Gorbachev: U.S. sowing world 'disorder'

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies. As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Gorbachev: U.S. sowing world 'disorder'
Ex-Soviet premier blasts Bush as helping create ‘very dangerous’ situation
MSN Reuters Updated: 8:13 a.m. CT July 27, 2007

MOSCOW - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the United States, and President Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire.
Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world.
“The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?” Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow.
“What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the U.N. Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush say they are friends but ties have been strained by U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Europe, disagreements over Kosovo and the war in Iraq, and competition for allies in the former Soviet Union.
Rival and enemy? Many Russians view the United States as a rival and enemy.
Gorbachev, 76, who left politics after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, is deeply unpopular in Russia. Though feted abroad, he is blamed in Russia for sinking the Soviet empire and plunging millions into poverty.
“When I look at today’s world I have a worrying feeling about the growth of world disorder,” he said.
“I don’t think the current president of the United States and his administration will be able to change the situation as it is developing now — it is very dangerous,” he said.
‘Massive strategic mistake’Gorbachev said Russia’s hopes of building stronger ties with Washington had waned in the face of a series of U.S. administrations interested in building an empire.
“It is a massive strategic mistake: no single center can command the entire world, no one,” he said. “Current America has made so many mistakes.”
He said the U.S. administration was apparently unable to adapt to a swiftly changing world and had ignored — or was unable to see — the rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China as economic heavyweights.
Treaties limiting the number of nuclear weapons should be observed, he said, adding that officials in Washington should be wary of sparking a new arms race.
Gorbachev, who became Soviet leader in 1985, battled against the conservative wing of the Communist Party to push through reforms that dismantled the one-party system, freed the press and ended restrictions on religion.
The father of “glasnost” (openness) said he supported Putin’s policies but that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party had eroded democratic rights.
He said Putin’s “seriousness” as a leader would be assured if he left office according to the constitution. Putin says he will leave office in 2008 after two terms in office.
Reuters Limited.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19994563/

If This Is Such a Rich Country, Why Are We Getting Squeezed?

No Lie, where is all the money going we ask the 2% corporate golden greedy guts that OWNS most of the world as the priority one subheadings below remain in LIMBO
Priority One A: energy evolution - stagnant and dead with a 100 year old equation, E=MC2, unexpanded, unevolved, petrified as in stone
Priority One B: Survival Criteria for increasingly complex, energy intensive 'holistic' global systems - nonexistent. (these criteria are derived directly from evolving energy stages beyond the caveman approach to nuclear energies - but then, that's The Trouble With Physics and pending trouble with civilization's future survival)

If This Is Such a Rich Country, Why Are We Getting Squeezed?
Alternet: By Heather Boushey and Joshua Holland, AlterNetPosted on July 18, 2007, Printed on July 19, 2007 http://www.alternet.org/story/57180/
The commercial media is telling us two perfectly contradictory stories about the American economy. The first is how wonderfully rich we are in the United States. The stock market's booming -- some analysts predict the Dow will break the 15,000 this year -- the economy is expanding at a healthy clip, productivity growth is up and unemployment and inflation are relatively low.
But, at the same time, we're also told that we don't have the money to pay for a robust social safety net. When it comes to paying for universal health coverage, affording retirement security for our elderly, investing in programs for the poor or educating our children, we need to pinch pennies. According to this story line, we face a looming "entitlement crisis" -- we won't be able to afford to keep the Baby Boomers in good health and out of poverty, we're told, unless we slash their benefits and privatize the programs that their elderly parents enjoy today.
This is the line we hear from the administration when it talks about entitlement "reform": Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says that "the biggest economic issue facing our country is the growth in spending on the major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security." The solution, according to the Heritage Foundation, is to cut entitlement spending. "Reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is the only way to get the budget under control," it says.
How can two narratives that are so clearly at odds with each other be so pervasive? Are we seriously supposed to believe that Paris Hilton has to dig between the cushions of her sofa to buy a can of tuna?
What reconciles these two themes is absent from our mainstream economic discourse: We "can't afford" all sorts of programs that are clearly in the common good because most of the benefits of our growing economy have gone to a very small group of Americans, who have, in turn, seen their taxes slashed again and again in the past six years. It's a story that isn't told as often as it should in the commercial press, because it's a supposedly "liberal" narrative -- never mind that über-conservative former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress that there is a "really serious problem here, as I've mentioned many times … in the consequent concentration of income that is rising."
Saying that the majority of the country's economic gains in recent years have gone to the top 1 percent of the income ladder understates the trend. You have to cut the pie into even smaller slices to get the full picture. Because, while the bottom half of the top 1 percent of the income distribution have done far better than the average wage slaves, it is a smaller slice still -- the top .01 percent -- that has grabbed most of the gains, seeing an impressive 250 percent increase in income between 1973 and 2005 from an economy that's grown by 160 percent.
An analysis by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez gives us the best perspective of what's going on for everyone else. They found that despite several periods of healthy growth between 1973 and 2005, the average income of all but the top 10 percent of the income ladder -- nine out of ten American families -- fell by 11 percent when adjusted for inflation. For three decades, economic growth in the United States has gone first and foremost to building today's modern Gilded Age. The recipients of those gains don't care about a fully funded Social Security system or a healthy Medicare program -- they don't need them.
Meanwhile, even as the top earners' incomes have gone through the roof, their tax burden has shriveled. At the same time, the share of federal revenues contributed by corporations has declined -- by two-thirds since 1962.
It's important to understand how that plays out in our national economic discourse. When people tell us that our economy cannot "afford" things like universal healthcare or paid sick days, it fits with the economic experience that most Americans have had in their real lives -- the benefits of our boom-boom economy have not gone to the great masses but to "someplace else."
Americans feel pinched. Polls show that they feel a time crunch -- not having enough time for family and friends -- and that they're anxious about getting into or staying in the middle class. Over the past generation, the economy has not been good to the typical, married-couple family (let alone single-parent families) and families feel, rightly, that they need to be careful about where their dollars go.
It's not that they're not working hard. The typical U.S. family puts in more time at work than ever before. The typical married couple works an additional 13.3 weeks per year -- 533 hours -- compared to a generation ago. But even though families are working more, their incomes have grown by only a third between 1973 and the present. That's much worse than the generation before; between 1947 and 1973, the typical married-couple family saw their income rise by 115 percent, and that was often just one parent's income. This was a period when most families could afford a stay-at-home mother. Of course, fewer families have that luxury today -- those with stay-at-home moms have the same inflation-adjusted median income in 2007 as they did in 1973. They haven't gained a penny from three decades of growth.
When we talk about the slow growth of family income, economists like to mention globalization, mechanization or other factors that require us to be lean and mean and more "competitive." The story line is that U.S. families have not seen their income grow because America has had to fight it out in a wide-open global economy, and these are lean times for workers.
But that's simply not true.
The economy -- as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) -- has grown by over 160 percent since 1973 (PDF). This is only slightly less than the period from 1947 to 1973 when GDP grew by 176 percent. That has come as Americans have become much more productive -- by over 80 percent since 1973 -- meaning it now takes fewer workers to produce the same number of widgets as it did in the past.
As each worker in the U.S. economy produces more "stuff" per hour, be that DVD players or clients served, those goods and services are being sold in greater numbers. In a healthy economy, that growth is shared between workers and investors, and wage growth should rise with productivity. This was the case in the decades between World War II and the early 1970s, when productivity and median wages both increased by an average of two percent to three percent every year. But since 1973, productivity has increased sharply, especially after the late 1990s, but median wage growth has been flat. So firms are getting much more output per worker, but they're not paying for it. They've pocketed the difference in executive compensation and corporate profits. The share of national income going to wages is at the lowest level ever recorded, while the piece of the pie gobbled up by corporate profits is at its highest point since 1960.
But when the masses ask for help paying for health insurance or child care, or request that everyone be given the right to paid sick days, we're told we cannot afford it. "Afford" seems to be a very special term in the current American context: Letting the wealthy take ever-bigger pieces of our national product is something we always seem able to afford.
We work hard. We -- the 99.9 percent -- and deserve a bigger piece of the pie. With a growing economy, we can afford it, and we all know just where to look for how to pay for it.
Heather Boushey is a senior economist with the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute.

Russia Suspends Arms Agreement Over U.S. Shield

Marching in sync to fulfill Nostradamus's prophesies. As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within new scientific understanding which new energy systems would reveal. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

NYT July 15, 2007
Russia Suspends Arms Agreement Over U.S. Shield
By ANDREW E. KRAMER and THOM SHANKER
MOSCOW, July 14 — President Vladimir V. Putin, angered by American plans to deploy a missile shield in Eastern Europe, formally notified NATO governments on Saturday that Russia will suspend its obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, a key cold war-era arms limitation agreement.
The decision ratcheted up tensions over the missile shield plan, but also reflected a trend of rising anti-Americanism and deep suspicion toward the West here as Russia’s March presidential elections approach.
Russia’s suspension will take effect in 150 days, according to a copy of the president’s decree posted on a Kremlin Web site. That delay leaves open the possibility of further negotiation on the 1990 treaty, which resulted in a huge wave of disarmament along the former East-West divide in Europe.
Despite a Foreign Ministry statement that Russia would reject any limitations on redeploying heavy weaponry on its Western border, the Kremlin’s move is not expected to radically transform the security situation.
But the decision is a strong indicator that the smiles and warm embraces between Presidents Bush and Putin just a few weekends ago at the so-called lobster summit in Maine did little to soften the Kremlin’s pique over proposals to build two American missile defense bases in former Soviet satellite states, Poland and the Czech Republic.
So on Saturday, Mr. Putin reached for a powerful diplomatic tool to fend off what he has described as American bullying and NATO and European encirclement, both economic and military, that the Kremlin believes encroaches into a Russian sphere of influence. White House officials expressed immediate disappointment after the announcement from Moscow, but pledged to continue to meet with their Russian counterparts to resolve the dispute.
“We’re disappointed Russia has suspended its participation for now, but we’ll continue to have discussions with them in the coming months on the best way to proceed in this area, that is in the interest of all parties involved and provides for security in Europe,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, the National Security Council spokesman.
Critics of the United States’ handling of relations with Russia have warned that the Bush administration was creating an environment in which the Putin government, emboldened by a flood of oil dollars and seeking to re-establish its status in the world, could pick and choose among its treaty obligations. After all, the Bush administration has put less stock in official treaty relations than many predecessors. Under Mr. Bush, the United States pulled out of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty so it could pursue the goal of a global antimissile shield, the exact effort that has so angered Mr. Putin and his inner circle.
Indeed, the Saturday announcement from Moscow was not much of a surprise, given Mr. Putin’s earlier warnings. Bush administration officials routinely point to other significant areas of cooperation — on halting nuclear proliferation, on battling terrorism and combating drug traffic — so White House officials reject assessments that relations with Russia are on the point of rupturing.
But while the Saturday announcement was, at least, unsettling to officials in Washington and in NATO capitals, senior policy analysts said it is likely only to strengthen the position of Mr. Putin’s leadership clique among Russian voters in the spring elections. Anti-American posturing has played well with the public, and it is encouraged in the state news media and through such means as leaflets distributed by Kremlin-sponsored youth groups. One depicts American warplanes loading body bags at a Moscow airport, for example.
Mr. Putin’s decree explained the decision to indefinitely suspend Russia’s treaty obligations as caused by “extraordinary circumstances” that “affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures.”
A separate statement by the Foreign Ministry identified these circumstances as unrelated to the missile shield plans — though Mr. Putin has linked the issues in previous speeches. In the most notable case, during a state of the nation speech to Parliament on April 26, Mr. Putin threatened to suspend observance of the treaty in response to the United States’ abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and plans to deploy missile-shield elements in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Still, Mr. Putin’s threat in April, and his execution of it on Saturday, left some arms-control experts scratching their heads because the conventional forces treaty has no formal provision for a signatory nation to suspend observance. A nation can withdraw from the treaty without violating its terms, but only after notifying the other signatory countries 150 days in advance.
The decree Mr. Putin signed on Saturday adhered to that time frame, but sought to apply it to suspension instead of withdrawal. The foreign ministry said this formulation complied with “international law.”
The Kremlin on Saturday offered six reasons for suspending the treaty, many of which reflected a deep bitterness in Moscow about what is perceived here as a string of broken promises as NATO expanded into the former Warsaw Pact countries after the fall of communism.
They included a claim that NATO expansion into Eastern Europe had beefed up the alliance’s military capabilities in violation of the treaty, a charge that NATO denied.
The statement said the new NATO member nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are not signatories of the treaty but have alliance weapons deployed on their territories. Russia maintains that NATO committed in 1999 to refrain from opening bases in new member countries, though now the United States is building facilities in Romania and Bulgaria. NATO says those are training sites.
Also, the statement noted that NATO governments have not ratified the 1999 amendments to the treaty, which Russia ratified in 2004. Western governments say they will not ratify them until Russia withdraws troops from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.
In a statement, NATO said member countries would convene a task force on Monday to formulate a response.
“NATO regrets this decision,” James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman, said in a telephone interview. “The allies consider this treaty an important foundation of European security. This is a disappointing move in the wrong direction.”
He said the treaty has no provision for suspension, only withdrawal. “Nobody is going to be splitting hairs here and requiring Russia withdraw,” he added. He also denied that NATO’s eastward expansion left the bloc in violation of the treaty. “All of this falls into a larger Russian concern of encirclement,” he said.
The European Union called the treaty suspension “regrettable.” Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in a telephone interview: “We appeal to everyone to start talking. This treaty is fundamental for the stability and security of Europe.”
In Germany, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Russia’s decision “was a real cause of concern.” Some members of Germany’s governing coalition have repeatedly criticized the American missile shield plan, saying it could lead to just such a move by Russia.
A statement posted by Russia’s Foreign Ministry said flatly that Russia would halt inspections allowed under the treaty and claim the right to redeploy heavy weaponry along its western and southern borders, but would do so only in response to any possible NATO redeployment. It also suggested that the suspension was Russia’s first official rejection of the arms limitations treaties of the Soviet Union.
A deputy foreign minister, Sergei I. Kislyak, said Russia was not “shutting the door on dialogue” on the treaty, leaving open the possibility of a negotiated retreat from the position announced Saturday.
However, Russian commentators with ties to the Kremlin were quick to praise the suspension. “Today’s decision is not propaganda,” Gleb O. Pavlovsky, a Kremlin-linked political analyst, said in remarks carried by Interfax. It comes “against the backdrop of the world’s rearmament near our borders,” he said. “If today’s message is ignored, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty will be next.”
Andrew E. Kramer reported from Moscow, and Thom Shanker from Washington. Judy Dempsey contributed reporting from Berlin.

Former Surgeon General Says He Was Muzzled

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee."The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party," Carmona added.

........ (on the physics/energy front: Space Energy Access Systems, Inc. (SEAS) Strategic Overview - Research shows that over the past 75 years a number of significant breakthroughs in energy generation and propulsion have occurred that have been systematically suppressed. Since the time of Tesla, T. Townsend Brown and others in the early and mid-twentieth century we have had the technological ability to replace fossil fuel, internal combustion and nuclear power generating systems with advanced non-polluting electromagnetic and electro-gravitic systems)

NYT July 10, 2007
Former Surgeon General Says He Was Muzzled
By REUTERS
Filed at 4:25 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.
"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who served as the nation's top doctor from 2002 until 2006, told a House of Representatives committee.
"The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in a democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science, or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds. The job of surgeon general is to be the doctor of the nation, not the doctor of a political party," Carmona added.
Carmona said Bush administration political appointees censored his speeches and kept him from talking out publicly about certain issues, including the science on embryonic stem cell research, contraceptives and his misgivings about the administration's embrace of "abstinence-only" sex education.
Carmona's comments came two days before a Senate committee is due to hold a hearing on Bush's nomination of Dr. James Holsinger as his successor. The administration allowed Carmona to finish his term as surgeon general last year without a replacement in place.
Gay rights activists and several leading Democrats have criticized Holsinger for what they see as "anti-gay" writings, but the White House has defended him as well qualified.
U.S. surgeons general in the past have issued influential reports on subjects including smoking, AIDS and mental health.
"Political interference with the work of the surgeon general appears to have reached a new level in this administration," said Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to which Carmona testified.
"The public expects that a surgeon general will be immune from political pressure and be allowed to express his or her professional views based on the best available science," he said.
Carmona said he was politically naive when he took the job, but became astounded at the partisanship and manipulation he witnessed as administration political appointees hemmed him in.
Bush in 2001 allowed federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research, but only with heavy restrictions that many scientists condemn as stifling.
Carmona said the administration prevented him from voicing views on stem cell research. Many scientists see it as a promising avenue for curing many diseases. But because it involves destroying human embryos, opponents call it immoral.
Carmona said he was prevented from talking publicly even about the science underpinning the research to enable the U.S. public to have a better understanding of a complicated issue. He said most of the public debate over the matter has been driven by political, ideological or theological motivations.
"I was blocked at every turn. I was told the decision had already been made -- stand down, don't talk about it," he said.
Carmona testified with two predecessors, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who served under President Ronald Reagan, and Dr. David Satcher, named by Clinton but whose term ended under Bush.
Carmona said some of his predecessors told him, "We have never seen it as partisan, as malicious, as vindictive, as mean-spirited as it is today, and you clearly have worse than anyone's had."

U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?

David Walker is the nation's top accountant, the comptroller general of the United States. "..the current health care system is way too expensive, and overrated. On cost we're number one in the world. We spend 50 percent more of our economy on health care than any nation on earth," Walker says. "We have the largest uninsured population of any major industrialized nation. We have above average infant mortality, below average life expectancy, and much higher than average medical error rates for an industrialized nation....." (is he confirming Michael Moore's Sicko?). "You know the American people, I tell you, they are absolutely starved for two things: the truth, and leadership," Walker says. (What's he saying, the free people are being lied to?????) He calls it a fiscal wake up tour, and he is telling civic groups, university forums and newspaper editorial boards that the U.S. has spent, promised, and borrowed itself into such a deep hole it will be unable to climb out if it does not act now. As Walker sees it, the survival of the republic is at stake. Add to this the Trouble with Physics and the energy stagnation the last 50 years, and we have a tsunami of ultimate magnitude heading our way

U.S. Heading For Financial Trouble?
July 8, 2007
(CBS) This segment was originally broadcast on March 4, 2007. It was updated on July 8, 2007. When the stock market soars or plunges, everyone pays attention. But short term results aren't that important to the man you're about to meet. David Walker thinks the biggest economic peril facing the nation is being ignored, and for nearly two years now he has been traveling the country like an Old Testament prophet, urging people to wake up before its too late. Who is David Walker and why should we care? As correspondent Steve Kroft first reported earlier this year, he is the nation's top accountant, the comptroller general of the United States. He's totaled up our government's income, liabilities, and future obligations and concluded that our current standard of living is unsustainable unless some drastic action is taken. And he's not alone. It's been called the "dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows" – a set of financial truths so inconvenient that most elected officials don't even want to talk about them, which is exactly why David Walker does.
"I would argue that the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility," Walker tells Kroft. David Walker is a prudent man and a highly respected public official. As comptroller general of the United States he runs he Government Accountability Office, the GAO, which audits the government's books and serves as the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress. He has more than 3,000 employees, a budget of a half a billion dollars, and a message he considers urgent. "I'm going to show you some numbers…they’re all big and they’re all bad," he says. So bad, that Walker has given up on elected officials and taken his message directly to taxpayers and opinion makers, hoping to shape the debate in the next presidential election. "You know the American people, I tell you, they are absolutely starved for two things: the truth, and leadership," Walker says. He calls it a fiscal wake up tour, and he is telling civic groups, university forums and newspaper editorial boards that the U.S. has spent, promised, and borrowed itself into such a deep hole it will be unable to climb out if it doesn’t act now. As Walker sees it, the survival of the republic is at stake. "What’s going on right now is we’re spending more money than we make…we’re charging it to credit card…and expecting our grandchildren to pay for it. And that’s absolutely outrageous," he told the editorial board of the Seattle Post Intelligencer. You have heard this before, from Ross Perot 15 years ago. You might have even thought the problem had been solved, when President Clinton announced, "Tonight, I come before you to announce that the federal deficit … will be simply zero." "Well, those days are gone. We've gone from surpluses to huge deficits and our long range situation is much worse," Walker says. "President Bush would argue that the economy is in pretty good shape, unemployment is down, the deficit is actually less than expected," Kroft remarks. "The fact is, is that we don't face an immediate crisis. And, so people say, 'What's the problem?' The answer is, we suffer from a fiscal cancer. It is growing within us. And if we do not treat it, it could have catastrophic consequences for our country," Walker replies. The cancer, Walker says, are massive entitlement programs we can no longer afford, exacerbated by a demographic glitch that began more than 60 years ago, a dramatic spike in the fertility rate called the "baby boom." Beginning next year, and for 20 years thereafter, 78 million Americans will become pensioners and medical dependents of the U.S. taxpayer. "The first baby boomer will reach 62 and be eligible for early retirement of Social Security January 1, 2008. They'll be eligible for Medicare just three years later. And when those boomers start retiring in mass, then that will be a tsunami of spending that could swamp our ship of state if we don't get serious," Walker explains. To illustrate their impact, he uses a power point presentation to show what would happen in 30 years if the U.S. maintains its current course and fulfills all of the promises politicians have made to the public on things like Social Security and Medicare. What would happen in 2040 if nothing changes? "If nothing changes, the federal government's not gonna be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits. It won't have money left for anything else – national defense, homeland security, education, you name it," Walker warns. Walker says you could eliminate all waste and fraud and the entire Pentagon budget and the long-range financial problem still wouldn't go away, in what's shaping up as an actuarial nightmare. Part of the problem, Walker acknowledges, is that there won't be enough wage earners to support the benefits of the baby boomers. "But the real problem, Steve, is health care costs. Our health care problem is much more significant than Social Security," he says. Asked what he means by that, Walker tells Kroft, "By that I mean that the Medicare problem is five times greater than the Social Security problem." The problem with Medicare, Walker says, is people keep living longer, and medical costs keep rising at twice the rate of inflation. But instead of dealing with the problem, he says, the president and the Congress made things much worse in Dec. 2003, when they expanded the Medicare program to include prescription drug coverage. "The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s," Walker argues. Asked why, Walker says, "Well, because we promise way more than we can afford to keep. Eight trillion dollars added to what was already a 15 to $20 trillion under-funding. We're not being realistic. We can't afford the promises we've already made, much less to be able, piling on top of 'em." With one stroke of the pen, Walker says, the federal government increased existing Medicare obligations nearly 40 percent over the next 75 years. "We’d have to have eight trillion dollars today, invested in treasury rates, to deliver on that promise," Walker explains. Asked how much we actually have, Walker says, "Zip." So where's that money going to come from? "Well it's gonna come from additional taxes, or it's gonna come from restructuring these promises, or it's gonna come from cutting other spending," Walker says. He is not suggesting that the nation do away with Medicare or prescription drug benefits. He does believe the current health care system is way too expensive, and overrated. "On cost we're number one in the world. We spend 50 percent more of our economy on health care than any nation on earth," he says. "We have the largest uninsured population of any major industrialized nation. We have above average infant mortality, below average life expectancy, and much higher than average medical error rates for an industrialized nation," Walker points out. Walker says we have promised almost unlimited healthcare to senior citizens who never see the bills, and the government already is borrowing money to pay them. He says the system is unsustainable. "It's the number one fiscal challenge for the federal government, it's the number one fiscal challenge for state governments and it's the number one competitive challenge for American business. We're gonna have to dramatically and fundamentally reform our health care system in installments over the next 20 years," Walker tells Kroft. And if we don't? "And if we don't, it could bankrupt America," Walker argues. You’re probably expecting to hear from someone who disagrees with the comptroller general’s numbers, projections, and analysis. But hardly anyone does. He is accompanied on the wake-up tour by economists from the conservative Heritage Foundation, the left-leaning Brookings Institution, and the non-partisan Concord Coalition. The only dissenters seem to be a small minority of economists who believe either that the U.S. can grow its way out of the problem, or that Walker is over-stating it. "The Wall Street Journal for example calls you 'Chicken Little,' running around saying that the 'sky is falling, the sky is falling,'" Kroft remarks. "Unfortunately they don't get it. I don't know anybody who has done their homework, has researched history, and who's good at math who would tell you that we can grow our way out of this problem," Walker replies. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke validated much of Walker's take on the situation at congressional hearings this year, and so did ranking Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Budget Committee. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota is the chairman. Sen. Conrad thinks David Walker is "providing an enormous public service." Asked if he agrees with Walker’s figures and his projections, Sen. Conrad says, "I do. You know, I mean we could always question the precise nature of this projection or that projection. But, that misses the point. The larger story that he is telling is exactly correct." Conrad acknowledges that most people in Washington are aware how bad the situation is. "They know in large measure here, Republicans and Democrats, that we are on a course that doesn't add up," the senator tells Kroft. "Why doesn't somebody do something about it?" Kroft asks. "Because it's always easier not to. 'Cause it's always easier to defer, to kick the can down the road to avoid making choices. You know, you get in trouble in politics when you make choices," Sen. Conrad says. Asked if he thinks taxes should be raised, the senator says, "I believe first of all, we need more revenue. We need to be tough on spending. And we need to reform the entitlement programs … we need to do all of it." But he admits he doesn't think there's a consensus for raising taxes. "Any politician who tells you that we can solve our problem without reforming Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is not telling you the truth," Walker told an audience at the University of Denver. Over the next year, the nation’s top accountant will be traveling to the early primary states, telling voters that we need to begin raising taxes or government revenues and put a cap on federal spending if we want to maintain our economic security and standard of living. "If you tell them the truth, if you give them the facts, if you explain this in terms of not just numbers but values and people, they will get it and empower their elected officials to make tough choices," Walker argues. Asked if he knows any politicians willing to raise taxes or cut back benefits, Walker says, "I don't know politicians that like to raise taxes. I don't know politicians that like to cut spending, but I think what we have to recognize is this is not just about numbers. We are mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren at record rates, and that is not only an issue of fiscal irresponsibility, it's an issue of immorality."
Produced by Andy Court© MMVII, CBS Interactive

Russia issues new missile threat

As common sense in science is lost with the continued stagnation of our energy base and deep troubling theoretical foundational issues in physics, so too, Civilization's Survival Parameters fly out of sight, out of mind, along with the values and morals inherent within these expanded/holistic/scientific/sustainable/survival parameters which new energy systems would reveal. Unlike Schrödinger's Cat '...is Dead. No, wait. Schrödinger's Cat is Not Dead. No, wait....." our destiny is sure and certain. For the power of the 'forces in motion' as noted by the media headlines in this blog, are of such magnitude, that nothing short of profound scientific revelation and energy breakthroughs can offset and reverse the 'clear and lethal' present danger.

http://www.fuel2000.net/

BBC NEWS 2007/07/04

Russia issues new missile threat
Russia has raised the idea of moving new missile forces to Kaliningrad, close to Poland and Lithuania.
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov linked the possible move to US plans for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Russia has already threatened to hit back by targeting missiles at Europe.
Mr Ivanov said there would be no need to move extra forces to Kaliningrad if the US agreed to use Russian facilities instead of the Polish and Czech bases.
Russia says the US plans for a limited missile defence shield, including bases close to Russia's borders, represent a threat to its security.

If our proposals are not accepted... an asymmetrical and effective response has been found Sergei Ivanov First deputy prime minister

It has proposed that the US should use a radar facility in Azerbaijan, and another installation currently being built in southern Russia.
US President George W Bush has described the idea as "innovative" but indicated that the US will press ahead with the plans for a radar station in the Czech Republic, and a missile base in Poland.
The US says its missile shield is not directed at Russia, but at what it considers "rogue states" such as Iran.

'Effective response'
"If our proposals are accepted, the need will disappear for Russia to deploy new missile weaponry in the European part of the country, including in Kaliningrad Region," Mr Ivanov said, on a visit to Uzbekistan.
"After this, you will forget about the term 'Cold War'. It will simply disappear. There simply won't be cause for speaking of it," he added.
"If our proposals are not accepted - and I cannot rule that out... an asymmetrical and effective response has been found."
Mr Ivanov is a former defence minister, and his current brief includes overall control of the defence sector. He is also seen as a possible successor to President Putin.
'Empty threat'
Correspondents say Mr Ivanov's comments indicate that US hopes of toning down Russia's Cold War-style rhetoric by hosting a relaxed weekend meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Mr Bush in Maine have not borne fruit.
Russian defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer described Mr Ivanov's comments were an "empty threat".
Russia had no missiles with the right range to be fired from Kaliningrad and hit the proposed interceptors in Poland, he said.
"It's a threat aimed at the Polish people" designed to encourage them to protest against the US plans, Mr Felgenhauer said.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/6269408.stmPublished: 2007/07/04 15:20:21 GMT© BBC MMVII