NOT good NEWS

Once upon a time, there was a country that had 'EVERYTHING', and it was the envy of the world it shared... and it was warned, by Dwight Eisenhower, in 1960.

Its currency, respected and held around the world, facilitated the purchase of petroleum, especially to power THE CAR.

From T-birds to T-Bonds, the world has been transformed in many ways, during these last forty years, and that tout-puissant country, yet again, is resisting any calls upon it to 'tighten its belt', to arrest the expanding burden it places on a fragile global eco-system, and even worse:

Its currency, the once-almighty DOLLAR, has pistoned its value into the collective toilet, as the GROSS VALUE of AMERICA falls daily.

SIDEBAR: In its 2005 report: WHERE IS THE Wealth of NATIONS? Measuring Capital for the 21st Century (The WORLD BANK, Washington, D. C.), its team of authors established a 'wealth value per capita' for each country on our beautiful planet; the data in this crystelZENmud post comes exclusively from their numbers, and ZENmud productions' own derivative calculations.

If a country, say... Saudi Arabia, wanted to buy the ENTIRE United States: every business, every resource, every personal bank or savings account, every tangible and intangible asset, the World Bank estimated the US total wealth to be roughly USD 14,466.8 BILLION (in 2005 dollars). Based on a population of 282 million persons, this number was equivalent to 'each citizen' having a share in the total wealth, per capita, of 512 thousand dollars (rounded numbers).

In our day, as we near 2008, we also hear that Bush and Congress are agreeing on a 696 BILLION dollar defense budget, for fiscal year (FY) 2008.

What does total wealth and defense spending have to do with each other?

Simply, it points out yet again how disastrous US governmental response has been, perpetually, when regarding the sum of material benefits accruing to the Petroleum-Military-Communications-Industrial-Complex (PMCIC), rather than to the common citizen of our country.

Remember that the Saudis *could* have bought the United States, lock-stock-and-barrel for some 14,466.8 BILLION dollars in 2005. If they had wanted to pay this in Euros, that would mean that the King of SA would have to fork over some 12,354.4 BILLION Euros (given November 2005 exchange rates).

TODAY?

Bargain CITY, my friends, my fellow patriots: the Republicant Party has succeeded, through the amazing drifting spiral of US domestic and foreign policy, in achieving the unthinkable.

Our astute Saudi King, if he had chosen to purchase all of the United States today, would only have to pay 10,406.5 BILLION Euros, and all the while receiving the bonus from economic growth these last two years: likely estimates today, of US total value, should range above 15,000 BILLION dollars.

ANALOGY:

Say you wanted to buy a US-made LEXUS in 2005, after returning from your two-year assignment in Paris, with your hands full of Euros.

Say it cost $50k in 2005. It would have cost you Euro 42,760 for your new car, in November, 2005.

But TODAY?

A $51k car, in the US, priced in Euros, would cost you only Euro 34,744!

And this car analogy is perfect, as we read in the International Herald Tribune from Tuesday, that Alfa Romeo, a division of FIAT, is seriously considering the opening of a production plant in the US, to reintroduce its cars to the American market.

READ THIS CAREFULLY:

European automakers want to SAVE PRODUCTION COSTS.

The cost of an average American auto-worker is now TEN DOLLARS per hour CHEAPER than average Western European countries' labour costs, such as France (Peugeot, Citroën), Germany (Porsche, Mercedes, VW), Italy (Fiat, Ferrari).

European automakers would not be considering massive, expensive relocation of PRODUCTION FACILITIES if they believed that the current sad status of the dollar was going to REVERSE course in the near future.

In only two years, a growing wealth base in the US has now become worth some FIFTEEN percent less (15 %, in EURO terms) than a smaller wealth base would have been two years ago.

And how does the American Eagle feel, about becoming the source of cheaper labour for a strengthening EUROworld?

America cannot ignore the world it shares, via the bias of the media which 'serves' the public. Should it continue to do exactly what it does best: ignore climate change, ignore deficit spending Republicant misAdministrations, and worry more about Michael Vick than the Bali Climate Summit, it can only have itself to blame.

This post is merely a warning... ACT or REACT, America: it's your choice...

Courage,

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç

IS America a LIE?

Or: What of America is TRUE?

This essay begins trying to explain how the American President has, and his lap-dog media can lie incessantly, brutally, harmfully about the state of the US government, the life of its citizens, and its external interventions.

Reference the statements made by General David Petraeus, as reported by the Washington Post in this article "Petraeus: Iraq 'Challenges' to Last for Years", such as:

"Conditions in Iraq will not improve sufficiently by September to justify a drawdown of U.S. military forces, the top commander in Iraq said yesterday."

So the ZENquestion remains, is America a LIE?

Is not a country the sum of its people and their shared beliefs? Americans believe their leaders, when they nickname augmented DEATHpower as 'Surge', and they trust their own judgment when media dogs and doggies tell them that the 'Surge' is temporary, a key implemented task that will allow future withdrawal.

The voices that rise, in opposition to such claims, are drowned in an avalanche of 'Support the Troops' mantras...

And those voices die, as did good Germans who objected to the rising centralizing powers conferred on Hitler, back in the mid-Thirties...

As long as Americans BELIEVE the LIE, they won't be in any position to help themselves off of the addiction: power, ruthless and lawless conquest and occupation, that defines America today.

What John Locke said is very important, in thinking about this subject. He spoke in the most eloquent way, of the innocence that had been America. In his Second Treatise on Civil Government, in the Fifth Section on Property, Section 49 we find the words that he made famous, and are so often today, misquoted or mis-cited:

"Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was any where known. Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his possessions."


He was referring to this concept of innocence, as a conclusion on the premises discussed in the preceding Section 48:

"And as different degrees of industry were apt to give men possessions in different proportions, so this invention of money gave them the opportunity to continue and enlarge them: for supposing an island, separate from all possible commerce with the rest of the world, wherein there were but an hundred families, but there were sheep, horses and cows, with other useful animals, wholsome fruits, and land enough for corn for a hundred thousand times as many, but nothing in the island, either because of its commonness, or perishableness, fit to supply the place of money; what reason could any one have there to enlarge his possessions beyond the use of his family, and a plentiful supply to its consumption, either in what their own industry produced, or they could barter for like perishable, useful commodities, with others? Where there is not some thing, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so free for them to take: for I ask, what would a man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should see him give up again to the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family."


A land of bounteous natural beauty and resources. A land wherein REASON and LOGIC could begin to flourish; a land where Government could serve its people, rather than People forced to serve their Government.

But times have changed, and we who have helped to build America, sometimes close our eyes and wonder: what has it, what have WE wrought on our planet?

I was trying to explain to a new friend, a woman from Russia, that there was something in me that could NEVER strive to win a contest the prize for which was the destruction of our planet. This means: I live simply, ZENishly, with few demands and few encumbrances.

If this sounds like 'Commie swill' to you, take a breath.

I beg you to re-think one simple and accepted part of normal capitalist economics:
external costs.

"An externality is a cost or benefit resulting from an economic transaction that is borne or received by parties not directly involved in the transaction."

Yet! External costs DO NOT EXIST, per se (I believe that external benefits DO EXIST, btw):
every planetary decision bears a pricetag, and that pricetag may be sometimes too high.

Your factory pollutes: external cost?
Your car burns MY future food-processing and transportation processes: external cost?
Your ARMY kills my neighbors: external cost?

But there are no EXTERNAL COSTS.

There are present costs, and FUTURE COSTS.

As America continues to live its lie(s), it bestows unwanted, unrequested and incredibly harmful FUTURE COSTS on its grandchildren, its neighbors, and its soul.

I wanted to believe in America the Beautiful, I really did. But it's the lie that gets all of us.

No (major) political party is immune to these Lies.

Paraphrasing Locke:
"In the end, all the world will be America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as peace was any where known. Find out something that hath the use of promoting peace amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his weapons."


COURAGE ...

ç*””*”*”*ç*””* ZENmud *””*ç*”*”*””*ç