Why Oil Prices Have Dropped

Oil is a commodity, the price of which is controlled only by a few firms and nations. When the Republican Oil Party controlled the White House and both houses of Congress recently, oil firms knew they could jack up their prices at will, so long as demand was not impaired too much, because the Republicans wouldn't do anything about it.

Since August 2008, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped from over $140 to less than fifty dollars. Likewise, the price of a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline has swooned from about $4.25 a gallon to anywhere from $1.57 to $1.79. The price of oil and gasoline has plunged about 60 percent.

The demand for gasoline dove a little over 4 percent from November 2007 to November 2008. That only accounts for a little of the 60 percent drop in prices. So what accounts for the rest?

The Democratic Party will control both houses of congress and the White House in January 2009, and they are pushing for a green economy, which may leave little market for oil and its products. The oil companies are pushing the price down because they control that product and they want to head off the green revolution. Keeping gasoline so low may make it prohibitive to launch a successful green revolution and render oil as obsolete as a horse and buggy.

On the other hand, last month the Organization of Petroleum Countries (OPEC) announced the sharpest reduction of the supply of oil on record in order to arrest the rapid plunge in the prices of gasoline and oil. In other words, they decided to ensure that the supply did not equal demand in order to boost the price of its products. It's all manipulation. Supply does not equal demand, and never has.

In other words, when the price of gasoline is over $1.50 a gallon, the price is being manipulated upward. And it is likely the supply is rigged anytime the price is over a dollar a gallon, and always has been.

This suggests that gasoline and oil prices will remain relatively low until the Democrats lose a house in congress or the White House. In other words, prices will remain low for at least two years until the next election; and longer if the Republicans fail to gain control of one of the three branchs of government.

One further note: As I've mentioned before, this all proves that the concept of "peak oil" is an illusion.

Obama's Problem--the Bush Tax Cuts

The Tax Issue: Why I voted for Obama

I voted for Barack Obama because of only one issue: the Bush tax cuts.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain campaigned on a promise of extending Bush's tax reductions for the rich, as well as subtracting another 80+ billion dollars from their tax bills. Obama insisted he was going to kill the Bush tax giveaways sometime after taking office, and my research showed this was the only intelligent thing to do.

The Bush tax cuts are one of the major reasons why only slightly more than 2 million private sector jobs have been created since June 2001 (less by the time you read this). On a per year average, this is the most pathetic job growth for any business expansion in United States history, no matter what criteria is used. The tax breaks are also a major reason why per capita real family income plummeted over $2,000 per year since Bush took office.

Republicans assume that if you give the rich such favors, they’ll invest their money and magically create jobs; but that’s not how most publicly traded limited liability corporations work.

When Bush slashed taxes for the investor class, he gave them billions of dollars they wouldn’t otherwise have had. CEO’s hungrily eyed the newly available cash because the stock markets had experienced large losses since the end of the Clinton years. In a time of weak demand, CEO’s needed to entice the beneficiaries of Bush’s generosity into purchasing their stocks, thereby bidding up their prices. In industry after industry, they did this by pushing up profits and dividends; and they achieved this by shipping jobs overseas, by laying people off and by cutting or holding steady real wages, salaries and benefits.

This is precisely how the Bush tax giveaways placed downward pressure on the growth of jobs, wages, salaries and benefits. And that’s why a ballot marked for McCain was a vote for increasing joblessness during the current financial crisis.

And here is where those tax cuts especially come into play. The problem with the U.S. economy isn't the sub-prime mess. That's only a symptom of the real problem. The mal-distribution of income and wealth during the past thirty years has created the current economic meltdown (That’s another story).

Obama’s stimulus may drag the economy out of the recession sometime next year, but without repealing the tax cuts, there should be a relatively swift return to economic meltdown after a short and feeble business expansion.

That’s why the president-elect should raise capital gains and income tax rates closer to fifty percent for any income beyond $250,000. Less money would then be available to bid up stock prices, and this would relieve pressure on CEO’s to cut jobs, wages, salaries and benefits.

To see the obvious, one only has to look at what occurred when President Clinton raised the top tax rate: record job creation, middle incomes rising in real terms, and the already giant wealth and income gap began to close, however slightly.

We also can’t forget the economy boomed from 1940 through the early 1960s, despite a 91 percent top tax rate. But those tax codes gave the affluent class incentives to invest in ways that helped the middle class sustain and grow; and this allowed many millionaires to pay a real tax rate far below 91 percent.

Obama and the Democrats would be doing all citizens a favor by raising the top tax rates while giving the wealthy tax breaks if they invest their money in industries that ensure domestic job, wage, salary, and benefits growth. Ultimately, this is what an economy is for, and that’s why Obama should follow through with his pledge to immediately reverse Bush’s tax cut folly.

The Federal Reserve Lowers the Federal Funds Rate to the Lowest Level Ever

As per The Rigged Game, my prediction that interest rates would hit record lows became reality today when the Federal Reserve bank reduced its federal funds rate to .25 percent. Unfortunately, it will do little good since fewer and fewer people have money to borrow anyway, and the rate reduction doesn't do anything about the real problem with today's economy, and that is the mal-distribution of income and wealth that has occurred over the last thirty years.

The Rigged Game: News and Views

The Labor Department today announced that U.S. employers cut over 530,000 people from their payrolls last month.

Last Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded the U.S. economy had gone into recession in December of 2007, confirming what was obvious. However, it takes months to acquire the data and then to analyze it, so the researchers from the NBER should be excused from being tardy in making their call.

I wrote on these pages months ago that the NBER would likely look first at November 2007 as the beginning of the downturn. I was a month off the mark, but it was obvious by early 2008 that the economy had slid into recession. For some strange and unknown reason, some so-called experts insisted we were heading into a recession as late as last week.

I called November for a reason. The unemployment rate always rises before a recession begins. But the most it ever surges before the onset of a recession is .7 percent. In March 2007 the rate was 4.3 percent and in November 2007 it was 5.0 percent. So we had reached the maximum rate, plus all the bad economic news began hitting in December 2007. However, since then the Bureau of Labor Statistics has revised its monthly unemployment rates. The rate grew from 4.4 percent in March 2007 to 5.0 percent in December of the same year. That's still a sharp rise while in a business expansion.

This fulfills my prediction made in September 2006 that a recession would unfold somewhere between the fall of 2007 and the following summer.

The jobs losses will continue to mount and this contraction could be the worst since 1981-82, or even since the Great Depression.

Henry Paulson, George W. Bush, the Republcian Party and the Continued Destruction of the United States Economy--A draft

The Bush administration is looking at another $800 billion dollar income transfer scheme to give rich investors via government purchases of Citigroup Stock, as well the buying of bad mortgage debt from this and other banks. This is called extreme socialism for the affluent, the base of the Republican Party, as well as of many Democrats.

Two days ago, I received an unsolicited preapproved loan from Wells Fargo, which I have chosen not to accept. It makes me wonder if the credit crisis is real, and the answer is that it is not. Paulson, Bush and Obama are fighting an illusion with borrowed money that may send this country into bankruptcy.

Buying stock in Citigroup is intended to push up its stock price, which helps only rich investors. The same holds true when the government takes on the bad mortgage debt of banks.

However, the obvious thing to do is to purchase the bad mortgages, and then provide favorable terms to home buyers, but that's not what's going on here, unless Paulson and Bush are incredibly stupid. They are robbing everybody's future social security, medicare and medicade payments. When those debts come due, Republicans and Democrats will turn around and tell us the government doesn't have the money, although they can borrow trillions of dollars and bail out the rich. They'll never have a few extra billion for hard working citizens, unless it will avert violent revolution.

What Paulson and Bush are doing should demonstrate how much the Republican Party and its base of "the have and the have mores" are freeloading parasites on the rest of us.

As for the real problem plaguing us, so much money and wealth have been transfered from working people to the rich over the last thirty years, we can't afford to buy things even if the money is available. Espeically now that the equity in our homes is being destroyed. We can't stupidly borrow against our homes anymore, or if we're barely making payments on our bills now.

I didn't borrow against my house, and maybe that's why Wells Fargo is so desperate to give me a loan at zero percent interst for the next year, and less than five percent afterwards for the life of the loan.

The real problem is that wages and salaries have dropped during the Republican reign of lies, fraud and deceit (aided by the Democrats and their leaders Pelosi and Reid), and we can't afford to borrow more money in the aggregate to keep the economy afloat.

So it doesn't matter if there's money to borrow or not, because we are unable to do so in sufficient amounts to keep the economy growing. The only way to do that is to establish an economic climate, much like the New Deal, in which wages and salaries grow in real terms.

Otherwise, Paulson and Bush are just throwing good money after bad; and perhaps that's their intent; rob from the working folks and give to the rich.

Obama Economically Foolish

President elect Barack Obama is not going to increase taxes on the rich, and he is being pressured by republicans to reduce capital gains and corporate taxes. He has no option: He must increase all of those taxes because doing so will increase jobs. And right now in the middle of a recession is the time to do it.

Obama seems to be heading economically center-right, with a dash of green economics thrown in as a concession to the progressives of the Democratic Party, such as Henry Waxman. But this economy needs to head hard left before it can move back to the right.

Decreasing taxes on the rich will only curtail job growth. Bush tried to do this; and from June 2001 to now less than 3 million private sector jobs were created, an all time low. If Obama wants to continue a policy of low job growth and declining family income, reducing the taxes on the rich is the way to go.

See the article below on why I voted for Obama and you will discover why tax cuts for the rich destroy jobs.

The New Economic Forecaster

I am forming an economic forecasting company. I haven't decided on a name yet. I seem to be a lot more accurate making economic predictions than the people who are earning lots of money doing it already, so I am taking the plunge.

Interest Rates and the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve is expected to reduce interest rates to historic levels in December, matching a prediction I made twenty-six months.

Two months ago, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the Fed would not reduce rates anymore. I said hogwash and wrote on these pages that he would slice rates even more, and to no avail. But he has no choice.

Currently, the federal funds rate sits at one percent. The Fed is running out of bullets to combat this recession, which some whackos think the U.S. has not yet gone into. There is a good chance the Fed may reduce the Federal Fund Rate to zero before the spring.

The Tax Issue: Why I Voted for Obama Over McCain--a draft

I based my vote in the recent presidential election on only one issue: taxes. That's why I voted for Barack Obama and against John McCain.

McCain wanted to continue Bush's tax cuts for the rich and then add another 80+ billion dollars in cuts to it. Obama campaigned saying he wanted to eliminate those tax reductions, and this is exactly what he needs to do if he wants to get us out of this recession.

Unfortunately, a few weeks back Obama said he may not seek to immediately eliminate those tax cuts even though they are proven job killers.

Republicans still cling to the notion that tax cuts for the rich will stimulate job growth, but reality has proven them wrong time and again. Only 2.7 million private sector jobs were created from June 2001 until now, the worst job creation on record for anywhere near that length of time.

Tax reductions for the rich result in the suppression of job growth. And this is particularly clear in the Bush case.

When publicly traded, limited liability corporations experience declining revenues, dividends and share prices, CEO's look for ways to attract investors to purchase their shares and bid up their stock prices. A tax cut for the rich presents an opportunity for CEO's to lure that newly available money to their stocks and away from their rivals since the affluent tend to invest this extra cash rather than buy stuff.

During the financially dreary Bush years, and with the economy still weak from 2001-05, CEO's needed to make their companies more attractive to investors. They did this by pushing up the bottom line: profits. They achieved this by shipping jobs overseas, by laying people off and by cutting wages, salaries and benefits.

That's why the result of the Bush tax cuts was historically anemic job growth and a $2,000+ plus drop in real family income. It's also why the rich got richer. In other words, the Bush tax cuts for the rich redistributed income upward from the middle class.

The Bush tax cuts weakened the demand sector terribly, with the result possibly the worst economic expansion since statistics have been kept (2001-2007) and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

A vote for McCain was a vote for continuing this insanity by redistributing more income toward the upper classes and away from people who actually produce and purchase goods and services: otherwise known as the wealth of nations. Things would have gotten worse under McCain.

On the other hand, Obama was astute enough to declare that he wanted to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire. Whether he recognized those cuts were job destroyers or not is unimportant.

It doesn't take half a brain to figure out that the problem with the U.S. economy isn't the sub-prime mess because that's only a symptom of the real cause: the mal-distribution of income and wealth during the past thirty years.

The Economy Will Flirt or Go into Deflation

The U.S. economy should begin flirting with deflation soon, something predictable as far back as 2001 when the economy last brushed up against it. I also predicted its coming over two years ago, based on my studies that became my book, The Rigged Game.

Deflation is an overall decline in prices; a widespread drop in prices reduces profit margins. This condition triggers additional layoffs and other cutbacks than would otherwise be the case in an economy dominated by publicly traded limited liability corporations, jsut like the U.S. economy.

Most CEO’s know little as to how their companies produce goods and services. Let’s face it. It’s difficult for a person to know what’s going on if they’re the CEO of a multi-national corporation manufacturing airplane parts when they just transferred over from Walmart or some other unrelated corporation; and even if they've been with the same company for years and years, they most likely know little of what is going on in their factories and stores; or how their products are produced; and that is precisely why rising profits, dividends and share prices are primarily the sole determinate of the effectiveness of corporate leaders.

When business plummets due to a recession, CEO’s have no option but to reduce costs, because that's all they know how to do; and those cutbacks include employment, wages, salaries, benefits and business-to-business transactions. But then when prices drop on top of that, companies are more likely to experience losses as profit margins on their products narrow or are eliminated. At that point there is no choice; it's cut, cut, cut.

While deflation is good for citizens who have jobs, since it enhances their spending power, it increases the numbers of the unemployed, making the recession worse as more and more citizens are thrown out of work. Deflation can turn a recession into a Great Depression.

One final note: Deflation or even flirting with it signals that the re-distribution of income and wealth from working people to the affluent since Ronald Reagan was president has gone too far, inasmuch as it has choked off the demand for goods and services. That's why the mass of prices are likely to be going down in a deflationary spiral. That condition is precisely what the New Dealers figured out when they took office in 1933. And that's what they sought to reverse. They did it quickly and successfully by re-distributing income back to working people.

Warmongering, Anti-Jesus Christ David Reinhard Leaving the Oregonian Newspaper

David Reinhard is leaving the Oregonian newspaper. I say good riddance to the man that unapologetically repeated White House fabrications in efforts to drum up support for the profitable but murderous misadventure in Iraq. His support for profitable murder and mayhem on behalf of Republican benefactors was unremitting. How this blood thirsty monster could go to his church every Sunday and call himself a good Catholic is beyond comprehension.

For example, Bush administration officials lied and told us al-Qaeda and Iraqi officials met in the Czech Republic. They insisted this served as proof that a link existed between the two. As usual, in his column, Reinhard uncritically repeated the White House assertion. He never retracted his statement or apologized for being wrong about this after facts showed it was untrue.

Reinhard’s lack of honesty has always shown how morally bankrupt he is. As a dishonest warmonger, Reinhard’s hands are covered with the blood of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, and that’s why I say “good riddance.”

Barney Frank has it Right!

Finally! Someone is talking sanity during our national economic crisis. Intelligent ideas are obviously not coming from the intellectual crackheads of far right institutes, like the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation. Instead, the Democrats are rocking intelligently with a proposed trillion dollar economic stimulus plan. In The Rigged Game, I mentioned that President Bush made all the wrong moves when it came to combating the effects of the recession of 2001. The downturn began and ended in 2001, but the negative impacts lasted at least until late in 2004.

State and local governments have to balance their budgets. So from 2001 to 2004, those governments experienced reductions in tax revenues. This forced them to slash programs and lay-off employees; they had to hack wages and salaries. When the governor’s of several states pleaded with him for federal assistance, Bush was simply too stupid or too uncaring and turned them down.

Bush probably rebuffed their requests because he is a conservative sociopath, as well as something of a psychopath. In other words, his ideology told him those government employees were not rich, and his government prefers to only help the affluent; and of course, as a noted sociopath, he didn’t care what happened to the little people that couldn’t do him any favors.

Now the Democrats, led by Congressman Barney Frank, are seeking to reverse the stupidity of Bush by seeking to give a trillion dollar booster shot to the economy; and one of those ways is to shove some of that borrowed money to state and local governments to combat the effects of what should be labeled "The Nightmare Created by George W Bush and the Republican Party." This economic calamity should be deep.

By all accounts, the economic system has not been threatened with as much financial ruin since the Great Depression; and that was caused by another batch of Republicans during the nineteen-twenties operating on the same ideological principals as Bush and his gang.

Under the Democratic plan, hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars will be funneled toward state and local governments. This should keep their employees working and local and state programs doing what they’re supposed to be doing: helping people. And this cash flow will act as a brake, slowing the economic descent, and possibly even preventing it from reaching the bottom, wherever that may be.

In other news:

In September 2007, based on my book, The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed, I made several predictions:

A recession would hit between the autumn of 2007 and the following summer for example.

Another prediction I made back then included home mortgage interest rates will drop below five percent, and possibly four percent. That’s not an indication of a healthy economy; rather it’s a sign of how weak it is. In his rush to enverate the economy Bush and his gang were aided by many corporate Democrats like the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

The political establishment of the Republicans and Democrats continue to try bail out what shouldn’t be bailed out: rich folks. All they’re doing is leading us into bankruptcy and likely leading us to defeat at the hands of al-Qaida. That will be the first time a criminal organization centered in the White House, aided and abetted by their lackies in congress, will have led this nation to defeat at the hands of another band of criminals and their lackies.

Conservative radio talk show Lars Larsen continues to demonstrate his remarkable ignorance. A couple of days ago, he insisted the Carter years 1976-1980 were worse than today. How stupid! Last I looked, this is a guy who has a full size replica of George W. Bush standing near him on the television broadcast of his radio show. Apparently, he doesn’t listen to a word of what the president says. Maybe that's why he is so ignorant. Bush, his Treasury Secretary, and his head of the Federal Reserve Bank, all call the current financial crisis the nastiest since the Great Depression.

Lars told a caller a month or so ago that yellow cake uranium was discovered in Iraq. He didn’t say when or by whom, but the conversation indicated he was talking about after the U.S. invasion. Is Lars totally ignorant, a liar, or something else? Because he isn't telling the truth. Maybe he just listens to too much right-wing talk radio.

The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed

Based on my book The Rigged Game: Corporate America and a People Betrayed, I made several predictions in September 2007. One of them was that a recession would occur sometime between the autumn of 2007 and the summer of 2008. That prediction has obviously come true, but it wasn't that big of a deal when you consider I made that prediction in the autumn of 2006. All recessions follow the same patterns as outlined in my book, and it was obvious that we were on our way to another one two years ago.

I wrote several articles about the coming recession along with my predictions, and not even the good liberals at http://www.alternet.org/, http://www.commondreams.org/, or Amy Goodman's website were willing to publish it.

Now here is where things become more interesting. I predicted this recession would be at least as bad as the downturn of 1981-82 based on the horrible job creation machine under the Republican Bush administration, the decline of family income, the continued transfer of income and wealth from working people to the rich, and the likely bursting of the housing market. The recession of the early eighties was the worst since the Great Depression. This current crisis will beat it thanks to Republican Party economics.

In September 2007, a conservative wealth manager asked me to write some of my predictions. I said we were heading into a recession; the Dow Jones could drop below 8,000 and possibly even 6,000. The Dow fell below 8000 today, October 10, 2008.

I also wrote the economy will flirt with, and possibly fall into deflation. Inflation is cooling, signaling the coming of deflation. If the economy moves into it, the result will be the worst business downturn since the Great Depression, and possibly as bad as parts of that.

By the way, in September 2007, I predicted the unemployment rate would rise to between six and twelve percent. We hit 6.1 percent two months ago.

One final note; this is a Republican created recession. It has been brought about the work of its elites to transfer more and more income and wealth from working people throughout the world to their base, "the have and the have mores." Their proposals to fix their problem are foolish.

Right now there are crack head intellectuals working for the Republican Party trying to place the blame for the housing meltdown on a small, poverty stricken community organizing group called ACORN. Barack Obama has tenuous and distant ties to that organization. So obviously the current recession has been caused by Obama and ACORN according to these intellectual crack heads of the Republican Party.

Don't Blame ACORN: Bernanke, Paulson, Bush and the Republicans are Making All the Wrong Moves

Bernanke, Paulson, Bush: Making All the Wrong Moves

It’s obvious by now that the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and U.S. Teasury Secretary Henry Paulson have made all the wrong moves. Lot’s of people (including yours truly, see http://john-hively.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html) said it wouldn’t help the economy when Paulson asked congress to approve that $700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout two weeks ago.

Paulson, Bush and Bernanke can throw $10 trillion at the financial markets and that’s just good money following bad because the liquidity of the credit markets isn’t the problem with the economy. These guys are idiots who think we might be heading into a recession if this credit liquidity problem persists.

First of all, we’ve been in a recession since at least November of last year. Second of all, the problem we have today is that so much wealth and income have been taken from the poor and the middle class through legislation and the financial markets that the demand for goods and services has become slack. Most of this legislation, such as free trade agreements, provide incentives for corporations to ship middle class jobs to low wage countries, hurting the demand sector.

Republicans have demanded these income transfer programs for forty years and they’ve gotten what they desired: a massive transfer of income and wealth to President Bush’s self-proclaimed base of “the have and the have mores. That’s who the Republicans (and many Democrats) serve.

Of course, we can’t fail the Republican push to mention the deregulation of financial and real estate markets. Does the name Republican Senator Phil (the whiner) Gramm ring a bell?

Let there be no mistake; this economic disaster is the creation of the Republican party and its failed ideologies.

But this complete failure has them foolishly looking at other excuses.

This morning Bill O’Reilly hosted some Republican moron on his radio show who insisted this financial calamity should be laid at the feet of a small community organizing group called ACORN. Apparently, Bill is dumb enough to believe Republican claims that this group caused this multi-trillion dollar catastrophe. No other claim to blame could be more stupid.

In the meantime, Bush, Bernanke and Paulson will continue to throw good money after bad in useless efforts to save Wall Street and the financial system from itself, and that poverty stricken ACORN group. How totally stupid!

That means we’re going to need a Democratic president and congress to rectify this situation in January.

Naomi Wolfe suggests Bush may launch a coup

An US army battalion has been transferred from Iraq to the United States for the stated purpose of riot control. Who is going to be rioting and why involve the military? Click the article below,

http://www.alternet.org/rights/101958/thousands_of_troops_are_deployed_on_u.s._streets_ready_to_carry_out_%22crowd_control%22/?page=2

The Rigged Game by John Hively

I wrote this book to show how the rich folks of the United States have set up a nasty game to enable them to pick the pockets of middle class citizens clean. That's how they accumulate more wealth and how we lose it. They control the politics and financial markets of this country. These are the conduits through which this game takes place. Neither liberals nor conservatives want citizens to see this book. For example, the folks at Air America refuse to even give it a plug, but Thom Hartmann is happy to plug books by conservatives that he disagrees with.

This book is selling all over the world, but not so much in the United States because of a complete blackout of publicity.

A year before they ignited, I predicted the recession that likely hit in November, the drop in interest rates, the housing bubble implosion, the rise in energy costs, and a lot more.

Now I will tell you what will occur in the next twelve months.

1. The economy will flirt with deflation and possibly go into it.
2. The federal reserve will drop interest rates.
3. The unemployment rate will surge to somewhere between 7 and 12 percent.
4. Wages and salaries of middle class workers will drop on average.
5. The rich will get richer at the expense of the poor and middle classes, feeding the recession.

When Does Obama's Attack Begin?

Barack Obama has spent millions of dollars on advertising his presidential campaign, but he has yet to attack the weakest link of his opponent. That weakness is John McCain himself. Outside of George W. Bush, McCain is perhaps the most ignorant, most vulnerable Republican presidential candidate in history. But then again, Karl Rove made the people running John Kerry's campaign look positively stupid. Two of Rove's underlings are now in charge of the McCain campaign and they are making Obama's advisors look like dunderheads.

So far the Obama campaign is not attacking McCain vigorously, but rather it is fending off the attacks of his foe, and mostly unsuccessfully. The Obama camp has not focused on creating an image of McCain that is accurate as well as negative. The result is that McCain has closed or narrowed or overcome Obama's lead in several polls. Just like the Bush campaign focused on painting Kerry as a "flip-flopper," as well as turning the war hero into a traitor in the eyes of many voters, the Neocons running McCain's campaign are successfully creating an image of Obama as an inexperienced elitist out of touch with reality.

But it is McCain who is the elitist out of touch with reality, a man who can't be trusted.

Several months ago, during a news conference, on camera, Independent Senator Joe Lieberman had to tell McCain the difference between the Shiites and Sunnis of Iraq. Can you trust McCain to handle the situation in Iraq with that kind of ignorance?

A few months ago, John McCain professed to know little of economics. Yes it's on camera. Go to You tube. McCain doesn't know that under the Bush tax cuts, in eight years, less than 4.2 million private sector jobs have been created. This is the weakness job growth in the United States since statistics have been accumulated. In the thirty-five months beginning in January 1939, with an economy and population less than one-third of what it is today and with a tax rate of 91 percent on upper income earners, the New Deal of President Franklin Roosevelt created 7.5 million private sector jobs. That's almost twice as many jobs created under Bush in less than half the time. But McCain wants to continue Bush's failed economic policies. Can you trust John McCain with that kind of ignorance?

Elitist McCain doesn't know how many houses he and his wife own. The guy doesn't have a clue as to his own finances. Can you trust him with the business of running this country?

Randy Scheuneman is McCain's foreign policy advisor, a noted war monger, a guy who pushed for war with Iraq, and a man that until recently worked for a public relations firm that numbered among its clients the nation of Georgia. On behalf of that nation, Scheuneman has pushed for its admission into NATO. Had he been successful, the USA most likely would be bogged down in a new war, this time against Russia. Should McCain win, Scheuneman might be our next Secretary of State. Can you trust McCain not to get us into a war with Russia over Georgia?

And we can't forget McCain reciting those imbecilic words, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran." Can we trust McCain to keep the USA, a nation perhaps nearing bankruptcy, with a military already overextended, out of a war it can't afford, against a country that is not, nor has ever been, a threat to us?

McCain cheated on his wife, left her and married his rich mistress. Is that the kind of morals you can trust to manage the affairs of the United States of America?

You can go on and on. McCain is extremely vulnerable because of his ignorance and lack of judgment, but so far the Obama campaign has hardly thrown a punch at him. You can paint McCain as being untrustworthy to be president and or tie him to George Bush. If the Democrats don't begin to punch back at this extremely vulnerable opponent, count on Obama to be the first African-American to almost be president.