Economic Stimulus = Treasury Bonds, Paid Back by Future Generations
I had a chat about economics with my family on mothers' day and I remember the question of China's loan for the economic stimulus checks. At the time I hadn't read too much detail about the stimulus checks so I didn't have an educated opinion of the subject.
It seems the answer was simpler than I thought; foreign owned treasury bonds bought by countries like Japan, China, UK and groups such as OPEC (see chart) pay for stimulus checks sent out to U.S. taxpayers. These countries own our country's debt.
Take a look at #4 on the chart, "oil exporters," footnote #3 lays out the list of included countries who are also under OPEC, which is important to note that its members started trading in Euros instead of Dollars (U.S. isn't part of OPEC) shortly before the U.S. began invading it's member countries. How many countries in that footnote were part of Bush's "axis of evil?" What a coincidence.
chart -Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Bonds
http://www.xe.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC
"After the introduction of the euro (1999), pre-invasion Iraq decided it wanted to be paid for its oil in euros instead of US dollars causing OPEC to consider changing its oil exchange currency to euros, although after Iraq's invasion, the interim government reversed this policy, and the subsequent Iraq governments stuck to the US dollar.[16] Member states Iran and Venezuela have undergone similar shifts from the dollar to the Euro.
In 2000, Chávez hosted the first summit of heads of state of OPEC in 25 years. The next year, however, the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan,"
the 2002 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt against Hugo Chavez, "and 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation prompted a surge in oil prices to levels far higher than those targeted by OPEC during the preceding period.
On November 19, 2007, global oil prices reacted strongly as OPEC members spoke openly about potentially converting their cash reserves to the euro and away from the US dollar."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC#Responding_to_war_and_low_prices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d%27état_attempt
"The Bureau of the Public Debt borrows money needed to operate the Federal Government, accounts for the resulting debt, and provides reimbursable services to other Federal agencies. The bureau pays interest to investors and redeems investors' securities. Borrowings total about $5 trillion each year through 220 or so marketable securities auctions and savings bond sales at over 40,000 locations throughout the U.S. The Bureau of the Public Debt sells securities directly to and maintains accounts for investors in its TreasuryDirect system."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_the_Public_Deb
Right now the only presidential candidate with clear plans to prevent future generations from having to take the burden of paying off these debts is Ralph Nader.
"In recent years, the big five oil companies - ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, BP and Shell - have booked record profits - a big chunk of which result from oil industry market manipulation and anti-competitive practices. (For example, oil companies have exploited their market position to intentionally restrict refining capacity by driving smaller, independent refiners out of business.)
Nader/Gonzalez would strictly regulate the oil industry - clamping down on speculators and enforcing the antitrust laws.
Nader/Gonzalez would also revoke federal subsidies to the oil industry, repeal multi-billion tax breaks and impose a windfall profits tax to fuel a transition to a solar energy economy.
Nader/Gonzalez would cut the bloated, wasteful military budget.
(Hillary Clinton and Obama have committed themselves to increasing the armed forces by tens of thousands of troops. John McCain would outdo them both.) http://www.votenader.org/issues/military-budget
Corporate crime costs Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Tens of thousands of Americans are killed each year and hundreds of thousands of Americans injured and sickened each year by preventable corporate-bred violence.
From pollution, medical negligence, procurement fraud, product defects, and financial fraud, to antitrust, public corruption, foreign bribery and occupational homicide, corporate crime is widely ignored by politicians – yet acutely felt by all Americans.
Nader/Gonzalez would crack down on corporate crime and violence with a twelve point program: http://www.votenader.org/issues/corporate-crime/
Nader/Gonzalez proposes a straightforward carbon tax—set to annual benchmarks to bring, with the expansion of solar energy, US emissions to at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
A phased in initial price of $50 per ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions would harness $300 billion annually—money that would be put back in the pockets of American taxpayers, and money that would finance a green industrial revolution, providing a boon of 10 million new green collar jobs (in efficiency retrofits, cogeneration, geothermal, solar energy generation, and green grid enhancements) in the first five years. http://www.votenader.org/issues/carbon-tax/
Ralph/Gonzalez would work to end corporate personhood
http://www.votenader.org/issues/corporate-personhood/
Also check out:
http://www.votenader.org/issues/speculation-tax
http://www.votenader.org/issues/single-payer
http://www.votenader.org/issues/taft-hartley
http://www.votenader.org/issues/corporate-personhood
http://www.votenader.org/issues
