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Ron Paul: "Ex-Im Bank Is Welfare For The 1%"
Submitted by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,
This month Congress will consider whether to renew the charter of the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank). Ex-Im Bank is a New Deal-era federal program that uses taxpayer funds to subsidize the exports of American businesses. Foreign businesses, including state-owned corporations, also benefit from Ex-Im Bank. One country that has benefited from $1.5 billion of Ex-Im Bank loans is Russia. Venezuela, Pakistan, and China have also benefited from Ex-Im Bank loans.
With Ex-Im Bank’s track record of supporting countries that supposedly represent a threat to the US, one might expect neoconservatives, hawkish liberals, and other supporters of foreign intervention to be leading the effort to kill Ex-Im Bank. Yet, in an act of hypocrisy remarkable even by DC standards, many hawkish politicians, journalists, and foreign policy experts oppose ending Ex-Im Bank.
This seeming contradiction may be explained by the fact that Ex-Im Bank’s primary beneficiaries include some of America’s biggest and most politically powerful corporations. Many of Ex-Im Bank’s beneficiaries are also part of the industrial half of the military-industrial complex. These corporations are also major funders of think tanks and publications promoting an interventionist foreign policy.
Ex-Im Bank apologists claim that the bank primarily benefits small business. A look at the facts tells a different story. For example, in fiscal year 2014, 70 percent of the loans guaranteed by Ex-Im Bank’s largest program went to Caterpillar, which is hardly a small business.
Boeing, which is also no one’s idea of a small business, is the leading recipient of Ex-Im Bank aid. In fiscal year 2014 alone, Ex-Im Bank devoted 40 percent of its budget — $8.1 billion — to projects aiding Boeing. No wonder Ex-Im Bank is often called “Boeing’s bank.”
Taking money from working Americans, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to subsidize the exports of large corporations is the most indefensible form of redistribution. Yet many who criticize welfare for the poor on moral and constitutional grounds do not raise any objections to welfare for the rich.
Ex-Im Bank’s supporters claim that ending Ex-Im Bank would deprive Americans of all the jobs and economic growth created by the recipients of Ex-Im Bank aid. This claim is a version of the economic fallacy of that which is not seen. The products exported and the people employed by businesses benefiting from Ex-Im Bank are visible to all. But what is not seen are the products that would have been manufactured, the businesses that would have been started, and the jobs that would have been created had the funds given to Ex-Im Bank been left in the hands of consumers.
Another flawed justification for Ex-Im Bank is that it funds projects that could not attract private sector funding. This is true, but it is actually an argument for shutting down Ex-Im Bank. By funding projects that cannot obtain funding from private investors, Ex-Im Bank causes an inefficient allocation of scarce resources. These inefficiencies distort the market and reduce the average American's standard of living.
Some Ex-Im Bank supporters claim that Ex-Im Bank promotes free trade. Like all other defenses of Ex-Im Bank, this claim is rooted in economic fallacy. True free trade involves the peaceful, voluntary exchange of goods across borders — not forcing taxpayers to subsidize the exports of politically powerful companies.
Ex-Im Bank distorts the market and reduces the average American's standard of living in order to increase the power of government and enrich politically powerful corporations. Congress should resist pressure from the crony capitalist lobby and allow Ex-Im Bank's charter to expire at the end of the month. Shutting down Ex-Im Bank would improve our economy and benefit most Americans. It is time to kick Boeing and all other corporate welfare queens off the dole.
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LOL!!! Define "money"...
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA = CORPORATION
US CONSTITUTION = CHARTER
US CITIZENS = FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS
LAWFUL STOCKHOLDERS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA = VATICAN AND BRITISH MONARCHY
We the people, IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, fail to realize that the corporation operates under the issuance of decrees in all its conceivable legal forms and that the Constitution... it is merely a referential document, since it was abolished by the Act of 1871.
http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/us_corporation.htm
Moreover, the United States in legal terms... is at all times, in a State of War, thus the Sovereign can legally implement all necessary measures to quell any potential social unrest scenario (Insurrection: 50 USC §§ 201-226). http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title50/html/USCODE-2011-title5...
The lawful stockholders of this corporation called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (Buckingham Palace and St. Peter's Basilica) won't hesitate to get rid of the nonprofitable stocks (specifically dissenters) since US citizens are just financial instruments.
Admiralty Law prevails over Common Law, and stays in accordance with the stipulations clearly defined in Vatican's Canon Law: the historical document called the Constitution clearly observes this legal doctrine, as seen in Article I, Section 2, third paragraph (first sentence) - the Three Fifths Compromise:"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
I hope that you and everyone else understands that EVERYTHING you said is absolute, complete, utter 100% fiction.
ALL law is fiction.
ALL states are fiction.
ALL nations are fiction.
ALL authority is fiction.
ALL government is fiction.
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ALL of these mental-units are FICTION. In other words, they only exist as mental-units, without external referrents. Like "Santa Claus" or "Tooth Fairy", the mental-units exist in brains, but those mental units have no external referrents.
I am always blown away that human cannot understand how to distinguish real from fiction. It isn't difficult, but nobody teaches this skill. Instead, everyone including parents, family, friends, teachers, relatives, government and media create fraudulant mental-units, jam them into as many human brains as possible, then pretend they are real. And not just real, but BY FAR the most important mental-units of all.
The fatal flaw in human consciousness is the following.
Human consciousness does not automatically distinguish bogus and fictional mental-units from valid and reality-based mental units. Also, by default, human consciousness takes its mental-units seriously.
How could it be otherwise? Before humans, for hundreds of millions if not billions of years, animals only formed mental-units when exposed to reality. A "tree" mental-unit was formed the first time an animal observed a "tree". A "rock" mental-unit was formed the first time an animal observed a "rock". A "river" mental-unit was formed the first time an animal observed a "river". And so forth. And those mental-units were augmented with additional content as animals enountered and experienced those kinds of real entities in different ways, contexts and situations.
And so, mental-units were reality-based and CRUCIAL to survival. If an animal did not take its mental-units seriously, it walked off a cliff, it walked up to a predator, it walked into a forest fire. No matter what, any animal that did not take its mental-units seriously was removed from existence, and removed from the gene-pool. And so, the natural process of evolution assured "animals take their mental units seriously".
THIS DOES NOT WORK FOR HUMANS.
Why not? Because almost all mental-units in young humans are formed when some other human babbles some new words, not by exposure to reality. Young kids create a new mental unit called "nation" because someone jammed that mental-unit into their head. Essentially, they just jam in that part of the mental-unit that is the word humans say or write to refer-to what the mental-unit means. So now a kid has a new mental-unit, with the sole content being the word that designates... well... that is not specified yet. Later all sorts of additional bogus nonsense is jammed into that mental-unit... ALL... without any experience of the referrent.
This cannot happen in other animals, because they don't have the network of language in their brains. But this does happen in humans, and the very strong default (almost mandate) of evolution is --- trust your mental-units.
And this is why virtually all humans are absolutely, completely, utterly, stark-raving insane. ONLY those humans who have made a conscious, self-conscious effort to distinguish real, valid mental-units from fictional mental-units can untangle the mess created by all other [utterly insane] humans they interact with, and put their brain in order.
After a good method is determined to organize consciousness, the process become quite a bit easier. And fortunately, humans do understand the term "fiction". I mean, at least most adults understand that some mental-units (like "Santa Claus" and "Tooth Fairy") do not refer-to real existents. So this understanding can be built-upon, and thousands of other bogus concepts can be categorized as fictions (with a note to remind how many other humans believe this fiction is non-fiction).
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With all this said, let's consider the above message.
Human predators love to create complex networks of fictions, because they know very few other humans comprehend fiction in the first place. And even those who do understand the nature of fiction can become confused when "grains of truth" and/or "apparent incentives" are sprinkled into the mix.
Consider the mental-units usually designated by "nation", "country", "corporation". Ask yourself how does a nation (or these other fictions) supposedly come to exist in the first place? Well, that's easy to answer.
A couple dozen human predators sit around a table, smear ink on paper, then tell others that "a nation was created", and "everyone within hundreds or thousands of miles are now part of that nation", and "they and everyone else for eternity is henceforth obligated to do whatever the leaders demand, and refrain from doing whatever the leaders prohibit".
What existed before this supposed "creation"?
Answer: human predators, ink, paper.
What exists after this supposed "creation"?
Answer: human predators, ink, paper.
NOTHING REAL WAS CREATED.
Hence, the so-called "nation" does not exist. Thus "nation" is fiction. And since this is how all so-called "nations" are supposedly created, no "nation" exists, and "nation" is inherently a fiction.
PERIOD.
In effect, the human predators who attempted this scam were attempting to convince every human being for hundreds or thousands of miles (and for eternity) play some kind of unbelievably demented game of "Simon Says"... where the name of "Simon" is changed to "government".
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The next thing to notice is the following:
EVERY MENTAL-UNIT CREATED TO EXTEND THESE FICTIONS ARE ALSO FICTIONS.
And so... "law" is fiction.
And so... "state" is fiction.
And so... "official" is fiction.
And so... "statute" is fiction.
And so... "authority" is fiction.
And on, and on, and on, and on.... HUNDREDS of additional blatant fictions are layered upon the original fictions.
NONE EXIST.
ALL that exists is what existed before.
A universe...
With galaxies...
With star systems...
With stars, asteroids, comets, moons and planets...
With oceans, lakes, rivers, mountains, islands and continents...
With plants and animals...
Including humans.
THAT IS ALL... in pattern.
The endless fictions humans create are mental-units. Their only reality is the configuration of the brain that is the mental-unit. But unlike valid mental-units, they have no real referents.
At first, sometimes how to distinguish real mental-units from fictional mental-units can be difficult, confusing or non-intuitive. I freely admit it takes time to figure out how we must make these distinctions and why in the case of subtle, marginal/fringe/edge cases. However, because evolution makes humans tend and want to take every mental-unit seriously (and as "real"), the tendency is to almost always label a fiction as real, and rarely to label something real as fiction.
Sometimes (especially at first), this can become hilarious. Asked to prove "government exists", someone points to the WhiteHouse and says "there... how can you say that's not real?". To which a sane human says, "yes, that is a real building, no doubt about it". To which the somewhat confused fiction-lover responds angrily, "but that is a government building, therefore government exists". To which the only response is, "the building is real, but you have not showed me a government".
Almost always the most rational and sensible way to untangle the mess is to revert back to whenever the original fiction was created. As I showed above, the human predators (with nefarious intent), paper and ink existed before supposedly "government" popped into existence, and they are all that exist after supposedly "government" popped into existence. Obviously only an insane chimp would deny this fact... but then again, most humans ARE insane chimps.
But they don't have to be.
Every human has a choice. Be insane, or be sane.
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The bottom line of all the above is to say that EVERYTHING stated in the message I am replying to is IRRELEVANT... because it all depends upon the BLATANTLY FALSE assumption that "nation" is real, that "government" is real, and that "whatever endless stream of fictions those human predators claim to create in the future are also real".
Which is INSANE.
IT IS ALL FICTION.
Which means.
NONE OF IT EXISTS.
All that exists is what exists, including the human predators with nefarious intent, and the human producers who are their prey.
Which is the exact same predator-and-prey phenomenon and dynamic that has been playing out on planet earth for hundreds-of-millions if not billions of years.
Pretty much the only minor tweaks are:
The human predators can make the human producers completely insane and self-destructive by taking advantage of the "fatal flaw in human consciousness", and creating an endless stream and tangled web of bogus fictions. Other animals are not so easily confused or misled, because they respond to their real, physical senses... not arbitrary, bogus mental-units created by crafty and diabolical predators.
The human producers can create the goods and goodies that they need to survive, prosper and advance... whereas other species do not understand "production", and are thus constrained to whatever goods and goodies are created by the natural processes of the environment.
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Because humans don't understand real versus fiction...
HUMANS ARE FINISHED.
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PS: I don't deny that humans predators don't CLAIM all the fictions you list above in your rant. They do. The problem is, people should not take them seriously, or assume they have ANY legitamacy whatsoever, because THEY DO NOT. Just because some human ASSERTS that all humans belong to him... or that he is "master of the universe"... does not make the noise coming from his mouth anything but noise.
This should be mandatory reading for all humans.
Not sarcasm.
I agree DG, at the very ends she sums it up pretty well. Are you prey or are you a predator.
I LOVE sophistry!
Im really getting tired of hearing these politician say they are 'working tirelessly or really hard' towards something.
Do they have a fucking shovel in their hands or something? are they using heavy equipment? are they sweating? what the fuck are they doing that is so hard? having lunch with someone? talking?? giving orders to some page?
Greek Crisis, we are going to have to work real hard to come up with a solution. Im sure they are doing pushups in the meetings?
We sat around, had some fruit and granola, and talked, maybe glanced at our iPhones some.
Some do have a shovel in their hands. Look at that fat fuck Chris Christie.
Or that fat ass Hillary...
what the fuck is this "market" that you speak of? who the fuck is selling what and who's buying?
What are the odds of something happening in Congress that would actually be good news for the taxpayer, at the cost of turning off a money fountain for wealthy interests?
Yea, that's what I thought.
slim to none IMO...
This entire system including the warfare state and fascist government and corporate partnership will endure until the currency is wrestled from the hands of power. Be it specie (silver and gold), or a innumerable number of private currency systems, their days are numbered.
Once the power of currency creation is wretched from DC, it's over... The sham will be revealed for what it is and there will be no reason for the states to have anything to do with Mordor on the Potomac. It will be the end of empire.
Set your clock to that. Ron Paul is right. He's always been right. But now we wait.
Remember back In 2013, when Fox News proudly broadcast an interview with a young food stamp recipient who claimed to be using the government benefit to purchase lobster and sushi?
"This is the way I want to live and I don't really see anything changing," Jason Greenslate explained to Fox. "It's free food; it's awesome."
That story fit a longtime conservative suspicion that poor people use food stamps to purchase luxury items.
Now, a Republican state lawmaker in Missouri is pushing for legislation that would stop people like Greenslate and severely limit what food stamp recipients can buy. The bill being proposed would ban the purchase with food stamps of "cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak."
"The intention of the bill is to get the food stamp program back to its original intent, which is nutrition assistance," said Rick Brattin, the representative who is sponsoring the proposed legislation. – Washington Post, April 3, 2015
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/04/03/missouri-repu...
Limited government advocates may find a certain emotional satisfaction in proposals like that of Rep. Brattin. If we must have programs like food stamps, let's at least attach some reasonable restrictions. Taxpayers shouldn't have to shower luxury items on those the government deems unfortunate.
On further thought, however, the issue is more complicated than it seems... Mr. Brattin is only half-right about the food stamp program's original intent.
Feeding people was only one side of the equation back in 1939.
The other side was to help farmers sell "surplus" food.
That's why, even today, the U.S. Agriculture Department administers food stamps.
Was that food truly "surplus"? Free-market economics 101 says no.
The fact that a market-clearing price is below the level farmers think they deserve does not mean the market failed. It means the farmers overproduced.
Programs that encourage overproduction deliver no net benefit to society.
Nevertheless, if helping food producers is the program's true purpose, why exclude those who produce cookies, chips, energy drinks, soft drinks, seafood or steak? Are they less deserving than broccoli and tofu farmers?
The proposal is fiscally questionable as well. If the goal is to deliver maximum calories to the poor at minimal cost to taxpayers, then food stamps should cover only cookies, chips and soft drinks. Encouraging the poor to live on free-range chicken and organic kale might help their health but is far more costly in the short term.
We could also reasonably ask why this idea should stop with food stamps?
Maybe we should forbid government employees from using their pay to buy cigarettes and soft drinks. It isn't good for their health and taxpayers will end up paying for expensive medical care.
The same principle might apply to Social Security recipients, veterans, defense contractors, hospital administrators, pharmaceutical executives, the elite billionaire Wall Street bankster bailout recipients, and anyone else who depends on taxpayers for all or part of their income.
We can chase this rabbit all day, of course. The broader point is that when you let government make decisions that should be market-driven, you will receive inefficiency, waste and sub-optimal results.
The waste is intentional.
Why?
Food stamps (or the politically correct SNAP) is arguably welfare for multinational corporations like Cargill and Conagra. Such firms are its greatest beneficiaries and its fiercest defenders.
One man's welfare is another man's profit margin.
In various ways, we are all on both sides of the fence.
That's why it is so hard to change the system. One way or another, most of the entire population are welfare queens.
How about this. Limit foodstamps to only those who are significantly underweight. That would assure nobody starves to death, get a LOT of people into better shape and health, cut expenses drastically, and maybe even motivate a few people to work.
However, I'd never want to stop anyone from buying the most healthy food available, and steak and lobster sound rather healthy to me.
Disclaimer: Of course I don't actually suggest any of the above, since "government" is a fiction and theft from someone to feed others is never justified. Feel free to donate if you wish, however.
Maybe I'm confused between a local system and Snap. I guess EBT is contracted out to JPM. I thought EBT was SNAP. Let me take a look.
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2014 Federal Outlays for SNAP, Child Nutrition, & WIC = $102.34 Billion
2013 Federal Outlays for SNAP, Child Nutrition, & WIC = $108.84 Billion
2012 Federal Outlays for SNAP, Child Nutrition, & WIC = $105.94 Billion
2011 Federal Outlays for SNAP, Child Nutrition, & WIC = $102.17 Billion
2010 Federal Outlays for SNAP, Child Nutrition, & WIC = $ 93.83 Billion
"Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) is an electronic system that allows state welfare departments to issue benefits via a magnetically encoded payment card, used in the United States and the United Kingdom.[1]
Common benefits provided (in the United States) via EBT are typically of two general categories: food and cash benefits. Food benefits are federally authorized benefits that can be used only to purchase food and non-alcoholic beverages. Food benefits are distributed through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program. Cash benefits include state general assistance, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits and refugee benefits."
I just thought it weird since I see people using EBT for questionable items like Crap soda, chips, candy or maybe expensive prepared food (I can't remember).
If you have Cash on your Card, then you can buy many things.
Late Edit: So you probably have Food on the Card you can buy expensive steak & Lobster or crap chips & soda. In general seems like waste to buy expensive meats or gourmet truffle oil. But if you have kids & wife & dependents tough to place limited on items by price.
"Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) is an electronic system that allows state welfare departments to issue benefits via a magnetically encoded payment card, used in the United States and the United Kingdom.[1]"
Zerox administers the EBT transfers for the US and they shut down the system in selected areas to scare the pubbies into more spending by threat of unleashing the "vote farms" as you now see in Baltimore and elsewhere.
Every time we purchase another share of stock or loan money to them with the purchase of bonds in one of these corporations who are perpetuating this scheme, we are effectively directly perpetuating it ourselves.
Again...One way or another, the majority of the population are welfare queens.
"But the other guy caused it... not me."
Ignorance of the law excuses no man. Not that all men know the law, but because it is an excuse every man will plead.
Government may be a fiction but it crosses the boundries of species and into the fiction of the "animal" world. I have seen a chimp monarchy in the wilds of Africa where the three sons of a matriarch each ruled the clan for a period and is still ruled today by the youngest. We must first understand nature to come to terms with our own but we are far from finished as a species or animal. All life revolves around the sharing and passing on of our own DNA over the DNA of anyone or anything outside of ourselves. This drive is unstoppable and perhaps DNA itself is the only true form of life and that which it creates is merely an "app" so to speak to further replication.
What you've seen is "bully behavior". Can you not comprehend that animals (including human animals) can practice "bully behavior" without any pretence of "government"?
What MAKES humans incapable of dealing with bullies is precisely the fact humans take these fictions seriously. If all humans fully and clearly understood the nature and practices of human predators for what they are... they would exterminate those human predators, and that would be that.
I suggest you notice that millions of species have become extinct. There is no reason that humans won't become extinct, and a great many very good reasons they will.
shouldn't you at least tell folks where you copied your post from?
Mr Gastonne would appreciate your recognition of his work
I voted for Ron Paul last time and this time I'm voting for Rand Paul (even though I don't like his first name).
Would Kugerand be any better?
'Everything the government says is a lie. Everything the government ha it has stolen." Ex-Em just allows corporations to join in the thievery.
"In fiscal year 2014 alone, Ex-Im Bank devoted 40 percent of its budget — $8.1 billion — to projects aiding Boeing."
Well Ron Paul should know better than I do.
I've got different numbers from the Monthly Treasury Report from September 30 2014 (End of Fiscal year).
Total Import Export Bank Independent Agency Outlays = $1.4 Billion, Applicable Receipts are $1.6 Trillion, so there is some kind of trust set up IMO.
I have to try to search a for Separate Congressional Legislation.
Don't see it, but this one is on Trade & Property Rights.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s1269/text (passed Senate, Property Rights)
H.R. 1295: Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015
H.R. 644: Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015
S. 1269: Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015
S. 1267: Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s1267/text (Africa & Haiti)
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H.R. 2239: To amend the Export-Import Bank Act of 1945 to increase the target financing of exports by small business concerns.
http://www.exim.gov/sites/default/files//newsreleases/Final-Report-FY-2013-Audit-of-Ex-Im-Bank-Financial-Statements-WEB.pdf
There's their FY'13 report
But if we don't coddle the rich, it'll be Benghazi times infinity!
some are raised on "there are no rules" and then educated on how to use that fact..
most are raised to follow the rules, and are never educated just indoctrinated to follow the common herd.
a good example of #1 above,the clintons husband and wife and now daughter, and the illegal actions which never bring consequences, just rewards.
let me end with the noble words of one Al Gore vp:" no controlling legal authority"