Don't Tread on Me

..."I sincerely believe... that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." --Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816. ME 15:23

This great nation was founded on a very low tax structure and as a result courted some of the best and brightest in the world to our shores. The National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded that the combined federal, state, and local government average marginal tax rate for most workers to be about 40% of income. In other words you work from January 1st until May 26th for the government. The rest of the year you get to keep your money.

I also haven't been able to figure out how borrowing and printing money we don't have is a long term solution to a very real current problem.

It also seems to me that whoever controls the money supply in any organization or actually controlls that organization, no matter what everyone else in the organization thinks or does. "The Golden Rule" can also be stated, He who has the gold, makes the rules. These realities are concerning to me and I've begun to believe there is a fourth branch of our government that has no checks or balances. I'd call this the financial branch but I'm really giving the "branch" too much credit because as you've perhaps already heard the "Federal Reserve" is no more federal than Federal Express. Meaning the federal reserve is a private corporation. To show my point I'd like to ask you a question you've maybe never been asked. Who's picture is on the $10,000 bill? You'd think it must be a very famous president wouldn't you. Getting the honor of being on such a large bill.

The face on the $10,000 bill belongs to Salmon P. Chase. Chase served as Secretary of the Treasury in President Lincoln's cabinet from 1861 to 1864, during the first three years of the Civil War. That period of crisis witnessed two great changes in American financial policy, the establishment of a national banking system and the issue of a legal tender paper currency. (Info in this paragraph taken from Wikipedia)

Have you ever heard the name Chase before as it relates to finance?

I've never been one for conspiracy theories but the longer I look at our national banking system and see what is happening, I've become concerned. There are many extreeme opinions about this subject and I have to honestly say my opinions are still being formed but what I've seen so far has me thinking.

Other points that are economically concerning include the percentage of our debt that is owned by other countries, listening to cries from China and Russia to make another currency the international currency of choice, and watching the devaluation of the U.S. dollar.

What to do? A person would be wise to move some of their assets into commodities. Things that will be needed or valuable should the dollar continue to lose it's value relative to other world currencies. This dollar devaluation is a way we will pay back some of our debt and it will be hidden from most Americans. Your purchasing power will continue to erode while currencies of other industralized nations will strengthen relative to the dollar.



The U.S. Dollar falls vs. the Euro over the last 5 years.

A War on God in America

Please watch this short video and take action to help keep God in our history and on our monuments in Washington D.C.

An Arkansas Redneck

A Redneck from Batesville, Arkansas walked into a Bank in New York City and asked for the loan officer. He told the loan officer that he was going to Paris on an international redneck festival for two weeks and needed to borrow $5,000 and that he was not a depositor of the bank.

The bank officer told him that the bank would need some form of security for the loan, so the redneck handed over the keys to a new Ferrari. The car was parked on the street in front of the bank. The redneck produced the title and everything checked out. The loan officer agreed to hold the car as collateral for the loan and apologized for having to charge 12% interest.

Later, the bank's president and its officers all enjoyed a good laugh at the redneck from the south for using a $250,000 Ferrari as collateral for a $5,000 loan. An employee of the bank then drove the Ferrari into the bank's private underground garage and parked it.

Two weeks later, the redneck returned, repaid the $5,000 and the interest of $23.07. The loan officer said, 'Sir, we are very happy to have had your business, and this transaction has worked out very nicely, but we are a little puzzled. While you were away, we checked you out on Dunn & Bradstreet and found that you are a highly sophisticated investor and multimillionaire with real estate and financial interests all over the world. What puzzles us is, why would you bother to borrow $5,000?

The good 'ole Arkansas boy replied, 'Where else in New York City can I park my car for two weeks with valet service for only $23.07 and expect it to be there when I return?

One Man's Prediction

Gerald Celente is on the record for accurately forecasting: the 1987 Stock Market Crash, the Fall of the Soviet Union, the Dot.com bust, Gold Bull Market, 2001 Recession, the Real Estate bubble, the "Panic of '08", Tax Revolts, The "Collapse of '09", the coming "Greatest Depression" and many more social, economic, business, consumer and geopolitical trends...

Please consider the words of Gerald Celente.



Want more Gerald? CLICK HERE

The White River Hydroelectric Project

by

Col. Don Bice

I sincerely believe that we could have procured and installed the equipment, engineering, and the necessary labor for half of the amount eventually claimed to be needed ($45,000,000) to complete the White River Hydroelectric Project. As I recall, we paid $300,000 to $400,000 for some pictures which were to prove to the permit authority that the project had started. It had not started and we did not use the objects in the pictures from Barcelona, Spain. A detailed review probably would find a lot of waste.

We had little to no management or negotiating experience applied to the project. No manager, including the Quorum Court can escape by saying “I didn’t know!” Ever hear of MBO (Management by Objective)? Probably not! Any reasonable manager establishes a monthly reporting system that all of his departments report on the status of those elements that he/she needs to know to monitor and manage his area of responsibility. In this case, I wrote several letters saying that it is good for the public to know how much energy was produced and sold to a distant town, our suffering the line resistance loss. But, we asked whether the bonds were being paid off. Where did the money go? Has anybody asked? The original plan was that the county, city, and Lyon College would earn as the bonds were being paid.

A very detailed study was made in 1987, finding that the plants were feasible, with many needed repairs on the dams. Acres Engineering, Syracuse, N.Y., conducted a study, after accepting the engineering responsibility, and stated that they would not sign off on the project for completion until the repairs were made, finding the same safety conditions. The repairs were to be made before the engineering firm would give the go ahead.

Acres was, at the time, being pushed by ACA to get the electricity flowing, obviously so they would not have to make their insurance good and pay interest on bonds issued for the project. Acres was fired, and replaced by an ACA engineer. Acres requested, in writing, to the County Judge that their engineering drawings not be used. They were not only used, but altered by pen, of course, deleting the need for several safety repairs and inspections on the dams. Of course, safety had now taken a back seat under ACA engineering, who worried about payments paid out in insurance. It was a very close call at the Arkansas licensing authority, whether to revoke the ACA engineer’s license. Politics may have intervened..

The profits must have been used for other county perceived needs, because ACA wound up paying about $600,000 interest on the bonds. Now they are foreclosing on the three hydroelectric dams, and the county cannot manage any of the profits until the bonds are paid off. Lyon College and Batesville will not get their unfair shares for only providing access to the river through their property. And the county may have used the funds for work on private property, housing developments, hedgerows, driveways, school and church properties, letting workers drive vehicles and equipment domicile to duty, and other unnecessary expenditures, such as considering purchasing property for a new firing range.

ACA is in the driver’s seat, with safety again on the back burner. Much of the downstream toe, about 90 feet, is broken or missing from Lock and Dam 3. The south abutment has shifted more than a foot away from the south bank. There are many cracks, some 25 feet long on the dam, and some of the logs inside have collapsed. The other dams are nearly as bad, with so much water going through the dam at Lock and Dam 1 that no water was passing over the dam two summers ago, because all of it was going through cracks and percolation holes. There is a huge crack on the turbine end of the dam. Aerated water is flowing around logs inside the dam that are over 100 years old.

On the debris blocking some of the intake water to the turbine, a metal guard further upstream of the intake and slanted at about 45 degrees would deflect most of the debris around the regular intake screen. However, the debris problem will account for very little of the decreased power production. The summer depth of the river can be partially remedied by widening the mouth of the intake.

It is almost assured that Mobley Construction will win on their anticipated lawsuit seeking pay for work performed, not on the contract with Independence County. I have looked at the contract and see the caps for Lock and Dam 3 listed nowhere. There is just no free lunch!

We asked numerous times for an independent audit on this and other things suspect in the county, only to be refused by the County Judge, Quorum Court, and state officials. One party politics at work?

It is up to the people what action is to be taken on this very costly adventure. The reach of the County Judge job is quite enough, requiring a wide range of skills and understanding of various fields, as well as good management, with the full help of the Quorum Court. Include the rather extensive construction of the hydroelectric plants, and the job is greatly magnified. In this whole jumble, one has to at least know what questions to ask and have a reporting system established, to oversee all departments and the electrical generation, construction and operation. Resignation will not offset the damages!

Whether the County can be financially damaged, yes it can! Structural failure or further major oversights can bring numerous lawsuits, and ACA probably will not go down fighting, paying the huge debt accrued. Who knows how lawsuits will turn out? Whether any agency will come to our rescue is questionable. We do not know what will happen under a bankruptcy filing. A lot of unwanted help and taxes would likely result.

In my opinion, most areas of the County need proper auditing and timely attention.

Don Bice
139 Rorie St.
Batesville, Ar 72501
251 2714