Helicopter Ben …

 

As In Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve Chairman, who made himself famous by saying he would drop money out of the sky, from helicopters, in order to stimulate America’s economy.

As it turns out, he must have been correct in his analysis since governments around the world are doing exactly that, not dropping dough from the sky, but printing it as if it going out of style.

The USA has become a master at this practice and most recently Japan has signed on to the massive dollar (yen) printing as well.

And the result?

US Stock Markets are at record high levels and the heretofore moribund Japanese Market is finally showing signs of revival.

So hats off to Helicopter Ben.

But all this gets me thinking.

If money can be printed indiscriminately, without underlying value, why can’t it be used to manage a country’s debt?  Or even eliminate it for that matter?

So back to the US of A with its $17 Trillion Dollar Debt – which equals approx. 100% of its annual GDP. Why not just print enough money to pay the debt in full?

Take Zimbabwe for instance.  Its debt is a mere $10 billion dollars or 113% of its annual GDP.  And they, dear reader, are in the excess monetary printing business too.

Indeed, their largest denominated note is for a whopping $100 Trillion Dollars.  You read correctly…a 100 Trillion Dollar Bill.

So here is my idea for Bernanke and company.  Stop wasting time, you have a debt of $17 Trillion, issue yourselves a banknote in the total amount of $20 Trillion.  With that you can not only pay off 100% of America’s total debt, you can also bank $3 Trillion to apply to future debt.  Just like helicopter money …no?

Or they could ask Zimbabwe for a loan, heaven knows they now have the money.

Think of all the millionaires … more like billionaires that will result from the State’s paying of its massive debt.  Why everyone will be ecstatic, including the taxpayer since jettisoning such a large debt will take pressure of the need for more and more taxes.

A win win.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

 

AS Sun Tzu So Aptly Put It …

 

‘Know Your Enemy And Victory Will Be Yours’.

The Corollary would then be, ‘Failure To Know Your Enemy Will End In Defeat’.

Sun Tzu of the Zhou Dynasty spoke those words some 500 hundreds years before the birth of Christ. 

They were as true then, as they are now.

Which leads me to the ending of my most recent Blog where I admitted that I was not certain who would come out victorious in the War between The Islamists and the Secular West.  

Realistically speaking, I believe the end game will not favour the Islamists…for many reasons…but that may be wishful thinking on my part.  What is true though is that in the meantime the Islamists will cause great carnage to us in the West in fact they have been doing just that.

The greatest fear though is only spoken of in the corridors of power, and that is that these Extremists will successfully launch a nuclear attack on one of our cities with a portable launcher.  The numbers killed and wounded would be in the millions and dear reader, such an outcome is not beyond the balance of possibilities. 

So that takes us back to Sun Tzu.

Do we really know who are enemy is?

I’d say no and use as exhibit one the stance taken by the Leader of the Free World …the current occupant of the White House – who for nearly five years now has refrained from even using the word Terrorist to describe these thugs.

For the first time he lowered himself to do so just that after the recent Boston Marathon massacre.  But did you notice, he did not say who these “Terrorists” were.  In fact, he went out of his way to say they could not be categorized. 

If you are going to beat your enemy …best them at war … you need to have a good idea as to who they are.  Just ask Sun Tzu.

And can you just imagine Churchill saying in his famous ‘we will fight them on the beaches speech’ including in that speech – “whoever they turn out to be?”

But that is exactly what we are left with today.

I suspect that if we asked 10 different people Who are common enemy is since 9/11, we’d get 10 completely different answers:

1.  It is Al Qaeda;

2.  It is Extreme Muslims;

3.  It is all Sunnis and / or all Shiites;

4.  It is all Muslims;

5.  It is Iran;

6.  It is anyone..any where who deals in terror;

7.  It is the United States since it is the root cause of Middle East extremism;

8.  It is the United States who are doing these acts to blame others;

9.  It is the Jews;

10.  It is the Christians;

And so on and so on.

So Who Exactly Is It?

These Terrorists we are at war with are the Extreme Muslims who kill others, even other Muslims, for their petty religious purposes.

And yet our politicians and our liberal media is loath to say just that. Label it Political Correctness. So we end up getting 10 separate answers to the same question.

But more troublesome – much more troublesome is the fact that failure to identify our common enemy makes a concerted effort to defeat them impossible.  

One last thing.  Muslim Terrorists come in two colours:

The first are the Al Qaeda’s largely composed of Extreme Sunnis.

The second are more the State Sponsored Muslim Terrorists exemplified by the rogue states of Iran and Syria.  Both states contain Shiite Majorities.

That of course does not mean that all Sunnis and all Shiites are Terrorists… not at all.

They only become Terrorists when they murder and maim in the name of their God. Of note here, Extreme Sunnis and Extreme Shiites dislike one another.

In that regard, maybe the West should just sit back and let those two extremists groups have at each other. 

But first of course we would have to admit they are our enemy.

As I see it…

‘K.D. Galagher’

 

 

 

Our New Cathedrals …

 

Are Shopping Centres …so say the many.

And they would be right.

When Anne and I head off for church on Sunday we often remark on how busy the roads are.  In the past, Sunday morning traffic was light at best but now it varies little …perhaps it is even more than on regular weekdays.

And for the most part, these travellers are not off to Church; rather, they are off to shop.

Sadly, Secularism and not Spiritualism is the watchword of our time.

And that brings me back to the events that have unfolded in Boston Massachusetts over the course of the last several days.

When all was done and the all clear whistle sounded, the good denizens of Boston did not flock to their nearby churches and synagogues for comfort, rather they headed to the Boston Red Sock’s Stadium to come together as a community in one large group hug.

In years gone by, in the face of such evil, congregations would gather to sing How Great Though Art, but this week at Boston Stadium the songs ricocheted off the score board were Sweet Caroline and of course their National Anthem.

There was not much room for God in their zeal to mend.

That is not to say the group hug at the Red Sock’s Stadium was a bad thing since truth be told I would have loved to have been part of it.  It is just that this reaction to evil without including a Spiritual dimension, seems hollow.

Spirituality itself can be misused as exemplified by the two young militant terrorists.  They, like countless others of their comrades in arms, have distorted one of the World’s great Religions for their own selfish mean-spirited purposes.

We in the West on the other hand have turned away on mass from the Greatest World Religion…Christianity.  It is a Religion of Love, Kindness and Forgiveness and in it we would find the strength to persevere against our adversaries. 

And without Christianity, it comes down to Secular vs. Misguided Spiritual.

As to the outcome of that struggle, your guess is a good as mine.

As I see it …

‘K.D. Galagher’