Someone noted yesterday that after my research trip my tone changed. Perhaps becoming a little more deliberate, perhaps becoming a little more stern. It is an accurate sense, and there is a very good reason for this. I will explain.
I have noted several times in the past few years that the nature of our relationship with government seems to have shifted. Specifically, We The People now appear to be in an abusive relationship with government. In all abusive relationships there is a common set of behaviors; the DC control system is following a familiar pattern. My recent research trips helped me to understand exactly how severe and deep this shift has become.
Certain abusers distort reality in the mind of their victims through gaslighting. Essentially manipulative and strategic lying, to make the abused think something, perhaps even their reality, is completely different. Our government institutions and those who control the information flow into media have been doing exactly that. The examples are numerous, but the deliberateness began to take a severe tone with the COVID-19 fiats.
In my opinion, it was our willingness to buy into the false frameworks surrounding the COVID-19 hysteria, that really opened the eyes of possibility in the mind of powerful people within our government. We accepted too much; we allowed too much; we willingly accepted an almost totalitarian state in response.
The rules themselves were ridiculous.
The mask nonsense, the social distancing, business closures, lockdowns, “essential vs nonessential jobs”, roped off products in certain areas of stores as if the virus couldn’t travel or the types of purchases determined risk; people were arrested on paddleboards in the ocean by themselves, closed parks outside and the police watching; standing in a restaurant was dangerous, but sitting at a table was not; etc. etc.
All of it was madness, yet we complied.
It was almost like a test, to see how much the control of information could influence behavior – and bad actors within our government were paying attention to how easy it was to manipulate action, diminish liberty and control the behavior of free people.
Granted, in other countries it was worse; yet still, in the USA where our DNA is forged in the fire of being suspicious of government, three-quarters of the population took an untested experimental, gene modifying “vaccine.” In hindsight, it is stunning to consider.
Fast forward to my recent research trip(s). What I discovered outside the USA, is that we are being lied to.
The Russian sanctions are not sanctioning Russia or impeding their economic growth – not even close. Instead, the sanctions have built walls around the USA financial system, not to keep Russians out – but to keep Americans locked in. I have given details about this previously, and I will not repeat here.
Then, if you take the expanding surveillance state and the expansion of DHS authority under the guise of “national security,” adding in the extreme control system now in place through the public-private partnership with social media, you really begin to see the architecture of a massive information control system. Making the reality all the bleaker, no voice in Washington DC is genuinely pushing back and publicly calling out the surveillance state.
Our elected representatives are not representing our interests; instead, they are codependent enablers, willfully blind to the overall system of expanded government control. The abuser is stronger, the victim is weaker (less free), and every element is now in place to block the victim, us, from realizing the scale of their abuse.
Making the issue more alarming, is the seemingly unstoppable censorship and control enterprise that is blocking people from networking, communicating and sharing their current status. This was the primary reason I began the protected “Slowly at First” (SAF) discussion threads. So people could just talk about the reality in their region, and we could all compare notes.
Something very dark is assembling deep inside our nation, and yet we are seemingly distracted from noticing it. The reality of motive behind the U.S. sanctions against Russia, as identified by my fact-finding mission that was not easy to accomplish, really made me reconsider the nature of the control around us.
What I realize now, is that agencies within our federal government are building a matrix of walls to lock us into a severely controlled system. We are being isolated and we do not see it.
We can debate (and I have) while hiding behind the benefits of “tactical civics” all day long. But what we are really debating and accepting is the size of our cell or cell block. Yes, locally you can and should fight for liberty – locally. However, do not blind yourself to the reality of the outcome; in essence, we are creating 15-minute cities. Is that really freedom?
Within the federal system under construct, information is being controlled. The online systems of sharing contrary information are being changed, modified and ultimately blocked. Our expenditures and costs of living are being used as weapons for control via monetary policy. Our systems of independent ownership and self-determination are being dismantled. Our ability to engage in commerce is being increasingly subject to approvals. Some of those approvals are self-generated. Our finance system is being changed to a more controlling central bank, and perhaps a digital currency.
We The People are being isolated, just like a victim of toxic abuse would be isolated. There are walls and barriers being built all around us, even around our nation, and if the government were to take full control over digital communication and internet services (the path we are on), it’s unlikely we would even know the scale of our captivity.
So yeah, my tone is changing.
After my visit to Eastern Europe and the currently forbidden region, both of them, I now see the limits on freedom that exist here at home. Each of the datapoints, each of the stories, articles, research reviews and detailed documented instances of bad behavior from our federal government now takes on a different context.
As I detailed every moment and filled our research library with citation after citation over the past dozen years, I knew the trajectory was bad. I knew it was really bad – really bad. Yet, I had no idea how severe and bad the abuse had become until I stood in the forbidden world and realized everything I was told about it, was a lie.
Remember, I wasn’t there at the invitation of anyone. I wasn’t there with a handler, minder or escort. No one from the forbidden world even knew I was there. I was there as a free and independent person, a sovereign citizen who hacked his way through the jungle with a rusty machete to get there.
When I left the forbidden world, came back through eastern Europe through Istanbul and ultimately back into the west, I spent hours in careful contemplation trying to reconcile the motive for the false information and yet simultaneously put a mental scale together to evaluate the scope of the U.S. propaganda effort.
The only thing that makes any of it make sense, is to accept the datapoints that clearly show the walls being built around us – to isolate us.
I never really understood how people could accept the formation of communism around them.
Now I do.
I see it happening, and that is making me very angry.
I have also spent hours on my knees, deliberately asking our loving God – the one source of purest truth – to guide and help me.
I am shouting now. We must stop being codependent enablers to our own isolation.
Some have asked if there wasn’t also a lot of fraud behind the collapse of S&Ls. Many allegations were that they squandered money buying expensive art, etc. They did not tell the public that the art more than doubled in value. Take the prosecution of the poster boy Charles Keating (1923– 2014). A Federal judge overturned the California state court conviction of Keating, ruling that jury instructions by the judge in the state court, Lance A. Ito, had been flawed.
The prosecution of Keating centered on the outrageous claim that he issued bonds, knowing that he would ultimately fail. NEVER in my decades of dealing with people and institutions have I ever encountered someone with legitimate company-issued bonds, knowing that would be an S&L crisis years later. Keating’s prosecution was simply legal persecution so that the government could blame the private sector, not Congress, which changed all regulations.
There was the Keating Five, who were US Senators accused of corruption in 1989 for intervening in Keating’s case. This was spun into a major political scandal involving Senator Alan Cranston (Democrat of California), Senator Dennis DeConcini (Democrat of Arizona), Senator John Glenn (Democrat of Ohio), Senator John McCain (Republican of Arizona), and Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (Democrat of Michigan). This was an investigation of Keating’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB), which then backed off taking action against Lincoln.
Eventually, the fraud that Keating was charged with in his Lincoln Savings and Loan collapse of 1989 cost the government $3.4 billion. The bondholders amounted to 23,000, and the government claimed they were defrauded because Keating knew he would eventually fail. The substantial political contributions Keating had made to each of the senators, totaling $1.3 million, attracted considerable public and media attention at the time.
Finally, after a very lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle had all improperly interfered with the FHLBB’s investigation of Lincoln Savings. Cranston received a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly. Nonetheless, they were criticized for having exercised “poor judgment,” whereas anyone else would have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice.
All five senators eventually completed their terms of office. Both John Glenn and John McCain ran for re-election and won. McCain later even ran for President, but thank God he lost.
Anyone who looks closely at the conviction of Keating is confronted with the plain fact that this was a political prosecution to provide the cover for Congress in this attempt to shift all the blame to the private sector portraying the owners of these S&Ls as greedy rich people seeking to make money.
Whenever those in Congress mess with real estate, they have ALWAYS, and without exception, caused a major crash. The Entire Savings & Loan (S&L) Crisis was a catastrophic disaster that wiped out nearly one-third of all the 3,234 savings and loan associations in the United States between 1986 and 1995. I previously mentioned that hedge funds were created by a regulation conflict between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC). If you obeyed one, you went to jail with the other.
Back in the 1980s, we began the S&P500 Report when futures started to trade. We had to refund everyone’s money and shut down the report because these two agencies were fighting over who had the regulatory power of stock index futures. We could not provide analysis as long as the two agencies fought for power. It came down to a Supreme Court decision that finally said forecasting was free speech – SEC v Lowe. Nevertheless, in funds management, you could not hedge for a client domestically because if you had a stock portfolio and you thought there was a crash unfolding, you were only allowed to hedge 17% for anything more than that made you a futures fund – rather than a stock fund. The only way to trade everything was to move offshore, and these were called Hedge Funds, which you were not allowed to do domestically. To this day, you have separate funds domestically, each claiming they are the best, forcing the decision onto the average person.
The S&L crisis was also created by Congress’s persistent quest to regulate things they do not understand. Once more, there was a conflict and mismatch of regulations regarding S&Ls v banks. Congress had imposed restrictions on S&Ls with the creation of the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932, which included such caps on interest rates on deposits and loans. They also directed that S&Ls should be lending into the real estate market and banks should be focused effectively on businesses. The banks still could do mortgages.
The market conditions moved into deflation between 1981 and 1985 because Volcker raised rates at the Fed to 14% to stop inflation, which caused capital inflows to buy bonds, sending the dollar to rise dramatically on international markets. The British pound crashed from $2.40 to $1.03 by 1985. However, the regulations on how much interest an S&L could pay meant they could not compete with the rates that the Fed adopted, and nobody in Congress noticed until 1982. The S&Ls experienced a massive capital outflow, and they were left with low-interest long-term mortgages.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan signed Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act, which was intended to correct the conflict between high interest rates and caps on the S&Ls. The reform eliminated loan-to-value ratios and interest rate caps for S&Ls. In addition, it also allowed them to hold 30% of their assets in consumer loans and 40% in commercial loans for the first time. The S&Ls began paying higher rates to attract funds. S&Ls also began investing in commercial real estate, which had tax advantages with regard to amortization.
As always, the Democrat’s constant hunt to punish the rich with every breath they take caused the entire S&L crisis of the 1980s. The Democrats only see the money dangling in front of them and nothing else. They pushed through a landmark 1986 Tax Reform Act that reduced the top personal income tax rate from 50% to 28%. However, in a bitterly divided Congress, as usual, demanded a compromise and that the income tax cuts were to be paid for by raising the rate on capital gains from 20% to 28% and limiting the deductibility of real estate losses for passive investors. The braindead unintended consequences undermined the entire real estate market and took down the S&L Industry in the process.
The S&L crisis demonstrated that those in government NEVER understand the private sector. They created the business model of the S&Ls whereby they made 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, which Roosevelt invented to solve the real estate collapse back in the Great Depression. To provide those loans, S&Ls depended on a deposit based on DEMAND that could be withdrawn within 30 days. When the Fed raised rates to 14% in 1981, the S&Ls were in trouble and lost deposits when they were prevented from paying higher rates. That was not lifted until the Reagan 1982 reform. This is the basic banking model using on-demand money to lend out long-term. To this day, the Fed directs the “Model Risk,” which you can review at SR 11-7: Guidance on Model Risk Management.
At first, the measures seemed to have worked, and by 1985, S&L assets had risen by almost 50%. Commercial real estate became the “hot” market. This is what attracted the Democrats. They saw all this money pouring into mortgages, so they could not resist changing the laws to get at that money in 1986. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 accelerated the depreciation of commercial and noncommercial real estate, making those investments quite attractive. Then, the Democrats saw the money and pushed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to extend depreciation schedules for both real estate forms, reducing the attractiveness of those investments.
These people NEVER understand market behavior. By extending the depreciation tables, they created a one-way market. Real Estate collapsed, everyone tried to sell, and there was NO BID! One of the few Congressmen with real estate experience at the time called me and asked what my model projected. I told him this would be a major crash that would cost a fortune because there were also government guarantees behind a portion of the mortgages left over from the Great Depression days. Nobody would listen to his warnings.
In the meantime, pressure was mounting on the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation’s coffers (FSLIC). By 1987, the FSLIC had become insolvent. Rather than allowing it and S&Ls to fail as they were destined to do, the federal government recapitalized the FSLIC, exposing taxpayers to even greater risk. The S&Ls were allowed to continue to pile on risk. I had a client who wanted to buy an S&L, and I advised him not to get involved and that the crisis would worsen. He did not listen, bought a failed S&L, and recapitalized it; as the crisis worsened, they kept changing the capitalization requirement, ended up seizing his S&L, and lost most of his investment.
A bill is now being introduced to Congress that will prohibit hedge funds and other institutional investors from buying single-family homes. What these people in Congress FAIL to ever understand, is that they will now eliminate that segment of buyers and create a one-way market. Prices will have to collapse as these investors will ONLY be able to sell to a mom-and-pop, and as we head into a recession from 2024 to 2028, this does not bode well for the blue states especially.
The intent of the bill is to address the housing supply, which continues to dry up as prices have been climbing 20% since 2021. They believe that the low housing supply is driving up prices, and they are pointing their finger at hedge funds to blame, like Blackrock. The bill’s sponsors are U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Representative Adam Smith (D-WA). Of course, they ignore their spending, and pouring countless billions into Ukraine has nothing to do with inflation, and certainly, their COVID scam had nothing to do with anything regarding prices or unemployment. It is NEVER them on Capital Hill – it is always we, the Great Unwashed.
This bill is entitled the End Hedge Fund Control of American Homes Act of 2023, targeting both hedge funds and private equity firms that have been buying single-family houses as investment properties. While the bill addresses a serious issue, what we MUST understand is that people “feel” rich when their homes rise in value, for they see that as their savings. Both the Great Depression and the Great Recession of 2007-2009 impacted real estate, and this is the MOST sensitive area of the economy. You can take the stock market down 90% and the bond market. They will impact only a portion of the economy, typically the upper classes. However, when you take down the real estate market, now you are messing with the bulk of the middle class.
Senator Jeff Merkley said in his statement, “The housing in our neighborhoods should be homes for people, not profit centers for Wall Street.” While I do not support Blackrock and its agenda, this is closing the barn door after the horse ran away. He has made a big splash, saying: “It’s time for Congress to put in place commonsense guardrails that ensure all families have a fair chance to buy or rent a decent home in their community at a price they can afford.”
Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO, is a board member of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum who preaches you will own nothing and be happy. Fink is also behind Zelensky, promising to invest in a war zone. Meanwhile, Fink sent his 2022 letter to CEOs of companies he has invested in on January 17th, 2022, while intimidating them to follow Schwab’s WEF. His letter reflected Klaus Schwab’s Agenda 2030. He stated:
“I write these letters as a fiduciary for our clients who entrust us to manage their assets – to highlight the themes that I believe are vital to driving durable long-term returns and to helping them reach their goals.”
BlackRock insists that it does not invest in single-family homes. It claims that it invests in multifamily properties, apartment complexes, and other residential real estate. They insist that they are not one of the large asset managers and private equity firms who have been buying single-family homes.
On August 2, 2021, CNN reported that during the first three months of 2021, “nearly a quarter of all homes sold in the United States were going to investors.” They reported that BlackRock (BLK), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Goldman Sachs (GS) were among the big-name buyers. They further reported, “Institutional investors still own only about 2% of all single-family rentals in the United States, or roughly 300,000 homes, according to John Burns research director Rick Palacios.”
The headline from 2021 made it sound that Blackstone was BUYING 17,000 single-family houses, outbidding regular mom-and-pop buyers with its $6 billion war chest. Blackstone bought Home Partners of America, which had already owned 17,000 single-family houses, and rents them out to tenants with an option to buy at a preset price at any time with 30 days’ notice. They insist that they are facilitating private home ownership by providing an option to buy.
Here is a chart provided by Freddie Mac, which shows the contest between large institutional buyers vs mom-and-pop as a percentage of the marketplace. The overall market share of investors has grown to around 30%. Like the changing of the depreciation table on real estate in 1986 by the Democrats caused a one-way market of sellers with no bid, outlawing investors now when they already have 30% of the market can lead to a MAJOR recession following the ECM between 2024 into 2028.
The irony and hypocrisy is thick. Charles McGonigal was an FBI counterintelligence official in charge of the FBI New York field office. McGonigal was tasked with investigating Russian collusion and Russian sanction violations.
McGonigal was sentenced to four-years in federal prison today for colluding with a Russian (Oleg Deripaska) to avoid sanctions.
As noted by Politico, “McGonigal, who lives in New York, was separately charged in federal court in Washington, D.C., with concealing at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence official while working for the FBI. He faces sentencing in that case on Feb. 16.”
NEW YORK — A former top FBI counterintelligence official was ordered Thursday to spend over four years in prison for violating sanctions on Russia by going to work for a Russian oligarch seeking dirt on a wealthy rival after he finished his government career.
Charles McGonigal was sentenced to four years and two months in prison in Manhattan federal court by Judge Jennifer H. Rearden, who said McGonigal harmed national security by repeatedly flouting sanctions meant to put economic pressure on Russia to get results without military force. He was also fined $40,000. (read more)
South Korea hosts one of the lowest birth rates in the modern world. The nation’s population began decreasing significantly in 2021. Statistics Korea reported that only 249,000 babies were born in 2022, marking a 4.4% decline from 2021. The birth rate needs to stay at 2.1 to maintain the current population of 52 million, however, the current birth rate is only 0.78. A look into the finances of South Korea’s youth makes it quite obvious why couples are not reproducing.
The 2022 Seoul Young Adult Panel Study found that 55.6% of the youth were in asset poverty, meaning they did not have the liquidity to cover their basic needs for three months. This figure spikes to 62.7% when accounting for those living alone. Young adults aged 19 to 24 have a personal income poverty rate of 73.4%, which accounts for an income beneath 50% of the average median. Of the 5,083 people under the age of 35 polled, 47.5% still live at home with their parents and 41.2% rely on parental financial support.
The same situation can be seen throughout the modern world. The youth cannot afford to support themselves let alone families. South Korea’s government has attempted to entice couples by offering prolonged maternity leave. President Yoon Suk-yeol is also offering 700,000 won per month ($540) to couples with children under one.
Unemployment among Korean youth is also a serious problem. Statistics Korea reported that nearly half (45.5%) of people aged 15 to 29 were unemployed for over a year. These teens and young adults went to school and worked for a successful future only for 44.3% of graduates to find themselves unemployed after university ended. It is no wonder that the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Institute reported that 34.7% of Seoul’s youth are suffering from depression. Young couples cannot afford to have families and the population crisis will continue throughout the modern world as the global economy turns down.
Government officials do not understand why Americans are disappointed with Bidenomics. Biden’s own team did not realize the term “Bidenomics” was intended to mock the president’s policies and they have adopted it as their own. “Bidenomics is about growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down,” Joe Biden posted on X, formerly Twitter, in July 2023. Americans’ personal financial situation has only deteriorated under Bidenomics and no one seems to understand why.
A November poll published by the Financial Times found that only 14% of Americans believe they are better off financially under Biden. Those people are likely on welfare. Around 70% of American voters feel Bidenomics hurt the economy or had no impact, with 33% saying they “hurt the economy a lot.” These numbers are staggering, as no president in recent history has managed to derail a stable economy so rapidly.
When asked why Bidenomics was not landing with Americans, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she believes COVID is to blame. COVID has provided Biden with the only optimistic data figure in that unemployment naturally decreased once the economy reopened, but of course he is chalking it up to his policies. Sacrificing America’s energy independence for the Build Back Better agenda was Biden’s priority on day one in office. We have seen inflation rise every month of his presidency and experienced record-high inflation in June of last year. INFLATION WAS AT 1.4% WHEN JOE BIDEN TOOK OFFICE IN JANUARY 2021.
Now, I obviously do not blame the government for the issues at the Fed and their QE failures. However, the Fed has been attempting to tame inflation by raising rates and it simply is ineffective. Biden prided himself on implementing countless multi-trillion-dollar spending packages at a time when America is operating at its steepest deficit. Then Biden’s Administration managed to insert itself in numerous overseas conflicts. They also allowed million of illegals to invade America and paid them to do so. Inflation cannot decline amid war.
The majority of Americans have a drastically lower standard of living thanks to Bidenomics. Some estimates believe 63% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck. Real disposable income has decreased 7.5% since January 2021, and credit card debt is up 36.2%. Monthly savings have plummeted 81.4% since Biden took office, and home affordability is down 37.3%.
It is an insult at this point for the current administration to gaslight Americans into thinking our situation is anything but dire.
Blue cities across the US are contemplating banning masks. A few years ago these cities would not allow people to enter public establishments without a mask. But now, after Soros-backed DAs blindfolded themselves to the drastic uptick in crime, cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, and New York are banning face masks to prevent criminals from evading police.
Balaclavas or ski masks have become a popular fashion accessory among urban youth. Far-left fashion publication Vogue even published an article in February 2023 entitled, “All the Cool Kids Are Wearing Balaclavas.” If someone walked into the bank with a ski mask on, it would have been considered a threat. Now, civil rights groups claim that these masks represent freedom of expression.
Executive Director of Violence Interrupters Tio Hardiman believes the normalization of facial masks has emboldened criminals. “If a person is not going skiing, they should not have on a full face ski mask,” Hardiman said. “Full face ski masks appear to give criminals an edge… It’s making the criminals emboldened. Almost like they’re invincible.”
Philadelphia is proposing a law that would impose a $250 fine on anyone wearing a face mask in public. “The Philadelphia Police Department can’t tell who’s a criminal and not a criminal, which makes it difficult for crimes to be solved in Philadelphia,” council member Anthony Phillips told CNN. Philadelphia Police Department Deputy Commissioner Francis Healy believes that the pandemic changed the public’s perceived risk. “There was a time not so long ago when any average police officer would see a person donning a mask before entering a convenience store or a bank and they would believe a robbery was about to occur,” Healy said. “However, the pandemic changed that mindset where people were actually more fearful of people without masks than with masks.”
Crime has risen drastically in every blue city since the pandemic. Those who claim banning masks is an infringement on human rights or even racist do not realize that facial coverings were regulated in the 1800s due to the Ku Klux Klan using white hoods to commit atrocious crimes undetected.
As expected, the Senate dropped all the woke restrictions from the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and added $300 million for Ukraine along with a four-month extension of the FISA 702 authority until April 19, 2024.
The vote roll for this bill is here. With the final vote at 87-13.
[SOURCE]
Only six republicans voted against the $886 billion dollar bill.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate backed a defense policy bill authorizing a record $886 billion in annual military spending with strong support from both Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday, sidestepping partisan divides over social issues that had threatened what is seen as a must-pass bill.
Separate from the appropriations bills that set government spending levels, the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, authorizes everything from pay raises for the troops – this year’s will be 5.2% – to purchases of ships, ammunition and aircraft as well as policies such as measures to help Ukraine and pushback against China in the Indo-Pacific.
This year’s bill is nearly 3,100 pages long, authorizing a record $886 billion, up 3% from last year.
The NDAA “will ensure America can hold the line against Russia, stand firm against the Chinese Communist Party, and ensures that America’s military remains state-of-the-art at all times all around the world,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote.
But the final version of the NDAA left out provisions addressing divisive social issues, such as access to abortion and treatment of transgender service members, that had been included in the version passed by the House over the objections of Democrats, threatening to derail the legislation.
The 100-member Senate backed the NDAA by 87 to 13. The House is expected to pass it as soon as later this week, sending it to the White House where President Joe Biden is expected to sign it into law.
The fiscal 2024 NDAA also includes a four-month extension of a disputed domestic surveillance authority, giving lawmakers more time to either reform or keep the program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
The Senate defeated an attempt to remove the FISA extension from the NDAA on Wednesday before voting to pass the bill. (read more)
Meanwhile over in the House of Representatives, Speaker Mike Johnson entertained prior House Speaker Paul Ryan for lunch. (link)
Pos
Government mismanagement comes at a high cost. We saw Argentina’s new president slash half of the useless federal administrations this week on his first day in office. Governments are incompetent to run even a gumball machine. These agencies come into the fold, create useless regulations, dish out contracts to their connections, and nothing gets done. The current construction on the Golden Gate Bridge is a great example of government incompetence.
A suicide safety net stretching the entire length of the Golden Gate Bridge is nearing completion. The stainless steel mesh net spans across both sides of the 1.6 mile-long bridge. Nearly 2,000 people have taken their lives by jumping from the bridge since it was first constructed in 1937, and officials approved the construction of safety nets in 2014 and allocated a budget of $76 million. Due to the bureaucratic red tape, construction on the project did not begin until 2018 and they are still working on fixing the bridge five years later.
Spokespeople for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, announced in March that only 5% of the mesh had been installed. Officials suddenly changed the budget from $76 million to $206.7 million. Contractors and bridge officials are now in a heated legal battle as the new price tag is expected to cost over $400 million. Contactors insist the local government hid the deteriorating condition of the bridge which led to work delays.
The Golden Gate Bridge in its entirety cost $35 million to build in 1937, which would be well over $700 million in 2023. So now the netting for the bridge is nearly as expensive as the bridge itself. The trouble here is that the original budget was less than a quarter of what they will end up spending. This happens with EVERY project the government sets out to complete. Budgets are merely a suggestion to governments because they know they need not adhere to them or pass audits.
Categories:GOV’T INCOMPETENC
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
De Oppresso Liber
A group of Americans united by our commitment to Freedom, Constitutional Governance, and Civic Duty.
Share the truth at whatever cost.
De Oppresso Liber
Uncensored updates on world events, economics, the environment and medicine
De Oppresso Liber
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Australia's Front Line | Since 2011
See what War is like and how it affects our Warriors
Nwo News, End Time, Deep State, World News, No Fake News
De Oppresso Liber
Politics | Talk | Opinion - Contact Info: stellasplace@wowway.com
Exposition and Encouragement
The Physician Wellness Movement and Illegitimate Authority: The Need for Revolt and Reconstruction
Real Estate Lending
Centinel2012 