One million job cuts this year, millions permanently unemployed (what the 'official unemployment rate' really means, decade after decade), and welfare now slashed and limited...Nothing like finding a solution to those pressing social problems...

According to the story on CNN Santa Monica gets tough with homeless people

The report states that Santa Monica is going to deal with the homeless problem by prohibiting the feeding of homeless people on the streets and also by passing laws prohibiting homeless people to sleep on the streets in the business part of town. "SANTA MONICA, California (AP) -- This liberal, beachside town passed two laws that will prohibit homeless people from camping in front of businesses at night and limit free meals served to them." Advocates for the homeless intend to test the ordinance in court, and believe it will be overturned as a violation of rights, and insist that "The city will be forced to come to grips with the issues."

Now its one thing to complain about changing this that or the other and its another thing to propose solutions right. Now the debt of the poorest indebted countries is about 250 billion which is about one fifth of that recent tax cut, and that still leaves a little over one trillion to spend on the homeless problem. Of Course with welfare sitting only at about 50 billion before it was cut, I would suppose that proposing spending that trillion on real solutions, instead of calling a cop, would be a fantasy, right. >BR>
By the way, there is one good thing about being homeless in Santa Monica, and that is that earthquakes don't kill people, buildings falling down on people during earthquakes kill people, so the homeless will live through the worst of earthquakes.

It is often said that defense spending 'stimulates the economy' but spending on making the world a better place would stimulate the economy a lot more, and would also make the world a peaceful place. To quote Isaiah, speaking of the desertion of the watchtowers where soldiers were placed becoming deserted and dens for wild animals ...

Isaiah chapter 32

5 The fool will no more be called noble, nor the knave said to be honorable.
6 For the fool speaks folly, and his mind plots iniquity: to practice ungodliness, to utter error concerning YAHWEH, to leave the craving of the hungry unsatisfied, and to deprive the thirsty of drink.
7 The knaveries of the knave are evil; he devises wicked devices to ruin the poor with lying words, even when the plea of the needy is right.
8 But he who is noble devises noble things, and by noble things he stands.
14 For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;
15 until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest.
16 Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
17 And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust for ever.


What he is saying here is that peace comes from doing what is right, and you can't have any peace by making war, which should be obvious, since the peace is the fruit of doing what is right, which should also be obvious...After all they don't tear themselves to pieces in Sweden now do they...desperation is the breeding ground of violence and strife. If you want peace don't 'prepare for war' as the Orwellian line would have it, but rather do righteouness and prepare for peace...Peace does not come from violence, but only from righteousness, which is the point this particular prophet is making in this passage...

I really admire the prophet Isaiah, and since you so seldom here the real message of these prophets, their voices drowned out by calls for warfare even from the pulpits and all sorts of religious preaching, I have gathered together a selection of interesting passages on the following page...Isaiah on war and peace


Also interesting is the following explanation given by the mathematician Albert Einstein on the cause of market collapses...

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm
Albert Einstein - Why socialism : a few quotes from Einstein's essay - "I shall call "workers" all those who do not share in the ownership of the means of production ... the worker produces new goods which become the property of the capitalist ... Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands ... The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists ... an "army of unemployed" almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job ... unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market ... The profit motive, in conjunction with competition among capitalists, is responsible for an instability in the accumulation and utilization of capital which leads to increasingly severe depressions ... This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career ... "

Basically what Einstein is saying here is that 'Reaganomics' as it was called, causes a concentration of wealth, which causes the economy to periodically collapse, causing recessions and periodic depressions (there were numerous depressions during the 1800s, even though the crash of 29 is the best remembered, since depressions have been an instrinsic feature of capitalism, which developed in the 1800s, which is why Einstein refers to frequent depressions which become increasingly severe. Keynesian economics, as it was called, was introduced by the Roosevelt administration as a stop gap measure and had the effect, through government spending and taxation, of tempering the effects and turning depressions into recessions, which are as frequent as the former depressions used to be, but less severe in their effects. However one feature of Reagonomics was to dismantle this band aid solution, and it remains to be seen, with further tax cuts taking place, whether the current collapse stops at just a recession, especially given the new feature of Reagonomics, the jobless recovery which is now perhaps happening for the second time, having happened for the first time during the first Bush administration. One million jobs have already been cut this year, on top of the millions cut last year, and this makes one wonder ...) More discussion of the same theme introduced by Einstein above can be found on the page The Cause of the Great Depression
http://www.escape.com/~paulg53/politics/great_depression.shtml
The depression began in late 1929 and lasted for about a decade. Many factors played a role in bringing about the depression; however, the main cause for the Great Depression was the combination of the greatly unequal distribution of wealth throughout the 1920's, and the extensive stock market speculation that took place during the latter part that same decade. The maldistribution of wealth in the 1920's existed on many levels. Money was distributed disparately between the rich and the middle-class, between industry and agriculture within the United States, and between the U.S. and Europe. This imbalance of wealth created an unstable economy. The excessive speculation in the late 1920's kept the stock market artificially high, but eventually lead to large market crashes. These market crashes, combined with the maldistribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize ... the rewards of the "Coolidge Prosperity" of the 1920's were not shared evenly among all Americans. According to a study done by the Brookings Institute, in 1929 the top 0.1% of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42%. That same top 0.1% of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of Americans had no savings at all...In the 1923 case Adkins v. Children's Hospital, the Supreme Court ruled minimum-wage legislation unconstitutional ...

Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more, whereas the wealthy were satiated by spending only a small portion of their income. A 1932 article in Current History articulates the problems of this maldistribution of wealth ... One obvious solution to the problem of the vast majority of the population not having enough money to satisfy all their needs was to let those who wanted goods buy products on credit. The concept of buying now and paying later caught on quickly. By the end of the 1920's 60% of cars and 80% of radios were bought on installment credit. Between 1925 and 1929 the total amount of outstanding installment credit more than doubled from $1.38 billion to around $3 billion. Installment credit allowed one to "telescope the future into the present", as the President's Committee on Social Trends noted. This strategy created artificial demand for products which people could not ordinarily afford. It put off the day of reckoning, but it made the downfall worse when it came.

Mass speculation went on throughout the late 1920's. In 1929 alone, a record volume of 1,124,800,410 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange. From early 1928 to September 1929 the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose from 191 to 381. This sort of profit was irresistible to investors. Company earnings became of little interest; as long as stock prices continued to rise huge profits could be made.

Prices had been drifting downward since September 3, but generally people where optimistic. Speculators continued to flock to the market ... Once enough investors had decided the boom was over, it was over. Partial recovery was achieved on Friday and Saturday when a group of leading bankers stepped in to try to stop the crash. But then on Monday the 28th prices started dropping again. By the end of the day the market had fallen 13%. The next day, Black Tuesday an unprecedented 16.4 million shares changed hands. Stocks fell so much, that at many times during the day no buyers were available at any price.

More jobs were lost, more stores were closed, more banks went under, and more factories closed. Unemployment grew to five million in 1930, and up to thirteen million in 1932. The country spiraled quickly into catastrophe. The Great Depression had begun.

The following are a collection of headlines from the New York Times in the weeks leading up to the big crash of 29...Just food for thought as people listen to various reports in the media...

New York Times Headlines in the days just before and after the Crash of 29

Sunday, October 13, 1929

STOCK PRICES WILL STAY AT HIGH LEVEL FOR YEARS TO COME, SAYS OHIO ECONOMIST

Wednesday, October 16, 1929

FISHER SEES STOCKS PERMANENTLY HIGH Yale Economist Tells Purchasing Agents Increased Earnings Justify Rise ---------- SAYS TRUSTS AID SALES

DECLINE IN AUTUMN USUAL MITCHELL ASSERTS STOCKS ARE SOUND Banker, Sailing From Europe, Says He Sees No Signs of Wall Street Slump

Tuesday, October 22, 1929

FISHER SAYS PRICES OF STOCKS ARE LOW Qoutations Have Not Caught Up With Real Values As Yet, He Declares SEES NO CAUSE FOR SLUMP

Wednesday, October 23, 1929

STOCKS GAIN SHARPLY BUT SLIP NEAR CLOSE Vigorous Recovery Marks Most of Day and Many Issues Show Net Advances MARKET GLOOM LESSENED Banking Support, Ease of Money and Mitchell's Optimistic Statement Help Rally

Thursday, October 24, 1929

PRICES OF STOCKS CRASH IN HEAVY LIQUIDATION, TOTAL DROP OF BILLIONS

SAYS STOCK SLUMP IS ONLY TEMPORARY Professor Fisher Tells Capital Bankers Market Rise Since War Has Been Justified.

Friday, October 24, 1929

WORST STOCK CRASH STEMMED BY BANKS; 12,894,650-SHARE DAY SWAMPS MARKET; LEADERS CONFER, FIND CONDITIONS SOUND

Saturday, October 26, 1929

CAUTION ADVISED BY STOCK BROKERS Letters to Clients Warn Against Hysterical Selling and Favor Some Buying TONE IS OPTIMISTIC

Tuesday, October 29, 1929

STOCK PRICES SLUMP $14,000,000,000 IN NATION-WIDE STAMPEDE TO UNLOAD; BANKERS TO SUPPORT MARKET TODAY

Wednesday, October 30, 1929

STOCKS COLLAPSE IN 16,410,030-SHARE DAY, BUT RALLY AT CLOSE CHEERS BROKERS; BANKERS OPTIMISTIC, TO CONTINUE AID 240 Issues Lose $15,894,818,894 in Month; Slump in Full Exchange List Vastly Larger

< BR>