When will the second shoe drop?

From: C.R. Wendlandt, Dassel

The one shoe has dropped (collapse of the big banks), when will the second shoe drop?

When Wall Street collapsed on itself there was a huge transfer of wealth. Something we don’t hear much about on the TV news programs.

As it stands now the top 1 percent of citizens, now we have 300 million citizens, 1 percent equals 3,000,000 holds or controls over 90 percent of this country’s wealth. That is why the federal government has printed up billions and billions of dollars.

Our economy relies on people earning money and spending money. And at this time that is not the case.

In decades past, a newly printed dollar changed hands six times during its lifetime. But then, at the time, we were the world’s leading manufacturer of finished goods. We are no longer. We are now a nation of consumption.

President Clinton retracted laws which had been keeping big corporations in check and walk the straight and narrow. Then President Bush came along and removed the remaining restrictions from these big banks. So what we face is not from the actions of Democrats or Republicans, but from the actions of politicians who have no clue as to what they are doing.

Our country has a free and open marketplace. And the laws and restrictions that were in place were probably in place because the originators knew or had a better understanding as to how the system had to work so all citizens could aspire to raise a family, own a home, and send their kids to higher education.

I believe our elected officials from the past had a better understanding to govern this country than our present elected officials who care only about raising more funds to get elected the next time around.

They even interviewed Mr. Greenspan, the former head of the FED. When he saw what was happening he kind of froze, like a deer in head lights. He was afraid of doing something that would make things worse. Hey, unless people have been through a collapse they are book smart and hands-on ignorant. That day he was proof of that.

The big investment banks in New York have their loans rated. An “AAA” is top of the class. But it came out that these rating agencies would issue a rating based on how much the investment banks would pay for the “AAA” rating.

So this collapse hit people around the world. And now people around the world are not putting too much stock in the rating these companies have.

I received the DVD today which I purchased from CNBC “House of cards.” Do you know that it was a high school drop out in California who figured out how to create a home loan company (called “Own It”) and issue home loans to people not capable of qualifying for a home loan through the normal home financing channels?

And from there, the investment banks caught on to the scam, and took it and ran with it. And now we see the results.

You need to get a copy of it and watch it. I purchased a copy so in years to come when my grandsons are older, they may be able to use the information in a history or economics class project.

Just like the program “Uncounted” which I have that shows how these paperless voting machines are not as secure as everyone thinks, and can be manipulated to show a result that the voting public did not intend. It is about the perception of an election and not the accuracy of the election.

Why is it so important to tally up the votes so quickly? It is over a month before the elected people take office.

Thank goodness in our voting district we make our votes on a paper ballot and then that ballot goes through a machine which counts the vote. If there is a recount they have the paper ballots to recount.

A paperless voting machine is no different than a slot machine in Vegas – they are programmed to pay out just enough to keep you feeding coins. Once a certain amount of dollars have been taken in, it pays out a big jackpot.

As this article’s title states, one show has dropped, do you know what the second shoe dropping means?

That is when the insurance companies begin to fail. Right now they are keeping their numbers up there by either canceling a policy of someone who has health problems or they raise the insurance on policyholders to get them to drop it because it costs too much.

With all the talk about health insurance on TV, I have not heard anyone talk about driving people away from their health insurance by raising the premiums. And that is exactly what they will do. And all of the insurance reform our lawmakers are talking about will not change that or even address it. But the lawmakers will break their arms patting themselves on the back saying they did insurance reform.

Now each morning, I think on CNBC, they talk about what the stock market is doing. Since the crash they are even reporting the “putts.” A “putt” is when you put money down saying the stock is going to tank. When you buy stock you have to pay for it at the current price. When you take a “putt” on a stock you only have to pay a portion of what you bet.

So now some investors who own certain stocks are also putting a “putt” on that stock to prevent losing it all if the markets drop. And some are even putting “putts” on their “putts.” Hey people with a lot of money can afford to play the game.

And now that they lowered interest rates so much, we the baby boomers, can’t earn much of a return putting it in savings. Ya put it in the stock market when we haven’t seen any reform or regulation addressing what happened 12 months ago. I just think of it and figure why are, nothing will change. It’s a rigged game.

A new chicken in town

From: Caroline Wigmore, Cokato

There’s nothing like driving through a charming small town with a personality that suggests an intriguing history.

At first, when I saw that a new water tower was going up in Dassel, I was sad to think that the quaint, colorful water tower was probably going to have to come down.

But now that the new tower is in its final stages, I realize that the new one is charming too, and most importantly, that it has a great looking chicken that can actually hold a candle to the old chicken.

I know that Bob Wilde, among others, had a lot to do with making sure the logo represented the town well.

The Wilde family has given a lot to the community over the years, through service in local and county politics, Amy’s many years of writing for the paper, and also in bringing art to a predominantly agricultural area. I just wanted to acknowledge this.