economics Archives - Page 4 of 5 - The I Spy Radio Show

Brace yourself for the train wreck in Oregon thanks to Democrat policies. Plus, taxpayer dollars funneled through Obamacare into billion dollar "nonprofits"

Thanks Democrats! Oregon’s Train Wreck

By Dr Mark | April 29, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Show Summary: After a decade of one-party rule (just like China!), Oregon is headed for a financial train wreck. From the disastrous Obamacare-Kitzcare deal to insurance companies fleeing the state to state agencies on a spending spree to counties going bankrupt. And despite this, one particular segment of health care has billions in profits—at taxpayer expense.

All Stations Stream Live!
11:00AM Saturday: KUIK (Portland) | KBKR (Baker City) | KLBM (La Grande)
7:00PM Sunday: KAJO (Grants Pass)

Air Dates: April 30 & May 1, 2016 | Lisa Lettenmaier & Scott Jorgensen

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Oregon is in a world of hurt thanks to Democrat policies. Brace yourself for the coming train wreck.

We start off by talking with Lisa Lettenmaier of Health Source NW. Lisa is our “in house” expert on the insurance industry and the broader aspects of health care. She has been following the disastrous (for consumers) roll-out of Obamacare and its ugly stepchild, Oregon’s Health Care Transformation.

Tune in to hear her shine the light on Oregon’s insurance industry and why customers can expect to see huge rate increases in the next year. There are some parts of the healthcare industry that are benefiting from Obamacare but it’s not the insurers as they face steeper and steeper declines in revenues. Oregon has lost two more insurers in Oregon and another one on a national level. Listen as we unpack the reasons they are leaving the state and what’s happening behind the scenes.

Oregon and Its Free-Spending Ways

Scott Jorgensen, the chief of staff for State Senator Whitsett, then joins us to share insights into the consequences of government attempting to push policies that force expensive programs (think Medicaid without federal funding).

The Oregon Democrat Leadership’s answer is to continue to raise taxes to pay for the spending spree. Ask most Oregon voters and they’ll tell you that by our own state constitution we’re supposed to have a balanced budget; which, to many, means we don’t spend more than we take in. Well, not under Democrat leadership. It’s “balanced” because we borrow huge amounts to make it balanced.

Tune in to hear how much every man, woman, and child—all 4 million of us—are on the hook for under this new model of funding Oregon’s government. And guess what? It’s only going to go up. Did you know we borrow money against Oregon Lottery Revenue? Talk about a gamble!

Why Trans Pacific Partnership is a Bad Deal for America

By Dr Mark | April 16, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

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Show Summary: The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal is Obama’s final nail in America’s coffin. If you thought Obamacare and the Iran Deal were bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. In an explosive interview, we dive into why it’s bad and why our Congressmen vote for such atrocities. And not just why but who is supporting this? Plus, could one of the presidential candidates, who publicly says he’s against it, might actually be for it?

All Stations Stream Live!
11:00AM Saturday: KUIK (Portland) | KBKR (Baker City) | KLBM (La Grande)
7:00PM Sunday: KAJO (Grants Pass)

Air Dates: Apr. 16 & 17, 2016 | Crista Huff (former Morgan Stanley VP

One of the questions we consistently try to answer here on the I Spy Radio Show, is why. Why does a government agency do this or why does a politician do that? But uncovering “why” requires digging deeper into motivations and a lot times those motivations are hidden away, lurking in the shadows where you don’t know what happened behind closed doors or what’s been promised.

On this week’s show, we’re talking about the monstrosity better known as the TPP – the Trans Pacific Partnership. This is Obama’s magnum opus for weakening America. And it must be stopped. The TPP is a major trade deal involving 12 Pacific Rim nations, including the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Vietnam and others. China is not a signer, yet, because after the agreement is signed China can come in later through a back door. Why, do you ask? Oh, you’ll find out why.

Trans Pacific Partnership = Anti-American

It’s amazing that anyone who calls themselves an American is backing this agreement. Foremost it represents a stunning loss of U.S. sovereignty. But beyond that, common economic sense says this will harm the US economy–especially given that even its own supporters say it will result in only a 0.13% increase in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product by 2025. (See links, below, for citation.)

But even that less -than-rosy projection is based on the assumption of the U.S. being at full-employment. (How’s that worked out the last seven years?) So why take a huge gamble and throw our economy into upheaval for not even 1/50th of a percent increase per year over nine years?

It boggles the mind why would anyone in the U.S. support this. And not just why, but who is supporting this? Tune in to learn the answers, including whether one of the presidential candidates might be misrepresenting their position on the Trans Pacific Partnership. And find out why, if this goes through, it really could be the end of America as we know.

Links Mentioned During Show

Crista Huff’s terrific website, Good Fellow, LLC. Be sure to check out her fantastic TPP blog page, frequently updated with the latest info
Check out Crista on Kerry Lutz’s Financial Survival blogtalk podcast
If you want to stop the TPP, CALL the Capitol Switchboard! (202) 224-3121. Ask to be transferred to your Congressman’s office and tell them you want them to vote no on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal; do the same for both of your senators.
The Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee is Rep. Kevin Brady (TX).
Article via Drudge: New Balance publicly calls the TTP a bad deal (Apr 13, 2016)
Robert Zoellick and The Trilateral Commission and Robert (via FreedomWorks’ SourceWatch)

Canada’s Experiment with Socialism (Part 2 of the Allure of Socialism)

By Dr Mark | February 27, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Air Dates: Feb 27 & 28, 2016 | Dr. Tim Ball

I Spy Radio continues to do what the Republicans ought to be doing: focusing on the Democrats. Especially their lurch toward outright Socialism. With either winner, the Democrats will have a socialist as their nominee. It will either be Bernie Sanders, who is an avowed socialist, or Hillary Clinton, an Undeclared Socialist.

With socialism being around as long as it has, there’s still the myth in every generation who thinks, “But this time it will work!” Even though it has had resounding failures wherever it’s been tried. Folks like Bernie and Hillary points to countries like Sweden or Finland as examples of “success.”

What they fail to mention is that Sweden or Finland are only becoming more successful because they purposely moved away from socialism to adopt more elements of capitalism.

Think of it like a balance or teeter totter; whenever you give government all the rights, and therefore your decisions, you’re taking the rights and decisions away from the individual. The reverse, freedom, is also true. By giving affirming the rights of the individual, it takes power away from the government. So, the notion that you can somehow give away all of your rights and control over to government while still retaining personal freedom is a logical inconsistency.

The myth of socialism still hangs on

So to prove our point of why it can’t work, we go back to Canada and talk with Dr. Tim Ball and find out the realities of living in a socialistic country. Listen as Dr. Ball talks about his personal experiences living in socialized Canada, including the loss of freedoms, opening a new business in a socialist country, and living in the so-called “ideal” (socialized) health care system.

What you’ll learn is this: If Canada is Bernie’s and Hillary’s “utopia,” they can keep it.

Relevant Links

Dr. Tim Ball’s website
The history of socialism in Canada
Argentina’s success: throwing off socialism and returning to capitalism — and winning

Dr. Tim Ball’s books:

Slaying the Sky Dragon: The Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory
Human Caused Global Warming: The Biggest Deception in History
and The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science.

This week on I Spy Radio: The allure of socialism and yes the Nazis were socialists

The Allure of Socialism – Why we keep trying this historic failure

By Dr Mark | February 20, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

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Socialism’s seductive spell has tripped up many “smart people” including Einstein. Usually right up until reality sets in. Eating the rich only makes everyone poorer.

Original Air Dates: Feb 20 & 21, 2016 | Dr. Tim Ball

Despite the repeated, historic (dare we say “epic”) failures of socialism, every generation since the 1800s seems to flirt with this proven failure. Every generation seems to think, “This time we’ll make it work.”

Socialism: willingly giving up your liberty and freedom for government-provided security.
Jail: unwillingly giving up your liberty and freedom for government-provided security.

This week on I Spy Radio, we talk with Dr. Tim Ball, who knows all about socialism. He grew up in World War II England, witnessed the takeover of society by the government to “fight the war” only to have England embrace the “security” offered by socialists. In other words, basic subsistence in exchange for government domination and takeover of private industry. As a young man, witnessing the demise of his fellow countrymen’s freedoms, he left for Canada. Unfortunately, elements of socialism followed him to his new country.

Exposing Socialism

This week, we get an exposé on socialism from someone who’s lived through it and even taught classes on it. With Bernie Sanders rising in the polls, it’s time to get a little intelligence on socialism. This week, we’ll look at the rise and development of socialism and, yes, the Nazis were socialists. Modern-day Leftists try to depict Nazis s extreme Far Right, “ultra conservative” or even the end-game of capitalism. “Nazi” meant “National Socialists.”

But why does the notion of state-imposed fairness, continue to appeal to us as a developed society?

Here in Oregon, where I Spy broadcasts from, the House just passed the nation’s highest minimum wage to create “fair” wages. Remember, from our show two weeks ago, under socialism it’s the State that determines not only what’s moral but what is “fair.” But if you think that’s scary, check out the links below on “basic income” and “universal income.”

And be sure to join us next week where we’ll get Dr. Ball’s personal experiences of living with socialism, including Canada’s socialized medicine and even martial law.

Economic Warfare and Financial Terrorism – How the 2008 financial meltdown could happen in 2016

By Dr Mark | February 12, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

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Air Dates: February 13 & 14, 2016 | Kevin Freeman

On the morning of Sept 11, 2008, John McCain and Sarah Palin were leading Obama and Biden in the polls by quite a bit. But by the end of the day, it saw the largest spike in short-selling in market history, ushering in the financial meltdown of 2008. Was it just some rogue day-traders? Or, as McCain thought at the time, was it an outright attack on our markets, perhaps by Russia and China? The end result was that not only did it set back the American financial markets, cause trillions of dollars of paper value to disappear in a matter of days, plunge thousands of Americans home-owners into bankruptcy, and hamstring our economy—it dramatically affected our 2008 presidential election.

What’s especially concerning is how similar the economic conditions of 2008 are to now—in 2016. Is history about to repeat itself? Have any of the vulnerabilities that ushered Obama into office been fixed?

Economic Warfare and Financial Terrorism

Over the last two weeks, there have been some very troubling headlines, including one that has nearly escaped notice: the sale of the Chicago Stock Exchange to a Chinese-owned company. But this week on Drudge and other sources, there have been headline after headline of trouble in the stock markets — not just here in the U.S. but all across Europe. US and EU stock markets are off to their worst starts since the 1930s. Is history going to repeat itself? And can capitalism survive? Could all of this be a coordinated attack? And why?

Join us this week for a fascinating story of another type of warfare between modern governments: economic warfare and financial terrorism. Get a look at the weapons used and techniques used to deploy them.

On this week’s show, you’ll learn:

Was there an attack in 2008 on the U.S. stock markets?
What’s been done to prevent another one?
Why did the Chinese buy the Chicago exchange — and does it create any vulnerabilities?
The latest economic tool is “negative interest rates,” what impact can and will this have on the markets?
Are the same conditions from 2008 collapse happening now in 2016?
What about all those foreign donations to Hillary Clinton?

Links Mentioned

Kevin Freeman’s website secretweapon.org and his blog: Global Economic Warfare
Read Kevin’s white paper, submitted to the Department of Defense – Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses; an analysis of twenty-first century risks in light of the recent market collapse
Kevin’s books are Game Plan: How to Protect Yourself from the Coming Cyber-Economic Attack and Secret Weapon: How Economic Terrorism Brought Down the U.S. Stock Market and Why It can Happen Again.
The UK Telegraph article: “The World cannot Afford another Financial Crash: It could Destroy Capitalism as We Know it“
Even the Huffington Post, normally more of an Obama cheerleader than news source admits that the US stock market is off to its worst start for a year — ever

Related Links

Be sure to check out our previous shows with Kevin Freeman on the archives page

50 Test Tubes of Competition and Democracy

By Dr Mark | January 30, 2016 | Comments 0 Comment

Air Dates: January 30 & 31, 2015 | Jonathan Williams (ALEC)

When, Where, and How to Listen

States are in constant competition for people and businesses — with businesses leaving high tax states and people voting with their feet. Find out why Socialism and “Tax Cronyism” drive people away.

One this week’s show, we give Bernie Sander’s voters a headache.

Over the past ten years New York State has lost millions of residents and thousands of businesses that had all had it with NY’s high taxes and moved to other states. They’ve moved to find a better place to live where owning a business or property isn’t suffocated, to where they didn’t have to feel like they were being held up at gun point by their own state.

Funny how that works, isn’t it? Our entire history is one of moving to better economic conditions. Leaving the “old country” for the chance to make a better, more profitable life. Moving west on the Oregon Trail or the California Gold Rush. People are not chained to their states — and the moment they feel they are, they move.

While Bernie Sanders’ voters may not like to think about economics or the consequences of raising taxes, there are 50 states that all have their own sets of economic policies that have consequences, of action and reaction. And shrewd consumers of democracy can make decisions on where and how they live based on a free market principal—competition is good because it reduces costs and drives efficiency.

In their 8th Edition of Rich States, Poor States, Jonathan Williams and his co-authors, Dr. Author Laffer, and Stephen Moore have once again captured how states make their economic decisions and the consequences of those policy decisions. Policies that impact your pocket book and quality of life and that should influence who you’ll vote into office.

Tune in to find out:
•   What drives a state’s economic success or failure
•   Tax Cronyism and how it ruins free markets
•   Can states or the federal government be run more like a business?
•   Which states have changed their liberal ways to create a strong, pro growth environment

With state and federal elections coming up soon this is a show not to miss.

Links Mentioned

Visit Jonathan Williams’ awesome organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council
While you’re there, visit their State Budget Reform Toolkit — and be sure to send the link to your legislators!
Download a copy of the 8th Edition of Rich States Poor States and visit the RSPS page on ALEC.org for additional resources

EPA Colluding with Environmentalists and Tribes

By Dr Mark | October 21, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

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Air Dates: Oct 24 & 25, 2015 | Lawrence Kogan & Tom Collier (CEO of Pebble Partnership)

The EPA long ago lost its watchdog status and has turned rabid environmentalist. Now, clear evidence of the EPA colluding with environmentalists and tribes is beginning to emerge—ironically, in what the EPA had hoped to turn into one of its trophy cases: the Pebble Mine.

Show 5-43 will air the weekend of Oct 24th & 25th. Join us as we expose collusion between the EPA and “environmental” organizations, the tribes, and other players.

What’s important to understand in this fight against a government agency run-amok, is that they violated the rule of law and a basic tenet of American freedoms: due process. The EPA, by applying an obscure rule that it had never used before in its four-decades’ old existence and by trying to circumvent the permit process, it was denying Pebble Partnership its due process. Just as though it had arrested someone in suspected of a crime and put them in jail without any Miranda rights, no legal counsel, and so on.

Links Mentioned

Lawrence Kogan’s firm: the Kogan Law Group – tons of great info and articles on the assault by the Enviro-Left on our free market system
Tom Collier’s group – the Pebble Partnership.

This Week on I Spy Radio - Public Lands Transfer to States can mean jobs—real jobs

Devolution – Public Lands Transfer to States

By Dr Mark | September 11, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

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Air Dates: September 12 & 13, 2015 | Jonathan Williams & Karla Jones

Devolution is defined as “the transfer or delegation of power to a lower level, especially by central government to local or regional administration.” When it comes to the transfer of public lands here in the U.S., this means the federal government giving control of federally held public lands to the states in which those lands reside. Why is this important? Jobs.

With more than 98 million Americans continuing to be out of the workforce, the jobs resulting from a public lands transfer to states means more than ever that the federal government honor their promise to relinquish control of the public lands held in trust. At one time, Illinois and Missouri both had more than 50% of their land controlled by the federal government when they entered statehood. Now, the federal government holds only 1% and 4%, respectively. So why do they maintain control of so much public lands states west of the Rockies—on average, more than 50% of these states? Why should Illinois get to have 99% of their land and Oregon gets less than 47% of its land?

94 million Americans out of work - the U.S. economy as of September 2015 has clearly fallen off a cliff. Time for a public lands transfer to states. — US Economy off a cliff. Time for a public lands transfer to states.

We’ve talked in the past with Ken Ivory and it’s seemed a little theoretical at times: what would it be like if the states got their lands back? Now we some direct evidence of what it would look like from our neighbor to the north: Canada.

We’ll start by talking with Jonathan Williams of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) about the continuing record numbers of Americans not working and the state policies that consistently work to put people to work; policies that ALEC advocates. We’ll then talk about a federal policy that needs to happen: a public lands transfer to states. Karla Jones, also with ALEC, walks us through the process. We’ll examine the roadblocks and hurdles to making this happen, astonishing examples of federal mismanagement to private land management, and then look at how this has unfolded in Canada.

Sorry, environmentalists; it wasn’t the end of the world.

Links Mentioned

If you’re not visiting American Legislative Exchange Council on a regular basis, you’re missing out on a huge amount of incredible information — policies that your state ought to be implementing if they want to be successful. Don’t you want your state to be successful? Of course you do! Then visit alec.org.
Read ALEC’s State Lands report, which we discuss with Karla Jones. (You can download a copy for easier reading; see the Download PDF link on the right-side of the page.)
Heritage Foundation article, “1,000 people per day: Why Red States are Getting Richer and Blue States Poorer“

This week on I Spy Radio - the silent Chinese invasion

5-32 Chinese Invasion – China’s Silent War with the US

By Dr Mark | August 4, 2015 | Comments 1 comment

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Air Dates: August 8 & 9, 2015 | James Hirsen & Kevin Freeman

Seemingly almost without notice, China is quietly invading the U.S. Perhaps taking a page from the Soviet Union era’s failed communist takeover, China is waging war against the U.S. — not with nuclear ICBMs but through economic and cultural warfare. And the scary thing is, they’re winning.

This Chinese invasion is taking many forms. Some months ago, we brought your attention to the economic warfare China is waging against the U.S. Their silent warfare has intensified. This week, we take a deeper look at the threat no one seems to be paying attention to—at least seemingly no one in the Obama administration. Why are they opening the door to our enemies?

The Chinese Invasion of Hollywood

We’ll start by talking to James Hirsen of Headline Hollywood about the Chinese invasion of Hollywood. Why are Hollywood elites—the uber-liberal of liberals, who famously decry any sort of censorship—getting into bed with Chinese investors? What are the Chinese hoping to get out of this strange marriage?

The Chinese Invasion of US Companies

As of 2008 the Chinese government had hired more than 100,000 full-time hackers to do nothing but try to hack into America’s government and U.S. companies. Given that, and the Obama administration’s penchant for words not actions, it’s perhaps not surprising that a former NSA director recently said that every major US company has been hacked into by the Chinese. This gives the Chinese access to trade secrets, companies’ financial information, and future plans. Talk about insider trading. Are we ripe for a disaster? We’ll talk with Kevin Freeman about China’s silent war with the U.S. Kevin is one of the world’s leading authorities on financial and economic warfare.

Since the mainstream media is focused on Donald Trump, you probably haven’t heard that the Chinese markets have suffered huge losses, more than 30%, in the last few months. The Chinese government has officially accused the U.S. of hacking their system. Did we?

Hillary Clinton’s Emails Hacked?

Given the Chinese hack attacks on our infrastructure, on our government, and that Hillary used a private server for official, classified State Department business, could one of these 100,000-plus Chinese hackers found their way into Hillary emails? Tune in to hear the stunning revelation of how easily Hillary’s private server may have exposed the entire U.S. government to infiltration.

Show 5-19 Urban vs Rural

By Dr Mark | May 5, 2015 | Comments 0 Comment

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Air Dates: May 9 & 10, 2015

When it comes to land use and natural resources, it seems to be an unending battle for control between two combatants: urban vs rural. Often, this means that the Urbans (city dwellers) want or need the sanctimonious psychological safety of believing they’ve “protected” or “saved” the environment, which means blocking rural people (country dwellers) from accessing, using, harvesting or otherwise touching natural resources. In other words, they want the benefits of what the rural areas produces (food, wood, water, etc.) without actually harvesting any of it.

This is like wanting beef without touching cows.

Even worse, after blocking rural people from engaging in economic activities that they—the city dwellers—haven’t “sanction” they—the city dwellers—raise taxes and inflict other economic hardships.

If this sounds all too familiar, you probably live in a rural area. If you’ve never ever heard of this, you undoubtedly live in a city.

We talk with William Tucker about the “Detroit-ification” of rural areas and the incomparable harm city dwellers are inflicting on people who’ve chosen to living the country and provide city dwellers with all the benefits of life that the city dwellers just won’t get their hands dirty to do. And we talk with Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) about the perfect example of cities destroying rural areas—California.

Links Mentioned

American Media Institute – news the way it used to be. Reported and investigated, not packaged.
Article by William Tucker: “How high taxes and regulation are killing one of the most prosperous states in the nation.”
Rep. Tom McClintock represents the 4th Congressional District of California, which takes in both urban and rural areas. It runs east of Sacramento to the Nevada border, and then southeast, including mountainous regions and Yosemite National Park. (map)
Wall Street Journal article: “Where are the smelt” another article on California’s self-inflicted devastation.
Article – Gov Brown proposes $10,000 fines for water users