Glenn BECK: REASONABLE QUESTIONS for AN UNREASONABLE TIME

www.glennbeck.com ^ | Monday, August 24, 2009 | Glenn Beck

[Yosemitest]

Reasonable questions for unreasonable times
Monday, August 24, 2009 - 18:05 ET

Am I hateful if I ask:



- Our unfunded liability for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is close to $100 trillion.
Is there any way to pay for these programs without bankrupting America?

- We are in so much debt,
why spend more borrowed money on cap-and-trade and healthcare programs
before we stop the flow of red-ink?

- The stimulus package funneled billions of dollars to ACORN.
How does giving billions of dollars to ACORN
stimulate the economy?

- If it was so important for congress to pass the stimulus bill
before they even had time to read it
why has only a fraction of the stimulus money been spent 6 months later?

- Bush said
he had to abandon free market principles in order to save them,
how exactly does that work?

- Why won’t member of Congress read the bills
before they vote on them?

- Why are citizens mocked and laughed at
when they ask their congressman
to read the bills before they vote on them?

- Was the cash-for-clunkers program meant to save the earth or the economy?
Did it accomplish either?

- How did Van Jones, a self-proclaimed communist
become a special advisor to the president?

- Did President Obama know of Van Jones’ radical political beliefs
when he named him special advisor?

- The Apollo Alliance claimed credit for writing the stimulus bill—
why was this group allowed to write any portion of this bill?

- If politicians aren’t writing the bills
and aren’t reading the bills,
do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?

- If the ‘public option’ health care plan is so good
why won’t politicians agree to have that as their plan?

- If town hall meetings are intended for the politicians to learn what’s on our mind—
why do they spend so much time talking
instead of listening?

- Politicians are refusing to attend town hall meetings
complaining, without evidence, that they are scripted.
Does that mean
we shouldn’t come out and vote for you since
every campaign stop, baby kiss and speech you give
is scripted?

- Why would you want to overwhelm the system?

- Is using the economic crises to rush legislation through congress
what Rahm Emanuel meant
when he talked about not letting a crises go to waste?

- What are the czars paid?
What is the budget for their staffs/offices?

[Tunehead54]

For later bump ... thanks! ;-)

[Quix]

INDEED.

[Quix]

Quite clearly, he intends to sink this nation to a point of desperation and no return, then use the created “crisis” to “transform America”. I am very, very surprised that, given their own egos, so many in Congress are so willingly going along with the expansion of the Executive Branch. I mean really, three dozen “Czars” who are accountable to no one? I sure hope people wake up......soon!

= = =

INDEED.

Sounds like you may agree with the drift of my post in #16.

The transformation of America is scheduled to be largely to destroy her beyond recognition.

[Quix]

Thanks tons for your kind words.

God have mercy on us all.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Quix]

And you for your kind reply.

[Stand Watch Listen]

- If politicians aren’t writing the bills and aren’t reading the bills, do they have any idea what these 1000 page plus bills actually impose on the American people?

This country is a Representative Republic. It appears that our duly elected Represetatives/Senators have not read the subject Bills. If unelected staffers have written/compiled these Bills...it seems reasonable that they should answer questions, give rationale for their authorship.

It does not appear that the Representatives/Senators have taken responsibilty for these Bills, have not adequately defended them nor present a lucid position for thier passage.

[dalebert]

welcome to usa gangsta land.....are there any republicans standing with the right and trying to lead? i mean really lead.....this administration acts more like they dont intend to leave ever so dont care what the people think....are zars unconstitutional?

[jackv]

If yours is the mentality of leadership we have to contend with, then this country is in worse trouble than I thought.

Whew!

God help us from those who think their idiotic, embicilic ideas make them the smartest ones in the room!!!
OMG!!!

[Quix]

I had to go back and read your long post to see what all the noise was about.

Certainly throwing money at a problem is going to raise prices. Doh!

Certainly staffers have to do a ton of the work. However, to assume the globalist oligarchy is not essentially writing the bills is, imho, utter ignorance. On the other hand, while they write laws and install judges in locked goose-step with them . . . they don't really consider laws all that necessary to obey.

The following is interesting. A lot of your points seem grounded in sensible reality to a point. The paragraph below sounds like you haven't a clue.

Freely elected representatives listening quite attentively to feedback from their constituents are not "imposing" anything. The rhetoric here is ridiculous. I hear people on FR routinely speak of "tyranny" and "totalitarian" this and that, and it is all utter rot and makes those engaging in it look like hysterical nuts.

1. Who said they are freely elected? What's freely about the mass hypnosis techniques (NeuroLinguistic Progarmming--yes, something I had some training in) OThuga used in the last Selection? Have you listened to Jesse Ventura's YouTube about his visit by the THE COMPANY asking how he won the election since he wasn't supposed to . . . that they'd been arranging and staging elections for a long time?

2. Who said the pols are listening to constituents AT ALL? There was a thread hereon somewhere recently wherein a pol had the guts or audacity to admit that Congress hasn't paid attention to THE PEOPLE essentially at all for a very long time. Anything otherwise is a smoke screen charade.

3. Not imposing anything? What rock have you been living under? The global oligarchy has been deepening and broadening it's degree and overtness of control for a very long time and you don't think things are IMPOSED? I didn't realize they were still doing lobotomies. Sheesh. I'll post some evidence to the contrary at the end of this post, in their own words. One might have to be more than sleep walking to apprehend the truth of the words, however.

4. You think no tyranny is involved and deepening, worsening? What planet are you from? I gather you've read none of the quotes from the oligarchs themselves:

1919
A book entitled The New World Order by Samuel Zane Batten is published by the American Baptist Publication Society. In this book, Batten declares: "The old order passes from view, the new world rises upon our vision....We have vindicated the right of social control.....There must be developed a national spirit of service....Society must break the stranglehold of capitalism....The natural resources of the nation must be socialized....The state must socialize every group....Men must learn to have a world patriotism. World patriotism must be a faith....

1919
A book entitled The New World Order by Samuel Zane Batten is published by the American Baptist Publication Society. In this book, Batten declares: "The old order passes from view, the new world rises upon our vision....We have vindicated the right of social control.....There must be developed a national spirit of service....Society must break the stranglehold of capitalism....The natural resources of the nation must be socialized....The state must socialize every group....Men must learn to have a world patriotism. World patriotism must be a faith....

1928
A book entitled The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution by socialist H. G. Wells is published.
.
He declares that "..The political world of the Open Conspiracy must weaken, efface, incorporate and supersede existing governments....The Open Conspiracy is the natural inheritor of socialist and communist enthusiasms, it may be in control of Moscow before it is in control of New York...."

1931
Historian Arnold Toynbee delivers a speech to the Institute for the Study of International Affairs at Copenhagen in which he explains:
.
"We are at present working discreetly with all our might to wrest this mysterious force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local nation states of the world. All the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands,
.
because to impugn the sovereignty of the local nation states of the world is still a heresy for which a statesman or publicist can perhaps not quite be burned at the stake but certainly be ostracized or discredited." --International Affairs (journal of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, i.e. the British version of the Council on Foreign Relations) Nov 1931, "The Trend of International Affairs Wince the War"

1940
A book entitled, The New World Order by H.G. Wells, in which Wells claims:
"It is the system of nationalist individualism that has to go....We are living in the end of the sovereign states....In the great struggle to evoke a Westernized World Socialism, contemporary governments may vanish....Countless people...will hate the new world order....and will die protesting against it."

1949
Towards World Understanding, vol. V, is published by UNESCO, and in this volume one reads:
.
"As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results....
.
For the moment, it is sufficient to note that it is most frequently in the family that the children are infected with nationalism by hearing what is national extolled and what is foreign disparaged....The activity of the school cannot bring about the desired result unless, repudiating every form of nationalism..."

1951 - July 31: The Chicago Tribune publishes an article, "OWI (office of war information) Propaganda machine Linked to Rhodes (Rhodes scholars) Men," stating: "Those who absorbed the Elmer Davis(Rhodes scholar and head of OWI), Office of War Information training have pushed the British concept of policing the world with American soldiers and economic aid and have fought for a world federation under which the United States would surrender its sovereignty."
.
[You should recall that Billdo Klintoon was a Rhodes ‘Scholar.’

1959 - The West in Crisis by James Warburg is published, in which he proclaims that: "...a world order without world law is an anachronism....A world which fails to establish the rule of law over the nation-states cannot long continue to exist. We are living in a perilous period of transition from the era of the fully sovereign nation-state to the era of world government." James Warburg is a CFR member and founder of United World Federalists. He is also the son of Paul Warburg, an architect of the Federal Reserve.

1962 - March 10 State Department Study Memorandum No. 7, "A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations, " written by CFR member Lincoln Bloomfield, in which he states: "A world effectively controlled by the United Nations is one in which "world government" would come about through the establishment of supranational institutions, characterized by mandatory universal membership and some ability to employ physical force....(But) if the communist dynamic was greatly abated, the West might lose whatever incentive it has for world government" [EDITOR, I THINK] It looks as if now the "communist menace" has been replaced by the "terrorist menace". And of course they can switch back to the communist menace or any other kind of menace whenever they want to.

1967 - March 26: Pope Paul VI writes Populorum Progressio and states: "Who can fail to see the need and importance of thus gradually coming to the establishment of a world authority capable of taking effective action on the juridical and political planes? Delegates to international organizations, public officials, gentlemen of the press, teachers and educators--all of you must realize that you have your part to play in the construction of a new world order.

1968 - The Subtle and Leisurely Penetration, a reference report from the George Mason School of Correspondence, is published by Education Information, Inc., of Sacramento, CA. It mentions that the thirty-two Americans to be Rhodes Scholars this year have been selected, and then states: "The stated objectives of Cecil John Rhodes and his friend, Sir Andrew Carnegie, included the reduction of the United States to a colony of the New World Order."

1970 - Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era by Zbigniew Brzezinski is published. He is a CFR member who will become the first director of the Trilateral Commission and President Carter's national security advisor. In this book he states: "Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man's universal vision. Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief.....Human beings become increasingly manipulable and malleable...
.

1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev quoted in Washington Post Feb 25 1990 "...A new world order is taking shape so fast that governments are well as private citizens find it difficult just to absorb the gallop of events....."
.
President Bush (SR) quotes on new world order and United nations:
.
"Time and again in this century, the political map of the world was transformed. And in each instance, a new world order came about through the advent of a new tyrant or the outbreak of a bloody global war, or its end." Feb 28, 1990---this quote is six months before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August.
.
"Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective--a new world order--can emerge...... We are now in sight of a United Nations that performs as envisioned by its founders." --Sep 11 1990

1993 - April 21: General Colin Powell receives the United Nations Association-USA's Global Leadership Award, and he remarks: "The United Nations will spearhead our efforts to manage the new conflicts (that afflict our world)....Yes the principles of the United Nations Charter are worth our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."
.
1993 - July 18: CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in The Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: "What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system....a first step toward a new world order."
.
1994 - the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor March 19**95 quotes Vladimir Zhirinovsky on Nov 9 at a press conference at the U.N. said, "There has long been a hidden agenda to merge America and Russia under the New World Order."
.

1996 - May 11 Journalist Joan Veon interviews David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World (19**95) and former Ford Foundation project specialist in Manila. In this interview, Korten claims that: "the World Trade Organization is creating a world government in which one organization which is totally unelected, wholly secretive....with the power to virtually override any local or national laws if those in any way inconvenience global corporations....It was a terrible shock (to those of us who supported Bill Clinton) when Clinton came in and GATT and NAFTA became the centerpieces of his policy....And in a sense, there was almost a seamless transition from President Bush to President Clinton in that regard....Our democracy has been rendered meaningless by big money. The truth is there are politicians (who) are owned lock, stock and barrel by the big money interests....Our elections create, to some extent, a facade of choice."

1996 - October 23: On "The Charlie Rose Show" on the Public Broadcasting System, Mikhail Gorbachev states: "We are part of the Cosmos. Cosmos is my God. Nature is my God....The future society will be a totally new civilization which will synthesize the experience of Socialism and Capitalism...."
.
1972 - Oct, page 28 "There should be no surprise for longtime readers of the Bulletin....that those plans include the conversion of the United States into a socialist nation....and the merger of that enslaved segment of mankind with other Communist nations into a New World Order. That goal, under that very name -- originally written in bastardized Latin as novus ordo seclorum -- has been envisioned by a Master Conspiracy for the past two hundred years as the ultimate product of all its crimes against humanity, and of all its subversive onslaughts against western civilization."
.

AND THAT'S JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF PROOFS AVAILABLE.

That's just the tip of the iceberg of the TYRANNY involved.

Ignorance has never really been bliss. It's far from it in this era.

[Quix]

Duly elected?

What a quaint archaic notion! LOL.

The oligarchy trashed "duly elected" a very long time ago.

[jackv]

God bless you, Quix! You always know exactly what to say. Don’t know what I’d do without you and Rush!! :o)

[Quix]

You flatter me far overmuch.

However, am blessed, humbled and encouraged by your kind words.

God’s best to you and yours.

[Quix]

GOD ALONE IS OUR FORTRESS, SECURITY, PEACE, PROVISION, OUR ALL SUFFICIENCY.

[JasonC]

Debt is not negative net worth, it is merely one way in which assets are financed. The treasury normally receives an income of 20% of the economy, which is $14 trillion and normally grows 5-7% a year in nominal terms. When it chooses to spend that income is a decision it can make any way it likes by using debt financing. Debt service is less than 10% of that revenue stream.

[JasonC]

The point under discussion was government entitlements, which no do not pay the Chinese. Also, China has taken only 11% of debt issued in the last 2 years, private US investors have taken 65%, and the Fed hasn't taken any of it, net. The Fed sold treasuries to shift to lending to banks from Bear Stearns to Lehman, and has run that back up to the former position size since April of this year as banks have repaid it the short term loans in made to them post Lehman. Its only net new position is in mortgage backed securities.

The Fed's balance sheet peaked in April and has declined 10% since then. None of its actions at any time in the crisis have been directed at accomodating the treasury, all of it has been directed at supporting the private banking system. The treasury doesn't need the support, it is the strongest credit on the planet at a time of very high demand for safety.

[FromLori]

Did you know the liberals have a published agenda?

http://bluelori.blogspot.com/2009/08/we-should-listen-to-barry.html

[JasonC]

"most of what they buy with the money given out of the right pocket goes to overseas companies"

Utter nonsense, Beck is talking about federal entitlements over the next 50 years and upward. The trade deficit shrank by half in the smash, all it takes is for men to save some of their income. Most were, some reckless net borrowers just masked it with their own negative savings. The crisis raised credit standards and cut them off, and the savings rate soared from 0 to 7% of income in consequence. That replaced Chinese capital 3 times over and to spare. (China is still investing in our bonds anyway, more this year than last, despite what you read in the headlines. The main change is just they now want treasuries more than agency securities). We also own plenty of portfolio and direct investment abroad, which brings in a comparable income to our external debt service. Its historical book value is lower than the face value of the external debt, but it is equity and pays a lot more than T-bills at zero or notes at 2-4%.

None of the foreign anything is more than a rounding error in our finances, which are driven by our own productivity and our own savings decisions. We are quite free to drive anywhere we like.

As for not enough in the right pocket to pay the left pocket, um, so what? So we have the same net wealth as before in both pockets. If we transfer less to welfare recipients then those it isn't coming from have it instead.

Yes there are costs from transfers, not because of overhead really but merely because moving wealth from those who produced it tends to weaken incentives and the efficiency of allocation of resources. This is a good reason to not have giant welfare state entitlement programs for middle class people who can perfectly afford to support themselves, but it isn't "bankruptcy". Beck's whole delusion plays on the one entry accounting pretense that we owe money but nobody gets it, as though debt is negative net worth. It isn't, every debt is an asset to someone else.

[jackv]

AMEN!!!

[JasonC]

No, iceland did not go bankrupt paying themselves, they contracted large foreign debts to support large investments in foreign financial assets as financial intermediaries. The value of the assets they invested in fell while their liabilities remained at full value, and that forced default. It was precisely the fact that the sums involved were 10 times the scale of the actual iceland economy and in no way connected to it, that made it difficult for the country to make up the shortfall out of its existing capital. Nothing remotely of the kind is happening here, and can't in the nature of the case, for a single economy that is a quarter of the entire world's.

And no, benefits are not going to foreign anyone. Our external trade relations are determined purely by the domestic savings rate and whether it suffices to finance our rate of capital investment. When we do run an external deficit, the sole question determining whether it enriches us or not is whether the cost to service that capital is higher or lower than the returns we get from the extra capital investment it allows us to make, beyond our own savings.

If we invest at a loss, even the 2-3% we pay today can exceed such returns, but if we invest in a businesslike rational manner and earn businesslike 10% returns on capital, borrowing modestly to support investment here is not going to impoverish us. If instead we save it ourselves, then we earn that 2-3% initial bit as well. If this strikes you as a great deal then run out and save all you can at 2-3%. If that seems a tad low and you think you can do better anywhere, then it isn't so bad a deal to borrow at it.

Get rid of one entry accounting. There is no such thing as a net debt. Debt is not net worth and does not mean it is negative. By all means, let's reduce wasteful spending, stop growing an inefficient welfare state, and pay for the services we actually use. But the reason to do all of these things is to have decks clear for whatever comes and our options open, and not because we will be ruined by paying 3% interest rates.