagement with life, even if we don't all become obsessed with it.

reasoner

Originally posted by reasoner
But it's still unfounded to compare that to the Soviet Union! Being a stock investor within the market economy is radically different than having a command economy, even if the investor consists of thousands of local and state governments trying to fund their future pensions, etc.

I appreciate the distinction you're making. I'm not from the U.S., and can't judge how centralized your government is.

Originally posted by reasoner
I challenge anybody to show a difference in how corporations are run when they have a high and a low percentage of mixed government investments. Pick one, like - Target, or Proctor and Gamble or Sony. Study how they operate in the real world first, and from that predict how much of their stock is owned by various governments. If there is not detectable difference in operations, then who cares? (I can guarantee that you'll find huge differences between any of those companies and a Soviet era government enterprise!).

Turn it the other way around - don't you think the government's (including judicial and executive branches) behaviour is different towards a corporation in which it is heavily invested?

And in the case of Microsoft, as Burien says, it would give grounds to suspicions of sneaky back doors in the operating system. After all, we know the government wants to spy on us - it makes no secret of that.

Enjoying your post by-the-way, reasoner - in the absence of a more concrete analysis of Burien's claims.

And thanks, Headshot, for the Rob Menard video - very interesting.


[edit on 27-2-2009 by EvilAxis]

Originally posted by EvilAxis
Some of his claims should be fairly straightforward to verify.

Does the government own 83% of Microsoft?
[edit on 27-2-2009 by EvilAxis]

Or to be more precise, is 83% of Microsoft owned by various governments (mostly state and local pension funds)?

It's not a single monolithic "The" government that invests in stock, it's tens of thousands of local governments (city, county, special districts, enterprises etc) and up to 50 state governments, and perhaps some federal pension funds??

It's a good question and I'd like to know the truth, too. But let's not mislead out own thinking by framing this as being about "the" government. I'm a citizen of a number of governmental units, with sometimes very different philosophies and strategies, sometimes at odds with each other.

Gee, if state and local governments own so much, we can at least forget about fears of China or Saudi Arabia taking over our corporate infrastructure! The country would be mostly owned by our public safety and other employee retirement funds. The more investments the retirement funds own, the less of a difference the taxpayers will need to make up when the boomer public employees all retire at once.

I see you have Chris Martenson's site linked from your sig, so you are aware of the aging population distribution problem and the need to find a lot of retirement dollars in coming decades from some combination of today's investments and tomorrow's taxpayers.

Still, 83% seems not to leave enough room for other investors, so I too would like to see some independent verification.

reasoner

Originally posted by EvilAxis

Originally posted by reasoner
But it's still unfounded to compare that to the Soviet Union! Being a stock investor within the market economy is radically different than having a command economy, even if the investor consists of thousands of local and state governments trying to fund their future pensions, etc.

I appreciate the distinction you're making. I'm not from the U.S., and can't judge how centralized your government is.

Not very. State governments are relatively independent under our constitution. Local governments (county and city) are officially chartered under state government in some state; in others cities they are sometimes chartered independently under the state constitution. Obviously they often cooperate, sometimes compete. The federal government has very limited authority over local government and vice versa. Mostly the Feds step in regarding things like civil rights or pollution that are considered tied US citizenship or which have effects beyond beyond the local domain. And there are various autonomous or semi-autonamous authorities, like the New Jersey turnpike authority named by Burien. The Feds or the States can impose accounting reqirements (like publishing the reports in question) but do not set the budgets. Burien cites tens of thousands of local governments, each with their budgets.

Originally posted by EvilAxis
Turn it the other way around - don't you think the government's (including judicial and executive branches) behaviour is different towards a corporation in which it is heavily invested?

Yes, I would be suspicious that it could, when they have jurisdiction.

But of those 54,000 (or 84,000?) governments, only a few have any jurisdiction over Microsoft. The federal government is probably not an investor (and in fact had a big court battle against Microsoft before the Bush administration came in). Washington State and the city of Redmond probably have a mixed relationship with Microsoft, in terms of things like property taxes, and it's possible that if they also have large pension fund investments that could affect their decision making (say, in whether to grant a zoning exception for Microsoft). But those particular governments probably own no more than a tiny, tiny slice of Microsoft.

We are led astray when we speak of "the" government. Because a pension fund in New York invests in Microsoft doesn't mean that the Federal government is going to change how it deals with Microsoft.

Originally posted by EvilAxis
And in the case of Microsoft, as Burien says, it would give grounds to suspicions of sneaky back doors in the operating system. After all, we know the government wants to spy on us - it makes no secret of that.

Frankly, I completely agree that back doors are a concern, but I don't think investments by a wide variety of state and local governments has anything to do with that issue. If the federal government wants back doors, it will use other mechanisms than pressuring thousands of local governments to sell their Microsoft stock. That would be inefficient, ineffective, and completely blow any secrecy. The Feds would use a secret executive order, or an informal deal to let them escape scrutiny for monopoly practices or some such - having nothing to do with this issue.

Whether this is something which has already happened is subject to debate, and is a interesting thing for cryptographers to debate. It can be hard to be sure. Use open source tools if you want to be relatively more secure from this! (There is no perfect security).

reasoner

Whops, that cat is out of the bag... sort of.

From another ATS thread, Who owns the U.S Debt

Originally posted by ka0s69
Hi there, I was recently pondering to myself "who owns the money that the United States is borrowing so rapidly.

Then surprise surprise I noticed an article today on msnbc about the very same thing.

www.msnbc.msn.com...

The Article states that the money comes from the treasury securities... and the money is auctioned off at specific interest rates by all countries and in turn out of all that money 52% of it is owned by the united states.... Forgive me for being blunt or maybe even Naieve but "PAAAAAAALEEEEEEASE!" i think thats the biggest crock of # ive ever heard.

If anyone with a little more knowledge and insight into this topic could enlighten me on the truth I would appreciate it as im sure many others would. I've heard rumours that the rothschilds own the US debt....

[edit on 5-3-2007 by ka0s69]

Strange article isn't it?

Stared and flagged.

VERY interesting. Just watching the first 30 minutes or so and I noticed the paper he got a close up of, for the "excluded" report of the budget, and I noticed Fannie mae freddie mac. what a surprise. Not.

Originally posted by reasoner
I hope all of us taste some of that focused engagement with life, even if we don't all become obsessed with it.

Yes! Some of the most exciting people I have enjoyed being around had that type of love for their work. 80 years old and never "retired". I look for a mechanic with that type of engagement, when my favorite old truck needs work done. He calls when it's in the shop and is actually excited about being able to see that my truck is running well again. My tire guy runs a great small business.

Re another idea in your post. One of the mistakes people make is thinking that the CEO, the politician is "just like me, so why does that CEO or politician do this or that". No, the type of engagement you described goes beyond what most of us have, or have for that particular field. Of course, we might ask, "Are the results of your work making a positive or a negative difference for humanity (if that is the intent)?", but the focused engagement is what sets them apart.

really good info. My question is this:
Could we use this as an excuse in court for not paying our taxes?

I wrote Walter an email again tonight.

I gave him the link and asked him if he would teach us a few things so that we may have 100's more fighting in all sectors and states in this country.

I will post as soon, or if I get an answer.

JV

Originally posted by EvilAxis
I appreciate the distinction you're making. I'm not from the U.S., and can't judge how centralized your government is.

It occurs to me that if you are not from the US, one factor you may not be aware of is that there is tremendous political resistance here to the US *federal* government taking ownership of large businesses.

Even our national banking system is privately owned. The feds have delegated their soveirgn authority to coin money to a private institution. The telecommunication system is all private; the postal system is semi-autonomous and run as a business.

The current administration is facing a quandry for that very reason in regard to large banks. They believe that letting the large banks fail will have a devastating effect on the economy (as many other countries believe as well). It's hard to politically justify just giving the banks [ie: the bank's stockholders] as much money as they really need to restore their depleted reserves [they've already given billions and it wasn't enough].

So the leading compromise it to follow Sweden's example and invest in the banks, taking an equity position temporarily, with the idea of selling their shares when the economy improves and thus repaying the taxpayers. The feds might just buy $200B of bank stock...

But the two largest banks today have a market value of only $30 billion, and they need much more than that. The feds can't use the market to help, without owning 100% of the bank. Some economists say this is the logical thing do to - temporarily buy the banks outstanding shares on the stock market, bring them back to health, and sell them again.

But owning 100% is considered "nationalizing", which is a dirty word. The Obama administration is struggling for a way to keep the big banks from failing, without giving away too much money, nor taking ownership of too much of the banks.

That is: our *Federal* government is actually very wary of owning corporations per se. Even the Obama administration, tho that might change if the financial crisis deepens.

That's different than thousands of state and local governments purchasing stocks on the open market for their retirement funds; they don't regulate the stock market so there is not much conflict of interest.

Mainly tho - state and local governments desparately need to save trillions of dollars for retirement which will come due in coming decades (just as private retirement funds do); and they need that money to grow. If you were a city with $30 million in funds that need to be saved to pay future retirements, where would you put them meanwhile? Probably in a bank, in bonds, in stocks, in mutual finds, in some combination that seems to pay the highest returns on investment for the acceptable risk level. EXACTLY like a private pension fund, or a corporation with lots of profits or initial stock offering money, or private investors. Acting in this role, a state or local government's effect on the stock market is pretty much like that of any other investor - they will pressure management to maximize return on investment, but they don't have much legal control over the company (as the feds do), nor much financial control as only one of many investors.

That is, the many state and local governments invest in any and all stocks for the same reasons as any investor; the Federal government reluctantly is currently considering more (temporary) ownership of specific companies for purposes of keeping the economy alive.

I suspect many outside the country (and some inside) are not aware of that major distinction. Just talking about "the" government's ownership smushes together some radically different dynamics that need to be understood separately.

Search for Paul Krugman's columns for more background; he's an economist who recently won the Nobel Prize (solo!) yet who puts a lot of effort into communicating in language that non-economists can understand.

reason

Originally posted by Odessy
really good info. My question is this:
Could we use this as an excuse in court for not paying our taxes?

Nope. Sorry. In this case, the law is being followed as it's written, whether or not we think it's written the way it should be. Courts won't help.

However, maybe you could use it to influence your congressional representatives to change the tax laws.

Probably not before the economy recovers, tho.

Unless we get hyper-inflation.

reasoner

i think an important point is that
city's, states ,county's, are all very profitable and that they have not been telling us how much they make off of our tax money

and it makes sence they collect allot of money from taxes

reply to post by reasoner


Once again very sound reasoning friend. Thanks for the response. *star'd* I'd really like to see more input come in from qualified members if possible. To address what someone else said, I don't think Burien's a fear mongerer but I will say that I think if he believes what he is saying, he's certainly mad, and in that sense wanting to get the word out so he isn't the only one in that position. He has been talking about this for atleast a decade now so it seems to me either reasoner is on point with him being somewhat eclectic, telling the truth but without outsider confirmation, or simply yanking peoples chain....everything pretty much leaves back where reasoner left off and I'm eager to get some more input coming in. I did post earlier an email I sent him regarding our current interest in his findings and the web address to our thread revolving around his claims....with any luck he will respond as well as others with valuable info to contribute.

Reasoner,

Thanks for supplying - the voice of reason. Something in short supply around here all too often.

Having dealt with accountants for many years, a few family members, I can say that being able to do your financials and tax returns does not necessarily equate to an understanding of macroeconomics.

Mr Burien has arranged the numbers in a way that makes it appear as if astronomical sums are being concealed allowing the all-encompassing "government" to slowly take control of every penny in circulation. I almost wish what he says is true. Then at least we'd know the there is enough money in the system somewhere to allow things to carry on as they have.

I'm quite amazed at how data can be stacked to prove almost any theory. I'm less amazed that the default reaction of so many people on this list is to cry foul, and this is yet another vast conspiracy to swindle the common man.

Again, I commend your deep understanding and objectivity.


Mike F

Swindle us out of what?

This guy hasn't asked for money, he wants this info spread freely.

Interesting, this is almost exactly what Catherine Austin Fitts has been saying for years & she would definitely know. She was Assistant Secretary of HUD during Bush 1 administration & while there, caught wind of this massive wealth funneling swindle going on, from federal all the way down to local government.

When she tried to sound the alarm & rouse the troops, she came in for a rude awakening, as she discovered they were all in on it... they all just assumed she would play ball too, considering the financial background she had... When she instead tried to go after some of these people, her life turned into a living hell for many years. Being wealthy herself, she was able to deal with most of the legal battles she had to endure, but occassionally things got physical & scary.

Her story is amazing & I recommend people hear it, as well as her opinions on what is happening now & will happen in the future. Scary stuff, but important to know. But all this time, her main point has been, that the global wealth of this country & the world, the REAL wealth anyway, has been getting sucked out of our hands & put into 'theirs'., slowly but surely over a long period of time

I highly recommend listening to her stuff, I'm sure there are links to radio interviews on youtube & whatnot.. She is on Coast to Coast a lot, that is how I discovered her.

Wow.

And hey, I can totally understand not wanting to accept any of this.. you have to be strong to learn about this & still enjoy your life..

Much easier to just dismiss it

Catherine Austin-Fitts tried to tell everyone that would listen in the early 90's that this was going on at the federal level.

Good to see it out there but it needs to somehow go on MSM. Can anyone contact Glen Beck with this information?

Has it , at least, been on C2C?

Enormous story that will lead to more than just a tea party.

Originally posted by CepheidVariable
Interesting, this is almost exactly what Catherine Austin Fitts has been saying for years & she would definitely know. She was Assistant Secretary of HUD during Bush 1 administration & while there, caught wind of this massive wealth funneling swindle going on, from federal all the way down to local government.

When she tried to sound the alarm & rouse the troops, she came in for a rude awakening, as she discovered they were all in on it... they all just assumed she would play ball too, considering the financial background she had... When she instead tried to go after some of these people, her life turned into a living hell for many years. Being wealthy herself, she was able to deal with most of the legal battles she had to endure, but occassionally things got physical & scary.

Her story is amazing & I recommend people hear it, as well as her opinions on what is happening now & will happen in the future. Scary stuff, but important to know. But all this time, her main point has been, that the global wealth of this country & the world, the REAL wealth anyway, has been getting sucked out of our hands & put into 'theirs'., slowly but surely over a long period of time

I highly recommend listening to her stuff, I'm sure there are links to radio interviews on youtube & whatnot.. She is on Coast to Coast a lot, that is how I discovered her.

Wow.

And hey, I can totally understand not wanting to accept any of this.. you have to be strong to learn about this & still enjoy your life..

Much easier to just dismiss it

So I am wondering Reasoner, if we could get Burien and Fitts' evaluation on the subject at hand, one reviewing the others finds and see if they dont have the same story being told by different voices OR if they have similar but different elements to contribute to this developing scenario we are considering. Perhaps we could get exposure for Burien on C2C and get an email addy for fitts? With any luck Burien will get in touch with us sometime soon...If only we could pull Fitts in on this video and see what she thinks eh?

reply to post by Mr Headshot


yup

reply to post by reasoner


A few pointers:

1. I was not an accountant of 14 years, I was a CTA (Commodity Trading Advisor) of 14 years.

2. The crap thrown on my back from the inside Arizona government gang (attorneys, judges, State) as my business, kids, and friends were attacked, most you would be scraping off the floor five times over with a butter knife, still kicking here.

3. Three low level local Gov gang hits were tried on me, I caught them and let them walk. I then passed the word in the government gang's circle if there was another attempt, the last words out of that person's mouth sent was who sent him, and the last words out of their mouths would be who were they in cooperation with.

4. I created a flier for hard copy print circulation yesterday from a recent CAFR1 post with a few extras in it. The file can be downloaded here - CAFR1.com...

The flier at the link above is four pages and a local print shop can format it to copy on an 11 x 17, then one center fold.

The following is a link to the primary post contained in the flier, of which will answer the majority of the questions or correct the majority of the misstatements I have seen in this thread.

CAFR1.com...


Walter Burien
CAFR1.com...
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