AMERICAN NEWS SERVICE

Friday, August 22, 2014

A Knife in the Chest

by Michael Douglas Carlin

A few days later, Lobo is on the ground grappling with a vaquero. Lobo has the vaquero’s arms pulled back and the man’s face is in the dirt. Lobo, “easy now, Cabron, I’m gunna remember this later and if I get my pretty face cut up, it won’t go good for you.”

Angel has his gun drawn and looks like he is going to shoot through Lobo to kill the man. Thinking better of it he comes up and pistol whips the vaquero in the head. Blood is everywhere but the blow did the trick. The man is out like a light.

“Angel, are you turning over a new leaf? I thought you would kill him.”

“Naugh, este, normally I would have just shot him right through you…but with the new Comandante coming in I didn’t want to have to explain why we are two men short.”

Lobo is waiting to see if this is a joke, but it is no joke so he is back to business, “what was he trying to say?”

La Tortuga, “something about his shirt pocket.”

“I won’t let him go for less than ten grand. He can’t have that in his shirt pocket.”

“Maybe he thought we could take credit cards.” The man has been handcuffed and is still bleeding. Lobo reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a decal with the familiar insignia of the Bengal tiger. “I guess he didn’t have time to put it on his van.”

“How much you want to get from him?”

“That was before I knew he was untouchable. I guess we will have to get our money from them.” La Tortuga looks over where there are three men in the back seat of the other car. They are stuffed in there and on top of the hood are a few guns, and a hundred small packages of what appear to be drugs. The prisoners are watching the Federales “Angel’s worried about the new Comondante, I don’t want Hector Garcia Salazar on my ass.”

“You mean you don’t want his tiger on your ass.”

“No shit, huh, I’ll never get used to seeing him walk around with a full grown tiger in Downtown Juarez.”

La Tortuga is looking at the sticker, “I have never seen one of these that isn’t attached to a windshield. Who could blame us for taking him down? And this sticker might come in handy someday soon.”

Angel nods in approval as he unhand cuffs the Vaquero and rolls him over. With a smooth movement he stabs him in the chest.

“I think those guys saw you kill him.”

“That was the point. We have had an offer of fifteen to let all three go. How much will they offer now?”

“I say fifty minimum.”

“Minimum! Seventy-five or a hundred and we make them give us the money by dawn.”

“Este, we can’t let them all go. We need something for the newspapers.”

“With the weight in the van we have a few hundred kilos for the newspapers. We just find someone to attach to the drugs and we have a housewarming gift for the new Comandante.”

The three cars drive off. All three prisoners are in the back of a single car driving in the middle. The van has been left with the dead Vaquero. There is also a pick-up nearby that belonged to the three prisoners but there is nothing in the bed, it has all been removed and packed in the other cars.

In the early morning the three cars pull up in front of a small Juarez cafe. The three men get out, no one else is around and the three prisoners are no longer in the cars.

La Tortuga, “not a bad night’s work!”

Lobo, “a hundred-seventy-five in cash and the packages.”

Angel, “And you were going to settle for fifteen. Funny how the more real they feel it is; the more cash they seem to be able to get their hands on.”

“The blade of a knife in the chest of a man brings a whole lot of reality to the situation.”

“Oh, that? My bad! But just in case that was a mistake let’s sit on this for a day or two and listen to what we hear from Salazar’s Exotic Zoo. Nothing, so far, has happened that we can’t fix with drugs and money.”

Michael Douglas Carlin is a filmmaker, author, and journalist. American Federale is available on iTunes, Amazon, and GooglePlay. Rise a Knight is available on Amazon. Peaceful Protests and A Prescription For Peace is available on iTunes.

FIX IT ALL

By Michael Douglas Carlin
Originally posted on 9/25/2008

We sit at the table of crisis but also at the table of opportunity. Clearly we must bail out the mistakes of "Wall Street". Let's fix it all for good.

One Trillion dollars for stabilizing the markets...why stop there?

How about printing TEN TRILLION DOLLARS and shipping all of those dollars to those that hold our National Debt?

The underlying problem is that the price of real estate is sliding. The solution to fixing this is to create inflation so that real estate stabilizes and rises.

Printing more money will create that inflation.

Paying off our National Debt will create 30% more available money in our National Budget and allow us to fix Social Security for good.

Most of the debt is held by foreign entities...if we ship actual "cash" overseas it will come back very slowly if ever. What it will do is establish the "dollar" as the global currency because so much of the trade that will occur overseas will be done in the "cash" dollars that we ship to pay off the debt. We limit visitors to our country to transporting no more than $10,000 in cash at any one time. With the Patriot Act we make it difficult to move money into the country... so this TRILLIONS of dollars would hit us slowly.

We deregulated everything. Now "Wall Street" has created derivatives on everything... this cannot continue. This needs to be fixed. "Margin Requirements" need to be placed upon every form of leverage... taking an asset and leveraging it 30 to 100 times its worth just isn't prudent. It is time that we get back to sound banking principles. We switched from the "Gold Standard" and replaced it with a "Real Estate" backed currency... it is time that we make this more than just implied. Merge Freddie and Fannie into one entity and clear the log jam by allowing a mortgage to any person or entity regardless of credit history as long as they put up 30% of the value of the property - 20% if there are solar panels on the roof contributing electricity to our power grid.

Now if we end our dependence on foreign oil over the next five years we will have surplus money to begin spending on building our failed infrastructure.

Humanity Hangs in the Balance

by Michael Douglas Carlin
Originally posted 8/23/08

I believe that humanity hangs in the balance right now. The credit crisis is facing challenges beyond our ability to deal with them. But inherent in this crisis is the most incredible opportunity we have ever faced. I wrote a book called "A Prescription For Peace" that is available on Amazon. In it I advocate a new approach to the entire world where we follow the words of Thomas Jefferson, where he wrote "we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The means that we all have the right to three square meals a day, a roof over our heads, access to quality health care, personal safety, an education and a job. For how could we ever feel liberty or begin to pursue happiness unless our basic needs are being met?

Now the debate over Socialism vs. Capitalism needs to end. Each one of us is nothing without the people that surround us...and now we need all of those people to be working and to be paying taxes. This is the only way out of our hole. That means massive public works projects that put people to work. Borrowing money for entitlements or giving out more stimulus checks is a big mistake. But providing food, housing, services and education that leads people toward jobs makes sense.

Investing in the American People makes sense. Investing in innner-city children to get them to become productive tax payers makes sense.Now is the time...we can do what is right."Our work will not be done until every man, woman, and child alive has three square meals a day, a roof over their heads, access to quality health care, personal security, an education and a job." - Michael Douglas Carlin

Inherent in the Problem is the Solution

by Michael Douglas Carlin
Originally posted September 9th 2008

Housing is a basic right!

We desperately need more affordable housing. Housing the poor or homeless is actually less costly than dealing with the issues of homelessness when we turn a blind eye to the issue. Offering shelters with services that rehabilitate people when they have hit a bump in the road, makes much more sense than ignoring them. Home ownership is part of the American Dream and yet it is becoming far too difficult for the average man or woman to achieve that dream.

Now we have Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with an estimated 5.3 Trillion Dollars in Mortgages. What could all of the real estate in America be worth? 50 trillion? 500 trillion? I don’t really know the answer to that question but just the number of homes in America must be in the 50 trillion range. Our National Debt is now about 10 trillion.

With the problems we have in America right now doesn’t it make sense to take some bold steps to fix what is wrong with America.

Step #1. Take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – ALREADY DONE

Step #2. Print currency and ship it to debt holders. Pay off the National Debt by increasing the money supply. This would free up 30%+ of our existing budgets in Government.

Step #3. Switch currency from being backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government to being backed by the Real Estate of the Country.

Step #4. Offer loans to any citizen (regardless of credit history) on any property providing that citizen comes up with 30% down payment for properties without Solar Panels on the roof or 20% if the property has solar panels. The government would back the properties with 80% loans on any property with Solar and 70% if the property doesn’t have Solar. In essence the currency would then be backed with by the mortgages on the Real Estate of America. Create a revenue share deal with the bank or financial institution that originated the loan so that they would receive an override on the loan when it was performing. They would also intercede if the loan defaulted. They would foreclose on the property and keep 80% of anything the property sold for over the amount of the loan and if the property sold for less they would absorb up to 20% of the loss as a fee to continue as a preferred lender and able to originate loans.

Step #5. Let’s not spend our resources tracking down illegal aliens any more…it is a waste of our resources. It is time for another amnesty program where we invite anyone here that has managed to keep out of trouble to become a citizen. The process would be a six month window to surface and provide proof that you have means of subsistence, followed by a five year waiting period that includes an education process and a vetting process to achieve citizenship.
Step #6. We know that Hurricanes, Tornados, Floods, Earthquakes, and Forrest Fires are part of the landscape of being American. Yet we have no provisions for thwarting their impacts. It is time that we prepare for the occurrence of these events by having our Army Corp. of Engineers develop permanent structures to minimize their effects. Every waterway in America needs to be prepared for taking on more water than usual. We need to develop a water grid in America where water can be moved from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. The Army Corp. of Engineers could develop a series of locks and canals to move water throughout the Country. When a drought leaves one area dry we could move water to mitigate the effects. In areas where housing is in the path of Tornados or Hurricanes any new housing would have to comply with building standards to withstand Category 5 winds. One structure that comes to mind is the geodesic dome house that seems to withstand the most extreme conditions. Places with Earthquakes must have structures built to withstand a 9 point Earthquake.

Now is the time for us to begin planning for the next thousand years. The five years plans of Capitalism are meaningless.

We went off the gold standard in 1971. Since then our currency has been backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government. Now with the failing of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae we need to establish United States Real Estate as the asset that backs our currency. With the new “Real Estate Standard” we will stabilize our economy and provide a solid asset to back our currency. The standard should be similar to banking where the consumer is able to borrow up to 90% of the value of the Real Estate based upon current market conditions.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

So you are driving down the street having a candy bar in the perfect weather of Los Angeles. The windows are down and the fresh air is blowing through the car. The music is on and although traffic has you only moving at 25 mph, at least you are moving. What a great experience you are having listening to the lyrics of U2. “Still haven’t found what I’m lookin’ for,” blasts our of the custom speakers you had installed in your nearly new car that you worked so hard to buy. The candy melts in your mouth but because it isn’t an M&M it also melts on your hands. So that you don’t soil the interior of your car you lick off what you can and wipe what is left on your jeans…they will get a through washing soon. The last bite hits home…and oh, that nasty wrapper. It’s no big deal, one wrapper can’t make that much of a difference. You don’t want it in your nice, near new car, so you toss it out the window. You don’t want to be blatant so you hold it out and let it go when you are sure no one is looking.

I remember the highways of the 60’s and 70’s. There was trash everywhere. We have gotten so much better at not throwing our trash out of the window but we are not quite there. A candy wrapper here, a cigarette butt there…what can it hurt? We are nearly 20 million people living in Southern California…20 million candy wrappers here and there can equate to a big deal. Picture 20 million wrappers on the streets that get rained on and wash into the storm drains – they float out into the ocean. The currents take them to a trash heap the size of Texas that floats out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

That trash heap is killing the Pacific Ocean. The birds fly down and swoop up plastic bags because they think they are food.. Fish are eating the plastic. That plastic clogs their digestive systems. Nutrients can’t get past the plastic blocks them and they literally starve to death. Who’s problem is this trash heap? No one seems to be stepping up to claim it. 3.5 million tons consisting of 80% plastics is floating out there somewhere between the coast of California and Hawaii. It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

If no one is going to clean it up, the least we can do is not further contribute to making it bigger. We do this when we refrain from throwing that wrapper out the window. Also, we can make a conscious effort to limit the use of plastics. Canvas bags at the market are reusable and keep the plastics out of the land fills or on the streets.

What if somebody developed an energy source that used plastic as fuel, with zero emissions? It is coming soon. I have seen it. Humanity's problem with plastic is about to be solved.