News & Analysis
Hush-Hush Congressional Research Report: The Myth of Social Mobility ... Not
Income inequality in the United States is more pronounced than in other developed countries, a new report from the Congressional Research Service finds, while the possibility of economic mobility is more constrained than commonly believed. "Based on the limited data that are comparable across nations, the U.S. income distribution appears to be among the most uneven of all major industrialized countries and the United States appears to be among the nations experiencing the greatest increases in measures of inequality." - FAS Secrecy News Blog
Dominant Social Theme: In America, anyone can get rich.
Free-Market Analysis: Here's a big myth: US social mobility is fungible and anyone can grow rich. Now a report from the Congressional Research Service has found that income inequality in the US is extreme and growing worse. Also, that where you're born, socially speaking, is where you stay.
Did you read about these findings? Didn't think so. For one reason or another, Congress doesn't seem inclined to make a big fuss over this information. Wonder why.
Actually not. We think we know why. Congress's approval ratings are stuck near the SINGLE DIGITS and have stayed there for years. This is because most people in the US likely see Congress as an instrument of repression and the increasingly savage status quo.
There is a lot of truth to this assumption. Who at this point would want to work in Congress but a sociopath or psychopath? And there is plenty of evidence that the US Congress includes both.
• In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has been using depleted uranium weapons regularly for nearly a decade. The poisoning of these poor people has been so intense that many die of obscure cancers and mothers are routinely told not to have babies. Neither of these wars has been successful, and the depleted uranium poisoning has injured hundreds of thousands of returning US vets as well.
• In the US, one third of citizens now have some exposure to the criminal justice system by the time they are in their early 20s. The US system of jurisprudence has resulted in some six million behind bars at any one time, more than half the world's population of incarcerated individuals. The costs in damaged lives and families in tremendous. Routinely, as well, innocent people are put to death, victims of Draconian US "justice."
• The US population on food stamps has exploded, with some 50 million using food stamps now. And ALL US citizens eventually come to use some form of government assistance, especially if one includes Social Security. Medicare is another ubiquitous and badly run program encouraging citizen dependence on the government.
• The Federal Reserve system, authorized and overseen by Congress, is responsible for the degradation of the US dollar by some 95-99 percent. The entire dollar reserve system is now on the verge of unraveling as the "depression" of the 2000s winds on with no real signs of abating.
• The income tax system, and taxes generally, remove up to 50 percent or more of a person's disposable income when one actually peers behind the various charges that are leveled on producers and consumers. Products are taxed all the way through the supply chain, so that the end price may reflect dozens of tax charges.
This is but a tiny sampling of the kinds of results that Congress has been partially responsible for. The executive wing, of course, is equally culpable, as is the US Supreme Court. Those born in the US are subject to millions of regulations and thousands of taxes that they had no say in creating. They are saddled, as well, with the US's "national debt."
The US has likely reached a point of no return when it comes to its regulatory, tax and monetary structure. The regulatory structure especially tends to freeze people into place from an economic and social mobility standpoint.
This is, of course, exactly what the larger power elite wants. The apparent handful of dynastic families that control central banking around the world use regulation, taxes and fiat-money inflation as a way of ensuring that the billions beneath them have little hope of advancement.
Yes, a tiny group of people seeks to implement world government apparently and uses various methodologies of control to shove the world and its billions in this direction. This is why societies around the world, including Western societies, are increasingly dysfunctional.
This is a change from several hundred years ago when the US itself emerged as the hope of the world for social mobility. This is also why the US has been under tremendous attack from the elites for nearly its entire existence.
The US "exception" shows us how a somewhat "free" society can actually work. Free banking, an economy based in part on gold and silver and a lack of formal regulation all catapulted the US into the topmost tier of the world's wealthiest countries.
But by the 20th century, the elites unceasing attacks on the libertarian positioning of the US had taken their toll. The proximate cause was the Civil War, which put the New York Banks (the European axis) in charge of the federation. From there it was just a matter of time.
In the 20th century, the authoritarians struck. The silver standard, removed in the 19th century, was suddenly buttressed by the graduated income tax and the Federal Reserve. Two world wars effectively militarized the entire US, gave rise to an empire and a shadow world government managed out of the City of London with branches in Washington DC, Tel Aviv and elsewhere.
The empire that the US has become is commonly seen by the bought-and-paid-for media as the apogee of sociopolitical and cultural achievement. But as we have pointed out, empire is nothing more than the last exhalation of a dying and corrupt culture.
It is the time PRECEDING empire during which cultures achieve greatness, when people have social mobility and control over their own lives, inspirations and inventions. Empire is inevitably a military excrescence that takes each positive enumeration of civil society and weaponizes it.
Pre-empire cultures are great places to live. But cultures that celebrate empire are miserable ones, full of hate, fear, paranoia and socio-economic and political control.
The US, now in the empire phase, is failing fast. US citizens can only look back to the pre-Civil War period for a glimpse of the freedom that created a great country that spanned the world with its agricultural, cultural and mechanical gifts. The phrase "Yankee ingenuity" became a cliché for a reason.
Above all, the US, "free banking" economic system based on gold and silver was the envy of the world. Though the power elite owned both gold and silver, it is evident and obvious that the elites could NOT control the US economy no matter how much gold and silver they owned.
In fact, this directly rebuts Greenbackers' contention that those who own the gold and silver will control the world even within a free-market economy. In the US, they didn't and could not. This helps bear out the truth of Austrian economists that it is impossible to sustain unwanted monopolies in free market societies.
They needed to use force, as they always do, to control society. First they fought the Civil War to destroy private banking and private money and to build up Wall Street and the power of the New York banks. After this in rapid succession came the graduated income tax, the Federal Reserve and various world wars.
And now social mobility is all-but-frozen in the US. The power elite has been immeasurably aided in their quest to subvert the freedoms in the US by the various myths that still exist in the country regarding the way it used to operate. The article, excerpted above, makes this point as well:
"Americans may be less concerned about inequality in the distribution of income at any given point in time partly because of a belief that everyone has an equal opportunity to move up the income ladder. A review of the literature suggests that Americans' perceptions about their likelihood of changing position in the income distribution may be exaggerated," the CRS report said.
"It ... appears that going from rags to riches is relatively rare; that is, where one starts in the income distribution greatly influences where one ends up." See The U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility: Trends and International Comparisons, March 7, 2012.
We have long been aware of the increasing inequities in US society and the "welfarization" of the economy that has accompanied its authoritarianism militarization and regulatory and penal deconstruction. But eventually, the new realities probably will begin to wake up more people in the US.
When they do, we expect there may be considerable social trouble. People currently still anticipate the current "recession" will end. They cannot be blamed, struggling as they are, for not understanding that the power elite has apparently turned a fundamental page.
The elites now seek frank world government from what we can tell and are promoting economic disaster, regional and world wars and increased authoritarianism around the world in order to realize their goals. Out of chaos ... order.
The problem, as we long have pointed out, is that what we call the Internet Reformation is increasingly educating and radicalizing much of the 'Net intelligentsia. This is a critical breech in the elite's plans.
Conclusion: The successful conclusion of the elite's plans is by no means certain, even though they try to make it appear so. They have certainly managed to deconstruct US exceptionalism and make the lives of many a living hell. But even this can be reversed over time and we don't count out the possibility that it shall be.
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Posted by Hoss on 03/20/12 12:50 PM
Only 1% of the people can be among the top 1%. And only 10% of the people can be among the top 10%.
Defining a slim minority automatically creates the statistically low probability.
The chances of becoming a member of the 'upper class' will ALWAYS be slim, regardless of whether today's lower class lives high on the hog compared to yesterday's lower class. Even if everyone continually gets better off, then the goalpost will be moved, otherwise it couldn't be called 'upper class'.
That's not to argue with your point, just to point out that discussions of class usually involve sneaking in self-referential definitions, which then serve as a vehicle to make a point that crumbles when viewed in context.
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Posted by Bluebird on 03/20/12 10:15 AM
Bravo!! This was great! I agree with every part exept the last sentence. Not interesting election at all but same old sing-song. The winners were selected before it began, I am afraid, just as always and not by the USA people.
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Posted by samson on 03/20/12 03:27 AM
Sir Wrussr: Your history is superb. To combat this elitist cabal, a revolut-
ion of a hundred million, freedom loving, give me liberty or give me death bodies will be required. Where are they? Who can wake them up? I don't
believe our younger generations(after our socialist universities have brain
washed them with political correctness) have the guts to face up to the danger that is imminent. Hope I'm wrong.
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Posted by Wrusssr on 03/20/12 01:41 AM
London's international bankers who own and control the Bank of England (BOE) and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, Switzerland, where the world's central banks-also owned by the BOE and BIS-get their draw, are rapidly consuming what few independent central banks remain.
In 2000, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, Iran, North Korea, and Cuba had such banks. Today, only Iran, North Korea, and Cuban central banks remain; the others having been relieved of their gold and financial assets via quick transfers to new and improved BOE/BIS-controlled central banks established as soon as 'rebels for democracy' became 'victorious' in their countries. Can you say 'Arab Spring?'
Click to view link
This same international banking cabal manipulates America and every other nation on earth with the currency their central banks print-for the price of paper, ink, and labor-and sell to each nation at never-ending interest for the huge sums deliberately lent to Pavlovian politicians and governments who willfully run up enormous tabs; the bankers, all the while, knowing these nations could not/would not be able to repay these loans.
Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal are the current poster children. Other nations are programmed; America included.
As these countries enter the debt traps set for them and reach their points of no financial return-where taxes and national income cannot pay the interest on their loans-the bankers began to send in front men to take control of the 'financial affairs' of the country and its government. Foreclosure processes on resources within these countries are initiated; which are subsequently sold to front companies and corporations controlled by the same bankers that lent them the money. It's an age-old con game begun by a small handful of banking family patriarchs several centuries ago that has been updated each century since to fit the times. Click to view link
The current crop of not-so-bright but enormously greedy and corrupt politicians and government 'officials' around the globe who drank willingly from their central bank's limitless loan well, counted on not being called upon to pay the fiddler while they were still in office. Or alive. Unintended justice, therefore, that many of these Diamond Jim pols addicted to spending money that future generations were on the hook for, have been swept into the economic vortex along with everyone else. The outcome was always known to the elite and predictable.
Click to view link
Investors and speculators (not connected to the financial cabal) who were holding things like bonds in the marked Middle East countries got a haircut-a chic language Wall Street uses when putting the financial screws to someone invested in good faith.
Iceland told these financial shysters what they and the country's politicians could do with the deliberate debt they ran up against their nation when its citizens hit the streets and refused to pay their deliberate debts. The nation is going it alone similar to the way the founders drew the road map for America's journey; our congress being the only body authorized to coin [print] our currency. The founders, who'd observed these thieves at work in England and Europe, had them foremost in their minds as they penned the financial aspects of the greatest governing document ever written. . .our Constitution; still valid today regardless of the political pimp blather fed the public by bankster sycophants in Washington.
Obama is simply one of a long list of banker-sponsored front men placed in the White House to assist them with their global agenda-the most unknown president ever to sit the office- who's probably not eligible to be president, but who was installed nonetheless by the London-bankers to '. . . show the world they could.' Click to view link
The same was true of B-II, Clinton, B-I, the peanut farmer, and on back.
Except, fly-over America kept missing their point. Which was that past so-called 'candidates'-50% of whom were plucked off political scrap heaps for the oval office-were being deliberately placed. So, Oz was 'forced' to do something dramatic like pluck a foreigner whose citizenship is probably British, and plop him in the white House and say '. . . look here America, you get it now?'
We got it. You have the means to get anyone elected and placed anywhere, anytime.
Which is easy to do when you own/control all the communication outlets that tell people what to think about; who dutifully report the lies, spin, disinformation and outright propaganda that's fed to them. The importance of the Forth Estate in a Republic was formerly purchased during the first Great Depression; America's so-called main stream media having stepped across the line decades ago to walk the streets for Oz.
And yet. . . here came an Internet tsunami that stepped into the Forth Estate's vacuum to keep a steady spotlight on these Wizards and their anti-humanity agenda; forcing them into the open where, like wounded cape buffalo, they now thrash about the planet in a mad rush for one last, great, greedy consumptive control attempt of the world's food, fiber, water, minerals, land, money, information, people, jobs, and hope; their current global rush being to buy up all of earth's prime farmland in developing countries through front-groups for pennies on the dollar using in-country [read: bribed] armies and government shills to illegally and forcefully evict thousands of rightful property owners and farmers off their lands who, for centuries past, raised natural, non-genetically modified food that fed local populations; this all to obtain a 'legitimate international title' for property they're essentially stealing.
Click to view link
If the Internet stands, the long-tongued liars and thieves buying the planet will fail; and in their addict's race for more, will eventually collapse to die amid the Internet's brambles of truth.
Major setbacks already have occurred. Derivatives, credit default swaps, toxic mortgage bundles, and an engineered economic collapse of the world.. . .exposed. Genetically modified food and its programmed sterilization and harmful effects on humanity. . .exposed. False flag documentation for the Oklahoma City and Twin Towers bombings. . .exposed. BigPharma's attempt to hawk vaccines to the globe under the guise of a faux pandemic. . .exposed. The vindication of Dr. Andrew Wakefield's research partner after BigPharma's attempt to demonize them both for suggesting a possible connection between their vaccines and autism. . .exposed. Global warming. . .exposed.
The list goes on.
Obama is simply another in a long line of elite-funded faux presidents to facilitate agendas like those above.
Expect future false flag events featuring new boogeymen in an attempt to frighten and herd humanity into corners. . .but. . . know the next time it happens, millions who've already exposed these charlatan's prior attempts will be watching and pointing their dark deeds out to additional millions-soon to be billions-when it happens.
Arab 'terrorists' with box cutters flying 747's or 727's or whatever? Gimmie a break. This whole global charade since 9/11 has been based on lies.
Hand cuffing humanity while they pick their pockets is no longer an exclusive sport of the mega-rich, thanks to the Internet.
It's going to be an interesting election.
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Posted by samson on 03/20/12 12:38 AM
There is no organized defence to the ELITES. The internet is a fabulous ins-
trument of communication, however it is a voice in the forest crying wolf.
Only those in the forest hear its message of warning. Observe the same few
shouting DANGER, DANGER, while the masses wearing blinders continue their
drudged zombie dance to the masters music. Obama now has the royal swagger
stick & mercenaries in place to start rounding up the forest dwellers, to
silence the message,while the masses sleep on til the day of rude awakening.
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Posted by speedygonzales on 03/19/12 11:52 PM
Did ye all observe increasing quality of products on market? Did ye all observe drop in TV sell stuff like Tony Gazele etc? When was last time when U thought buy somethin' valuabale without interent research? Just folx, turn this into politix. Turn U knowledge and behavior into politix and economy. Simply ignore bad products. Non violent resistance. Ye 'LL C diference.
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Posted by speedygonzales on 03/19/12 11:43 PM
We call the Internet Reformation is increasingly educating... we can call it cooperation instead competition. 2B honest with ya, interent reformation loox like cooperative in action instead capitalism in action. We can also learn how democracy vesrsus direct democracy worx. Internet is freemarket economy with direct democracy. Am on the highest level at sodahead.For me is test site. What folx thinx about your opinion. DB is on the same level. Lec look at interent reformation in shoppin which mean spent money. All of ye do research when ye buy somethin' valuable what ye do not buy on daily basis. Car, sportin' goods, kitchen ware, boox. I invest few minutes to write my opinion on Amazon. Am good there as well. Means readers vote it as helpfull. But I also read before I buy. So we actualy created cooperative against capitalism. V all cooperate for our good instead fightin' each other. Propaganda and marketing is full of lies. Readers opinion is what drives me to buy somethin or read somethin.
I would not read DB and recomend it to my friends world wide if every single article will follow negative proovable comments.
There R bunch of folx who R tellin' M that freemarket economy, cooperatives and direct democarcy ain't workin'. So why UR tellin' M about ineternet research before ye buy somethin'? Just buy it all. Trust propaganda and marketing as capitalist and democratic lies. And good bless U.
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Posted by speedygonzales on 03/19/12 10:50 PM
In capitalism sometimes you win sometimes you lose. The few win always majority lose always.
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Posted by bob on 03/19/12 09:33 PM
Welcome to the Martial Law in the USA.
Please see below:
Click to view link
--------------------------------------
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
March 16, 2012
Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness
NATIONAL DEFENSE RESOURCES PREPAREDNESS
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (50 U.S.C. App. 2061 et seq.), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, and as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
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Posted by RF on 03/19/12 09:18 PM
so what else is new ????
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Posted by Libertarian Jerry on 03/19/12 07:40 PM
The Elitists and the Globalists are trying to create a Prussian Style 3 tiered system in which 1/2% of the population own and control everything(within that 1/2% are a small handful who really control the system). 4 1/2% of the population that are the enablers or Aparatchnicks. And the rest of the population,about 95%, who are the serfs. The elitists want to accomplish this by controlling the currency(probably with a cashless system for better tracking through computer debit cards). And a computerized system where every citizen is numbered and identified with computer chips or biometric IDs. There will be no underground economy(except maybe bartering). Every citizen cannot buy,sell,work,drive,get medical care,own property or do anything without using their ID Chip. There will be set up an Economic Police State to watch over the system. At this point the government will tax everyone at 100% and then decide how much you need to live and then allow you to spend what they deem necessary,to support your life. What will happen is that the World will be turned into a sort of economic Hell. Its 1984 and Brave New World with modern computers deciding who gets what. Its coming and I'm afraid that its too late to stop whats coming. A pity.
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Posted by mantis on 03/19/12 06:55 PM
Is this a glimpse of the global money they want to implement?
Click to view link
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Posted by seer on 03/19/12 05:19 PM
One of the better DB articles.
""It ... appears that going from rags to riches is relatively rare; that is, where one starts in the income distribution greatly influences where one ends up." See The U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility: Trends and International Comparisons, March 7, 2012."
Back in the 1960's there was a sociological game developed that was based on the actual odds of moving from the bottom class to the middle class and to the upper class. The result was that college students would often quit in frustration. While it was somewhat difficult to move to the middle class, moving from either class to the upper class was statistically a very low probability. Much like the millions of athletes who believe they have a chance of making the pros in some sport, the chances of becoming a member of the upper class is slim. At least the NCAA now regularly says its athletes will be going professional in something other than sports. This rags to riches myth may explain the lottery sales and gambling activity in the USA.
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Posted by laceja on 03/19/12 05:17 PM
Slow, I think that's what the elites are counting on.
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Posted by laceja on 03/19/12 05:16 PM
Not only is it obvious, the social and financial mobility of citizens has been stuck in neutral for some time now, the Obama administration is shouting it at the top of their lungs and media outlets. Only a total idiot could miss it. Although this is a great article, it certainly isn't necessary to point it out.
As a tool of the elites, Obama is distorting the picture, in order to herd the masses into the corral, so to speak. There are now so many Americans on the gov't dole, Obama is finding it child's play to suck more then 50% of the "voters" into accepting the idea of "tax the rich", in order to keep the gravy train humming. Of course, this is exactly what the elites want.
The idea is to push things so far over the edge, that "capital flight" will have to be redefined as "abandon ship". There are still a few (very few) places on the planet, where a person can somewhat protect one's assets and income stream. So, to make their plan work, they will need a real disaster (for which they can avoid obvious culpability) to push everyone into accepting that One World Government and fiat currency. But, they'll need another world war (and, I mean total world war this time) to "convince" the Arabs, Persians, and much of South America. They've already done a good job of getting Americans, Australians, and most Europeans to beat the drums of war. It was pretty easy, after decades of immersion in brutal sports clashes, an idea they mastered from the Romans, of course. About the only countries in Latin America poor, who are able to put any resistance are Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela.
If they (the elites) don't manage to create the total chaos they need, very shortly, the capital flight will certainly strangle the money engine of London City, Israel, and New York (Washington, in view, is just the control mechanism for New York) to the point they won't have the wealth needed to complete their objectives.
Everyone always says, when you want to know who's in charge, just follow the money. So, in my view, the only way to stop them is to cut off the money. Americans have been so brain washed into believing the only place on earth to build wealth is in the USA. Frankly, I don't really see it that way. It may be the place where one can best acquire the money stream to support building a business, but it sure isn't the best place to "keep" it. I think the only realistic way to stop the it from careening over the cliff is to starve the elites' engine of fuel. That is, move "off shore" as quickly as possible. This season's Republican primary elections and caucuses are ample proof, we will not be able to stop it with the vote. They just rig the elections and they control all the main stream media, so we hear little or nothing about it. And they've got too much fire power to fight them with arms. We need to starve them out, in my view.
Anyway, that's my two cents worth.
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Posted by JohnvdBrook on 03/19/12 03:51 PM
The author seems to smudge the differences between income and social stratas. And perhaps the Congressional investigators weren't searching hard enough. My own nephew grew up in a lower middle class home, and now, as an oil man, is in the top .1% of income earners. Not bad. Or perhaps our family is part of the power elite and just don't know about it!
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Posted by Ol' Grey Ghost on 03/19/12 01:17 PM
I have read a lot of biographies in my time, both first and third person, of very successful people and there is one point consistent throughout those of earlier years (pre-WWII) is that the person the biography is about was able to closely observe a parental authority or more working hard for a living. This also carries forward into the present for those persons who worked themselves from rags to riches. The only "success" stories I ever read of someone who's parental authority was on some form of government assistance is sports heroes.
One has to wonder if this and this article's premise is the reason that the U.S. government is now advertising on TV for more people to sign up for government assistance...
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Posted by rossbcan on 03/19/12 12:47 PM
You are just enumerating the attrition costs of a longstanding war on intelligence, civilization and peace. The toll has been taken, the tipping point is here.
"Why, then, should Hummin say that the Galactic Empire was dying and with such conviction?
Hummin was a journalist. He probably knew Galactic history in some detail and he had to understand the current situation in great detail. Was it this that supplied him with the knowledge that lay behind his statement? In that case, just what was the knowledge?
Several times Seldon was on the point of asking, of demanding an answer, but there was something in Hummin's solemn face that stopped him. And there was something in his own ingrained belief that the Galactic Empire was a given, an axiom, the foundation stone on which all argument rested that prevented him too.
After all, if that was wrong, he didn't want to know.
No, he couldn't believe that he was wrong. The Galactic Empire could no more come to an end than the Universe itself could. Or, if the Universe did end, then-and only then-would the Empire end."
Excerpt from "Prelude to Foundation", Asimov:
Click to view link
@DB, please fix link, these ones always break
Nobody can claim "didn't see it coming", but, "fiddlee dee, tomorrow is another day" (Scarlett Ohara, Gone with the Wind)
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Posted by Slow but sure on 03/19/12 12:32 PM
During interesting times success dictates that one wait patiently with a proper attitude until conditions improve and the appropriate steps can be taken. In my humble opinion doing less is the right call at this time not because of some beaurecrat in London but because of the time of man.
