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ALAN GREENSPAN CLAIMS TO SEE SOME LIGHT. WHAT ABOUT JOHN MCCAIN AND BARACK OBAMA?
Alan Greenspan gave testimony to Congress on Thursday, October 23, 2008, during which he said the following:
I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms.
He did not admit that he knew what he was doing while Chairman of the Federal Reserve by keeping interest rates low.
IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE FORGOTTEN?
That's coming from the man who when Fed Chairman said of the dot-com bubble that the people were suffering from "irrational exuberance." He knew a bubble when he saw one. What he meant was that there was not underlying value in the investments. He is now saying that he didn't see the housing bubble as such even though so many other economists were saying it was a bubble and Greenspan knew they were saying it. He is saying that he actually believed that the people in the mortgage industry were not carried away as people were during the dot-com bubble.
Understand here that Alan Greenspan has studied every boom and bust cycle on record. He lived, ate, breathed, and slept interest rates and how the Fed rate impacts upon the whole (all the variables). He knows the history of selfish interests ruining things in a hurry.
HE KNEW, BUT HE DIDN'T?
He's read all the Libertarian capitalists criticisms of the mixed economy. He knows the view of many that the Federal Reserve is a private monopoly that has never been audited. He knows how the fractional-reserve banking system leverages and why the ratios had been limited in case of runs due to booms and busts. He knew that the Wall Street investment bankers (Henry Paulson, et al.) successfully lobbied to change ratios to loosen them four and five fold so that there would be no cushion in the event of runs on those banks. He knew what those banks were doing with all the funds created out of reckless leveraging. He knew they were securitizing mortgages that were subprime and Alt-A and the rest and on a huge, huge scale (trillions and trillions). He knew they were also creating other exotic, non-auditable derivatives.
Now, he's admitting or alleging that he made what people would consider an honest mistake.
What is going on here is that he has never been asked the right questions.
PEOPLE TRICK THEMSELVES
If you believe Alan Greenspan's latest position, then you believe that Alan's left hand didn't know what Alan's right hand was doing. You could make a case for this. There is definitely a place where people trick themselves. People choose not to admit within what they have done and what they are still doing. Even the worst devil believes he's right. Of course, from God's perspective, that worst devil is the most confused being in existence.
SELF-INTEREST (APART FROM GOD): EUPHEMISM FOR GREED AND CORRUPTION
He's saying that he is shocked that self-interest (apart from God) is just a euphemism for greed and corruption. I'm not paraphrasing him or quoting him here. I doubt that he'd characterize it the way I just have. He just can't see it or won't admit that he does.
FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM INHERENTLY DECEPTIVE
At any rate, he is one person who was place in a high position based upon his ideology that he has now publicly recanted regardless of the degree to which he is being genuine rather than working to continue deception. Make no mistake about it. The Federal Reserve System is inherently deceptive. They do not deserve the money they pay themselves. There is not a good service being done by the banking system as a whole. It is not a good system. It is not righteous.
PLACATE THE COMMONERS
Alan Greenspan was handpicked by the superrich. The superrich have not changed their philosophy or ideology of selfishness. When they agree to give the commoners more, it is to placate those commoners (or serfs or slaves is you want). That's what's going on now.
FDR SAVED MIXED CAPITALISM
FDR instituted the New Deal and told the capitalists that they don't know that he saved "capitalism," which he did. If he hadn't mixed the economy, there would have been a socialist violent revolution (Marxist) in the U.S. that would have prevailed. Consider how much different history would have been since that time to now.
Contrary to the assertions of many so-called more laissez-faire capitalist economists, the New Deal did not prolong the Great Depression. Those economist have no way of laying out how things would have unfolded had Hoover's do-nothing approach been allowed to continue. Of course, those same economists would blame the Federal Reserve System and not without a great deal of justification.
UTOPIAN CAPITALISM VERSUS JESUS
The issue here is that those economists are comparing a utopian capitalism against the mixed economy. What they don't do is compare that utopian capitalism with the political-economic vision of Jesus Christ.
I don't believe in their utopian capitalism. It isn't the best vision. It isn't the ideal. The mixed economy isn't either. The libertarian-capitalist-monetarist vision of Milton Friedman isn't either. There is only one right gate and way. All the rest fall short.
The fight isn't between Hamilton and Jefferson. The fight is between "Satan" and Jesus. I'm not with Hamilton, Jefferson, or "Satan." I'm standing with Jesus. Where is Alan Greenspan in this? Where is Colin Powell in this? Where are John McCain and Barack Obama?
SELF-FULFILLING FAILURE
For these others, Jesus is a spoiler. He's only the savior if everyone will agree to it. These others won't step forward before each other. They are all standing back saying to each other that no one is going to step forward to that. They aren't even saying, "I will if you will." Think about it. Are those leaders?
AYN RAND: EGO IN THE WAY
Alan Greenspan is/was a disciple of Ayn Rand. Ayn was an egoist. She, in her mind, was vastly smarter then was Jesus. For Ayn, Jesus was a weakling. He was a softy. Now, Ayn's huge ego got in her way. Where's Alan on this. Since he's admitted a little, will he keep soul-searching? Will he get his ego out of his own way?
Self-interest or selfishness didn't work he's admitted. Is he still qualifying that in his mind? Oh, it didn't work, but....
PATH TO DESOLATION
Look, selfishness, as the basis for a political-economic system or personal philosophy, is the path to desolation.
Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. (Isaiah 47:11)
The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 7:27)
And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: (Matthew 12:25)
JOHN MCCAIN'S REPUBLICAN, SELFISH, GREEDY ADVISORS AND SOCIALISM
As for John McCain, he admitted not that long ago that he doesn't understand economics. He therefore has had the typical Republican, selfish, greedy advisors in his ear telling him how to field questions. So, right now we have the Republicans using the term socialism over and over thinking that people won't be able to come up to speed on the subject or not knowing themselves, those advisors, what they're talking about anyway.
ECONOMIC ENGINE
What is the economic engine? Where can jobs come from? Who decides? That's what is at issue here.
I had a recent commentator (Friends Of Liberty) who asked the question, "Who is to ask what work?" His view in his comment is that the so-called free-market entrepreneur decides what work and that the fate of that entrepreneur lies with the people or consumers deciding whether or not to buy. It's market democracy if you will. Okay, but is that the only way? I didn't answer that question directly in my comment reply. I'm answering here, now.
EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY/CONSENSUS IN THEIR WORKPLACE NOT GREEDY STALINISM
The people can come together and decide to be employee owners. They can decide to have democracy in their workplace that they own collectively. That democracy that should actually be a consensus agreement is what was lacking in the Soviet Union. Lenin and then Stalin contrived things so they as sole individuals could dictate. In other words, they greedily ruined everything.
VOLUNTARY, COUNCIL SOCIALISM OR COMMUNISM (CHRISTIANITY)
It is voluntary, council socialism or communism (Christianity) that is being ignored in the mainstream, as if it isn't there as a concept or alternative. It is there though. The reason it isn't in the mainstream is because it is deliberately being ignored. It runs exactly contrary to the desire of the greedy crony capitalists. The greedy control the mainstream right now.
GROWING THE PIE VERSUS ROBBING THE POOR
Engines are constantly being reengineered and reinvented in the search for a better engine. What someone will consider the ideal will depend upon that one's starting premises. A greedy person will not want an engine that will propel everyone to high places. Greed is incompatible with that concept of what is best. Bear that in mind when you consider John McCain's attitudes.
John hasn't been afraid to use the terms "greed" and "excess" concerning Wall Street. He's inconsistent though. His thinking is disjointed. He's saying to go ahead and use tax dollars to restart the same engine and then get in there and make adjustments. That's the bailout. What he's also saying is that the basic premises of the engine are fine. He's being told to say that anything else is evil redistribution of wealth and will not result in growing the pie, to use his analogy. That's false though.
BANKER FAKERY
The bankers did not create wealth. They created a fake. The people are being asked to knowingly pay for it. The bankers will remain astronomically wealthy based upon the fake they created. In fact, they will become truly wealthier, since much of what they held before was fake. John goes along with that and even promotes it.
Now, changing the tax system so that those funds flow back again to the general welfare is re-redistributing the wealth back to those who labored to create not a fake but rather real wealth or value in the mundane sense. John is blind to that.
THE SUPERRICH BIG LIE FOR THE GULLIBLE AND NAIVE
Consolidation of wealth into the hands of the few doesn't create more jobs than does spreading the wealth around. Money in the hands of those who created its value in the first place does not keep the pie from expanding. Those people buy and invest too. Once upon a time, main streets all over were lined with shops of all kinds. The superrich killed that. The unemployment rate wasn't higher with all those shops. Do you see the point here? Consolidation of wealth into the hands of the few doesn't create more jobs. It just changes who owns and who bosses whom.
THE RIGHT DIRECTION
In Jesus's vision, which I share, everyone is at the same time a boss and a servant to each other. It is the right way to go. It's the right direction.
The people of America are constantly being surveyed and asked, "Do you think the U.S. is heading in the right direction?" Well, they often say yes or no, but what is the right direction. Most people at best struggle with a vague sense of what might be better.
BARACK OBAMA VAGUE RATHER THAN CHRISTIAN
Barack Obama has tapped that while deliberately leaving it vague. In his mind, it is better to be charged with being too vague than having to defend the specifics of Christianity for instance. I totally disagree with his approach and position.
CAN'T FORCE YOUR BROTHER INTO RIGHTEOUSNESS
Let me say here that Alan Greenspan and John McCain and Barack Obama are my brothers. I don't want to see them going down wrong paths. I definitely want what is best for them. However, there is the emotional (spiritual) brotherhood that can't be forced into existence. I can't force them to see the light. I can't force them to go on the same path I'm headed on, which to the best of my mind is the one Jesus is on.
It's not easy on one level and an accepted foregone conclusion to which I'm reconciled on another level. If they don't turn, we will separate and become farther and farther apart as we travel. I can't force that to be different. I know that they and their souls would be better off were they to agree and act accordingly. I know worse consequences await those who hear what is better and best yet reject it.
So be it. People choose whom to follow. They end up in the same boat. All I can do is what Jesus did: Warn them. Then it's up to them.
Tom Usher
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Tom Usher
Standing Comment, all posts and pages:
To all homosexuals and their supporters, condoners, promoters, accepters, confirmers, and the like:
Unless you have something completely new that hasn't already been refuted, don't bother. It won't show up.
Rehashing what has already been refuted is a waste of everyone's time.
I'm not interested in casting pearls before swine, giving the children's bread to the dogs, or rebuking a forever scorner.
Learn or go away: There is zero wisdom in homosexuality. Homosexuality is wrong. Nothing any homosexual or anyone else can say or do will alter it. No one needs the Bible to know it either. It's prima facie. There's no such thing as an unrepentant-homosexual Christian. There never has been and never will be. That's the way of it. If you don't like it, change.
Do site searches on the various topics concerning homosexuality to determine if your "point" has already been handled. Currently, I provide three different search methods. The "WordPress" search is still the most thorough.
The same can be done regarding militarism, capitalism, coercion, and many other main issues and themes.
TREATMENT, RUDENESS, POLITENESS, OFFENSE, TRUTH
Many times over the course of this website's existence, I've had commentators complain about how I've treated them and/or others. Much less frequently has anyone taken exception to those commentator's comments. I assume that's because for one, I appear to be holding my own.
Often, I have raised the fact that Jesus called certain people "serpents." I've often also mentioned how he cleaned the temple with whip in hand, not that he used it on anyone. It certainly doesn't say that he did, and neither was he charged with it in the kangaroo court of the serpents who ended up murdering him by proxy just for, among other wonderful things, speaking out and speaking truth.
If I say that those who are engaged in serpentine behavior are the New Testament "serpents," then why take offense at my saying it rather than standing with Jesus and me about it?
If others don't like it that I treat others or them the way I have in this regard, why don't they take it up with the serpents and/or their own consciences and God?
If I wanted to catch flies, I'd use honey. I don't want flies on this level. Human beings aren't to be on the level of flies. If the truth is bitter as vinegar, then ask yourself why and learn to taste it as sweet but not sickeningly so. Why attack the message and messenger, as the serpents did, and become a serpent by so doing?
The issue is not "name calling" on some bratty, childish level. When Jesus said "serpents," he was not being as a brat. His level was completely adult to adults and children. He dared say that the children understood the clear and plain truth before the adults who, afterall, had been abused and socialized by the serpents. He still calls adults back. Those who hear him and know his voice (truth) turn around and do the other required things together as well.
What is it for a human being to be more serpentine or reptilian than what God initially gave? What was and remains Jesus's point? What is the reptilian brain versus the vastly higher human brain with its cerebral cortex and frontal and temporal lobes and specific areas of altruistic sentiments and abilities? What are those higher areas before they are damaged, before the communication pathways to them and between them are diminished by evil that is always some form of abuse? How are those pathways reestablished or created where they never were in this fleshly life?
The snake lays its eggs. The eggs hatch. The snake parent doesn't nurture or raise the offspring. It's every snake for itself. Human parents and family are not designed to be that way. Humans hand down the learning of nurturing. Many people get better training than do others, and many people have a greater aptitude for learning and predisposition for the higher and highest virtues. Many are less abused. People can change for the better and best though, no matter where the starting point. They only can't if they don't — if they reject it.
Snakes, of course, also come in venomous varieties and in strangling varieties, etc., such that they have been attackers and even devourers of humans for eons, guilty and innocent alike.
Now, Jesus knew that most people could relate to what were, and still are, largely considered "good" parenting skills and "good" "family" relations. He regularly used those concepts to get people to consider the wider implications for the whole of humanity. He did know that many would refuse. He let them go. He didn't demand secular or false-religion legislation to rein them in with threats of violence and imprisonment. He was not and is not coercive. Even his Church is a voluntary place to be.
What he still teaches (through the written words in the New Testament and as those connect with the Old and also teaches through the Holy Spirit he definitely sent as he said he would) is, among many other things, that "good" is vastly better than has been commonly accepted and that real "family" is everyone left after all the rest have rejected the higher and highest good. He raised the standards far above the Old Testament and far above the "modern" standard.
The American Empire and the American people in general aren't even touching the hem of his garment, let alone even attempting to stand upright and side-by-side with him.
I point out that Jesus was, and is, a Real Liberal Christian. He is the one who brought back this censored truth that is the light. After he had spoken it and lived it and was murdered for doing so, the censors set about to re-censor it and did. They couldn't put it out though — couldn't completely extinguish the truth. I wouldn't be saying it now again with all credit to God, just as Jesus, if they had been able to completely block it.
I point out that each of those terms ("real," "liberal," and "Christian," along with "Church") are actually redundant terms — synonyms that are so close that they become one. The term "liberal" here is not the common usage, which common usage is a deliberate corruption of the term. There is no harm in real liberalism. There is no vileness in it. There is only beneficence. "Real" may be understood as the opposite of false-hearted, dark side, and dead of the Holy Spirit. Christian is both real and liberal in those senses. To arrive at living, doing, being those full senses requires what Jesus lives, does, and is in the highest. Finally, the Church is the whole.
Who are they who want to drag it down, censor it, work against it, lessen it, ignore it, etc.? Well, who sides with Jesus and who sides against him? Did the serpents side with him then? Do they now?
We call war-mongers "hawks." We call "peacemakers" blessed and "doves." Why do the hawks not take offense at "hawks" but do take offense at "serpents"? "Hawks" is not yet as telling to the general public, but I must tell you that all hawks are serpents. Why do some say, "Greed is good" but take offense at "serpents"? I tell you there is no difference between the selfish and the serpents. Why do people take offense at serpents when they do not take offense at homosexuality? I tell you the homosexual spirit also comes out from the dark side. It is a choice. It is harmful. Many are abused with it. Many never overcome it. Their very brain matter is transformed by it. Then they claim it is good when it remains confusion and definitely wrong and harmful.
Many arguments were put forth in support of tolerance. I understood that Jesus "tolerated," as in he did not execute wrath but rather told the truth and let the blind follow the blind (blind to the truth) into the ditch of their own making. I have watched while the movement has been corrupted into condoning what was once only to be tolerated. I have watched further while it has moved from condoning to promoting even to the youngest children to get to them before the truth does. I have seen evil at work, and I sound the alarm. I face censorship and other negative reactions for it.
As the American Empire claims to be a light to the world, it murders innocent babies by Hellfire missiles fired from predator drones controlled by armchair, video-gaming serpents in uniform. It tortures those who are not even suspects. It spies on its own without even probable cause or reasonable suspicion. It lies its way into wars for spoils and control. It neglects its poor, whom it treads down for the sakes of the superrich — for the sake of the massive flow of mammon from the bottom up (no trickledown — trickledown is a farce and always has been). All is claimed to be okay in America though — that America is headed in the right direction — because soon, even "don't tell, don't ask" will be a thing of the quaint past and homosexuals may be able to sleep together and have sex in the barracks with the "blessing" of the Empire while they practice murdering the innocent for the sake of homosexual, greedy plutocrats who own them and who, in turn, are owned by the dark-side spirit named by God and Jesus as Satan.
Whose side are you on? I speak truth to warn. I don't tell the secular government what to do other than occasionally to say what at least would be less hypocritical within their fallen, unenlightened system. I do so for spiritual reasons. What I want is the Christian Commons.
Now, if you submit a comment:
What you write here against the Real Liberal Christian Church founded by Jesus Christ will mark you in the Biblical sense unless you show that you have turned and are repenting in time to escape the damnation of your own choosing. That's the way of it. Don't be tempted by the devil to stand opposed to the call of righteousness. Overcome such evil temptation. Help others to help yet others to come to righteous behavior through-and-through.
Check out how even after reading this, people will still take it out of context and twist it to an evil end.