MONEY 137 - AMERICA 5

THIS IS MY 137^TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS

August, 2018

understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com

In this blog we will continue on “America”.

Before we get started let’s recap from the previous blog covering socialism and immigration for this country.  Viewing history of good socialistic countries there have to be fundamentals and we do not have them; small geographic area, nationalism, similar cultures including religions, and more.  The big “more” is a country that is solvent and debt free.  Unfortunately, America is the most indebt country in the world both as a country and per capita on an individual basis.

The first step to equalize the “playing field” might be taxation.  Something like this might work:  no personal income tax on the first $15,000, then a flat tax with no exemptions perhaps 15% for everyone.  I also think a needed “asset tax” should be included.  Corporations are passing through far too many hundreds of millions of dollars to top executives and shareholders. An asset tax would set a very liberal personal amount, let’s say $50 million.  Above that amount of personal assets you would pay a fairly hefty tax.

Much holds true for immigration.  Successful immigration into a country only comes about defining how many immigrants should be permitted in, (exclusive of humanitarian situations), what will be the need for immigrants, how will the country support these immigrants, how will a country regulate and control these people including children and set up a defined workable system, and more.  Again, the big “more” is how to pay for it.

From a strictly humanitarian standpoint it would have been much smarter for the G-20 countries to have come together, worked with war-torn countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria and provided “safe zones”, within their countries and guarded by an international group.  This would have cost billions, however less expensive in the long run than what we now have.  It also would not have displaced people from their countries.

Our prior blogs on “America” and the history of war was to show the direct correlation that war brings with debt, and debt “kills”!  So, the pernicious effects of war on the country and individuals.  I presented the growth of debt with major wars, not including some wars like the Mexican-American War, Philippine-American War 1899-1902, and the Spanish-American War.  Economically America lives and thrives on “war”, making only a few people and industries very wealthy!  (Please remember the statement of General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower when leaving office in 1961 to be very mindful of the dangers of big government and the military/industrial complex in this country.)  How about “cold wars” through the various administrations?  I can only remember two.  The first was the geopolitical tensions after WWII between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies starting in the 1950s.  The second was also with Russia during the Reagan administration.  Both eras spent a ton of money on the military/industrial build-up.  After WWII until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 we were to a degree fighting Communism.  We had to show the world that we could outspend the Russians and down Communism.  Here is a side point.  Just like guns do not kill people, Communism, Socialism and Capitalism and their existence are no better or worse than the people within that society carrying forth doctrines.

While we mentioned “cold wars” above let’s go on a side tour.  We spent a fortune during the Reagan Administration.  Who really controls the power in the USA?  Ronald Reagan most people know as a movie actor, handsome, articulate and charismatic.  Reagan was a Democrat and favored the policies of President FDR.  In 1962 Reagan switched to becoming a Republican.  The California wealthy including the military/industrial machine wanted him to run for governor, but he needed to be a Republican.  Conservative Barry Goldwater helped in this transformation.  Ronald Reagan became governor of California in 1967 with the help of the “money machine”.  Then, as we all know the power players helped elect him president in 1980.  (His paybacks to the wealthy and big business came in the form of the 1986 Tax Reform Act which significantly reduced taxes for the wealthy.  It also paved the way for the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and Sherman Anti-Trust Act.  The final stab in the heart of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act came in 1999 under President Bill Clinton.  (I have covered all of this in detail in previous blogs so if you want more information seek those out.)

As I continue to write, I would like to make statements of fact that I search out that may not come to you. I want you to draw conclusions based upon these facts versus my adding subjectivity.

Let’s start out with a grandiose question and work from there.  Especially since the year 2000 has the USA had real growth or manipulated false appearances of growth similar to a Ponzi scheme?  As we mentioned in our previous blog on America at the end of 1999 the US debt was $5.269 trillion.  Currently, our debt is $21.276 trillion and we will probably need a call for more money to operate within the next 6 to 12 months.  Will Congress permit more borrowing unless we are facing a war?  Most likely not.  This may be one reason we are building our defenses against Iran along with Saudi Arabia and Israel.  Also, it seems politicians do not want peace with North Korea and Russia: big mistake.

Debt:  The USA gross federal debt to gross domestic product was 105.4% in 2017.  Now, if you add in personal debt we stand at about 300% debt to gross domestic product.  Even though it is normally great to be number one in the world, this is not the place to brag. The personal side of debt is how we grew our economy.  Gross domestic product is the total of goods and services purchased during a given year, less debt and interest and less our import/export balance of trade.  Let’s take a look at our typical American consumer who has no or little savings nor investments:

-       Interest free car loans at an outstanding amount of $1.25 trillion.

-       Low interest home loans with very little or no money down.

-       Low interest student loans at an outstanding amount of $1.25 trillion.

-       Credit cards that do not require paying off balances month to month. The average indebtedness is now $16,000 per individual.  It should be noted that in Europe and other countries that offer Visa and Master Cards the individuals balance needs to be paid off each month or you lose your card privileges.

-       Interest free furniture loans with no payments due for several years.

Get the point above?  No “skin in the game”.  Walk away.  This happened in the real estate industry in 2008-2010.

Right now in America we have even a greater financial threat than presented above and that is our corporate debt in every industry.  When I went to college we used a “liquid asset test”, now also referred to as a “quick ratio test”.  This simply is the ratio between the assets on a corporate balance sheet and the liabilities.  The ratio for financial solidarity was always 1.5 or 2.0 to 1.0.  This meant you had about twice as many assets as you had liabilities hanging out there.  Currently, with the games corporations have played with banks, Wall Street and bonds the ratio is 1.0 to 8.0.  Disaster about to happen! Yes, that means, excluding some of the top corporations we have only $1. in assets for every $8. in debt.  The USA could never bail out this situation.

This is enough for another blog. We will continue on “America”.

MONEY 136 - AMERICA 4

THIS IS MY 136^TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS

July, 2018

understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com

To recap, in the last blog we learned how expensive wars can be, and the mismanagement of our government monies by presidents and politicians.  We will continue along those lines, however in this blog I would like to write my thoughts on two big issues of today: socialism and immigration and the affect on “America”.

The country and world is as divided as I have ever seen; not good.  Accomplishing nothing.  The most noticeable is with liberals versus conservatives (left versus right), blacks versus whites, wealthy versus poor, Christians, Jews and Muslims, men versus women, etc.   Even though many of these divisions have been with us a long time the divisiveness has exponentially grown over the past 10 years.  One wonders how could this be, for what reasons and through what implementation.  The only answers I have is for political and financial gain,  and the implementation would be through our media.  Our newspapers, TV and radio are controlled by the worlds wealthy “media moguls”.  They know that negative news sells better than positive news. 

Regarding the above paragraph, I’m theorizing on this.  The want to divide and fragmentize could come from two sources; the elitists and big business.  The individual parts above may be worth more than the whole, and two, definitely more controllable than a unified grouping.  The elitists in the Bilderberg Group started in 1954.  From what I understand, and the little leaked from these meetings, is the theory the world would be better off with globalization and controlled by a group of wealthy.  Big business in conjunction with IT companies like Google and Facebook would be able to more closely pinpoint advertising and make more money than “shot-gunning” large markets.

In the above context, we need to look at proven documentation.  Let’s look at Gerorge Soros, a Hungarian Jew.  George disrupts countries, takes things apart and buys at a fraction of the values.  He is best known for his currency arbitraging.  As he was a member of Hitler’s youth “brown shirts” and turned in fellow Jews to the Nazis for their art and jewelry, he is no longer permitted into some countries like his home country of Hungary.

Let’s talk about socialism a bit from my point of view.  One of our problems is that we don’t have the same definition of socialism.  Let’s get a definition for this so we have a baseline.  Google defines socialism this way: “a political and economic “theory” of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”  Now, the first thing I see when applied to a country or form of government is to what relative standard are we setting.

To me in its purest sense it is the best system of governing in the world. I will set the parameters for this statement, and use examples.

There are several socialist countries around the world.  These are named year after year as the best in education, health, welfare, happiness and livability.  Let’s name a few and see if you agree with the studies: Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Austria, New Zealand and Switzerland.  Notice similarities where socialism works?  Try limited size of a country, relatively small population, homogeneity of population/nationalism, similar culture of people including religion, hard work ethics, cleanliness and disciplines throughout.  Said enough?  Another point, and one of the most important is this includes a country that permits immigration, ONLY when it is financially stable with a healthy economy and essentially no debt and low unemployment.

Socialism can’t work in the USA.  We are the most indebted country in the world. Yes, employment is currently up with many low paying jobs adding to these stats, however we still sit with about 95 million Americans not working, many who could but are “milking the system”.  I am all for the support of people not able to work because of mental or physical handicaps, however if you are able to work, get to work and be productive in society.  A good example of this if you want a government paycheck is Chile. Get a colored government bib and an assignment to improve something; could be cleaning a sidewalk downtown, but you are proving worth to society.

In our country, I have never witnessed capitalism to go so awry.  The inequalities are so great. The top 1% own over half of all assets.  I hope we don’t have a revolution but it may come to that some day.  I think very highly of Japan where I have traveled twice.  Corporate executives are not permitted pay levels in excess of 400% of the average worker.  In the USA you have Wall Street favored companies like Amazon (the Sears and Roebuck catalog of the 21^st century) and Facebook (the pet rock of the 21^st century) adding little with unbelievable capitalizations.  A couple weeks ago it was announced that Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, (a company that pays little in taxes nor a dividend) was worth $141.7 billion.  Now, if we had an asset tax and took away $140 billion of his money he would still be left a pittance $1,700 million to somehow get by on!  When Warren Buffett announces publicly that his secretary pays a higher percentage of tax than he does you know there is a problem.  This kind of greed will also take down a nation!

The world’s wealthiest have already been staking their positions to live in low crime, clean and socialistic countries like New Zealand, British Columbia, Singapore and Switzerland.  You will notice countries of desire also do not permit immigrants unless they come in with a ton of money.

Socialism will not work in the USA in its purest form.  We are already too divided, too large, too greedy with those in control and too corrupt.

Immigration:  As you know a big problem.  Except for the exodus a few years back of Cubans escaping to Florida, much of our immigration and issues have been on the Mexican border with Central Americans and Mexicans crossing illegally.  This is not right.  We can’t immigrate to Mexico!  People may draw parallels with your grandparents coming here from Europe.  My grandparents came in from Germany, my grandfather from Scotland via England.  You didn’t just break into the USA.  Most, like my grandparents, came in through Ellis Island in New York around 1900.  Ellis Island was an inspection station.  To come into the United States you typically needed a “sponsor” which may have been a community of similar nationality; e.g. Germans, Irish, Jews, Polish, and Italians.  These sponsors stated that you were to be welcomed into their communities proving work and self-sufficiency, not a financial drain on the US. 

Even though many people entering did not speak English they came from a similar background mostly from north Europe where hard work was common, a clean to meticulous nature and similar cultures.  Also, most were Christians or Jews which have a similar religious background.

I might mention here that it is well known that the closer to the equator one gets with countries the lazier the people are, less productive and not as clean as those in the north in colder climates.  Many examples can be brought forth.  One would be the country of Italy.  The manufacturing and productivity of Italy is in the north and common borders with Switzerland, France and Austria, all productive countries.  Once you reach Rome and south tourism is about the only large business, and a very slow relaxed environment prevails.

A last comment on immigration.  The USA and people no longer have the money they did 40-50 years ago.  Like “socialism” we can’t afford to take care of people.  The people entering from the Middle East have both a different culture and religion than we are accustomed to, do not speak English. Many are Muslims with a different respect of Christians including women and will not integrate with our society.

One more point before we go.  So much news these days about the detainment with the rush of Central Americans and Mexicans across our border. This is not normal nor good for the US.  In this blog we discussed how immigration was handled at times in our history like the turn of the 20^th century.  You might not know or have forgotten that we had internment camps for American Japanese here during WWII.  It was forced incarceration holding 110,000 to 120,000.  I have a good friend and past business partner who is Japanese and grew up in one of these camps.  His name is Fred Mikawa, and he turned out to be one of the most normal people I know, and one of the most successful  developers of large resorts in Hawaii and China.  Not for all, but many of these families and kids today have never had it this good, three meals a day, toys for the kids, new clothes, and tons of games to keep them occupied along with people serving their needs.  Is this “good” to be reciprocated?  It is said that approximately 80% of the people who come into this country do not show up for their scheduled times and meetings to proceed with regulations to live here.  They have no sponsors, they have no money, they disappear.

The federal government as is common practice out-sources these services to attend to immigration and detainment centers to private corporations making a ton of money from tax payers; this is into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Let’s move on.

MONEY 135 - AMERICA 3

THIS IS MY 135^TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS

July, 2018

understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com

We left our last blog on “America” capturing history of past wars with the understanding that wars create debt, and debt kills!  We ended the blog after WWII when our country had a debt of $241.86 billion.  Now, we will carry you forward from that time with wars that I may refer to as “fiasco” wars exponentially growing debt while wasting our time and effort with hegemony/imperialism/expansionism.  I must admit I am truly fascinated by history and this stuff.

Let us start with the Korean War, June 25, 1950 until July 27, 1953. (The Forgotten War, Conflict?)  In brief, the North Korean Communists quickly crossed the 38^th Parallel and came into the South.  General Douglas Macarthur, a major US general in Japan was brought in and pushed the North Koreans back to the river between China and Korea within a few weeks.  The Chinese entered a defensive position as we closed in on the border, and the rest is history; about 33, 600 men lost and no final resolve after 3 years in war. At that point our US debt rose to $271 billion and a debt to GDP ratio of 70%.

We entered Viet Nam on March 8, 1965, and we retreated in April 1975.  This was one of my biggest wars on the fiasco list.  Again, a war with no real end.  These fiasco wars make defense contractors, politicians and some wealthy people wealthier!  We took over this area from France.  France has its history in the Indochina area starting in 1887.  In 1976 our US debt was now up to $620 billion.  You get the drift of where this is going I hope!

Until 1980 and President Reagan gained office not much in terms of war happened except for the start of OPEC in October, 1973.  This consolidation  and unification of oil producing countries caused oil prices to significantly rise, thus effecting inflation.  Interest rates spiked the end of the 1970’s.  With concerns about Russia, President Reagan led us into a multi-year Cold War.  First country to go broke?!  As you know, we won or did we?  The 1986 Tax Reform Act greatly helped the wealthy, as has been the norm, mainly dropping passive income tax rates.  Anti-Trust was going down rapidly while interstate banking to hold and big business gained.  In 1988, because of tax cuts for the wealthy along with the Cold War spending, our US debt now was standing at $2.6 trillion.

I’ll consolidate the 1990s a bit.  Desert Storm, August 2, 1990 until February 28, 1991, was the war of the 1990s.  Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.  Here was a guy who was our “boy” in Iraq.  He was a Sunni and mitigated concerns with Iran,  a Shiite country.  From what I know we had promised Saddam an oil pipeline and we backed out on the deal. He was no longer a “happy camper”.  You know how that fiasco ends.  The US debt by 1999 had risen to $5.6 trillion.  To note, in years 1997 to 2000 we essentially had a balanced budget with the debt remaining at $5.6 trillion.  Last time in our history this low debt and balancing a budget will happen!

Who were my favorite presidents since WWII and why?  I have selected three.  All three had humble roots, desired no more than to serve this nation and had no desire to make $100 million from being president and then buying 5 or more expensive homes.  They are:

-       Harry S. Truman.  President April 12, 1945 until 1953.  Undertook the position because President Franklin D. Roosevelt died.  He had the huge moral obligation of whether or not to drop the bomb on Japan August 6^th, 1945 and end the second World War with Japan.  He  retired with his wife Bess in a very humble home in Independence, MO.

-       Dwight D. Eisenhower. President 1953 – 1961.  Past famous General of WWII and Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe.  Warned Americans of mistakes having overly powerful large businesses, big banks, politicians and big military that would control America.

-       Jerry Ford. President December 6^th, 1974 until January 20^th, 1977.  A simple, down to earth man who inherited the position after the impeachment of President Nixon.  I met him several times along with his family when I lived in Vail, Colorado.  He had a home there and loved to ski.

OMG!  Let’s talk about presidential decision making from 2000 on.  Enter diminutive minds, greed and corruption.  Another movie, “Dumb and Dumber IV” should be made.  We could have some fun with this if it wasn’t so sad, and what has happened to this country.  Presidents should be required to study the failings of the Greek Empire, Roman Empire, French Empire (especially under Napoleon I), and the German Empire under Hitler.  George W. Bush became president on January 20^th, 2001. (By the way, January 20^th of the year following elections is when all presidents are sworn in.)  There are 3 books I would recommend you read in relation to this tenure.  One, the Biography of George W. Bush (I doubt if he read the book let alone wrote it!)  In his biography he admits to some drug usage, having been an alcoholic, and not doing anything in life until 1992 when he expected his father, George, to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.  Book two would be Bob Woodward’s very well documented book on George W. Bush and book three, ex- Treasure Secretary Paul O’Neill’s book on Dick Cheney, Vice-President of the US. (This book could have been called “How to Take the US Taxpayers for over $100 million Using my Company, Halliburton”!)

Okay, let’s move on into material issues.  On September 11, 2001 a few Muslims from Saudi Arabia and Syria flew planes into the twin towers in NYC.  We all should know and remember this.  George and Dick (Cheney) decided to invade a country, or perhaps two that had nothing to do with this horrific act; these being Afghanistan and Iraq.  Afghanistan is a nothing country, but through growing poppies 90% of the world’s heroin/opium and morphine come from there.  I guess we thought we could have the local farmers give up billions of dollars in trade for growing corn!  A little more depth here on involvement.  We wanted the Russians out of Afghanistan, which they occupied since 1979, so we went to our then buddy, Osama Bin Laden for help with the understanding that upon conclusion we would leave Afghanistan; this never happened..  We seemed to like it there and we are there today.

Then the duo of George and Dick thought we would go in and get Saddam and take over Iraq.  Cheney overestimated the oil reserves in Iraq, as one mistake.  Number two mistake was that once we invaded the relative Sunni nation it would become a “free for all” including from Iran.  As you are aware we finally did get Saddam, but at what expense above human life.  I have heard figures close to one million lives, in one fashion or another, at a total and eventual cost of over $4 trillion as were are still in Iraq and paying the bills.

When Barack Obama won the election and took charge the US debt now stood at $10.6 trillion.  I will keep Barack’s presidential reign short.  We did some damage in countries like Libya and Syria, however the debt and interest clock kept clicking.  When Obama turned over the office to Donald Trump the US debt stood at $19.95 trillion.

For the fun of it Google the “US Debt Clock.org”.  It gives you a current accounting to the dollar of the US debt. We are now in debt $21.2 trillion and counting.

We will continue in the next blog with “America”.

MONEY 134 - AMERICA 2

THIS IS MY 134^TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS

July, 2018

understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com

In this blog we are going to continue on with “America”.  As we just finished the celebration of our 242^nd year of independence I feel writing about America is quite important. 

What did we learn in our last blog?  For one, a bit more in depth accuracy as to how we evolved from the time frame of the Declaration of Independence until George Washington became president on April 30^th, 1789; low and behold we had several “presidents” before him.  It took the original 13 states from 1776 until 1787 to unify, agree upon and ratify the Constitution in Philadelphia.  A second important point of the last blog, which very well holds true today, is that our new country was broke after the Revolutionary War and we borrowed money from France.  (The Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 until 1783.)  A memorable issue is that war creates debt.  Debt kills!  No matter if it is a country, a state, a county, a city or an individual; debt kills!  I bring this up as I mention August 15^th, 1971 when unilaterally our nation pulled out of the Bretton Woods Agreement and went off the gold standard because we could no longer back up our currency and debt (bonds) with a gold standard.  I believe all of this is important for “you” to understand “money”.

(We would be far better off if the politicians and world leaders who create wars would have to put themselves and their families on the front lines of war!  I think there would be far fewer wars!)

In this blog we are going to discuss wars that have taken America down the  path of debt.  Here is a caveat…..if you don’t like to recognize negative facts, as true as they might be, don’t read this blog!

Let’s discuss some wars as the Untied States has almost always been at war with someone. 

Our first war against Muslim countries in North Africa was the First Barbary War or Barbary Coast War from 1801 to 1805 in the Mediterranean.  Our Marine song that included “from the shores of Tripoli “ came from this period.

Many of the wars in the 1800’s were against various Indian tribes, and these lasted through most of the 19^th century. 

The first big war on our soil was the very unfortunate Civil War from 1861 until 1865.  Both the North and the South were left broke after the War that killed 620,000 men.

The next big war was World War I.  We entered that arena on April 6^th,  1917.

The next “biggie” would be World War II.  I guess World War I was not the war to end all wars as so many thought!  The Nazi’s invaded Poland in September, 1939. We remained neutral until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941.  At that time, we were sliding back into recession after gains made in the 1930’s based upon more debt artificially creating employment through “works programs”.  WWII ended September, 1945.

Okay, now after this brief summary on wars up until 1946, let’s see how the United States faired on debt. According to government figures our debt was then $241.86 billion.  Up until that point our country tried to pay down debt to some degree.  After WWII we no longer made that commitment.  To relate to debt, the government many times expresses it in percentages to Gross Domestic Product. 

Let me present you with a brief recap here, as I will eventually take you into today’s numbers which are scary”

-       1790, - 29.6% US public debt to GDP

-       Civil War period – 30%

-       WWI – 30%

-       WWII – 112.7%

-       2011 (Great Recession) – 67.7%

Right now the United States Government and Private debt stands at 300% of Gross Domestic Product, the highest in the world.  Japan had that recognition, however in the past few years we flew past them, as they stand around 240% of GDP.  This is not something to be proud of, and I believe can take down our American dollar and the USA.

We will continue on with “America” in my next blog.

MONEY 133 - AMERICA

THIS IS MY 133^RD BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY TOOLS

July, 2018

As I start writing this blog on July 3, 2018 I thought it all-important to cover “America”.  I will do this in several blogs, as one could write a book off my thoughts, and that may not constitute the definition of a “blog”.  I have been saving facts; what I deem as pertinent and material, for some time.

I need to set some parameters here.  First, let it be known that I am a realist, a pragmatist, a conservative and yet a socialist.  I believe in totalitarianism as long as a country or government has a benevolent person on top who reigns autocratically.  As with many of my statements or facts you should be prepared to go to my previous blogs at understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com. 

I also am a firm believer that no form of government in today’s world has succeeded because of greed and dishonesty and that stands for capitalism, socialism and communism.  With my blogs on America I will state things that are subjective, hopefully accurate facts.  I am expecting no conclusions, only that you digest what I have written and “you” determine your own conclusions.  Perhaps it is to get the reader to think!

Tomorrow will be Independence Day, what we call July 4^th.  I watched a “take down” on this in the past couple of days where people on the street were asked what it meant.  Of course, and edited, we saw the intelligence of “America”.  We are breeding “dolts”/”idiots” and it is hard to think otherwise.  Perhaps today’s schooling is to teach technology, but you can’t  live on technology alone.  Too many mistakes have been made from politicians, including the presidents and advisors, making the wrong calls because they lacked the knowledge of history, and history repeats.  In my mind the elimination of subjects like English, history, geography, art appreciation, classic literature, sociology and others is a major mistake.

So much for this verbiage, let’s begin.  “America”.  Let’s test your history smarts.  What does July 4^th, “independence day” stand for?  It is the day we declared to stand for the colonies independence from England.  Who was the actual president on July 4^th, 1776?  John Hancock, a signer on the Declaration of Independence. He was president from 1775 to 1777.  Who was the very first president of the First Continental Congress?  Payton Randolph, starting in 1774.  Were there presidents before George Washington?  Yes, about 14!  When did President George Washington become president?  April 30^th, 1789 when the first 13 colonies got their act together.  John Adams was Vice-President.  Many people call John Hanson our first president?  When?  He was president of the First Continental Congress in 1781 and accomplished many things.

Were these well-known first Americans great, kind men, as pictured in our school storybooks?  No.  They were for the most part fairly wealthy land owners wanting to avoid high taxes in England.  Many owned slaves who were considered assets, not with any human rights.  Were the original colonists nice to the Indians? No.  If you think about it, these English settlers were immigrants taking over another person’s land.

One reason I recap history is to show you two things.  One, when we were taught history in school it was not accurate.  (I will continue in these blogs along lines of inaccuracies.)  Point two I want to make is that almost all Americans are ill informed, not carrying and “dolts”!  As I have traveled quite a bit of the world it continues to amaze me that people in other countries have more knowledge about America than the people who live here.

After the Revolutionary War against England and our independence declared we were broke like after most of our wars.  Financially the French came to our rescue.  Advance forward a couple hundred years and the French pushed on debt we owed them in 1971.  After World War II we entered into a financial agreement with western nations known as the Bretton Woods Agreement.  On August 15^th, 1971 President Richard Nixon cancelled this agreement unilaterally and took us off the gold standard in relationship to international finance and exchange.  We became a “de facto” freely floating exchange known as a “fiat currency”.  (May you have faith in our abilities to conduct business and pay our debts….including bonds.)  Big mistake, but wars and debt (at that time Viet Nam) will take a country down this path.

Enough for this one blog.  We will continue on “America” in our next blogs.  My intent here is to instill some facts that should be known by all, and peak your interest in history and knowledge.