Fame, Happiness and Posterity

Barry, My Liege :

One of my ancestors, Marcus Aurelius, was both a Roman Emperor and a philosopher ; his thoughts on living a happy life are indicated immediatley below.

'...Short then is the time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short too the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long ago.'

MEDITATIONS, Marcus Aurelius, Book 3,# 10

'If thou workest at that which is before thee, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract thee, but keeping thy divine part pure, as if thou shouldst be bound to give it back immediately, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.'

MEDITATIONS, Marcus Aurelius, Book 3, # 12

Perhaps, My Liege, these words may offer some comfort.

Some of my ancestors achieved fame and notoriety while most did not. But, following Marcus Aurelius' proscriptions, life is only this moment since the past is infinite and dead and the future is equally infinite and unknowable.

Thus fame is not worthy of pursuit or worthwhle when obtained. For example, my surname of McKeever or MacIvor may possibly be related to a Norse invader of Scotland in the Ninth century named Iver. However, there appears to be no method of determining that with certainty since all records of Norse geneology in England and Scotland were destroyed in the Jocobite Risings of 1688 to 1746.

Here is a listing of some of the more famous of my ancestors for which records are readily available.

1. Marcus Aurelias Maximian De Rome

49th Great Grand Uncle - Marcus Aurelias Maximian De Rome, 121 AD to 180 AD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

2. Philip I of France

28th Great Grandfather - Philip I of France (23 May 1052 – 29 July 1108), called the Amorous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_I_of_France

3. William I The Conquerer

25th Great Grandfater, William I The Conquerer - William I (Old Norman: Williame I; circa 1028 - Frankrike, Jamtland, Sweden – 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes as William the Bastard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_the_Conqueror

4. Charlemagne

Husband of 25th Great Grandmother Charlemagne (2 April 742 – 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (German: Karl der Große; Latin: Carolus or Karolus Magnus) or Charles I, was the King of the Franks from 768, the King of Italy from 774, the first Holy Roman Emperor, and the first emperor in western Europe since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

5. Henry II, King of England

22nd Great Grandfather Henry II, King of England was born 26 February 1133 in Le Mans, France to Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou and Maine (1113-1151) and Matilda of Normandy (1102-1167) and died 29 June 1189 in Chinon, France of unspecified causes.

http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Henry_II_of_England_%281133-1189%29

5. King Edward I Longshanks Plantagenet

19th Great Grandfather Edward I (17 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_I_of_England

7. John Adams

1st Cousin 6x removed John Adams (October 30, 1735 (O.S. October 19, 1735) – July 4, 1826) was the second president of the United States (1797–1801), having earlier served as the first vice president of the United States. An American Founding Father, he was a statesman, diplomat, and a leading advocate of American independence from Great Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams


Your faithful servant,

By the way, My Liege, one of the reasons I am happy to be an American is that notification of the fact of that ancestry as described above, so long as it is accompanied with two dollars, will obtain a good cup of coffee in many places.

Position Paper - Managing Bright People for Accomplishment

Barry, My Liege :

You will not consider it immodest when this writer offers a methodology for managing very good people as well as choosing the best option among several possible courses of action.

College and university students are bright and ambitious people, as you well know.

In order to challenge the best of students, this writer developed a position paper format over the past 25 years; this format has proven effective as a semester term paper assignment as well as a method for challenging the best and honing the skills of all.

My Liege, you may read an actual sample of this paper format in a paper written by student Min S. Chung in 2010 at this link :

http://www.mkeever.com/samplepaper.doc

[Copy and paste the link if it loads slowly.]

And, should you require a detailed tutorial in implementing this paper format, it is here :

http://www.mkeever.com/prep.doc

Your faithful servant prays that you will consider using this tool as a means to manage your office and accomplish even more.

Your faithful servant,

Socialism, Morality, Economic Theory

Barry, My Liege :

Your servant has discussed the relationship of economic theory to morality in another venue, which can be read here : http://www.mkeever.com/moral.html

Economic theory was born into a world in which the few wealthy people profited from the efforts of the poor majority in obscene proportions.

This theory, after all, cannot distinguish between a machine and a human child slave when comparing the relative costs and profits of each.

To the extent that economics contributes toward inequality and misery, we pray that you My Liege, ignore, studiously, the blandishments of that discipline.

Economics will merit serious attention only when the effects of its theories on real people are considered. Until then, we pray you treat its observations with suspicion.

Below is a short introduction to the effects of economics on England in the first part of the 19th Century :

“8. THE BIRTH OF SOCIALISM

Whatever the economists might claim to have demonstrated about the need for giving capital a free hand, there was no escaping from the fact that whereas, under the existing social order, wealth was being multiplied beyond the wildest dreams of a century back, the whole benefits of this revolution were absorbed by a minority of the population, while the majority were sinking from depth to depth of misery. And this majority comprised the very labourers who - on the authority of Adam Smith himself - produced the whole of the wealth. Nor was the contrast a matter of mere guesswork or intuition. In 1814, the year of Napoleon's overthrow, a certain Patrick Colquhoun, a metropolitan police magistrate, published a statistical estimate of the resources of the British Empire, in which the inequality of wealth was revealed, with at least an honest attempt at accuracy, in the dry light of statistics. Here it was stated that whereas some 400,000 of the well-connected and well-to-do were drawing family incomes of from two to four hundred pounds per annum, the labourers in the fields and factories had to keep body and soul together on a beggarly eleven.

Here, then, was the plain meaning of the state of things analyzed and favoured by the economists ; the landlord growing fat on his rents, the capitalist pocketing everything else above the eleven pounds or so per annum to keep each human machine grinding him wealth for over twelve hours in the twenty-four, and the man who turned to the soil or loom kept down by an iron law to a natural or unnatural rate of wages which might, according to a very liberal interpretation of Ricardo, rise, in the course of time - perhaps even to an average twelve pounds per annum !

To kick against these pricks might be - and, the whole school of middle class economists would assure you on one voice of ponderous indignation, was - quiet fallacious and unscientific, but one might at first be inclined to wonder how the poor, once confronted with such arguments as Colquhoun's statistics and their own bitter experience could provide, did not rise, as Shelley - who was after all of squire stock and might be presumed to feel the pinch of the shoe less keenly - counselled them to rise :

'Like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few' ”

From THE HISTORY OF BRITISH CIVILIZATION, Esme Wingfield-Stratford, D Sc., M.A., Ex-Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London First Edition 1928, Second Edition, 1930, Reprinted 1932, 1933, 1938, 1942, 1945 and 1948, pp 922-923

Sequester, Run Fast for the Future of Our State

Barry, My Liege :

Your faithful servant marvels at the pace of proposed reforms you outlined in your recent address to Congress.

And yet, we are both mindful that we face problems bigger than the solutions you propose.

And so, My Liege, we pray that you re-double those efforts, that you continue to press for the changes you have outlined and add more and more as we go forward.

Some of the Republicans will not cooperate with any action which is clearly for the good of the country, preferring to pursue partisan rhetoric to compromise for concrete action, so your strategy has to be to bury them with so many good actions that they will not be able to stop all of them.

And, as you know, you have only about six months to create the momentum toward that change.

Our future as the United States of America is on the line.

Whether by law, Executive Order or any other means available, we pray you create a wall to prevent further deterioration of our National Economic Security.

Some specifics :

Find a way to prevent the sequester for it will destroy our recovery.

Continue the anti-crime and anti-monopoly actions begun by Mr. Holder, but expand them exponentially. Monopolies drain cash from the middle class and stifle competition and job creation. Crooked bankers and their servants WILL ruin our economy again, it is only a matter of time.

Restore Glass-Steagall. Separating commercial banks from investment banks and letting investment banks fail is the only action that will prevent a future bank crisis and recession.

Strictly enforce laws supporting union activity - too many companies flout our laws with impunity.

Modify Free Trade Agreements to encourage job creation at home.

Destroy our new class of Princes by increasing taxes on great fortunes and great incomes, then use the proceeds to pay for our recovery.

Develop a National Industrial Policy so we can know which industries to encourage.

Increase regulation of corporations which monopolize essential services like energy, communications, transportation, power and other industries which are essential to life.

Create free and fair elections.

Install energy alternatives so that we may hope to avoid the consequences of dangerous global warming and secure a peaceful life for our grandchildren.

In all these things, the good news is that Republican voters expect all this and more and will not be surprised at all.

Somewhere deep in their souls, they know you are right.

Do not be afraid, My Liege.

Your faithful servant

UPDATE POST STATE - Inadequate Rationale for Killing

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf

Barry, My Liege :

Your faithful servant observed your short discussion of drone killings in the State of the Union speech last night. Thank you, My Liege, for personally owning the killing process.

Now, we pray you place some legal process into the system so that you and future POTUS may not murder American Citizens on a whim or an anonymous, unverified tip.

By your hoped for, future action of placing some legal protections into that process, you will assure us that the United States of America is not the same as dictatorships, terrorist states or barbaric monarchies.

Continuing the original post -

As your servant I have read a newly disclosed 'White Paper' which purports to 'justify' the killing of American Citizens in certain circumstances.

Although the White Paper is titled 'Department of Justice White Paper', it is not signed, dated, issued on DOJ stationery or bear any markings whatever which support its claim to be from a government source.

Additionally, since it has no apparent claims of authorship, is seems safe to conclude that it is an organized sales job. That is to say, someone in authority 'may' have leaked the paper in hopes that the paper itself provides sufficient justification of the killing of American citizens. Perhaps that person was you, My Liege.

The paper is a sad excuse, Mr. President. We grieve for the Country we love.

We grieve because this paper does not provide a sufficient rationale for the overthrow of the United States Constitution and the murder of citizens by the government we elect to protect us.

One of the several major problems is simply this: it has not been adjudicated.

Your administration is required to take this paper to the United States Supreme Court in order to see whether or not its several assertions of conformity to the Constitution are correct or are merely self-serving rationales.

Further, My Liege, there is no procedure or review established in this document or in your administration's processes for an independent review of whether or not a person is in fact a Senior Operational Leader of Al-Qua’ida. Without an independent review body with the power to review facts and evidence and apply relevant law, the killing of any person is simply wrong, immoral and barbaric.

My Liege, this paper is simply a smokescreen around the fact that you have chosen to murder many people without any process or review of law, justice or morality; your only excuse is that they may [or may not] be plotting to kill Americans.

I am embarrassed and saddened by this display, My Liege. I would rather that you stand up and say that you will kill these people because you think they are a danger.

Then, let the courts and the people decide if you are right or wrong.

Your pose of hiding behind a tortured legal edifice presented without review or court approval in order to murder people including Americans violates the Constitution, demeans the Office of President of the United States and demonstrates contempt for its citizens.

We pray you be brave, My Liege, for we and our Country deserve better from you.

Your faithful servant,

Climate Change

Barry, My Liege :

Let's look ahead,

"It's gonna be a hot one today.

Only 4.00 AM and it's already pushing 110.

It's January for Chrissakes.

Yesterday the NewsCorpTimesBroadcast said it wouldn't hit 100 today.

Lyin goverment shills.

Top all that, looks like tornado weather out there.

C'mom Ma, we gotta tie it all down again, jes like last week.

Hurry up 'fore it gets too hot to go out.

Or breathe for that matter.

Only good thing about all those poor souls dying from heat is that they don't drink all the water - then we can get some.

Thinkin 'bout water, whas gonna happen with the ocean anyways? Polar caps all gone, all the seashore cities drowned out. Lucky for us we live high up in the hills where it's cool.

Trees round here just about all died, but there's still some animals we can eat. Poor suckers - they don't have enough energy to run away. They just kind of look at you when you come to club 'em to death. Kinda like they're glad for it to be over.

Wait a minnit. That's a stranger out there.

'Move along asshole or I'll blow your brains out. We got nothing for you. Go on, git.'

Starving mother effers, always hanging round the house thinking we got food and water when all we got is dead game and a couple 5 gallon jugs.

Why don't they just up and find some dead animal themselves?

Well, she was pretty far gone - probably won't make it til tomorrow.

Then we'll have to dig a hole and bury her or she'll stink up the whole area while she rots.

Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it to go on. Maybe it's just better to go to sleep and not wake up.

But, you know what, we humans have been around a long time and just because some idiots 100 years ago back in the 21st century screwed up everything, I am not gonna give them the satisfaction of giving up. Nope. I am gonna fight. Stay alive. That's my goal. Stay alive and show them assholes."


Your faithful servant,

Guns is Drugs

Barry, My Liege :

This writer has some intimate experience with the problems of drug addiction and violence.

For many years, the writer condemned the idea of legalizing recreational drugs since they are associated with depression, violence, disease and suicide in many cases. It appeared wrong to offer any easier gateway toward those personal demons since it would mean that even more vulnerable people would enter that Hell.

It is apparent, however, to even the most casual oberver that the reason for much of the death and maiming occasioned by guns is more correctly laid at the feet of the illegality of recreational drugs.

Since drugs are illegal, they are sold to willing consumers by criminal gangs. Many of the gangs protect their drug dealing territory by shooting anyone who tries to intrude on their turf. In the United States of America in the most recent years for which numbers are available, about 72,000 Americans died each year from drug related causes [http://www.unodc.org/unodc/secured/wdr/WDR12_Mortality_map.pdf. Taking the number of roughly 200 annual drug deaths per million population times the estimated USA population of 360 million gives us the number 72,000].

In addition, some 35,000 Americans were killed with guns, a fair share - say 50% as a guess - were killed in the drug trade. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-19/american-gun-deaths-to-exceed-traffic-fatalities-by-2015.html]

This is insanity.

We have it backwards.

Here, guns are legal while drugs are illegal.

In countries where the drugs are more or less decriminalized, drug deaths averaged about 10 per million compared to the United States number of 200 drug deaths per million.

But, those countries also have much more stringent gun laws than we do.

If we were to emulate those countries where drugs are controlled by the government but de-criminalized and guns are tightly regulated we would save upwards of 50,000 lives per year.

It is time to create a legal and controlled drug distribution system modeled on the prescription drug industry or perhaps the alcohol industry.

It is the right thing, My Liege.

It will save many promising lives and futures.

Your faithful servant,

Well Regulated Militia

Barry, My Liege :

There is some discussion about the Second Amendment and the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

Here is the text of that Amendment as ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State :

'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'

[Wikipedia]

Since it is about 220 years after the Constitution was ratified, perhaps it is a good time to re-imagine the idea of a well regulated militia. While this author claims no military training, he is an experienced imaginer.

Soldiers in our War of Independence used a tactic we see today being employed by Al-Qaeda, namely, a tactic of guerilla warfare where the native forces defending against a hostile invader do not mass armies and engage in conventional ground warfare with heavy weapons. The preference is to use stealth and small groups to disrupt the invading force so that the force is unable to move freely.

If the objective of a militia is to disrupt an invading force, then such a militia could be composed of a widely deployed force consisting of two soldier units with long range and intermediate range sniper capabilities including imaging equipment.

With today's .50 caliber sniper rifles and spotters with good imaging capability, snipers can kill targets from a mile away.

With a force of 25 or 50 such two soldier units, it could be possible to interfere significantly with a hostile force in a large urban or rural area.

Such an objective could be part of a larger strategy by delaying the hostile force in its objective of securing an area and thereby giving native fighters time to organize and further disrupt the invader.

If that were the strategy of a militia organized along county or city boundary lines, then it might make sense for a militia commander to recruit, train and deploy to their homes a number of two soldier sniper units with their requisite long range rifles, intermediate range rifles and long distance imaging equipment.

In that case it would make sense for those militia to have access to their weapons at all times.

But, other than shotguns and deer rifles, that is the only sensible condition under which when a citizen can keep and bear arms.

Today's claims that assault weapons and 50 or 100 round magazines are protected by the United States Constitution are simply wrong.

Those who make that claim are self-serving apologists for individuals and corporations who profit from and encourage the shooting deaths of citizens.

Your faithful servant,

Debt Ceiling - NOT The Issue

Barry, My Liege :

We pray you be clear on the issue.

The debt ceiling is NOT the issue.

Social Security is the issue.

My Liege, the greedy rich bastards with all the money want to steal our social security.

That's what is really happening.

Threats of harm to the debt ceiling are merely crude leverage - the tactics of thugs - to force you into giving up our old age comforts.

The United States of America does not negotiate with terrorists; and, these, My Liege, are terrorists and thugs.

Boehner and the Reps are simply paid employees of the greedy rich thugs.

Please do not negotiate with them. They can only win and we can only lose. They have no power here unless you give it to them. And we voted for you so you would resolve these issues cleanly and fairly.

A better tactic is to use the 14th Amendment and extend the debt ceiling by Executive Order.

'Section 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.'

Here's what will happen after you issue the Order.

Three things will happen when you issue the order and extend the ceiling.

First, you will have the Reps' gang's attention.

Second, you will have the gratitude of everyone in the country except for the small gang of thieves.

Last, there is only a 25% chance that the thieves will take you to the Supreme Court to force a reversal. If they should try that tactic, it will be the death rattle of the Republican Party. No sane person will ever trust a party which sues the President in the Supreme Court in order to ruin both the economy and the full faith and credit of the United States.

Your faithful servant,

NOTES FOR THE INAUGURAL SPEECH

Barry, My Liege :

With trepidation, this space has created suggestions and ideas for an Inaugural speech, which are offered below. Use what you find appropriate.

Your faithful servant.


My Fellow Americans :

Words cannot express the humility and gratitude I feel this morning as I stand here before you to describe where the United States of America is headed for the next few years.

We are a great and a good nation and we are grateful that we are Americans at the beginning of the 21st Century.

We know in our hearts that our greatness follows from our goodness. This goodness of Americans is not an abstract or frivolous concept.

It is as real as the Americans who died protecting our freedoms in our many wars. It is as real as the thousands of men and women in harms' way at this moment.

And, it is just as real as the Americans who immediately help when a disaster like Hurricane Sandy hurts their neighbors.

We honor and respect those Americans who serve in our Armed Forces in countries far away or who serve in their neighborhoods every day and we are more grateful than we can say for their sacrifice and good will.

From this outpouring of American generosity and good will in the years since 1776, we have created a great and powerful country. A country where every person can live the American Dream of working hard and doing well for their families.

I am happy to report that the American Spirit is alive and well and that because of the spirit we can look forward to a bright and challenging future.

We are a family - a large American family. We are a family regardless of our origins, our gender, our religion, our political party or any other artificial divide.

And, like families everywhere, we have differences about issues both trivial and large. But, at the end of the day, we come together and agree on an action which makes our country stronger.

I will not lie to you - sometimes it takes too long to get that agreement. But, we do find the common ground eventually.

And that is what you ask of your leaders : You ask that we find the common ground and move forward.

And that is what we will do in the years ahead. We will find that common ground and we will move ahead.

Make no mistake, some folks will not have their wishes granted when we come together as Americans on a policy or action. And, some of those folks who feel left out will harbor bitter feelings. As your President, I extend a hand of friendship to all Americans including those who feel left out. I hope that they can overcome their grief and help us move forward on other issues.

One of the pressing issues faced by the United States of America is that some forces in the world wish us ill and seek to kill our people. We stand resolute against our enemies and we will defend our country with our greatest efforts. Having said that, my Admistration will bring forward some proposals to modify the legal system in place to conduct those efforts.

It is important to our values that we do not violate our Constitutional principles in conducting actions to secure our country. We can and we will do both - protect our country and our Constitution.

There are some trends inside our country which need some minor adjustments in the near future in order to provide our grandchildren with better lives.

We need to take better care of the planet. My administration has a number of specific programs to ensure that our resources and environment are secure. We will bring those forward soon.

These policies may harm some people financially by the actions we take to preserve our future.

We honor the rich among us for they have demonstrated great diligence in amassing their fortunes. The issue we face today is that some of those folks can use their wealth to manipulate the political system to their advantage and by so doing block the way forward for others in our family.

Now is the time for them to demonstrate that they too have the American Spirit of being willing to help their neighbors when disasters happen.

That is what we need to preserve our greatness - we need goodness and sacrifice from everyone in our family. We ask the fortunate among us to lead the way. The United States of America cannot move forward without their cooperation. I will be asking them for their cooperation soon.

We know that middle class and working class families have suffered financial setbacks in recent years and we are determined to improve the lives of all individual families in our great American family.

Our American political system needs some tweaking in order to ensure that the way forward for average families is not blocked.

Tweaking this system requires that we alter our method of financing political campaigns and that we modify some of our capital and consumer good markets to ensure more competition among our business enterprises. It may require also that we provide some additional negotiating strength to our labor folks while providing their employers some protection from lower cost competitors. We will bring forward specific policies to accomplish those tasks.

We recognize our familial obligation to assist those among us who cannot help themselves or who have worked their entire lives and want to live out their days secure from want and illness. We will protect existing programs and bring forth new policies to ensure that we meet those obligations.

We also recognize that America's future greatness lies in our ability to make our economy sound and growing. A fundamental requirement for that economic growth is a sound and healthy public education system.

Our future new products and services depend on an educated population. We know that limiting schooling to those who can afford a private education is a road to disaster for our grandchildren. Our economy works well when all of us can produce at our highest levels. We cannot afford to limit the potential of any of our family; we need their contributions for our future.

Let me assure the American people - we will find that common ground and we will make the right decisions for our children and grandchildren.

Thank you and may God bless the United States of America.

Bankers - Making Things Worse Since Tudor England

Barry, My Liege :

A little more history about the early 19th Century shows some additional flaws in free market economics.

'If we turn to the towns, to the manufacturing and mining districts, we shall find a condition of things equally [to the agricultural countryside] revolting to humane sentiment. It was probable more by machinery than by guns that we had won the war, but the price was terrible. The period of transition [to peace] during which, under more favorable circumstances, we might have evolved a new social order, had seen all our energies devoted to beating the enemy and keeping ourselves from actual collapse. Provided this could be done, that the furnaces could be kept roaring and the wheels buzzing, nothing could else counted with those in authority. The new industrial system was allowed to evolve itself, and evolve it did in the most wasteful, slipshod and cruel of all possible ways.

Even for the employers, the struggle for survival was desperate and the spectre of ruin seldom very far off. Markets fluctuated, booms and slumps trod on each others' heels in the most bewildering way. The course of business was left not, as theorists supposed, to the free play of enlightened egotism, but to the reckless optimism and mad panic of business men. This alteration of slump and boom was no new thing, it had gone on continuously at least since Tudor times, but no one had thought out a financial system for regulating it - the very nature of the evil was hardly realized. The Bank of England, protected from any serious competition by Act of Parliament, occupied a position of dominating importance and used its power positively to aggravate the evil it might have mitigated. Before the great panic of 1825 when capital was being demanded recklessly for every sort of wild-cat enterprise, the Bank was adding fuel to the fire of speculation by cheapening credit and lowering its rate in spite of the fact that gold was being drained rapidly out of the country and its own reserve was diminishing to vanishing point. Then, when the first symptom of a slump appeared, the Bank sharply contracted its credit and precipitated a general smash. Henceforth the recurrence of a decennial panic became a regular part of our financial anarchy, with untold consequences of misery and unemployment.

With the coming of peace, the freedom of the seas, and the opening of the world's markets, a period of prosperity had been confidently anticipated. Unfortunately the first result was to plunge the nation more deeply into the trough of misery. It was no good having access to markets when the war had drained our customers of the money to pay, and the other nations, which were now trying belatedly to build up industries of their own, were by no means minded to expose them to the full blast of British competition - in Europe and the United States tariffs were rapidly put up against us. Then the government, which during the war had been a huge employer of labour, civil and military, ceased its abnormal destructive activities, and thereby flooded the labour market with idle hands at a time when works everywhere were closing down. The state of hopeless misery into which the country was plunged in the black year 1816 baffles description....

Grimmest of all was the lot of children who were herded into the factories almost as soon as they could walk, whose hours were from five in the morning till seven or nine at night, in a steaming and overheated atmosphere and amid unfenced machinery into which the poor little victims often dropped through sheer exhaustion, or imprisoned alone and in the dark down in the bowels of the earth. Every species of cruelty had to be practiced to keep them up to the mark ; the employer would often wait with a horsewhip in the small hours of the morning to flog the half drowsed infants into their daily Hell, and as the day went on and agonized appeals for the time were heard, conscientious foremen would apply the scourge with ever more industrious assiduity until the bruised and haggard little boys and girls reeled home for a few hours' insufficient sleep, broken by dreams of the day's torture. The parents, where they were not brutalized by their own misery out of all natural feeling, watched with bleeding hearts the sacrifice of their children, but the industrial Moloch was inexorable, it was a choice between Hell and starvation - conscientious overseers would not grant relief to idle hands, however diminutive.'

From THE HISTORY OF BRITISH CIVILIZATION, Esme Wingfield-Stratford, D Sc., M.A., Ex-Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London First Edition 1928, Second Edition, 1930, Reprinted 1932, 1933, 1938, 1942, 1945 and 1948, pp 887-888

Inaugural Speech

Barry, My Liege :

We wish you and yours Hog Manay, a very Happy New Year.

We recognize that it is a promising and simultaneously challenging time for you and for the United States of America and our Economic National Security.

My Liege, as you consider your Inaugural Speech for your second term as well as the verdict of history on your Presidency, we beseech you humbly for a few simple things.

We pray you, My Liege, restore Constitutional processes to your killing programs so that neither you nor your successors can take a life on your sole decision. Then and only then will we be able to consider you as a President of the United States of America instead of the Royal position you have assumed.

Your renditions continue [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/renditions-continue-under-obama-despite-due-process-concerns/2013/01/01/4e593aa0-5102-11e2-984e-f1de82a7c98a_story.html] and your assault on the Fourth Amendment cooperates with Congress [http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/editorials/article/Unwarranted-intrusions-on-civil-liberties-4160170.php].

We beseech you to speak the truth about our situation. We know that you cannot right all the wrongs we face, but perhaps by speaking the truth you can establish a direction and a vision for our future that takes us toward our shared ideals.

We pray you address the income and wealth imbalances which afflict us today. They are not sustainable and will destroy our Noble Experiment unless corrected in the near future.

Let us be clear, My Liege, simply raising the marginal tax rate to 39.6% on those who make obscene incomes will not correct the problem. Truly correcting these inequities requires radical restructuring. My Liege, we will be happy if you acknowledge that.

While I can list a number of specific actions which will 'turn the ship around', in your phrase, I have written that list in this space on earlier occasions. See this for details : Saturday, September 22, 2012, Recovery and Restoration of the USA, 2013

We wish you be ambitious, My Liege. We pray you choose Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt as your models.

You will disappoint us severely if you are cautious and ignorant of our true issues, My Liege.

My Liege, we pray you speak to history and act for history in your coming term, for that is what we require as a country.

Your faithful servant,

The Lucky English

Barry, My Liege :

If the Scots were miserable in the latter part of the 18th Century, the English must have been better off.

They were, according to Wingfield-Stratford :


"...But when the war was over and the inflated prosperity of the farmer collapsed like a pricked bubble, though [war measures] may have provided the best temporary expedient for keeping land under the plough, easing the burden on the farmers and providing some sort of employment for the labourers, the plight of the countryside was catastrophe. The ratepayers, many of whom were themselves on the verge of destitution and who were , besides, crushed to the earth by enormous taxation, could not afford to be generous. Relief and wages combined were forced down to the bare pittance necessary to keep body and soul together, and this level was steadily depressed until the countryside of England, which had been not so long ago famed as the land of roast beef and plum pudding in scornful contrast with that of the 'skinny Frenchmen', was peopled by gaunt and half-starved wretches shirking about on Sundays - as Corbett puts it - "in ragged smock frocks with unshaven faces, with a shirt not washed for a month and with their toes peeping out of their shoes," droves of slaves, under arbitrary tyranny of their parish overseer, often harnessed, men and women together, to the parish cart. And yet the squires and big landowners were basking in the noontide of prosperity, trapping and transporting men to preserve pheasants, and spending long days on horseback in the pursuit of vermin."

This is what the Republicans will have for us, My Liege. It is the legacy of unfettered Free Market economics.

We pray you fight for us.

Your faithful servant.

Living With Classic Economic Policies

Barry, My Liege :

Here follows a somewhat personalized view of the effects of Classical Economic policies like those proposed by the Republican Party on real people including some of my ancestral family :

From THE HISTORY OF BRITISH CIVILIZATION, Esme Wingfield-Stratford, D Sc., M.A., Ex-Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London First Edition 1928, Second Edition, 1930, Reprinted 1932, 1933, 1938, 1942, 1945 and 1948, pp 886-887

LIFE IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS in the late 18th and early 19TH century.

'We can only glance, in passing, at the meanest and most shameful of all the rural oppressions of this time, the sense of which was not the English countryside, but the Highlands of Scotland. Under the influence of the Romantic movement, and particularly of Sir Walter Scott, there was much sentiment about clan loyalty, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and so forth. The kilt and tartan, which were now again legalized became symbolic of

"Old, unhappy, far-off things
And battles long ago."

But the chieftains, whose functions as military leaders of the tribe had lapsed since the strong hand of Butcher Cumberland had brought the King's peace into their remotest fastness, were by no means sentimental where the main chance was concerned. Poor soil and primitive methods of cultivation might maintain a hardy population in contentment, but as a business proposition it would pay to get rid of the clansmen and turn the whole land into pasturage for sheep and cattle - only in the fullness of the Victorian era did the claims of pleasure demand the replacement of men by deer. Even before the "forty-five", evictions had started in the Isle of Skye, but it was towards the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth that practice became common of the chieftain turning on his tenants and driving them out of their homes, with every circumstance of brutality to shift for themselves or perish miserably. The first Duke of Sutherland, in the second decade of the century, gained an infamous pre-eminence by the wholesale eviction of his hapless people, who were forced out when their crops were standing, whose roofs, furniture, and even stock were burnt, some of whom were generously offered allotments on the barren sea-shore, without boats or the money to buy them - nay, a notice was posted on a church door threatening with eviction anyone giving shelter to those already evicted. The black list of robber and traitor chieftains then and subsequently includes such names as Campbell, Macdonald, Fraser, Cameron of Lochiel, Hamilton, Gordon, and many another whose tartan figures proudly at Highland gatherings to-day, as if the colours of Judas were an honorable distinction.'

Your faithful servant,

Merry Christmas, My Liege

Our very best wishes of the Season to Sasha, Malia, Michelle and you, My Liege.

It is a time to take a respite from the cares of our Nation and enjoy family time.

Those cares will resurface soon enough.

Perhaps the time and distance can give a perspective on your second term.

We here in the real world wish that you will try for greatness, My Liege.

Here is a quote from Deepak Chopra writing about the movie and the man Lincoln during the Civil War:

"The heel of history is hard on their necks. Their passions rise and fall with every turn of the war. Lincoln was different. He understood that he was the still point at the center, the one mind whose clarity and judgment must save the day - or it wouldn't be saved."

[http://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/977/is_obama_a_man_of_destiny?]

We pray you be that 'still point at the center' and save our Nation from its dangers.

For we have no place else to turn and you give us hope that your are up to the task.

Make no mistake, it is a very big task.

Know this, the bolder you move the more will we be with you.

Do not be small, My Liege. It is time to be big.

Your faithful servant,

NRA - RAT - Real American Terrorists 9

Barry, My Liege :

The National Rifle Association, NRA, and its Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre earn their designations as RATs [Real American Terrorists] by their profiting from the death of innocent Americans.

It is an organization in which its sponsors make money from the deaths of Americans.

Here is a link to some of their corporate sponsors : http://www.friendsofnra.org/corporate-sponsors.aspx

My Liege, I live in an American city where I hear automatic weapon fire almost every night, sometimes close and sometimes far away. Last week in my city two 15 year old girls were shot to death on the street in the early morning hours by automatic weapon fire to their faces and then their backs as they crawled away to die.

Occasionally I see the cars of the shooters fleeing a recent murder. It is usually at least two cars. I don't know if they are running away from the police or the associates of the people they shot. They are most likely running away from their victim's associates since my city is short of police by about 40%.

Into this situation, Mr. LaPierre and his backers sell military grade weapons with occasionally zero restrictions or background checks if the weapons are bought at 'gun shows'.

The NRA is funded by gun makers. It's sole purpose is to reduce restrictions on weapon sales.

Their rhetoric about the Constitution and hunting is simply part of a shell game. Their is no Constitutional right to military style weapons in a private home and legitimate hunters do not need .50 caliber machine guns to kill deer.

This is madness.

My Liege, I agree with you that it is time to stop it.

Some Americans may wish to express their anguish about gun violence in their community.

Write to Mr. LaPierre at this address

National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030
800-672-3888

Your faithful servant,

SAY NO! To China Buying US Battery Secrets

Barry, My Liege :

Here is a case that may justify direct government intervention into the bankruptcy process to prevent harm to the Military National Security of the United States.

Battery maker A123 is being sought by Chinese auto company Wangxian.

Details are here : http://seekingalpha.com/article/1066601-a123-bankruptcy-the-national-security-question

But some of the company's lithium ion battery technology was developed with government funds. And, that technology may give Chinese military a leg up on US weapons.

My Liege, there is more here than market forces.

Tell Little Timmy to tread carefully on the deal in his role at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Or, his and our grandchildren may face Chinese weapons developed with battery technology developed under A123 DOD contracts.

We pray you are VERY careful, My Liege.

Your faithful servant,

MITCH MCCONNELL - G-RAT : Government Real American Terrorist 8

Barry, My Liege :


Mitch McConnell earns his terrorist designation through his adherence to extremely partisan politics regardless of any effects on the Economic National Security of the United States of America.

His was the voice that said - "My number one priority is making sure President Obama’s a one-term president," as quoted by President Obama, interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” recorded on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired on Sept. 23. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html]

He was well positioned to work on that goal as Senate Minority Leader who assumed office January 3, 2007. Using a variety of legislative tricks he was able to prevent many Presidential initiatives from becoming law. Many of these initiatives were non-partisan and necessary to the normal functioning of government. His stoppage of these actions had led most American voters to distrust the government's ability to accomplish any task.

His most widely known accomplishment was to prevent a settlement of the Debt Ceiling issue in 2011. For the first time in our history, the Full Faith and Credit of the United States of America was questioned on financial markets.

Would it not for his personal financial position, it might be said that his actions were simply ideology driven politics. He has stated that he does not want the President to fail, but that so long as Barack Obama is President, the Republicans will be unable to achieve their goals. This is a fine distinction and hard to reconcile with his personal circumstances.

Specifically, his personal worth has skyrocketed from approximately $7 million in 2007 to approximately $ 25 million in 2010. [http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N00003389&year=2010]

My Liege, this is the message for Mr. McConnell : 'If you damage the Economic National Security of the United States and benefit financially from that damage, then you are a TERRORIST and a traitor.'

We pray you are able to defeat Mr. McConnell in all his activities.

Your faithful servant,

Fall Country Studies Published

Barry, My Liege :

The McKeever Institute of Economic Policy Analysis [MIEPA] is pleased to announce the publication on its website [www.mkeever.com] of detailed studies of the economic policies of Hong Kong, India, Nicaragua, Philippines, and Vietnam.

One country which has not been previously analyzed by Specialists is submitted : Nicaragua is analyzed by Specialist Jose Arebalo; the analysis may be read at http://www.mkeever.com/nicaragua.html

Hong Kong is analyzed by Specialist Sin Ying Wong ; the analysis may be read at : http://www.mkeever.com/hongkong.html

India is analyzed by Specialists Ashwini Shridhar and Intern Specialist Tasha Agarwal ; the analyses may be read at http://www.mkeever.com/hongkong.html

Philippines is analyzed by Specialist Kara Chua Olegario ; the analysis may be read at http://www.mkeever.com/philippines.html

Vietnam is analyzed critically by Specialist Quy Nguyen Sr. ; the analysis may be read at http://www.mkeever.com/vietnam.html

Your faithful servant,

RUPERT MURDOCH – RAT - Real American Terrorist 7

Barry, My Liege :


Rupert Murdoch has earned his designation as a RAT [Real American Terrorist] through his systematic degradation of the media he controls into political propaganda, police and public official corruption, flouting of anti-monopoly laws, disregard for the personal harm he causes private individuals and for many additional practices.

Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy as pointed out by Lord Justice Leveson in his inquiry into Rupert Murdoch's News of the World scandal in England :

'The press, operating properly and in the public interest is one of the true safeguards of our democracy. As Thomas Jefferson put it: “Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.” '

The full executive summary of the report is available here : http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1213/hc07/0779/0779.pdf

Rupert Murdoch has clearly abused his position as owner of multiple media outlets in order to increase his profits; he has done so while harming each country in which he operates.

He harms the host country in two primary methods. First, all his media outlets provide a consistent bias toward a questionable ideology of conservative thought.

He has converted famous newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal in the United States and The Times in England into biased screeds from their formerly respected position as objective journals.

Second, he abuses the freedom of the press to publish sensational stories which often damage the lives of private citizens who happened by chance to be affected by a story. Here is how Lord Leveson puts it :

'For many years, there have been complaints that certain parts of the press ride roughshod over others, both individuals and the public at large, without any justifiable public interest...there has been a recklessness in prioritising sensational stories, almost irrespective of the harm that the stories may cause and the rights of those who would be affected (perhaps in a way that can never be remedied), all the while heedless of the public interest.'

This space takes note of Mr. Murdoch's recent loss of his mother and extends its sympathies. However, that does not diminish the desire for him to alter his behavior.

Your handwritten letter may be able to convey your experiences of the harm he has created.

Mr. Murdoch can be reached here :

Rupert Murdoch
Chairman and Chief Executive
News Corporation
1211 Avenue of Americas
8th Floor
NY, NY 10036


The main telephone number for News Corp is 212-852-7000, and they should be able to put you through to Mr. Murdoch's office.


Your faithful servant,

ERIC HOLDER - G-RAT Real American Terrorist - 6

Barry, My Liege :

Your Attorney General has earned his G-RAT [Government Real American Terrorist] designation by his failure to prosecute the perpetrators of three direct attacks on the Economic National Security of the United States of America.

Since his Office of Attorney General of the United States is at the pinnacle of our governmental structure, his office or person is not required to benefit personally from his actions to earn that designation.

It is sufficient that the actions of his office strike at the heart of the Constitution and our Economic National Security.

My Liege, it can be said that Mr. Holder as your employee simply carries out your policies. If that is true, then you, My Liege, should own this designation as well.

First, Federal Prosecutions of financial fraud have fallen to a 20 year low on his watch.

This failure harms our Economic National Security because criminal actions by some organizations and individuals in the financial sector caused our current Recession. Without effective prosecutions of the organizations and individuals, they are likely to create additional recessions.

An article by Alexander Eichler provides details here : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/financial-fraud-prosecution_n_1095933.html

Second, many monopolies and oligopolies continue to exist in the United States. Such organizations are illegal under various statutes because their existence harms our Economic National Security.

Monopolies harm our Security because they take exorbitant profits by charging higher prices than would competitors in a competitive industry. This taking creates accumulations of wealth with no social benefit and contributes to our economic inequality.

This space discussed some specific industries which appear to be monopolies or oligopolies under the terms of the statutes in a posting of May 2012.

Industries in which the four largest firms in terms of market share take more than 60% of total revenues are classed as monopolies or oligopolies and should be prosecuted.

Here is a list of industries in which companies earn these abnormal profits [the numbers after the name of the industry refer to the percentage share of total revenues for the industry earned by the four {4} largest firms] in 2002 :

Cigarettes 97.8

Guided Missiles 94.8

Aircraft 81.3

Breakfast cereal 80.4

Electric Lamps, Light Bulbs 75.4

Tires 77.6

Automobiles 67.6

Cookies, Crackers 69.3

Tortillas 57.4

Men's and Boy's Shirts 56.4

Dolls, Stuffed Toys 56.9

Fluid Milk 46.0

Ships, Boat Building 44.0

As a comparison, here are the industries and concentration ratios in 1997 :

Cigarettes 99

Cane Sugar Refining 99

Primary Copper 95

Glass Containers 91

Beer 90

Small-arms Ammunition 90

Electric Light Bulbs 89

Aircraft 85

Breakfast Cereals 83

Motor Vehicles 82

Household Refrigerators 82

Photo Equipment and Supplies 81

Turbines and Generators 78

Flat Glass 77

Fiber-Optic Cable 71

Men's Slacks 69

Tires 69

Motorcycles and Bicycles 68

Gypsum Products 68

Soap and Detergents 66

Lawn, Garden Equipment 64

Data is readily available to the Attorney General about these noncompetitive industries.

Lastly, 'union busting' activities harm our Economic National Security by preventing workers from enjoying better incomes and contributing to our economic inequalities.

While some of the prosecutions may fall to the NLRB, the Attorney General has a duty to investigate and prosecute egregious violations of Federal Law. He has not done so.

Here are some facts from a recent survey : 'In 91% of the union recognition petitions filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the survey, a majority of workers indicated they wanted a union before the process began. In several cases, workers demonstrated more than 80% support. However, unions were victorious in only 31% of the campaign in which they filed a petition.'

Barry, my Liege, if Mr. Holder continues these policies, The United states will continue to decline.

We pray you for relief.

Your faithful servant,

CEO Crooks Wet Themselves

Barry, My Liege :

A group of CEO's has entered into the discussion about the fiscal cliff and Social Security.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

Here is the URL of an article describing their embarassment :

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/25/deficit-reduction-council-fiscal-cliff_n_2185585.html

While they have benefitted obscenely from government subsidies and handouts, they are asking that poor and middle class folks give up even more of our pensions and healthcare so they can continue increasing their fortunes.

Their gall positively astounds.

It is clear what they want from us, so let it be clear what we want from them.

This is what we want :

1. A death tax that confiscates all their wealth except for a set figure not to exceed $100 million ; that's enough for anybody.

2. An incomes policy that sets a maximum for all income received in any year of $ 2 million ; that's enough for anybody.

3. A law which forbids any non-natural person from contributing to political campaigns.

4. Criminal prosecutions and personal civil liability for any and all individual employees who violate security and banking laws.

5. Elimination of any government subsidies for any company which violates federal law.

6. Aggressive enforcement of laws which protect individuals from fraud, misrepresentation or criminal acts by all corporations.

7. Effective securities laws and enforcement.

8. A law which regulates the salaries of public corporation officers and directors.

9. Aggressive prosecution of companies found guilty of 'union busting' tactics.

10. Aggressive enforcement of anti-monopoly laws so that no single company or affiliated group of companies can control more than 25% of any market.

My Liege, that is a start.

What we really want is to take back our country from the crooks who have stolen it and who now have the gall to publicly threaten us with the loss of our futures.

We need your help here, My Liege, for we are weak and destitute.

Your faithful servant,

WAL MART - C-RAT Corporate Real American Terrorist 5

Barry, My Liege :

WAL MART earns its terrorist designation on Black Friday for the most prosaic of reasons : its business model minimizes costs by maximizing the external costs to the community and world at large in the name of higher Earnings Per Share.

In a study by the Center for Community Planning and Development at Hunter College and THE PUBLIC ADVOCATE FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK, Bill de Blasio dated January 2010, WAL MART was found to be a poor corporate citizen and a danger to the Economic National Security of the United States of America. Here is the URL for the study : http://advocate.nyc.gov/files/Walmart.pdf

The study found that : " Wal-Mart’s formula for financial success includes: low-wage labor, limited health benefits, and leveraging of government subsidies.......Wal-Mart depresses area wages and labor benefits contributing to the current decline of good middle class jobs, pushes out more retail jobs than it creates, and results in more retail vacancies....Wal-Mart store openings kill three local jobs for every two they create by reducing retail employment by an average of 2.7 percent in every county they enter...Wal-Mart has thousands of associates who qualify for Medicaid and other publicly subsidized care, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill. For instance in Ohio Wal-Mart has more associates and associate dependents on Medicaid than any other employer, costing taxpayers $44.8 million in 2009...."

These alone are indictment enough but do not represent the entire negative impact on people.

Indicating their global spread, here's a quote from the WAL MART Watch 2005 Annual Report [available here - http://walmartwatch.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/2/files/pdf/2005-annual-report.pdf] :


"...In 2000, the National Labor Committee found workers at the Qin Shi Handbag Factory in Zhongshan, China earning 3 cents an hour working 14-hour shifts, 7 days a week, 30 days a month. Forty-six percent of the workers earned nothing at all and were actually in debt to the company. They were housed 16 to a room and subjected to physical and verbal abuse...."

The tragedy here is most of these practices are legal. The illegal practices are conducted through bribery.

My Liege, it is clear that continuing this business model will result in harm to the United States of America.

Please write a letter to one of the Board members, especially if you work at WAL MART as one of their 2.7 million associates - 1.4 million in the USA.

WAL MART BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Rob Walton
Chairman of the Board of Directors

Aida M. Alvarez
Former Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration

James W. Breyer
Partner of Accel Partners; Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital

M. Michele Burns
Executive Director and CEO of the Retirement Policy Center sponsored by Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.

James I. Cash, Jr.
James E. Robison Emeritus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

Roger C. Corbett
Retired CEO and Group Managing Director of Woolworths Limited

Douglas N. Daft
Retired Chairman and CEO of the Coca-Cola Company

Mike Duke
President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Timothy P. Flynn
Retired Chairman of KPMG International

Marissa A. Mayer
President and CEO of Yahoo!, Inc.

Gregory B. Penner
General Partner of Madrone Capital Partners

Steven S Reinemund
Dean of Business and Professor of Leadership and Strategy at Wake Forest University

H. Lee Scott, Jr.
Retired President and CEO of Walmart

Arne M. Sorenson
President and CEO of Marriott International, Inc.

Jim C. Walton
Chairman and CEO of Arvest Bank Group, Inc.

Christopher J. Williams
Chairman and CEO of The Williams Capital Group, L.P.

Linda S. Wolf
Former Chairman and CEO of Leo Burnett Worldwide, Inc. (“Leo Burnett”)

Write to each director at this address

Walmart Home Office

702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, AR 72716-8611
479-273-4000

Your faithful servant,

POTUS - [G-RAT] Government Real American Terrorist 4

Barry, My Liege :

As POTUS, you carry a duty to protect the values and laws which make us unique among nations. Our Constitution enshrined those laws which protect us from a tyrannical government.

But, My Liege, you and your predecessors have systematically destroyed our protections against arbitrary actions by your government.

Your office has earned the 'Terrorist' designation by destroying those protections. Since your office is at the pinnacle of our governmental structure, your office or person is not required to benefit personally from your actions to earn that designation.

It is sufficient that the actions of your office strike at the heart of the Constitution.

Here is a quote from a posting in this space dated January 12, 2012 :

'Only through established processes and laws can Americans be free. Without those processes and laws, then we are simply subjects of a King and slaves to his whims. We are not citizens.

The Founding Fathers knew first-hand what it is like to live under a regime with no laws and no controls. They chose to die fighting rather than to live under that system.

And, Barry, your administration has completed the installation of an arbitrary and potentially despotic Kingship in the USA.

You have made us into slaves subject to your whims.

It does not matter at all that these actions were taken in the name of protecting us from terrorists.

The taking of these actions has given victory to the terrorists. And Barry, you did it.

The specific actions you have taken were described by George Washington University Professor Jonathan Turley in a recent article in the Washington post titled “10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free”.

Here is a list of the actions as taken from a piece by Boris Volkhonsky in the Voice of Russia; read it here: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/01/19/64179378.html

" 1. Assassination of U.S. citizens – “President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism.” He also notes that countries such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized by the U.S. for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.

2. Indefinite detention – under the National Defense Authorization Act, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. Here the U.S. finds itself in the company of often-criticized Cambodia. Even no less criticized China has recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens.

3. Arbitrary justice– the president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal (the way it is done in China and Egypt).

4. Warrantless searches – the president may order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations (similar laws exist in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).

5. Secret evidence – the government routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts.

6. War crimes– in 2009, Obama administration said that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions as waterboarding terrorism suspects which amounts to torture and crimes against humanity. Other countries that resist independent investigations of similar war crimes include Iran, Syria and China.

7. Secret court – the government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. Similar Pakistan surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services exists in Pakistan.

8. Immunity from judicial review – the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy (similar practice is common for China).

9. Continual monitoring of citizens – the Obama administration has the right to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. Similar massive surveillance systems exist in Saudi Arabia and Cuba.

10. Extraordinary renditions – the government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects."

The laws which you have enacted give absolute life and death power to the President of the United States over any citizen for any reason.

While I might trust you, I surely do not trust a Newt Gingrich or a Rick Perry or a Mitt Romney with that power.

But, it is not about trust. It is about laws and freedom.

I am willing to die fighting to protect my freedom from the arbitrary power of you, Barry Obama.

I do not support a country where a private company can corrupt a government so that a war is fought to make that private company richer.

Under your laws, that can happen with no challenge. And, if I speak out, you can have me killed in order to protect those profits.

It is NOT acceptable and it IS worth fighting and dying to overthrow, just as we did in 1776.

Your subject, and not liking it.'

Idiot Bankers - Do NOT Rescue Them

Barry, My Liege :

Well, well, well.

Looks like our esteemed bankers have just lost the paper ownership records of EVERYTHING in the flood.

And, My Liege, they don't even know what is missing. We can be pretty sure it will be many billions of dollars.

There is one thing certain : They will ask taxpayers to make them whole.

We should NOT do that.

They are big boys. That's one reason they have capital - to cushion us from their mistakes.

Here is a cut and paste URL to the story :

http://dealbreaker.com/2012/11/hurricane-sandy-destroys-trillions-of-dollars-of-securities-but-thats-no-big-deal/


Perhaps it is time for bankers to grow up.

Your faithful servant,

Path to Greatness

Barry, My Liege :

The good news about your situation today is a clear path to greatness for you ; and, the even better news is the United States of America will be a better country if you walk that path.

You will achieve greatness by restoring the Economic National Security of the United States of America.

Make no mistake, the path is difficult to walk. It will test you to the utmost.

Restoring our security will require you to pass several laws through Congress ; and, that is where the difficulties lie.

The list of laws we need is enumerated in this space as published on 9.22.12 with the title 'Recovery and Restoration of the USA, 2013'.

Now, it happens that your party does not have a majority in the House of Representatives, which means that you will have to secure the votes of some Republican House members for every law you pass.

I cannot overstate the importance of your personal involvement in the process. You cannot outsource the campaign.

Only your personal, intimate involvement will succeed.

Nobody else, not even Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner, can get this done for you.

And, My Liege, you have between 6 and 12 months to accomplish all that you can accomplish - it will be too late after that.

Here is an amateur's suggestion about how to walk that path.

First, create a list of each law required to complete the path.

Then, for each law, find a number of Republican Representatives needed to pass the House.

Ideally, each such Representative will be from a closely fought election where the Democrat opponent is a strong contender.

Contact the three largest campaign contributors to the Republican's election campaign and determine that each is indifferent to the proposed law.

Then, you personally make an offer to each backer and to the Representative that in exchange for the vote on your proposal, the Democrat challenger will not receive Party financing for the next election.

Of course, the Republican House members will be different for each law you work on, but the process will be similar.

We cannot overstate the stakes for our country here, My Liege.

Succeed here and the country is saved.

Fail here and the great American experiment is dead.

We wish you Godspeed, My Liege.

Your faithful servant,

FOR SALE - Republican Respect

Barry, My Liege :

The election was great news for the country and for you. Congratulations on your victory.

But, the following message is for the leaders in the opposition Party, The Republican Party, but you can read it if you want.

To McConnel, Boehner, et al : your Republican Party embarrassed our country with its incompetent performance in the election.

To survive as a functioning country, we need two competent political parties so that policy proposals can be vetted thoroughly.

That cannot happen unless and until the Republican Party reforms its policies into a coherent platform.

Your current platform is a mash up of outdated ideas, false assumptions, bad arithmetic and economic policies which have been proven to be unworkable.

For example, one of your Party's primary policies is that lower taxes on high income individuals will result in more investment and job creation.

This idea is false.

The American electorate understands that your party's ideas are false or irrelevant.

No amount of pandering to social concerns like homophobia, misogyny or fear of immigration can overcome a core of ideas which is perceived as outdated.

The Republican Party faces the likelihood of irrelevance unless it updates its messages.

So far, no one has proposed a coherent set of policy ideas for the Republican Party.

And yet that is what your Party needs.

As a remedy, the author hereby proposes to create a coherent Republican Party platform of economic policies that will do all these things :

* Appeal to the Conservative base

* Attract ethnic minorities, women and young people into the party

* Revitalize the party as an institution

* Make our country stronger by energizing the political debate

* And, provide more election winners.

It is a win-win proposition. The Republican Party wins back its relevance and the country wins a respectable opposition.

While such a platform is a bargain at any price, I hereby offer to provide this for a medium six figure price.

Since my specialty is national economic policy analysis, I am the logical person for this task.

It will be the greatest bargain imaginable for the GOP.

And, since I have consistently provided a deep understanding of the Democratic policy base, I am able to provide its counter easily.

To see the Democratic economic policy base, scroll to this post : Recovery and Restoration of the United States, 9.22.12

Please contact me directly at : mckeever.mp@gmail.com

Best regards,

MONSANTO - C-RAT Corporate Real American Terrorist - 3

Barry, My Liege :

Monsanto is a Corporate Real American Terrorist [C-RAT] because of its long standing policy of making profits from products which cause cancer in animals and humans. Their history includes dioxin, Round Up and now GMO's, products which interefere with the genetic structure of our food.

It does so to collect profits for its shareholders at the expense of our health.

Monsanto's business model appears to be to maximize profits from cancer causing products while allowing the greater society to pay for the medical costs of its products.

As just one example of the harm done to animals consuming its genetically modified products, the Daily Mail reported on a French study of rats consuming GMO modified corn : "The animals on the GM diet suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The researchers said 50 percent of males and 70 percent of females died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group." [http://www.naturalnews.com/037249_GMO_study_cancer_tumors_organ_damage.html]

My Liege, I do not recommend that you or your family eat any products made from corn grown in the United States. That recommendation is based on the practice that the United States of America does not have any labelling laws which require that food products with GMO's be labelled as such. Most other industrialized countries do have such laws. But, we cannot know what is in our food.

Additionally, Monsanto routinely places false information in the media about its products and practices as well as supressing any press reports about scientific work which demonstrates harm from its products.

A further business practice of the company is to patent genetically modified seeds made by farmers on other countries and then charge those farmers a fee to use the seeds. There are reports of strong arm tactics as well.

Even though the company's practices are obviously unethical, they are legal under our justice system.

Perhaps Monsanto's Board is simply maximizing profits while waiting for the legal system to catch up to our morals.

Here are links with futher discussion of the company :

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=210


http://www.nationofchange.org/just-one-monsanto-s-crimes-or-why-we-can-t-trust-epa-1334496958

In the meantime, My Liege, we should publically villify the company and its business practices. Additionally, any person who has a family member suffering from cancer should write a detailed hand written letter explaining the effects of that cancer on the body and family of the disease.

You can write the individual Board member listed below at the Monsanto address below or at their other affiliation :

1. David L. Chicoine, Ph.D. is president of South Dakota State University and professor of economics.

2. Janice L. Fields is president of McDonald’s USA, LLC, a subsidiary of McDonald’s Corporation.

3. Hugh Grant is the chairman and chief executive officer of Monsanto Company.

4. Arthur H. Harper is managing partner of GenNx360 Capital Partners.

5. Laura Ipsen is corporate vice president of Microsoft Corp.'s Worldwide Public Sector organization.

6. Gwendolyn S. King is president of Podium Prose, a speakers bureau.

7. C. Steven McMillan is a retired chairman of the board and CEO of Sara Lee Corporation.

8. Jon R Moeller is chief financial officer of The Procter & Gamble Company.

9. William U. Parfet is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of MPI Research Inc.

10. George H. Poste, Ph. D., D.V.M. is chief executive of Health Technology Networks.

11. Robert J. Stevens is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation.


Here's how to contact them :

Monsanto Company
800 N. Lindbergh Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63167

Email: queries.media@monsanto.com

Media Hotline
(314) 694-NEWS (6397)


Your faithful servant,

Hit The Ground Running

Barry, My Liege :

Now is the time to propose your specific agenda for your second term.

You cannot wait.

The Reps are disoriented and unsure of what to do.

Don't let them organize before you announce your agenda.

My Liege, it is also time for you to be a hard negotiator.

Make your positions extreme and hold to them until the opposition makes the first offer of compromise.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Our country needs you now.

Your faithful servant,

UPDATE 2014 - Jamie Dimon RAT Gets Raise !

Barry, My Liege :

Unbeliveably, the Real American Terrorist and criminal Jamie Dimon was awarded a raise. Sadly for the Republic, he should be in jail instead.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/You-can-bank-on-it-a-raise-for-Dimon-but-no-5175448.php

Continuing here -



The recent Great Recession was a financial meltdown caused by inadequate regulation as stated by Former FED Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Mr. Dimon is the CEO of JPMorgan Chase which is one of the surviving banks and arguably the largest financial institution in the country.

Mr. Dimon is also too rich for a Democracy ; details of his financial condition are here : http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=170444&ticker=JPM

His wealth and income constitute a conflict of interest with the Economic National Security of the United States of America.

Specifically, he wants to maintain the regulation free banking industry which resulted in the recent banking meltdown. He wants to maintain that structure even though it has caused irreparable harm to a large share of the population. He wants to maintain it because he profited significantly as a result.

More importantly, without changes to the industry and regulation structure as it currently exists THE UNITED STATES WILL EXPERIENCE FURTHER FINANCIAL CRISES.

Mr. Dimon earns his Terrorist designation because he funds and directs a lobbying and political payoff effort dedicated to eviscerating meaningful regulation changes for his personal financial benefit and aggrandizement.

He personally bribes Representatives, Senators and Administration officials at the highest levels through our despicable - albeit legal - campaign finance laws.

Fortunately for the rest of us, Mr. Dimon was docked 50% of his annual pay due to his poor oversight of a trading scheme that cost J P Morgan about $ 6 billion; http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-16/jpmorgan-halves-dimon-s-pay-over-whale-losses

Please write him a letter with your experiences and concerns. His address is below.


Mr. Jamie Dimon
JPMorgan Chase
270 Park Avenue
New York, NY
(212) 270-6000

Your faithful servant,

Write A Letter to A RAT [Real American Terrorist]

Barry, My Liege :

The real terrorists we need to manage are the RATs - the rich American bastards who write our laws to give themselves a tax break or a monopoly.

These are the folks who are actively destroying the American Dream for the real folks like me and you - the way you used to be before you got famous and powerful.

You see, one of the things that happens to rich folks is that they insulate themselves from real people. They don't know any real people so they have no understanding of our lives.

My Liege, I know that you work hard to maintain your ties to reality, but a lot of the RATs don't.

After all, I can imagine that life in their air conditioned bubble is a lot more comfortable than life in the streets with the heat and the rain.

But, that insulation from American reality means that the RATs don't see what happens to real folks every day.

Maybe we can remedy that.

Let's do this : let's ask everybody in the country with a real problem or grievance to write a letter to a RAT.

If we can send each RAT several five or ten page letters from real people each week, maybe they will read the letters and will have a deeper understanding than they do now.

There is no immediate revolution that will happen from this, but maybe our country will be a better place to live over time.

You might ask what kind of letter we should write.

Well, the first thing is to make it a hand written letter instead of a computer print out. Hand written letters pass by the screeners more easily and convey a more heartfelt message than a printed letter.

As far as the content goes, it can be just about anything the writer wants to say.

Maybe your mother has diabetes and you can't afford her medication since she has no health insurance and you lost your job and your house. Explain that.

Maybe your only son came back from Iraq as a quadriplegic who needs 24 hour care and has to be spoon fed. And, maybe you're just a little depressed about that. Tell your RAT all about it.

Maybe you're really angry about the rich bastards who have ruined your life and you want to tell one exactly how you feel. Go ahead - do it now.

My Liege, you get the idea.

One can hope it will catch on.

This space will contribute by naming RATs occasionally and by providing mailing addresses for them.

Perhaps the world will be better as a result.

Your faithful servant,

Real American Terrorists - 1. KOCH BROTHERS

Barry, My Liege :

The dangerous terrorists in the United States of America are NOT the idiots with fake bombs made by the FBI ; nor are they the poor souls struggling to survive in the desert while dodging drone strikes.

The real terrorists are the rich American bastards who write our laws to give themselves a tax break or a monopoly while systematically looting the Middle Class of our jobs, houses, pensions, education and health care.

My Liege, I will call them out by name in this space.

One hopes that the Real American Terrorists [RATs] named here stay healthy, but spend much of their time watching their backs and planning to move out of the country.

Make no mistake, the Economic National Security of the United States of America is damaged by their very presence and it will be enhanced by their removal to another country.

The criterion by which a person will be named in this space is that he or she actively seeks to harm the country economically while personally profiting from that harm.

Sadly, many of the RATs believe that their success in taking money from others is somehow beneficial to the country.

That belief is claptrap.

Taking from many to enrich one does NOT benefit the country.

We all do well when we all do well.

And, the rich among us do better when we all do well.

This space takes that as a given and embarks on naming names.

KOCH BROTHERS

First up are the KOCH BROTHERS.

These guys are so bad, there is even a movie about them : http://www.kochbrothersexposed.com/

They are BILLIONAIRE brothers who inherited most of their wealth and have embarked on a political crusade to move the United states of America back to the 19th century or to the feudal era.

They fund systematically a myriad of organizations which publish false studies, lobby for harmful legislation at the State and National level as well as other initiatives too numerous to mention.

They also give grants to public universities with the proviso that any professors hired and any research done must be approved by their foundation : just exactly the opposite of standard academic practice and the opposite of the search for truth.

The more I read about the KOCH BROTHERS, the worse they appear.

They call themselves Conservative and Libertarian, but they are really radical people dedicated to ruining the lives of ordinary Americans so that they can continue to become richer.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

And, they should be publicly villified whenever they venture into the public arena.

Here is how to find them :

Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation
http://www.cgkfoundation.org/


Charles Koch Foundation
1515 N. Courthouse Rd.
Suite 200
Arlington, VA 22201
Phone: 703-875-1770
Fax: 703-875-1766
Email: email@charleskochfoundation.org

Media inquiries: mediainquiries@charleskochfoundation.org
Grants information: grants@charleskochfoundation.org



David H. Koch Charitable Foundation
http://www.kochfamilyfoundations.org/about.asp

Contact information is difficult to find, so try this :


KOCH INDUSTRIES

600 14th Street Northwest #800 Washington, DC 20005
(202) 737-1977



Your faithful servant,

Populist, Left Leaning Economist Writes

Barry, My Liege :

This space has been honored to be identified as an '...explicitly populist and left-leaning economic blog ...'.

Well, alrighty then.

Without further ado, I will try to provide a basic four of the principles which guide comments in this space ; please bear in mind that this is NOT a formal essay but rather a short list of fundamentals, many of which have been published previously.

A. RECOVERY - GREAT FORTUNES, GREAT INCOMES - published 5.18.12 :

The accumulation of great fortunes and large incomes in the United States has a deleterious effect on economic growth and job creation.

Economic growth and job creation comes from people who invest in businesses. It is well known that business investing is risky...

In conclusion, My Liege, it is clear both theoretically and practically that people with large incomes and fortunes do not wish to invest in business start-ups. Any activity that increases already large fortunes will take money away from people wishing to start new businesses, thus reducing economic growth and the Economic National Security of the United States.

B. CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIC THEORY, WRONG IN 1776, WRONG NOW - published 9.30.12 :

Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS, the book which codified and justified [today's conservative] philosophy, was published in 1776, the year of our revolution. Some of our founding fathers explicitly acknowledged that the invisible hand identified by Adam Smith helped in drawing our Constitution.

And, our conservative friends rely on that coincidence to support their free market beliefs.

But, it is significant that even Adam Smith suggested that a just and moral society requires curbs on the free play of market forces in order to secure a decent life for all people.

As he wrote his book, he surely observed the life around him. The life he observed consisted of great accumulations of capital and material wealth together with unimaginable social misery in the England of the 18th century.

C. WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF THE GOVERNMENT IS DOWNSIZED - Published 8.16.12 :

Part of the populist credo is the idea that an adequately sized Government is required to protect citizens from the effects of both criminals and unbridled market forces.

In August, this space discussed the real world effects of 'drowning government in the bathtub' by looking at places where the government is unable to restrain criminal elements.

'According to John P. Sullivan, who has written extensively on this phenomena over the past several years, a "criminal insurgency" occurs when criminal enterprises compete with the state not for traditional political participation, but rather to free themselves from state control in order to maximize profits from illicit economic activity. In so doing, TOC [transnational organized crime] elements seek to establish zones of "dual sovereignty" within states where they have freedom of movement, perceived legitimacy from the communities they exploit, and the complicity or acceptance of state political actors. Ultimately, the result is pervasive corruption, evidenced by a reciprocal criminalization of politics and politicization of crime.'

D. THE JOBS THEORY OF GROWTH [http://www.mkeever.com/apply.html]

This space uses a new theory of economic growth and bases its comments on that theory. This JOBS THEORY OF ECONOMIC GROWTH is delineated in the parent website at the link above.

Previous theories of economic growth measured numbers of ourput and dollars while ignoring any social effects ; this new theory addresses the social results of growth for each person.

In the economic circular flow of money and goods, businesses sell goods to consumers and hire workers to produce and sell those goods. The workers take their wages and buy products and services from businesses.

The classical economist's way of looking at the flow was to say that 'Supply creates Demand'. In other words, business must hire workers to create products and those workers in turn use their incomes to create demand for businesses by spending their wages. Classical economics then looks at businesses as the foundation of economic activity for their efforts to create products by hiring workers. While creating a product or service the business pays workers wages which then creates an income for consumers. Classical economics focuses on business product creation and assumes the demand will follow.

The jobs theory turns that around to make this statement: 'Demand Creates Supply'. In other words, if consumers have an income, businesses will be formed to supply products to consumers. Then, the focus is on the consumer's income - if consumers have an income, business will cater to that income by creating products for consumers to buy.

Economic growth then becomes the creation of new businesses and jobs; and, it is measured by the number of jobs created. One cannot just measure the number of businesses created since one new business may create hundreds of jobs while another new business creates only one job.

When more jobs are created, then the economy grows. It is measurable - just count the number of new jobs created and subtract the number of jobs lost. If the number is positive, then there is economic growth. If the number is negative, then the economy has shrunk.

For example, the number of people working in the USA grew from 64,630,000 in 1959 to 145,926,000 in December of 2006, according to the 2007 Economic Report of the President [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/eop/tables07.html]. This is a growth of two and one quarter times over a 47 year period.

During that same period, the population grew from 177,830,000 in 1959 to 299,801,000 in 2006. This was a growth of about 68%.

Not only did the absolute number of jobs grow by 125% during that period, the number of jobs grew almost twice as fast as the population.

The number of jobs per capita is derived by dividing the number of jobs by the population. It grew from 0.36 in 1959 to 0.49 in 2006. In other words, one working person supported nearly two non-working people in 1959, but one working person supported only one non-working person in 2006. Economic growth is measured by an increase in per capita jobs.

Thank you for your attention, My Liege.

It is an honor to be considered a populist and I hope that the views above may help you in your campaign to defeat the forces of Republican repression.

Your faithful servant,

Plutocrats USA

Barry My Liege :

A new book, 'Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else', by Chrystia Freeland is attracting some attention since the author has personally interviewed some of the new very rich.

While I have not read the book yet, I listened to an interview with Ms. Freeland during which she described the attitudes of some of the newly rich toward those less fortunate.

Apparently, some of the new rich who have created fortunes with their enterprise and genius have little or no interest in sharing any of their wealth with anyone.

Still resonating is a quote from one of the new rich as mentioned by Ms. Freeland to the effect that if American workers want to make more wages than Chinese peasants, then American workers will have to be more productive than Chinese peasants.

My Liege, we both know that worker productivity, or the value of work produced per hour worked, is primarily a function of the capital and technology invested into the workplace.

In fact American workers ARE more productive than Chinese workers largely because we have more capital invested in our workplaces than do Chinese.

There is a deeper problem here, though : the deeper problem is the attitudes of some of the new rich. It is the 'Let them eat cake' attitude of Marie Antoinette which tipped into the French Revolution beginning in 1789.

This attitude is well represented throughout history wherever there is a large gulf between the super rich or royalty and the mass of population.

Whether in American plantations operated with slave labor before the Civil War, European Feudal villages, slave labor camps in Nazi Germany or the Gulags of Soviet Russia, powerful people routinely abuse and profit from the less fortunate.

Our 1776 Revolution sprang from a desire to treat people differently. But, the new rich would drive us back to feudalism and slavery.

In order to more fully understand where the drive toward world markets is taking us today, here's what life looks like for those Chinese peasants who have become the standard bearer of workers' rights and privileges as taken from an article by Gethin Chamberlain in The Observer, Saturday 3 December 2011 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/04/chinese-toy-factories-christmas-disney]

'....investigators spent three weeks in the industrial cities of Shenzhen and Dongguan. In some cases, they found that employees:

■ worked up to 140 hours overtime a month;

■ were paid up to a month late;

■ claimed they were expected to work with dangerous tools and machines without training or safety measures;

■ had to work in silence and were fined up to £5 for going to the toilet without permission.

Perhaps the most insidious effect of the long hours and poor wages was how it tore families apart, separating mothers and fathers from their children for all but a few days a year. Many workers were too afraid to speak to the investigators from human rights group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (Sacom), but two women did agree to talk on condition that their names were changed.

Wang Fengping, 27, has two daughters, seven and five. They live a 10-hour train journey away from the On Tai Toys factory. She and her husband earn £200 a month making toys for Disney and others, but cannot afford to bring the children to the city. Instead, the girls are cared for by their grandparents. Wang calls them two or three times a week. The younger one always asks her when she is coming home. "Very soon," Wang always replies.

The reality is that they will meet only once a year, at Chinese New Year. She keeps her spirits up by telling her workmates stories of how well the girls are doing at school. Sometimes she sings them songs the girls have learned at school and then sung to her down the phone. "Our family will not die from hunger, but cannot be fed with this wage level," she said....'

My Liege, that is a future we do not want for our children and grandchildren. We pray you can find a way to prevent our drift toward that future.

Your faithful servant,