What You See Is What You Get

(PERCEPTION IS REALITY)

April 13, 2010

by Jim Deeds

Are you sure what you think you just saw and heard is really what happened? 32 million needy Americans supposedly just received free new health care for life…at least that’s what they think they saw through their eyes. What did you see? At another end of the social spectrum, some “old-fashioned” American patriots might have seen something else…with lots of “new strings attached”. An unknown author recently wrote:

“Let me get this straight. We’re going to be gifted with a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn’t read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president who also hasn’t read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that’s broke. What the hell could possible go wrong?” –origin unknown

Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama want us to believe they’ve just given the American people a wonderful new asset called free health care. Most American people, however, know they have deceptively just created a great new trillion dollar liability.

So, after we see and hear the announcement of a propagandized government extravaganza…whether it be a new Bush/Collin Powell presentation at the U.N. or an Obama new “freebie” in the Rose Garden, it may be wise to ask ourselves…”What did I really see or hear”?

In this regard, my memories of FDR when I was just six years old may serve as a perfect case in point. FDR’s strong, smooth, commanding voice as we listened to him on our radio as he gave his famous “fireside chats” was unforgettable. And the visuals that I remember seeing in newsreels at Denver’s Paramount and Orpheum theaters showed Roosevelt waving to adoring crowds as he rode down State Street in the back seat of a beautiful convertible Packard limo. He truly seemed “royal”. Little did I, or most other Americans know, that in real life FDR’s polio had left him paralyzed from the waist down and that he always moved privately in a wheelchair. As the free-world’s greatest leader in WWII, I doubt that the rest of the world ever saw that side of FDR as he led in the fight against Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo. And even more hidden, was the reality, that FDR’s frequent visits to Hot Springs, Arkansas for vacation were really to give him wonderful mineral hot springs therapy and a chance for a hidden extra-martial escape from his truly amazing and talented wife left behind in Washington…Eleanor. But…as they say, “PERCEPTION IS REALITY”.

Today, in America, we are led by “experts” to believe a liability is the same thing as an asset…at least when it comes to “money”. (I expect many Americans whose homes are now in foreclosure would like a little better explanation of this from Treasury Secretary (successful tax evader) Geithner.)

Peter Souleles (Australian) recently wrote (another) one of the “best-ever” articles I’ve recently read entitled: HOW THE USA TURNED ASSETS INTO LIABILITIES, (19 February 2010)

I hope a quick read of Souleles opening paragraphs will lead you to the full reading of his four page article (available on miatoday.com).

“Stick with me on this one. Last night I was reading a 2,300 year old economics book. Its title is Oeconomicus and it is a Socratic dialogue principally about household management and agriculture written by the Greek philosopher Xenophon. It is mesmerizing in its original Classical Greek but quite telling even in translation. Socrates of course never wrote anything and it was left to his students and others around him to preserve his wisdom.

“In the silence of 2:00 am I felt a chill run down my spine. I was reading the words of a philosopher explaining the difference between assets and liabilities and how “assets” turn into “liabilities” when not used or managed correctly. “Assets”, I was taught could be written-off, but to turn them into “liabilities”? This was something new, “Why”, I thought to myself, “aren’t these words to be found in the economics, business and political science text books of universities? Why aren’t Chairmen of Central Banks and Finance Ministers as well as Presidents and Prime Ministers reading these words?”

“I should add that the City State of Athens (another great superpower of its time) finally poisoned Socrates with hemlock because his truths were too hard to swallow and threatened the establishment. No doubt had he lived today, his fate would have been similar, as this is what they do to honest men everywhere.

“Man has tried through alchemy in all its forms (from chemistry to quantitative easing) to create wealth. In other worlds he tries to create something of much greater value out of something with much less value. He has however always failed. We are now confronted, though the bizarre spectre of reverse alchemy, with the metamorphosis of people, talents and resources into liabilities.

“Reading the timeless passages you are struck by the parallels with how the USA as a nation and economy has fallen into the traps described by Socrates and turned so many of its assets into liabilities. But let us take stock of what has been happening in the USA before examining how the abandonment of the gold standard led to this situation.”

Souleles gives many specific examples including the once proud asset of Social Security that has become a giant unfunded liability…and our once mighty armed forces asset that now, with necessary long term veteran benefits, becomes a larger and larger growing liability. The creation of accelerating debt backed money…which is a liability at birth, is our government’s act of deception.

The “art of deception”. Let us sincerely hope our “supposed” leaders in Washington have not now decided “This is the only way out!”