Topic: "Fun Facts" to share with your friends and family

[Dunrobin]

If it wasn't so serious, I'd be tempted to add this to the "Bad Joke of the Day" thread:

• For the first five years of the Bush administration, the admitted Public Debt has increased $2,699,510,487,015.17.  That's 2.7 TRILLION dollars, folks.
  
  
• During the first five years of the Bush administration, the Federal government has outlayed some $11,645,158,000,000.00.  Again, just for emphasis, that is OVER 11.6 TRILLION dollars - money taken from our pockets by force.

By way of comparison, astronomers tell us that there are approximately 100 billion stars in the galaxy.  The Federal government spends twice as many dollars in a single month as there are stars in the Milky Way!  Talk about the astronomical cost of government!   

Those figures come from the government's Budget Office and the Office for the Public Debt - I didn't just make them up.  And considering normal government behavior, I'm willing to bet that they've low-balled those numbers to make them "look better."  (Didn't help, did it?)  I'm attaching an Excel workbook with the numbers, in case anyone is interested in looking at this in more detail.

Anyone who thinks that the Republicans are "conservative" needs to have his head examined.   


UPDATE:  If you don't have Excel but want to view the data in the spreadsheet, I've just put up an online version here.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[shemps#1]

So according to that document the only time we had an actual surplus in my lifetime (roughly 30 years) is when Clinton was in office. Not only that, but he managed to turn around the worst deficit in history at the time, "Reaganomics", and manage to turn it around into the biggest surplus ever. While he wasn't by any means great he was a fuck of a lot better than anyone else we've had in recent times.

The only times this country has actually had a fucking surplus is when it first started, before the Great Depression, the Eisenhower era after WWII, and the aforemention Clinton era. For the richest country in the world that's depressing.

[Dunrobin]

Yep.  We've been getting screwed on a regular basis for a very long time.  And that news isn't the worst of it.

Until Franklin Roosevelt took office, the dollar was always backed by gold, and was defined as being 1/20th of an ounce (0.05 oz.) of gold.  In 1933, Roosevelt arbitrarily declared the dollar to be only worth 1/35th of an ounce (0.0286 oz.) of gold, cutting it's value nearly in half at the stroke of a pen.   Of course, he also arbitrarily (and illegally) declared it unlawful for Americans to own gold and made them turn any privately owned gold over to the government, so only foreigners could actually exchange dollars for gold.

Nixon restored Americans' right to privately own gold, but he also removed the dollar from its final ties to gold in 1971, and since then it has been backed by absolutely nothing.   Tonight's gold price is $591.10 (as of 7:53 PM EDT), which means the dollar tonight is only worth 0.00169 oz. of gold.   That's only 3.38% of the value it had 64 years ago, in 1932!

Date(s)	Oz. of Gold per dollar
1789-1932 =>	0.05 oz.
1933-1971 =>	0.0286 oz.
10/25/2006 7:53 PM =>	0.00169 oz.

Democrats and Republicans are both equally to blame for this outright theft of our assets.  Voting for either party is an act of treason against your fellow Americans.

Here's yet one more item to think about.  Quick show of hands - how many of you know that the Federal Reserve System is a privately owned banking corporation, and not a government agency?  (You'll learn about that and a lot more in the America: From Freedom to Fascism video.)

[shemps#1]

You can the damage FDR did to the economy in that chart, his deficit numbers wouldn't be surpassed until the Nixon administration (but Kennedy/Johnson started that slide, which got progressively worse through Ford/Carter and plumeted to astronomical proportions with Reagan/Bush).

Going by this chart, the worst fiscal Presidents in history have been:

1. George W Bush - Number one with a bullet; in two short years he managed to undo the good it took Clinton 8 years to accomplish and give us our worst deficit in history.

2. Ronald Reagan - His Reaganomics bullshit plunged our not only failed to stop the bleeding, but created a gaping financial wound and quickly brought the deficit into 12 figures.

3. George HW Bush - Not having learned their lesson from Ronnie, voters voted this jackoff in and the spiral continued.

4. Franklin D Roosevelt - Devaluing the dollar on a whim, outlawing the private ownership of gold, WWII, and social programs we could not afford brought our deficit to then unheard of proportions.

5. Herbert Hoover - Primarliy due to the Great Depression happening on his watch, turning what was a steadily growing surplus into an enormous deficit.

6. Richard Nixon - Inflation and hastening the "work" that those who proceeded him did.

7. Kennedy/Johnson - Managing to destroy the good works of the two presidents that proceeded them, Vietnam.

8. Every President not mentioned in the next list.

The best fiscal presidents were:

1. Bill Clinton - Somehow managed to undo the mess the Reagan/Bush had done, turning what was our largest deficit into what was our largest suplus.

2. Truman/Eisenhower - We didn't have a surplus until Eisenhower, but Truman deserves partial credit for helping undo FDR's mess and turn it into a surplus.

3. Washinton-Polk - These Founding Fathers were able to build up a surplus during our formative years, and if it weren't for them we wouldn't be where we are today.

4. Wilson/Harding/Coolidge - These three racist rascals were able to build up a surplus by the end of Coolidge's run wouldn't be surpassed until Clinton.

And that's all folks!

[jrvass]

Ho hum. Hey Henny Penny... the sky is still falling.

I run a deficit with my grocer since I buy more food from him than he buys "computer programming" from me.