We Are All Gonna Die!

We are all gonna die! I’m not talking about someday. I mean the very moment a single penny of the proposed spending increase is cut from Governor Mike Beebe’s budget. At least that’s the impression I get from listening to the shrill histrionics of the Governor’s front men.

What brought all this on is that the Republicans in the state legislature had the nerve to propose their own budget rather than simply accepting the one offered by the Governor as a jumping off point. You may recall from last week that the real leverage a minority party has under the rules of our state constitution is in accepting the initial stabilization budget. It requires a super-majority to pass. Once it is passed, it can be amended by simple majority. The Democrats wanted them to give approval to a shell bill that they can fill in the details on later. The Republicans decided they were not ready to do that.

You can rest assured than neither budget reduces the spending of our state government. The Republican plan spends 21 million dollars less than Gov. Beebe’s proposed plan, but both are higher than current levels. In addition, it is plain as day that this state is going to face a massive shortfall in Medicaid funding in two years. We will probably need $200 million dollars if we are going to maintain that program’s benefits. That’s because medical costs are growing and the number of poor using the services are growing.

With a predictable need of $200 million in two years, one would think that the adults would propose a $100 million reduction in spending this year and an equal reduction in spending next year. Instead, one side is talking about increasing spending a great deal and the other says that we should spend $21 million dollars less. Even if revenues met expectations and the Governor’s budget was fully funded in taxes, the reductions proposed by the Republicans are barely over one fifth the amount needed to stave off an "emergency" tax increase.

That’s where all this is heading. In a year or two they will say that no one could have seen this increase in Medicaid outlays coming, and that if we don’t agree to an immediate tax increase then poor children will die in the streets. There will be no time to talk about it, by golly, it’s an emergency. The pattern repeats itself. Big spending politicians set us up for another tax increase by hiding behind sick children instead of altering fiscal course while there is still time.

Why even the proposed $21 million reduction in the increase is being met with predictions of doom. The Republican plan proposed a 3% reduction in a category called "miscellaneous" government programs which would amount to around $230,000. There are a lot of places Beebe could cut within that category. What he is doing is pretending he has to cut it all out of law enforcement. Then intermediaries like Baxter County Sheriff Tom Montgomery chat up how "devastating" these cuts will be to police protection. Montgomery is a Republican so the problem is bipartisan.

The truth is not one dollar has to be cut from police under the proposed plan. Three percent had to be cut somewhere, and Beebe just decided to float the idea that it would all be taken from police in order to scare people.

That’s the way politicians do when faced with the prospect of cuts. They never say, "If I don’t get more money I will have to lay off my idiot cousin from Parks and Recreation." They always say that the police force will have to go, along with the fire department. Remember, if they can’t spend more money every year, then we are all gonna die!

State Republicans File Rival Budget Plan

House Minority Leader John Burris has filed a budget bill to rival that of Governor Mike Beebe in the just-started fiscal session of the Arkansas legislature.  It's high stakes, and you can expect the establishment media to try and vilify Burris if he messes with their money.  Still, my view is that it is something that is long overdue.   The emergence of Burris has added a lot of energy to the house Republicans as a legitimate loyal opposition to Democratic Governor Mike Beebe.  

Its complicated, but here are the important parts as I understand it:  These budget bills require a supermajority to pass.   The Republicans, if they hang tough, have the ability to block any of them.  What the Democrats want to happen is for the legislature to vote "yes" to a shell bill and let the Governor and his accomplices fill in the blanks later - when supermajorities are not needed and the Democrats can steamroll the Republicans.   I think Burris wants to hold off on passing the Govenor's shell bill until the ledge also passes his version.   Then both sides can flesh their proposals out, and the ledge can then vote on which final product they want.

I don't think the bottom line under the two proposals will be that much different.   I believe if Burris gets his way it is just going to be more like what we have had in Washington.- with the Democrats proposing a budget that increases government by an absurd amount of money and the Republicans countering with a budget which merely increases it by a gigantic amount of money.  Eventually the two sides settle on an increase in government spending somewhere between absurd and gigantic.  At least that was the process before Resident Obama got in and the Democrats ceased offering budgets, which while ridiculous is another story.

If that process seems like there is not enough range in the debate, consider that Arkansas is behind even that level of open debate on budgets.  Burris is attempting to improve things to that level, as low as it might be.  What has been happening in Arkansas is that the Democrats propose a budget, the details of which they will fill in later, and the Republicans vote for it in hopes that if they capitulate quickly then their districts will not be punished too badly.   There has been no Republican budget as an alternative until now.

While I don't expect the bottom line to be much different in the two budgets (please prove me wrong somebody) who gets what money there is promises to be a lot more interesting.     As I alluded previously, the budget can be used to punish legislators who don't tow the line.     Add true give and take to the process of who gets the money that is in the budget (a separate question from how much total money will there be) and you remove the hammer that Beebe and the establishment have been able to wield against any mavericks.

Let me give an example of how Gov. Beebe might act if he wanted to be vindictive and send a message:   His Forestry Commissioner misappropriated federal funds and caused a bit of a crisis recently.   Many firefighters were laid off on an emergency basis.   Two female Republican legislators, Lori Benedict and Donna Hutchinson, found money that was not being used that would solve the problem.  Swell guy that he is,  Beebe runs to the papers and takes the credit for their idea.    The Democrats pull stunts like that all the time and usually the Republicans just grin and bear it for fear that if they complain they will get all of their bills voted down out of spite.   Besides, the Democrat Gazette would not give fair coverage even if they did complain.    This time though, Benedict has had enough and complains to some of us bloggers and Hutchinson amens her.

Now its time for the budget.   Something in the forestry budget has to be cut to until they can pay back the feds for the grant money that was misappropriated.   What part of the state should get their services cut?  Well, you could make the decision on rational grounds like where fires are most likely to happen or where the most valuable trees are.   Or you could make the decision based on petty political payback and cut services for District 7.   That's the district that Hutchinson is in.   In the coming weeks I suggest that we watch the Governor's budget and see if he does indeed attempt this crass maneuver.

I know people like sweeping initiatives, but if you want to be effective, you better follow the money.   This is a key battle that deserves a lot more media coverage and activist attention than I fear that it will get.

The Integrity of the Process (Maine Stolen from Paul)

 It appears that GOP leadership in Maine acted to deliberately steal the election from Ron Paul. Tampering with election results is one of the worst things you can do in America because it is faith in the integrity of this process which allows us to solve our disputes with ballots instead of bullets.


Click here for reporter Ben Swann's damning account.  

AGs Sign On to Unfinalized Wrist Slap for Big Banks

The big banks all committed mortgage fraud on a massive scale.   They claimed in documents (often signed by "Linda Green" in 14 different styles)  that title had been transferred when in fact it had not.   The local stamp taxes and other fees that we would have to pay if we bought a home was not paid.   They had a system in place that evaded those taxes.  Since they are too-big-to-fail and too well-connected to imprison, the push is on for a blanket "settlement" which will assign them a "punishment" of giving some fraction of the money that they stole to state attorney generals.   Of course that money was really stolen from individuals and local governments, but the state AGs, including our own Dustin McDaniel, are willing to take the money in exchange for giving the "all's forgiven."

It is so farcical that the AGs signed off on a deal BEFORE the details have even been finalized.  That's just how captive our government is to the banksters.

They Who Must Not Be Named in Arkansas Media

UPDATE:   It looks like KHTV did cover the story including names at some point.  Their report on the news the night of the event was as described in this report, but subsequent to that report Craig O'Neil did do a long report on it.  A reliable source tells me O'Neil's report went up around 2:30 PM, after I filed this earlier report complaining about the original coverage.

************************************
Hahaha. The big media in this state is such a pathetic joke. Hahaha. The powers that be have things so locked up, it seems no outsider politician can get their name mentioned in the media no matter what sort of initiative they might undertake. If you are one of the favorites, you can get media credit that really belongs to others. If you are not the favorite, then forgetaboutit. Alleged media professionals will file stories about your event that somehow never even mention who was behind the event! Hahaha.

 A recent example was a group of a dozen Arkansas legislators who held a well attended presser about their plans to introduce a resolution for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Jason Rappert spoke for the group of legislators, but neither he nor his cohorts got any name mentions, or face time in the KHTV report on the matter. Hahaha. You are not introducing plans the power brokers in this state approve of so NO MEDIA ATTENTION FOR YOU! Instead, they ran a five minute piece where first Lady Ginger Beebe talked about what it was like to be an orphan. Hahaha.

 That group was almost all Republican, but it doesn't matter what letter goes in front of your name. What matters is that politicians who cooperate with what the big-money boys want get lots of coverage, even positive coverage they did not deserve. Those who buck the system in any way get iced out.

 For example, Democrat State Sen. Jack Crumbly is suing the State Board of Reapportionment. That would be Gov. Beebe, Attorney General McDaniel, and Sec. of State Mark Martin. Martin is the only Republican on that group. Crumbly complains that his new district is not sufficiently black to preserve a minority-majority district. Crumbly is rousing rabble not from the right, but from the left. The direction is different but the outcome is the same: the Democrat Gazette article on the affair does not even mention Crumbly by name. It just says, hahahahah, that "a black State Senator" is suing the state over the issue. Hahahah. No press for you rabble rouser!

 What is even funnier is that, unless you read closely and know the real backstory from other sources, the language in the article leaves the impression that evil Republican Sec. of State Mark Martin was responsible for the diluted black vote in Democrat Crumbly's district. Hahaha. Fact is, Martin's plan for redistricting had more black majority districts than the plan that Beebe and McDaniel forced down our throat. Beebe and McDaniel are the ones that want the black vote spread out among several districts because blacks vote Democrat so often. They wanted to win three districts 54-46 instead of dominate one district 70-30.

 Martin and the Republicans were the ones more willing to listen to the Jack Crumblys of the legislature. They could win more seats concentrating the black vote, because that means there would be that much less black vote in surrounding districts. You can't get any of that from the article, except that it does mention, without explanation, that Martin voted against the redistricting plan that was adopted. Because he is Sec. of State, he is left to implement and defend the plan that OBeebe and McDaniel imposed on him. Hahha. We are in so much trouble in this state so long as the sheeple listen to the big media around here. Hahaha.

KHTV Coverage Bias on Debt Resolution

I attended an event in the Capitol today.   A group of legislators announced their intention to pass a resolution to amend the United States Constitution.   The proposed amendment would require approval of state legislators to raise the federal debt limit.  

There is a lot I could say about the proposed policy, but what fascinates me is the slant in coverage.   There were several cameras there, and lots of reporters.  The KHTV anchor Craig O'Neal was there.   The report on the news was very brief, and their report did not have any footage of any legislators.  Even the website report fails to mention the name of a single legislator involved in this initiative.  I'll give more information than KHTV and tell you that Sen. Jason Rappert was the spokesman for the group. 

Look, Rappert is a bit showy for my tastes, but the media bias is the real story here.   What's it take for an outsider to get any face time?   Did they really file a report and fail to mention even the name of a single legislator supporting this initiative?   Why, the same newscast that would not show any video or audio from the presser gave Arkansas First Lady Ginger Beebe a long segment on what it was like for her to be adopted as a little girl.   The double standard in news coverage is borderline ridiculous.

Did Beebe Steal the Credit from Female Legislators?

Rep. Donna Hutchinson and Rep. Lori Benedict may have been victims of a theft.

If you read the headlines of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette today, you will read of the exploits of the wise and beneficent Gov. Mike Beebe, and of his able accomplice Rep. Bobby Pierce.  These champions of good government, to hear the papers tell it, found an elegant solution to the problem of funding the fire fighters that the State Forestry Commission had to cut in an emergency lay off.   They found some extra money in the Department of Agriculture that they can transfer to Forestry to tide it over.  Hurrah for the good ole' boys!   All hail the Governor.  Never mind that the problem was originally precipitated when one of Beebe's guys misappropriated money from a federal grant.

Pay no attention to the fact that the solution that THEY supposedly discovered, looks exactly like that proposed in HB 1004 filed some days before by Rep. Donna Hutchinson and Rep. Lori Benedict.   An inquiry to Rep. Benedict revealed that, yes, these two ladies went to Rep. Pierce in an effort to try to get him to co-sponsor the bill.  They were both Republicans and they felt like if they brought a Democrat on board it would help with the bill's passage.

From there, Pierce appears to have gone to Gov. Beebe, which would not be bad in itself if all he is trying to do is to get the Governor to go along with the bill.  What is sorry is that  Beebe decides that rather than share the credit with the female GOP legislators he will go straight to the Democrat-Gazette and announce that he and Pierce have got the solution.   The result?   The Governor and Pierce wind up on the front page and, along with Robert Moore, getting all the credit for the solution.   The two Republican ladies who did all the work get no credit for it.

Really, I know quite a bit about Gov. Mike Beebe, but all you really need to know about him is contained in this little report right here.

Legislators Win A Rare One for Taxpayers

I have often noted that when people elect a legislator who is serious about reducing the size and scope of government, they are not only opposed by legislators who want the opposite but also by the vast bureaucracy which actually runs the government.    I was reminded of that today visiting with Rep. Lori Benedict.

There was an agency (DFA) recently who continued to pay insurance benefits for over two hundred "phantom" employees.   The agency had been cut and they were hoping to lobby and get those cuts restored.   They did not want the newly hired employees to wait ninety days for health insurance, so they just kept paying the insurance premiums even though there was no employee connected to those payments.   This might have been going on for years.   Rep. Benedict noted that the agency head would never give a straight yes or no answer to the question of whether or not they were paying insurance premiums for positions for which there was no employee.     She finally told the fellow "I am taking that as a yes" and helped pass a bill barring the practice.

One of the downsides about term limits is that they increase the power of the unelected at the expense of officials who are elected.   The bureaucrats know so much more about how the system works than the legislators do, they can run rings around them.   They know they can wait a legislator out.   They know that they have the institutional knowledge.    I have seen bureaucrats put out staggering misinformation about a bill in order to scare legislators out of voting for it- or to provide cover for a legislator who wants to be lied to so they can have an excuse to tell the folks back home.

There needs to be some sort of system where legislators can hold accountable staff who withhold information or give them bad information.   The can only make laws that are as good as the information they are given.

Terrorist (noun) A person who disagrees with the government

Not so long ago, one had to engage in actual violence against civilians, or at least attempt such violence, to be labeled a "terrorist."      Now the government is trying to apply the term to a wide array of persons for engaging in behavior that very recently was considered legitimate political activity.    See the list and determine the number of ways your activity can get you labeled.

Cool vs. Competent in Arkansas Government

Sec. of State Mark Martin and Governor Mike Beebe.  One of them is cool and the other is competent.

Gov. Mike Beebe is cool.   And one of the common beliefs in our shallow pop culture is that if you display that aura of cool, you are competent.   It's not necessarily true of course.     Having a winning personality and projecting an air of relaxed confidence does not insure one has the right answers when its crunch time.    It's the geek, not the cool kid, who most often gets the answers right.

In a perfect world, we'd get someone who is the total package.   Sadly, we don't live in a perfect world, and this is seldom more obvious than it is when it comes to selecting our politicians.  Cool and competent?   Of the two I'd take competent, unfortunately I seem to be frequently outvoted by people who think the one is somehow a guarantee of the other.  

Not that I blame the voters in the case of Governor Beebe.     I blame the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.  Recent events I will describe shortly indicate that he is not the man they have been telling us he is, and that's true of many of the political figures they report on.   Most of what people think they know about the Governor is really just the image presented to them by that particular propaganda organ.   As I have shown on this blog time and time again, they are not a reliable source of information about political candidates.

 Just as it is hard to accept the truth that the socially adept person may not be as competent as the geek, it's hard to accept that the state's biggest baddest loudest most established newspaper is not as trustworthy in evaluating politicians as a good blog.    How can that be when they have all the resources?  Easy.  It's the very fact that they are so powerful that impedes them from deviating from the establishment line.    Because they are so powerful, they have been an attractive target to moneyed influence peddlers.  They have all kinds of special interests who have sought, and gotten, influence with them.   Once they get that influence, truth becomes supplanted by spin on all things political.  That happened a long time ago.

You've heard of "too big to fail."   Unfortunately in our current culture media can become "too big to tell the truth."   At least the whole truth.  What the average person sees as the stamp of media legitimacy, size and closeness to the establishment, is in fact a sign that the information it feeds you is less credible.

This leads to Moore's Media Maxim: In a political culture so corrupt that connected business are "too big to fail", you will also find connected media that is "too big to tell you the truth."

That's where us little guys and gals in the blogosphere have the edge.  No special interests have levered me.   I have no ad dollars at risk.    I don't have to pump up the establishment's chosen face man of the hour.  I can just write the truth.  I may not write as well as the pros write.   I might not have the resources to make it look splashy.   I might not be able to match the volume because this is a hobby not a paid job.   But the one edge we bloggers have is that when the Emperor has no clothes we can sit down and write that the Emperor has no clothes.   The court jesters don't dare say that.

Now for those current events which reflect so poorly on the Governor's management prowess:  We have learned that the Forestry Commission had to make emergency lay-offs because it was discovered that a Beebe official, a fellow by the name of Shannon, was improperly re-directing federal grants to pay ongoing expenses.   He blamed an underling, but many lawmakers have questions.    If we still lived in a country where connected public officials could get in trouble for stuff like that, well someone would be in trouble.

Now we learn that the Department of Education, another Beebe run agency, and the office of State Treasurer Martha Shoffner (another one the papers assured us about) are pointing fingers at each other over who dropped the ball on about two million dollars of federal grant money to rural communities simply by failing to collect forms telling the feds who to make the checks out to.    Normally I am skeptical of federal grants.   I think officials ought to read the fine print carefully.   In this case though, the money was simply a share of the logging revenues obtained from logging federal lands near several communities.    Rural communities have not been a high priority of politicians from either party lately, and this oversight highlights that lack of commitment.

It turned out that a recently retired employee from the Department of Education had as one of their collateral duties the collection and submission of these forms.  When they retired, no one knew that that was part of their job duties.   The DOE said "institutional knowledge" was lost when the employee retired and people just seemed to shrug off the blunder.

Let me contrast these multi-million dollar mistakes with the actions of another public official- Secretary of State Mark Martin.    If Beebe is the cool kid, Martin is the geek.   He has an engineering background.  He puts goofy photo-shopped pictures of himself on facebook.   He flies off the handle when he is mad and gets choked up when he sees injustice, especially to kids.     There is no mask of cool.   But when it comes to competence, despite what the papers are telling you, it's Martin that gets it, not Beebe.

When Martin got into the Secretary of State's office, he realized that the organizational flowcharts, such as he could find after many documents had been shredded, were a mess.    He told me that people did not have their duties defined in writing, so it was impossible to evaluate them or hold them to performance standards.   People getting paid from one pot of money were actually doing work that applied to another pot.   In other words, time bombs like the two that just blew up on Mike Beebe were all over the place in the Secretary of State's office too.   And who knows how many other bombs have gone off that we have not heard about?

So Martin decided to use funds already in the budget to whisk his top employees off to a retreat where they would talk about what they did, what they ought to do, and how to do it better.    In other words, build an accurate organizational flowchart that properly documented who was responsible for what.    The media pros at the Demozette and the Arktimes raked him over the coals for having that employee retreat- even though the funds for it were requested by his predecessor Democrat Charlie Daniels.   They never seemed to complain about it when he did it.

Beebe has had seven years to do what Martin did in his first two: build a proper organizational flowchart.  The Governor has more agencies, but the Secretary of State is the second biggest state constitutional office by a long shot.   If Beebe were really a good administrator, instead of someone who is good at putting on the appearance of a good administrator, then he would have done what Martin did.     Instead, we get million dollar blunders and the papers showing very little desire to get to the bottom of it.   The papers showed more agitation at Martin for trying to fix these poor management practices than they have shown towards Beebe continuing them.

Bottom line, we are not going to get better government in this state until either the big media is either reformed or ignored.   The people are part of the problem insomuch as we continue to grant them credibility simply based on their size and connectedness to our current system, and so far as we elect people based on superficial traits rather than integrity and ability.

A Flawed Process with Reduced Legitimacy

If another country ran its elections the way the Republican Party is running its nominating process, I believe the United States would not hesitate to decry the process as manipulated and the results as fraudulent.    It really calls into question their legitimacy as the sole vehicle which conservative and limited-government Americans should trust to select their candidates.  Remember, political parties are private clubs with no legal obligations to run their votes fairly or competently.    The big-money boys who run the GOP seem determined to impose Mitt Romney as the nominee.   They seemed just as determined to undermine the campaign of Ron Paul.    Let’s go down the list…

Iowa was given the privileged position of being the first state to choose a nominee.   They guard this privilege jealously, but their product proves they don’t deserve the honor.   When it looked like Paul was surging, the Governor of the state announced that if Paul won then America should disregard the results of his own state caucus!   Party officials went around the state scaring off Iowans, saying that if Paul won they might lose legitimacy for their privileged position.  

In the event, they botched the vote totals.   They announced Romney as the winner, even though days later – when it mattered less because by then the media had repeated the “Romney won” story countless times- it was discovered that the actual winner was Rick Santorum.   At least we think he was the winner.   The state chairman finally threw up his hands and said that eight precincts would probably never be certified and thus the true winner never be known.   He declared that there were two first place winners (though Santorum wound up the winner among all certified votes.)

New Hampshire was next, but because it was next door to Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, and their media comes from that state, Romney did not need for the fix to be in for him to win.  His second home is in New Hampshire, so it really was like a home state for him.  He got the most votes, but was far short of a majority.

South Carolina rejected Romney as the nominee.     Newt Gingrich got the most votes.  Three states produced three different winners.  Plus, the only candidate who had not gotten a win yet (Paul) was in second place in the vote totals.  Paul was the only one who had a national infrastructure in place to rival Romney, and his strongest region of the county, out west, had not come up yet.  

But the establishment had a plan.... (continued on the jump) 

Hogs Must Recruit Better for SEC West

Like many Arkansans, I am proud of the job that the Razorbacks have done on the football field.   That said, I have a warning:  if the program does not start recruiting better, the last two years and this next season could represent a high-water mark that will not be equaled for years to come.

The rankings put out by recruiting services are far from perfect.   For one thing, most of them rate a dominating tackle as about the same worth as a dominating quarterback.   They are not.   In today's D-1 game, a solid offensive team with a dominating quarterback will do as well as a squad that has great players at most positions but only an average quarterback.    

Still, the rankings put out by the recruiting sites do reflect some underlying realities.   Unfortunately those realities are about to catch up to Arkansas unless the staff improves in the area of player recruitment.   Here are the average team rankings from Rivals for the five classes signed from 2007 to 2011.....

Arkansas 31.2

Alabama 3.6

Auburn 11.4 (but Cam Newton later transferred in)

LSU 5.8

That is to say, on average over the five recruiting classes previous to the just-signed class this year, 30 or 31 teams ranked higher than Arkansas, but only three teams on average ranked higher than Alabama.   Alabama actually has three #1 ranked recruiting classes during this time period, and they just signed another number one ranked class this year.    Half of having a better team is having better players.  Alabama has better players.  

From 2002-2006 the Hogs' recruiting classes consistently ranked in the lower twenties, so we are slipping some in the 2007-2011 period where we are now averaging in the low 30's.  The 2012 class was ranked 32nd, so it is not getting any better.  The Hogs had some good seasons in 2005 and 2006.  In no small measure it was because among those very solid but not spectacular classes was one guy who turned out to be very spectacular- Darren McFadden.  He was the runner-up in the Heisman trophy balloting as a junior (after which he turned pro).  And yes, he spent some time as the "QB" out of the wildcat formation.

No one is suggesting that Arkansas has to do as well as Bama on the recruiting trail to beat them on the field, but they do have to get closer than they have been getting.    Arkansas' high-water mark was the 2009 group where they were the 16th rated class in the country.   As fortune would have it, Ryan Mallet transferred from Michigan about that time.  That's like adding a five star QB to a talented sophomore group that was already 16th best in the country.    Fill that in with some talented players from other classes, and the Hogs did quite well in 2010.    

They also did well in 2011.  Mallet was gone, but they still had a great QB.  The strong 2009 class was a year older and the 2011 class was one of their stronger groups.  It came in at #24, but also had a couple of Junior College transfers in the group like Alonzo Highsmith who offered immediate, if not long enduring, help.

After this next year, the 2009 class will be, neglecting redshirts, gone.  So will the Junior College transfers that helped give the 2011 class an immediate impact.   So will Wilson.    My take- the team has to recruit better to stave off a serious drop-off on the field after next year.

Debt Based Money and Counterfeiting

   "The third criminal borrows money from the Federal Reserve at zero interest and extends a loan to a fraudulent borrower because a government agency has guaranteed the loan. Whatever income the lender receives is pure gravy, and whatever losses are incurred when the fraud is uncovered are made good by the taxpayer."   Read more here.

Remember, in a fiat debt based money system, you and your children are the collateral.