Economic crisis timeline
I have... instituted systematic, voluntary measures of cooperation with the business institutions and with State and municipal authorities to make certain that fundamental businesses of the country shall continue as usual, that wages and therefore consuming power shall not be reduced, and that a special effort shall be made to expand construction work in order to assist in equalizing other deficits in employment... I am convinced that through these measures we have reestablished confidence. Wages should remain stable. A very large degree of industrial unemployment and suffering which would otherwise have occurred has been prevented. Agricultural prices have reflected the returning confidence. The measures taken must be vigorously pursued until normal conditions are restored. ~ Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States, State of the Union Address, December 3, 1929
Financial 
crisis timeline
April 8, 2005
"Innovation has brought about a multitude of new products, such as subprime
loans and niche credit programs for immigrants. . . . With these advances in
technology, lenders have taken advantage of credit-scoring models and other
techniques for efficiently extending credit to a broader spectrum of consumers.
. . . Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit,
lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual
applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to
rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending . . . fostering constructive
innovation that is both responsive to market demand and beneficial to
consumers." -Alan Greenspan (At the Federal Reserve System’s Fourth
Annual Community Affairs Research Conference, Washington, D.C. )
July 12th, 2007
“This is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business
lifetime.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
April 20th, 2007
“I don’t see (subprime mortgage market troubles) imposing a serious problem.
I think it’s going to be largely contained.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
May 17th, 2007
“Given the fundamental factors in place that should support the demand for
housing, we believe the effect of the troubles in the subprime sector on the
broader housing market will likely be limited,”
– Ben Bernanke (Chairman of the Federal Reserve)
August 1st, 2007
“The market has focused on this. There’s a wake-up call, and there’s an
adjustment to this repricing of risk, but I see the underlying economy as being
very healthy,”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
February 28th, 2008
“I’m seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government
intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or
sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then when you look at
them more carefully what they really amount to is a bailout for financial
institutions or Wall Street.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
March 16th, 2008
“We’ve got strong financial institutions . . . Our markets are the envy of
the world. They’re resilient, they’re…innovative, they’re flexible. I
think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I
said, our financial institutions are strong.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
May 7th, 2008
“The worst is likely to be behind us,”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
May 16th, 2008
“In my judgment, we are closer to the end of the market turmoil than the
beginning,”
“I have great, great confidence in our capital markets and financial
instituations”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
May 19th, 2008
“Our policy in this administration is that laws shouldn’t bail out lenders,
laws shouldn’t help out speculators,”
– George Bush
July 11th, 2008
Indymac seized by federal regulators
July 15th, 2008
“I think the system is basically sound, I truly do.”
–George Bush
July 20th, 2008
“it’s a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on
top of it. This is a very manageable situation.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
September 7th, 2008
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac taken over by federal regulators.
September 7th, 2008
“Nothing about our actions today in any way reflects a changed view of the
housing correction or of the strength of other U.S. financial institutions.”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
September 15th, 2008
Lehman Brothers files for bankruptcy
September 16th, 2008
Government takes over AIG (American International Group)
September 19th, 2008
Government bans short selling
September 19th, 2008
“We must now take further, decisive action to fundamentally and
comprehensively address the root cause of our financial system’s stresses,”
“We’re talking hundreds of billions. This needs to be big enough to make a
real difference and get at the heart of the problem,”
– Henry Paulson (US Treasury Secretary)
September 20th, 2008
Bush asks congress for $700 billion to avert catastrophic, economic meltdown.
September 25th, 2008
Washington Mutual seized by federal regulators
Countdown to a "Banana Republic"
Apr 08: National DNA database.
Mar 08: Fascism in the U.S.
Mar 08: Cell phone eavesdropping technology.
Mar 08: FBI uses internet for entrapment.
Aug 07: What happens to whistleblowers on Iraq.
Jun 07: Private contractors in Iraq outnumber troops.
Apr 07: The Banana Republic -- Evidence of 2004
election manipulation.
Apr 07: No fly, no buy -- what
list are YOU on?
Jan 07: Executive take-over of all Federal Agencies.
Jan 07: President uses "signing statement" to declare search warrants are no longer needed; ignores 4th Amendment requirements.
Oct 06: Martial law in the United States. Habeas Corpus revoked.
Sep 06: Princeton University study proves undetectable vote theft: http://itpolicy.princeton.edu/voting/. Another version at http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=7113 If you're a D-I-Y person, just get a key.
Jun 06: U.N. adopts special
ban against kidnap & torture by U.S. Secret Police.
Jun 06: CIA converted to Secret Police, authorized
to commit felony crimes, court removes accountability.
May 06: FBI used to attack 1st Amendment, with new, self-granted "warrants".
Mar 06: 4th Amendment "warrant" protection from unreasonable search & seizure
revoked by Patriot Act.
Mar 06: Bush says he is "above
the law"; American Bar Association objects.
Feb 06: Halliburton gets $400 million for concentration camps, purpose unclear.
Nov 04: Control of govt. maintained; voting irregularities defy laws of statistics.
May 04: Bush authorizes human torture.
Sep 01: Bush gives aid & comfort to Bin Laden family, flies them out of country.
Nov 00: Bush/Chaney seize control of govt by election fraud.
- Free speech – FCC, libel laws
- Bear arms – federal regulation on guns
- No quartering – maybe the only one being followed
- No unreasonable search – “PATRIOT” Act
- Due process – “PATRIOT” Act again
- Speedy trial – Gitmo
- Civil trial by jury – Gitmo
- No cruel punishment – Gitmo
- Rights not enumerated – most laws violate this
- Powers of States and people – ditto
Happy Bill of Rights Day!
THE BIG AGENDA MAKERS
Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing. - David Brower, first Executive Director of the Sierra Club
We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. - Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
Unless we announce disasters no one will listen. - Sir John Houghton, first chairman of IPCC
It doesn't matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true. - Paul Watson, co-founder of Greenpeace
We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy. - Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation
No matter if the science of global warming is all phony... climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world. - Christine Stewart, fmr Canadian Minister of the Environment
The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe. - emeritus professor Daniel Botkin
We require a central organizing principle - one agreed to voluntarily. Minor shifts in policy, moderate improvement in laws and regulations, rhetoric offered in lieu of genuine change - these are all forms of appeasement, designed to satisfy the public’s desire to believe that sacrifice, struggle and a wrenching transformation of society will not be necessary. - Al Gore, Earth in the Balance
Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about? - Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme
A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation. - Paul Ehrlich, Professor of Population Studies
The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US. We have to stop these Third World countries right where they are. - Michael Oppenheimer, Environmental Defense Fund
Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control. - Professor Maurice King
Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it. - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute
The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet. - Jeremy Rifkin, Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. - Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University
The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil. – Sir James Lovelock, BBC Interview
My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world. -Dave Foreman, co-founder of Earth First!
A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal. - Ted Turner, founder of CNN and major UN donor
... the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence more than 500 million but less than one billion. - Club of Rome, Goals for Mankind
If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. - Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the World Wildlife Fund
I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. - John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing. - Christopher Manes, Earth First!
Miscellaneous
No slaves shall keep any arms whatever, nor pass, unless with written orders for his master or employer, or in his company, with arms from one place to another. Arms in possession of a slave contrary to this prohibition shall be forfeited to him who will seize them. - A Bill Concerning Slaves, Virginia Assembly, 1779
“I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematicks and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, musick, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelaine. -- John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780.
I am not saying these issues do not need to be addressed, but tackling all these issue that result in increased taxes at a time when the economy is on its ear will not promote job growth.
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
- Winston Churchill
Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take away that power, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear — as they ought to in order to make this a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let them continue to create deposits. -- Sir Josiah Stamp (1880-1941), one time governor of the Bank of England, in his Commencement Address at the University of Texas in 1927. Reportedly he was the second wealthiest individual in Britain.
Earth is sick
And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
Which States and Kingdom utter when they talk
Of truth and justice.
-- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1770-1850
Our forecast is for moderate but positive growth going into next year. We think that by the spring, early next year, that as these credit problems resolve and, as we hope, the housing market begins to find a bottom, that the broader resiliency of the economy, which we are seeing in other areas outside of housing, will take control and will help the economy recover to a more reasonable growth pace. -- Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, November 8, 2007
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.
No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect
their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.
~ Dean Acheson
Banks have done more injury to the morality, tranquility, prosperity, and wealth of the nation than they will ever do good. --John Adams, 1799
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. -- U.S. Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. -- Winston Churchill
In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity. — Winston Churchill
The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced if the nation doesn’t want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance. -- Cicero, 55 B.C.
Learning without thinking begets ignorance. Thinking without learning is dangerous. -- Confucius
It's not the strongest of the species that survive; nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. -- Charles Darwin
Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. -- Demosthenes
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. --Albert Einstein
Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction. --Albert Einstein
We cannot solve problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. --Albert Einstein
Two things are infinite: The universe and human stupidity; and I am not sure about the universe. --Albert Einstein
It is well the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did I believe there would be a revolution tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford, one hundred years ago
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote. -- B. Franklin
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith
Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. ~ Andrew Jackson, 1767-1845, 7th US President, when forcing the closure of the Second Bank of the US in 1836 by revoking its charter.
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
If the debt which the banking companies owe be a blessing to anybody, it is to themselves alone, who are realizing a solid interest of eight or ten per cent on it. As to the public, these companies have banished all our gold and silver medium, which, before their institution, we had without interest, which never could have perished in our hands, and would have been our salvation now in the hour of war; instead of which they have given us two hundred million of froth and bubble, on which we are to pay them heavy interest, until it shall vanish into air... We are warranted, then, in affirming that this parody on the principle of 'a public debt being a public blessing,' and its mutation into the blessing of private instead of public debts, is as ridiculous as the original principle itself. In both cases, the truth is, that capital may be produced by industry, and accumulated by economy; but jugglers only will propose to create it by legerdemain tricks with paper. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:423
It is a [disputed] question, whether the circulation of paper, rather than of specie, is a good or an evil... I believe it to be one of those cases where mercantile clamor will bear down reason, until it is corrected by ruin. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) to John W. Eppes, 1813. ME 13:409
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant’s books, so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them. -- President ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826) said to Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, in 1802
The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared. This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so.
We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make
military instruction a regular part of collegiate education.
~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), on the distinction between an organized military
and a militia.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. —John Maynard Keynes
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The great statesmen of the past saw themselves as heroes who took on the burden of their societies' painful journey from the familiar to the as yet unknown. The modern politician is less interested in being a hero than a superstar. Heroes walk alone; stars derive their status from approbation. Heroes are defined by inner values; stars by consensus. When a candidate's views are forged in focus groups and ratified by television anchorpersons, insecurity and superficiality become congenital. ~ Henry Kissinger in Years of Renewal
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ~ C.S. Lewis
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and
independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should
do for themselves. -- Abraham Lincoln
It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. — General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951
Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results. ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces. -- Jean Paul Marat, 18th Century French Visionary
There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue. — Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, September 1929
On government intervention: It doesn't accomplish its stated ends. Instead it distorts the market. That distortion cries out for a fix. The fix can consist in pulling back and freeing the market or taking further steps toward intervention. The State nearly always chooses the latter course, unless forced to do otherwise. The result is more distortion, leading eventually, by small steps, toward ever more nationalization and its attendant stagnation and bankruptcy. -- Ludwig von Mises
No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking. ~ John Pierpont Morgan
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity). --William of Ockham, English logician and Franciscan friar, 14th century
All wisdom starts by recognizing the facts. ~ Finnish president J.K. Paasikivi (1870 - 1956)
An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all Republics. Plutarch, circa 45 - 125 A.D.
The monstrous credit and debt bubble in the United States, through years of overaccommodation by the Federal Reserve, has created an economy with an array of horrible and massive dislocations and imbalances that make a sustained recovery impossible. — Kurt Richebacher
Patience is also a form of action -- Auguste Rodin
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. - Bertrand Russell
It's almost worth the Great Depression to learn how little our big men know. - Will Rogers
In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.. -- Theodore Roosevelt, Republican 1907
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws. — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. -- Bertrand Russell
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. - George Bernard Shaw
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends on his not understanding it.
It's amazing how difficult it is for a man
to understand something if he's paid a small fortune not to understand it.
-- Upton Sinclair
This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or at least neglect, persons of poor and mean conditions, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. ~Adam Smith (1723 - 1790)
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you a get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -- Socrates
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. ~ Thomas Sowell
People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth. ~ Thomas Sowell
Respect those who seek the truth, be wary of those who claim to have found it. -- Mark Twain
If you do not read the paper, you are uninformed. If you do read the paper, you are misinformed. -- Mark Twain
Governmen