We hold these Truths to be self-evident...
Gerald Klatt and Walter Burien are unrecognized heroes. These individuals are national leaders who have communicated how government agencies conceal American taxpayers’ money in surplus accounts that collectively total trillions of our dollars. The data is found in government agencies’ Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs).
What CAFRs reveal is a communist-style policy whereby the US taxpayers surrender enormous assets to the state, who then “invest” these collective trillions that swell in these accounts. Concurrently, taxpayers are informed of budget deficits to either squeeze more taxes from them and/or cut public services. To add insult to injury, the state lies in omission by never reminding Americans of their hard-earned and withheld trillions as they eliminate jobs, reduce education, and attack the quality of our lives.
The American Constitution is a contract of limited government whereby the public informs and is informed by our representatives. CAFRs are damning public documents that expose “leadership” from Left and Right as exactly what leading economic voices have said: an absolutely corrupt and self-serving oligarchy.
Let’s look at the economic data revealed in CAFRs.
For example, California has a budget deficit of ~$20 billion. The combined investments of CAFRs for the state of CA, Los Angeles County, and the City of Los Angeles is over $450 billion; over 22 times the amount of the budget shortfall (documentation page numbers below).
California claims they need this money mainly for public employee retirement benefits. Let’s check that story. The CAFR data shows current member contribution pays for all retiree benefits except for $1.8 billion (net cost). If just these three state agencies surrendered their withheld money back to the public instead of lording over it as communists, each Californian would receive ~$15,000. To pay for the shortfall in the retirement account, each individual could be taxed $50.
Why has political “leadership” and corporate media not informed American taxpayers of this option and publicly submitted this data for professional and independent economist cost-benefit analysis to provide other options?
The answer to that question is also the answer to the question of how political "leadership" gets away with Orwellian unlawful wars.
So far, we’re only considering three CAFRs in the state of California. The comprehensive reality is far more dramatic. If you combine all of California’s ~10,000 government agencies’ CAFRs, the combined total according to Walter Burien’s sampling analysis is $8 trillion. Let’s say Walter’s way-off. For argument’s sake, let’s say the total is less than half; only $3.5 trillion. If that was returned to the public, each Californian would receive $100,000.
Walter says he’s confident in his documentation that every state has overtaxed and seized Americans’ hard-earned money in outrageous sums.
Obviously, we need independent auditing of all state CAFRs and independent economic cost-benefit analyses to make our choices clear of how the public benefit is best served. Californians oppressed under a $20 billion dollar budget deficit that cuts essential public services while not considering taxpayers’ trillions “invested” in our names is among the worst choices imaginable.
It’s criminal.
It’s Orwellian.
To put this into an analogy, I’ve modified the one used by Walter:
This is like a juvenile claiming he needs money because his front pants pocket is empty, which he dutifully shows (budget). What he's not telling you is that his back pockets have over 100 times the money he says he "needs" (shown in various places of the CAFRs). Whenever he's asked about the money in his back pockets, which he never volunteers in discussing his empty front pocket and never invites for consideration to move some into the front pocket, he says, "Oh, that money is designated for other uses. I can't touch that." So far, the silence of corporate media and political leadership from Left and Right has brought us to today. Of course, "I can't touch that" is a lie of omission because it can be touched the moment policy changes. So the real issue is the heart of economics: what are the costs and benefits of different choices?
Here’s the specific data and documentation:
- California pension and “other” trusts investments total $367 billion. Net pension benefits payable from that $367 billion in 2009 was $1.8 billion (retiree payouts minus current member contributions). Subtracting other liabilities ($48 billion in securities lending obligations that seemed to be borrowed from retirement funds- page 212), the state of California is holding onto over $300 billion of the public’s money that could be used for other purposes (pages 48, 49 of the report).
- The misleading information on pages 154-155 suggests retirement funds are not fully funded. However: over $300 billion is held in investments for $1.8 billion in net benefits. How many votes do you think our present policy would receive from the California public given the alternative of receiving ~$15,000 now and paying a $50 tax every year? The boom to California's economy through refund and/or investment in jobs would more than cover this $1.8 billion through increased revenue.
- The investments: $143 billion in “equity securities” (stocks), $92 billion in debt securities (page 83-84). $72 billion is dependent upon foreign markets (page 88). This means that we "invest" in the scraps from corporate Board members' votes for stock dividend, and transfer the interest cost of debt instruments from one set of taxpayers to another, but minus their management cost. This means that buying government debt is a net loss to taxpayers and not an investment at all. And yes, you should be outraged by this "emperor has no clothes" fact. The contrasting method is pay-as-you-go with tax and/or fiat money-creation for shortfalls. This is among many of the obvious solutions.
- The UC system had a budget deficit for this ending school year of $0.65 billion. The policy response was to deny 2,300 students enrollment, lay-off over 2,000 faculty and staff, furlough teaching days and cut 10% salaries, and raise tuition by 32%. For less than one-third of one percent of the investment total of California, UC would have been fully-funded and those reductions eliminated.
- California’s 20,000 laid-off teachers could be rehired at $70,000/year for $3.4 billion; less than 1% of these three CAFR “investments” total.
- One cost of this deception: Governor Schwarzenegger announced a 41 percent cut for the 2010 budget in "general government" services including elimination of CALWORKS (welfare to work and child-care program, which will affect 1.4 million people, two thirds of them children), and sharp decreases in health and welfare programs for single mothers, low-income children, foster youth, the disabled, and senior citizens.
- Los Angeles County has $52 billion in investments (pages 61-63), the City of Los Angeles has $36 billion (page 80). Both have drastically cut programs. Both have pension plans underfunded by current members by less than 2% of their investment totals.
Below is Walter Burien’s 10-minute introduction to his video explanation of CAFRs. Walter claims that investments are only the most obvious section where CAFRs reveal hidden public money in plain sight; other areas include advanced forward liabilities accounts (overestimates and/or retained money for far-distant projects), states buying their own debt, profits from state-run enterprises (like recycling), and possible other areas requiring full and independent audits to discover.
I conclude with my usual resources for comprehensive understanding and suggestions for action. This has some repetition or the above information along with additional resources:
Fellow Americans: literally for the love of God, it’s time.
It’s time for our men and women in government and military to choose: either stand with the US Constitution you’ve sworn to support and defend against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC, or remain complicit in ongoing Wars of Aggression, mass murder of our soldiers and our fellow humans in other lands and throwing trillions of our tax dollars to do so, pushing the world ever-closer to an apparently planned and desired nuclear Third World War (and here), and guilty of what Dr. Martin Luther King called “Silence is Betrayal” (before the US government assassinated him according to the only trial conducted for his murder).
Over 5,000 US soldiers have been killed so far as pawns of the civilian and military brass tyrants. Multiples more have been crippled physically and emotionally. There is no end in sight to current wars; indeed, the US is expanding them into Pakistan and Yemen and threatening more war with Iran. The dead are comforted by God; their families are devastated by the loss of their loved-ones. The crippled and their families face a range of challenges; many so severe that a total of 6,000 US veterans commit suicide every year. One-third of all US homeless men are veterans.
It’s time for our men and women in the military and government to refuse all orders associated with our unlawful wars and preparation for unlawful war with Iran over one gram of medical isotope worth $75,000 in 20% enriched nuclear fuel. It is hard to imagine a more ridiculous case for war.
It’s time for our men and women in the military and government to stand with the American public who declare in a ratio of 9 to 1 that our government no longer represents them under the US Constitution.
It’s time: exercise your 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech and press, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Please provide this article to all Americans if you find it helpful to stop current and future unlawful wars.
Our military was duped into these wars with calculated "Big Lies;" our trusting young men and women took an Oath to support and defend the US Constitution that supersedes the Nazi insert of “placing the mission first.” The Claus von Stauffenberg faction of US military and government must act to end this soulless mass-murdering; this loveless series of unlawful wars and unlawful orders, if we want a future we’re proud to build.
This choice is up to our men and women in uniform and government for leadership. I provide:
- Explanation of the rules of lawful war omitted from their military training that proves beyond any doubt that current US wars are unlawful.
- Analogies that the rules of war are almost exactly like those for an individual’s use of force on the street.
- Documentation of lies that were known to be lies as our political “leaders” told them and our war-whore corporate media mimicked to propagandize for war in Iraq.
- Proof beyond doubt that the speech of Iranian President Ahmadinejad never threatened Israel.
- Documentation that IAEA verifies all of Iran’s nuclear material and has only and always been used for legal and peaceful purposes.
- Documentation that US-Iran relations should be viewed from the history that the US unlawfully overthrew Iran's democracy from 1953 to 1979, and then supported an unlawful War of Aggression against them from 1980 to 1988 when they rejected further rule by vicious US-friendly dictatorship. Those two US-caused acts killed up to a million Iranians
- As a teacher of government and law, I created an analogy to recognize the lies by imposing the names of “China” for the US, and “US” for Iran to see what it looks like as the target of war lies. I also provide a glimpse into Persian culture to humanize Iran rather than demonize the targets of provable and criminal US war lies. I also remind you of the history lesson that the US fought WW2 against aggressors who masked their invasions as “liberations” for their own peace and freedom.
- Explanation of the law of treason: the liars who duped US soldiers to unlawfully invade other countries are the ones who levied war against US soldiers.
- Documentation and explanation of official US policy to use nuclear weapons if our “leaders” say (dictate) a nation might someday in the future harm the US or an ally. This policy is obviously Orwellian unlawful.
- Documentation of past use of US false flag attacks to kill Americans and blame an “enemy” in order to initiate an offensive war masked as a defensive one.
- Proof that corporate media is complicit in lies of commission and omission to propagandize for unlawful US wars (and here).
- Explanation of strategy to end the massive criminal acts of US “leaders” for obvious violation of the letter and spirit of US war laws: because these crimes are so broad and so deep, I recommend Truth and Reconciliation (T&R) to exchange full truth and return of stolen US assets for non-prosecution. This is the most expeditious way to understand and end all unlawful and harmful acts. Those who reject T&R are subject to prosecution.
- A reminder that you love virtue, American values, and love of your fellow human beings. These war liars “leading” our government who say they want peace while engaging in endless wars won’t create a Department of Peace for professional analysis of peace. These psychopaths (look that word up) spend trillions in long-term costs to lie and kill while reneging on their promise to spend just 0.7% of GNI to end poverty, save a million children's lives every month, and do so while reducing population growth rates.
- Documentation with many of the US most prominent economists and experts that these same war liars are transferring trillions of our taxpaying dollars to an oligarchic elite, ignoring the obvious solution of full employment to invest in US infrastructure, keeping a “debt supply” rather than a “money supply” to end the national debt, and keeping a parasitic banking system rather than a non-profit system (think 1-2% mortgages). I also provide documentation that these obvious economic solutions have been advocated by our brightest historical minds for centuries.
Choose well; our collective future, and your future, depend upon it. I appreciate your attention to these facts and encourage your further study and action consistent with your own self-expression.
It's time: please share this article with all who can benefit. If you appreciate my work, please subscribe by clicking under the article title (it’s free). Please use my archive of work to help build a brighter future.
Policy response: Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated public understanding of the facts and non-cooperation with evil:
"One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances... We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed."
For Gandhi’s evolved view of British evil in 1922, read this passage from Freedom’s Battle.
Gandhi concluded the effective response from the public was non-violent, non-cooperation with unjust British rule until the British themselves realized their engagement in immoral acts with an educated and non-cooperative public was inconsistent with their own values.
To consider:
"If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in the world. Now the judgment of God is upon us and we must either learn to live together as brothers or we are all going to perish together as fools."
--Inscription on Dr. Martin Luther King’s statue, Moorehouse College, Atlanta
"The day that hunger is eradicated from the earth, there will be the greatest spiritual explosion the world has ever known. Humanity cannot imagine the joy that will burst into the world on the day of that great revolution." -- poet Federico García Lorca
Comments policy: I present a professional level of discourse based on facts. I welcome questions and comments that are civil and pertain to the article topic. Here, readers are welcome to argue for any inaccuracy of factual claim and/or need for inclusion of other facts. Readers are welcome to interpret facts however they wish and welcome to any policy position. They are not welcome to misrepresent facts. Facts are objective, measurable, and independently verifiable.
That is how freedom looks. Freedom is not an allowance of whatever, whenever, however. We censor behavior of drivers beyond strict limits, censor many behaviors as fouls and out-of-bounds in sports. We censor people in relationships and business from certain acts, and can fire them upon violation. You censor in your place of business those who distract and/or damage your work. You fire destructive people from relationships, and would never invest your time or money for a sport that did not strictly censor behavior.
Our government is paradoxically based on censorship: “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” means any behavior outside constitutional limits is forbidden. This is the paradox of freedom: freedom is only realized within limits.
In these articles, I write for the highest level of factual accuracy and will manage comments with that commitment. Comments and questions are welcome ONLY from those who chose factual integrity.
Please consider that I’m among hundreds of writers who have documented our own government’s disclosure of propaganda programs to support their wars. My articles are subject to such propagandistic attack from comments that use typical rhetorical fallacies to distract readers from the facts. I invite readers to sharpen their ability to discern such propaganda. They are characterized by a combination of: denying facts without evidence, ignoring key facts in lies of omission, lying about verifiable facts as lies of commission, diverting attention through unsubstantiated belief in an alleged expert, irrelevant data, straw-man attack that distorts the facts, ad hominem attack of insults to the messenger, vile comments to repulse readers, and focus on minutia.
I will use such comments to point-out the propaganda or delete them at my discretion. Again, all relevant and polite questions, and factually accurate comments are welcome. As a professional educator I’m in agreement with my experience and research: we learn best from multiple perspectives in mutual commitment to understand the facts, see those facts from diverse points-of-view, and consider various policy proposals of what we should do.
"But now, after having once and for all put to the test the judgments of men, I here again approach these same questions regarding God and the human mind, and at the same time treat the beginnings of the whole of first philosophy, but in such a way that I have no expectation of approval from the vulgar and no wide audience of readers. Rather, I am an author to none who read these things but those who seriously meditate with me, who have the ability and the desire to withdraw their mind from the senses and at the same time from all prejudices. Such people I know all too well to be few and far between. As to those who do not take care to comprehend the order and series of my reasons but eagerly dispute over single conclusions by themselves, as is the custom for many-those, I say, will derive little benefit from a reading of this treatise; and although perhaps they might find an occasion for quibbling in many spots, still it is not an easy matter for them to raise an objection that is either compelling or worthy of response."
- Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, 1641, "Preface to the Reader." This book is usual reading in college philosophy courses today. Descartes is considered the founder of modern philosophy, the founder of analytical geometry (which led to calculus), and a founder of the Scientific Revolution. Descartes was well-known in his age, but highly controversial. His work was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1633, and his books put on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1663. The University of Utrecht condemned his work in 1643, where he had previously taught.
For those involved in support of US government-sponsored disinformation in whatever versions of Operation Mockingbird that are active, I invite you to consider the quality of human relationships you wish to create. National security and a brighter future is not a function of fear, manipulation, and control. Our best security follows cooperation, justice under the law, dignity, and freedom. Working for your best imagined self-expression of virtue may include a unique contribution from the inside of your agency. Public attraction to the stories of Star Wars and the Harry Potter books/movies recognize that our society’s jump to civilized relations for all of us might require support from people within the “dark side” acting as covert agents for building a brighter future. Another option is becoming a whistle-blower; Project Camelot is a popular venue for people in sensitive positions. Ultimately, I recommend a Truth and Reconciliation process to exchange full truth for no prosecution, explained in detail at the link. Please consider the wisdom of your own “Scrooge conversion” to act for the benefit of building a brighter future for all humanity rather than propagandizing for your controlling, manipulating, and loveless “masters’” psychopathic policies of violence and suffering.
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”
Los Angeles County: We’re home to 10 million people and are the media capital of the world. If we are to build a brighter future, the broadest picture must be communicated. Los Angelinos will play leading roles in communicating these issues’ importance to all humanity and in context to the economic and security concerns of local communities and families, as I explain above. These issues are ongoing “current events” of literally trillions of our collective dollars that directly effect billions of human beings, around the world who we touch in L.A.’s media market and where so many of us have family and friends, and locally with the per household tax burden for trillions of our collective dollars. Current US wars cost every L.A. County household ~$30,000 to $50,000 in long-term costs; over $100 billion total. To put this in perspective, California’s state budget deficit is $20 billion; the source of unemployment cutbacks and shortages of services. The most important impact on our local communities are often the broadest topics.
Comments
I appreciate the fact that the author has brought this incredible information to the general public. It is about time that someone with investigative insight is exposing the dissemination of disinformation by the media power-brokers and the elites of our society. Our individual rights have been stolen from us through the manipulation of the U.S. Constitution and the Patriot Act and our individual financial futures have been laid destitute by a tyrannical regime(in the name of Democracy)that uses war as tool to create scarcity and fear through destruction and death. I hope the author succeeds in educating enough people in our society before the ignorance of the truth leads our nation further into the abyss of chaos.
The entire capitalist system is wrong. By claiming to have a system that must make a profit ever larger than the last reported profit you must cause others to fail in order to continue always making more money. Money is just a way to facilitate transactions, it should be printed and given away to anyone for any reason. It makes no difference inflation is controlled and can still be controlled you just makes the rules up to fit the new model as you go- exactly the way it has always been done in the past for everything.
This is history repeating itself over and over for thousands of years. This practice is referred to throughout history as the "money changers or money masters"...they destroyed Rome. Jesus threw them out of the temple. What more would you need to know? Lincoln referred to them as the "ragmen".
The answer is in issuing power which ABSOLUTELY MUST BE TAKEN FROM THE BANKSTERS and given back to the people where it belongs. In 1913 the congress gave the Reserves the right to steal from us. President Jackson greatest accomplishment was killing the banks. Yet history only tells one side of his legacy. It took 77 years before the banksters were back in business. 10/1/1833 - Biddle (banksters) was arrested for fraud. The banksters today are using the same game plan as Biddle did. They must be expelled from our country; period. The money masters ;create war, they steal jobs, they create sarrow. Watch on youtube: Money Masters - BRING BACK THE GREENBACKS...that is the answer.
Incredible content and comments. Thank you.
You all know the answer to this financial catastrophe, but how do you educate the masses. As you know, 90% of the people are non-thinking fools who let the media make all their decisions. 15 minutes of Fox or CNN and the masses have had their lesson for the day. Try to explain to them it's all a lie and you end up on the end of a rope. They don't want to hear it.
We will fall, there is no way out of this. All we can hope for is that the 5% of thinking people are around to pick up the pieces and get things in order again, minus the Fed and banksters. If not, the masses will just re-elect the same people to the same jobs all over again. Fox News made them do it. You know, history repeats itself.
I share your distress, wyomarine, but I've shifted from collecting (and anguishing over) bad news to looking for positive, nonviolent solutions. I've found at least one that doesn't require a political victory or even an organized movement, just individual action and spreading the good news of its success. It's on my blog at www.AreWeBozos.blogspot.com, and there will be more to come. Hint: stop feeding the hands that bite you!
Budgets are nothing but a planning tool, and they have ZERO relation to the actual financial health of any government or business. You'd think that people could figure this out without much help.
Let's say that I work for the government, and the government has 100 billion in the bank. The 2010 budget says that the government expects to take in 10 billion and spend 8 billion. So, somehow it happens that the government only brings in 8 billion and spends 9 billion. Am I going to run around screaming that I have a 1 or 2 billion dollar deficit, and that I need to raise taxes on everybody, when the government still has close to 100 billion?
Yes, I am, if I'm a government crapweasel thief.
Thanks!I learned this many yrs ago from Walter and tried myself toget this out ..how VASTLY impt it is!EG;"..the "budget shortfall" scam wherein there is over 60 TRILLION$ NOT listed in the 54,000 city, county, state, budgets! " We have to increase taxes and cut programs(schools, buses, etc.)because there's "no money in the budget".These crooks SHOULD say "..because we haven't ALLOCATED enough of your money INTO the budget"!" .Govt nowowns more than half the stock market! The PROFITS from investments are enough to pay all budgets without ANY taxes!The average person can understand this in about 10 seconds with a simple DIAGRAM!Get actual CAFR's for each of the 54,000 govt entities and put the actual dollar values into the simple diagram and mass distribute this!People will be so angry to see the actual dollar values that NOT being put into the budgets and WILL besiege City Councils,etc.,by the thousands with this diagram-CAFR proof in hand-and demand rectification! seewww.cafr1.com
CAFR DIAGRAM:Simply a large rectangle-which could be considered the COVER of a particular City,/County/State's CAFR(eg,L.A.) ["Comprehensive Annual Financial Report"]book.In the upper left corner(each CAFR of course has it's own ACTUAL values)say 20 Bil in stock investments.I then have an arrow from this upper left box to the upper right corner pointing to a circle showing 2 Billion(10% conservative PROFIT on the 20 Bil investment).In the lower left corner,is a SMALL box labelled "Budget" with 1 Bil in it.Looking at this picture, it is clear as a bell that the yearly profit on investment(2 bil as shown in upper right corner) easily pays the ENTIRE budget(1 Bil as shown in lower left corner).As Walter so eloquently states it, that extra 1Bil in yearly profit could provide a yearly dividend to be paid out annually to us(FORMER!)"Taxpayers".Negative tax! The basic diagram should also have a LARGE BOX which(on average)is 3 TIMES THE SIZE of "budget" box-exposing the "budget shortfall" LIE!
These links aren't technically CAFR but I think people will benefit from them. Spread them around.
Funny Australian sarcasm on the Euro-Debt abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm
Charts don't lie. The Options view of the current Stock Market :
apartofny.com/
32 States have been given money by the Fed Reserve to prop up employment benefits. That's money you and I will have to PAY BACK to the FED RESERVE, WITH INTEREST!!! We already pay unemployment Tax !! :
www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2010/05/32-states-have-borrowed-from-treasury.html
Excellent comments!
theCarlwatcher: we need to end the Fed and remove money-creation power from the banks. Government should create money directly for public goods and services. My solutions are in the articles in the economics section of my usual resources above.
I can't believe how many people fall for this obvious conspiracy scam.
The CAFR reports ALL GOVERNMENT ASSETS. That includes things like police cars, city buses, government building, and construction equipment to maintain roads. Carl has no clue what he is talking about, and is essentially saying we should sell off everything the government owns, then give people a pro rata share of the money.
How exactly does this help anyone? Who is going to pay for policemen and fireman?
Do you understand that CalPERS is a government entity that has a fiduciary duty to the pension recipients? You are saying that we should seize the money that the state has wisely collected from workers now, and will be using to pay those same worker's pensions.
What kind of corporate stooge thinks it is a good idea to steal pension funds???
Go to my post on reddit to see how to actually read and understand a CAFR.
www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/c7oy3/how_a_pair_of_conspiracy_theory_huckster
Readers and Joe:
“Joe” is a propagandist; his lies are easy to identify and crush.
Joe’s first lie: as the article explains and documents, the investment assets are not capital assets like property, but gross investments like stocks and bonds. Go to the page number and see for yourself. Joe hopes you’re too stupid to do this.
Joe’s lies then avalanche. Compare what I’ve written to his straw-man arguments. He obfuscates budget revenue to pay for public services with the off-budget investment assets, again hoping you’re suckered into this paper-thin propaganda. He preaches about “fiduciary duty” when the data make it clear that taxpayers have had over $367 billion of their money locked-away without their knowledge.
Joe’s post shows his true colors with ad hominem attacks on Walter Burien and my friend, Ellen Brown, whose article I also list.
Readers: your test is to choose the quality of reason you wish to live under.
OK but is some of this CAFR money Pension Money? And if it is then it is owed to the pensioners from whom it was collected right? So if this is true then not ALL of that $367 Billion would be available, just the amount minus the Pension $$.
It's confusing. With this 401(k) Confiscation talk from the DOL and Treasury, it makes you think NO PENSION is safe.
2of 2:
Sheryl, pensions are just one area where taxpayers have overpaid and then received nothing but silence from government as to OUR money. And the state of California is dwarfed by the collective totals of other government agencies. What I’m asking for is a comprehensive and independent audit with cost-benefit analysis of how our money can best serve the public (not “joe”’s strawman argument of seizing pension payments). Having it sit while the budget is cut is the worst choice available.
1 of 2:
Sheryl: The CAFR uses language in that category of “pension and other.” Legally, it’s state assets with an agreement to pay retirees. When the difference between what’s paid to retirees and current member contributions is $1.8 billion (one-half of one percent of the $367 billion), and the state suffers Depression-era unemployment exacerbated by a $20 billion budget deficit, it’s time to reassess our system.
It’s also time for accountability from the government liars who’ve managed our money. The govt. has been the lying juvenile of the front pants pocket analogy.
Federal government is worse in their criminal oligarchy, Sheryl. We need Truth and Reconciliation to discover all the facts. Having them take anything to place in the rigged-casino stock market, or to buy federal government debt is tragic-comic. For the obvious solutions, I suggest reading: Solutions to US economic controlled demolition are obvious, but We the People must demand them.
Thank you for your reply. It seems from what you're saying that there IS ENOUGH within the CAFR report to both satisfy the pensioners AND infuse money back into the state economy??
And I am in agreement with you about further DEEP investigation in the State Legislature. Has this been put before the Calif Governor??
Sheryl:
You’re welcome. In three CAFRs I see $450 billion of OUR money that voters and taxpayers would want working optimally for them. Walter Burien says his sampling data of California’s various 14,000 different government agencies shows trillions of idle money from those CAFRs. What I’m saying is that government is lying in omission about a $20 billion budget deficit when trillions sit in investments. We need independent audit and cost-benefit analysis.
Ahhnold is just an actor for the oligarchs, Sheryl.
As of July 7th, no government entity, city, county or state, including Oregon, has accessed any invested funds to offset budget deficits. What's all this hype? Please prove me wrong if you can.
2 of 2:
You’re wrong, tedrad, to state without evidence that you know what has happened and is happening in every “government entity, city, county or state.” This is one area Jesse Ventura discovered and acted upon as an independent politician and can be done again right now.
Readers: time to choose between tedrad’s weakness and lies, or to stand-up and demand full knowledge of OUR MONEY with professional consideration of choices how to use it. tedrad wants you to shut-up and take the economy you’re given.
Choose wisely; you’ll have the future of your choice. Propagandists like tedrad will have all the “rewards” of their choices also. Better consider a “Scrooge conversion,” tedrad. Tick-tock, time’s running out for you.
Readers and tedrad:
1 of 2:
Tedrad, what’s the matter with you, are you soooo stupid that you don’t understand the data and call it “hype”? Or are you a propagandist who wants to lie about the data?
Read the damn CAFR if you want to comment, tedrad. It shows the money right there. Review a high school level government class, tedrad (you did graduate, yes?). Policy to use the money requires votes. Votes may or may not be in the public interest; they might be in corporate interest including financial/banking that seem to want the current system.
You’re wrong, tedrad. The data of the CAFRs shows the money.
You’re wrong, tedrad, to act so stupid and irresponsible to whine and act powerless to advocate policy to build a brighter future.
You’re wrong, tedrad, to be so stupid to not understand what a full and comprehensive audit with independent professional economic cost-benefit analyses to give the public choices of what to do with ALL OUR MONEY.
Carl Herman you are a credit to the human race.... most Americans are lazy cowards and have no competent education to draw any thinking conclusions or even communicate. Sorry.. just an observer of fact on the street of life, if people do not want to hear the truth. Keep up the good work....
Thanks. We'd better find the way to bring forward critical mass to expose what we have if we want a brighter future. We'll see :)
Folks:
Ever hear the expression: “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” ?
Well, the humorous aspect of the way things exist today is that government has convinced us all to: “Bring paper to a gun fight”
They arbitrarily ignore, wear us down, take our wealth, pay themselves more for doing so, make their decisions in their own favor, and then If we do not like it, they use the guns against us.
It is all about greed and oppertunity unrestrained. Want an even playing field that restores your wealth and creates a few REAL checks and balances? See and learn about the TRF noted as follows:
With the TRF established (Tax Retirement Funds – http://TaxRetirement.com ) systematically replacing the revenue source of taxation, venue after venue there will, or would there be any need for taxation ever again.
The TRF will also will be structured to cap and then lower fees and service charges now in place within government.
Happy Memorial Day!
Walter Burien – CAFR1
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!