The following was posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, October 27, 2014, 6:30 AM at www.thegatewaypundit.com

In 1935 US President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signed into law the Social Security Act. The law created a social insurance program designed to pay retired workers age 65 or older a continuing income after retirement. Progressive politicians love this program and talk about its virtues, some real and others made up, like they did about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two social programs that ultimately led to the 2008 worldwide financial collapse. As explained in my new book Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers, Australia has a program in place to assist their citizens in their old age too, which has many advantages over the US Social Security system.

Over recent years the demographics that made the US Social Security program affordable have reversed and today the program is crashing. Estimates were that in order to break even, US Social Security needed at least 2.9 workers to pay taxes for each retiree who receives benefits. The current ratio has been near this and dropping because the baby boomers produced fewer children than their parents did and now the baby boomers are nearing retirement.

There are many criticisms of Social Security. It is an archaic program which some call a “Ponzi scheme” and therefore fraudulent. Funds have not been set aside or invested by the federal government to offset the future promises. This would be illegal if it were done in the private sector. These promises are estimated to be more than $20 trillion. The maximum amount of taxes to fund the program has exceeded original maximums promised by politicians. If calculated, the returns the government provides on the taxes paid by individuals for their retirement incomes through Social Security are dismal. And now over the next 20 years, 10,000 individuals in the US will retire every day.

Australia’s superannuation program may be the answer to the US’s Social Security quagmire. Australia implemented an innovative retirement system based primarily on mandatory private savings in plans called ‘superannuation funds’. This system became known as the ‘Superannuation Guarantee’ and has since been modified and expanded over time.

Australia’s superannuation is a mandatory retirement savings scheme for employees. It mandates that employers contribute 9% of eligible employee earnings, similar to FICA taxes in the US Social Security program, into a fund owned by the employee. The worker cannot generally access the superannuation funds until retirement or disability. There are very few governmental restrictions on the funds as well as governmental investment asset requirements and the beneficiary selects who will oversee their funds and what investments will make up their own portfolios.

In addition to fund performance, the superannuation funds may add disability or life cover to the plans they manage. These benefits provide the individual additional coverage should an unfortunate event occur and have created a very large market for these types of insurance products for not just insurance companies but reinsurers as well. The incentive for individuals to obtain insurance coverage also benefits the country by having fewer individuals to care for under its welfare and disability programs. The Australia Superannuation Guarantee is an example of how a sensible and smart social program in a country can have a positive impact on other social programs in that country.

Overall the results of the Australia superannuation program to the Australian economy are positively staggering. The Australian markets are liquid and growing. Results from a global pension assets study produced by Towers Watson & Company in early 2013 noted that the Australia pension fund assets are the fourth largest in the world – not so bad for a country of a little over 20 million people. It is clear that the Australian superannuation scheme ‘works effectively’ while the US Social Security system does not.

For more information on how the US would greatly benefit by replacing Social Security with a superannuation scheme get my book Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers.

See www.joehoft.com for information about the author and how to order your own copy of Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers.

The following was posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, October 22, 2014, 9:23 AM at www.thegatewaypundit.com

Guest post by Joe Hoft

When Deng Xiaoping took over China in the late 1970’s, China was a very poor country. One of the first things that Deng did was to allow individuals to acquire and maintain property. This capitalistic approach started one of the greatest economic transformations in world history. More people in China have been lifted from poverty in a shorter span of time than ever before in human history. Half a billion Chinese citizens have risen out of poverty due to China’s economic swing to capitalist policies!

China still has its problems, but while the US is moving more and more towards a welfare state, China is moving more and more towards prosperity. Deng (Xiaoping) rejected any possibility of importing the welfare state into China. He insisted that the enhancement of welfare should be coordinated with the development of production. Other Chinese leaders have reiterated Deng’s approach. Today China’s welfare spending is low but it is increasing.

According to the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China, the total amount of outflows for China’s social programs in 2011 was $287 billion USD. On the other side of the Pacific, the US spent somewhere between $1.7 and $2.1 trillion USD in 2011 on health, welfare and pension (old age) benefits.

When comparing the US numbers to China’s the results are very clear. The US spent nearly seven times as much on social programs in 2011 than China. According to the World Atlas as of 2010, China had a population of 1.3 billion people and the US had a population of 310 million. Based on these numbers, China had more than four times the number of people living within its borders than did the US in 2010. The result of this comparison is to point out that the US conservatively paid 30 times more per capita to its citizens in the form of social benefits than did the socialist country China in 2011.

When we think of an example of a socialist country we probably think of China based upon its recent history with communism and when we think of a capitalist country the US is probably the first country that comes to mind. However, if the definition of a socialist country is primarily based upon the amount of dollars spent on social programs, then the US is clearly the socialist country and China is the capitalist country. Even if you do not agree with this, it is hard not to see that the line between what is a socialist country and what is a capitalistic country has become blurred.

Today communist China is becoming more capitalistic and the US is becoming more socialist. As a result, socialist China is becoming more prosperous and the US is approaching a fiscal cliff. Poverty is being reduced in China and poverty is on the rise in the US under Barack Obama.

* * * * * * * *

See more on the differences and similarities between US and China and solutions for the US from Asia Pacific in new book Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers. See also www.joehoft.com for information about the author and how to order your own copy of Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers.

The following was posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, October 11, 2014, 9:39 AM at thegatewaypundit.com

Guest post by Joe Hoft

Clearly the US Airstrikes in Iraq-Syria Are Not Working

This is a fraud and the people in Kobane are going to pay a price for his fecklessness (per Lt. Col Ralph Peters on Megyn Kelly’s show on FOX News.)

Clearly the US airstrikes in Iraq are not working. ISIS is taking over Kobani in Syria in the battle for Syrian Kurdistan. According to Lt Col Peters the US actions against ISIS have been paltry from the start. Obama launched a folly air campaign and warned ISIS we’re coming and hit empty buildings in the dead of night as well as empty camps. When ISIS was out in the open in mass outside of Kobani they were sitting ducks which could have been annihilated easily. But for some reason Obama didn’t do it leading to his actions being called fraudulent and political in nature.

Obama’s foreign policy has been shocking at best. He is letting ISIS slaughter Kurds. He is not afraid to bomb or attack those who he thinks should be attacked. Obama sided with Al Qaeda in Libya when bombing Gaddafi. He supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when they took over there. He called for action against Assad in Syria and has called for supporting some more radicals in Syria to fight Assad and ISIS. Peters says Obama wants an Islamist state in Damascus just not ISIS.

This was posted on a Kurdish Twitter account on Friday.

Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, October 5, 2014, 7:40 PM at thegatewaypundit.com

Guest post by Joe Hoft in Hong Kong

The Post-It protest wall in Hong Kong An outside stairwell showing post-it notes from protestors at the Admiralty district in Hong Kong – JHoft

Hong Kong’s protests will come to a climax tonight. The democracy protesters were warned to leave the streets or face the consequences. Per the Wall Street Journal –

As the rallies in Hong Kong enter their tenth day, the last before the work-week begins, there were growing calls from the government and some supporters of the pro-democracy crowds to end the protests. The city’s chief executive has given protesters an ultimatum demanding that they clear the roads in downtown Hong Kong as well as remove the blockades of government headquarters by Monday.

Some news outlets are quick to note the challenges that protests have had on the local Hong Kong economy. Hong Kong’s National Day visitor arrivals this past week fell 7.3% from a year earlier, according to data on the city Immigration Department’s website. The loss of mainlanders coming to Hong Kong impacts the entire area. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down as much as 2.6% in this past holiday-shortened week during the protests, but the Index rose 0.6% to 23,064.56 at the close of business on Friday.

Standard Chartered Plc (STAN) and HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) were among banks that shut the doors of some branches in Hong Kong as the pro-democracy protesters remained on the streets following last weekend’s clashes with police. About 44 branches, offices and automated teller machines were closed according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.

Mobs linked to the local mafia were involved in clashes with Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protesters in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong as demonstrations turned into running brawls late last week. The brawls led to the arrest of 19 people, some believed to be linked to triad gangs, as mobs tried to drive pro-democracy protesters from the streets. Of those arrested, eight men are believed to have backgrounds involving triads, or organized crime gangs, police said, and they face charges of unlawful assembly, fighting in public and assault. Senior Superintendent Patrick Kwok Pak-chung said at least 12 people and six officers were injured during the clashes.

Protestors are in near unison stating that the protests are for the long term of the country and economic freedom which trump the short term financial losses of local shops in Hong Kong. Many of the local shop owners even provided water to the protestors to support the movement. Tonight we see if any arrests or if the protests continue.

For information on solutions for the US from Hong Kong and other Asia Pacific countries and for information about how to order your own copy of Joe Hoft’s new book Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers, see www.joehoft.com.

Hong Kong’s “Umbrella Revolution” To Peak in Next Few Days – Joe Hoft and Dana Loesch

Hong Kong financial executive and author Joe Hoft joined Dana Loesch today to discuss the Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong and his book “Falling Eagle – Rising Tiger.”

Joe and Dana discussed the recent uprising in Hong Kong, the top Financial Center in the world.

This was a terrific interview on the challenges facing America today.

Joe wrote about the protests earlier today.

Hong Kong has been named the top Financial Center in the world two years in a row by the World Economic Forum. Hong Kong was also tops in the world in the Index for Economic Freedom sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. This index is a measurement of a nation’s commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. Hong Kong also consistently rates among the top countries in the world by the PWC/World Bank’s Tax survey due to its low tax rate and ease of tax administration.

With all going so well in Hong Kong, why the protests? The reason is that the people in Hong Kong like their freedoms and want to keep them in place. When Britain handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997 a de facto constitution was put in place called the Basic Law. The law stated that Hong Kong would be able to select its CEO, the top spot in the Hong Kong government, through an open election, but Beijing now wants to select candidates for the CEO position. The people in Hong Kong are protesting this decision and calling for universal suffrage.

The protests have been renamed the ‘umbrella revolution’ after the protestors used umbrellas to protect themselves from pepper spray and tear gas in recent clashes with police. With the holidays coming the next few days, the protests are expected to grow.

Joe is planning on visiting the protests today in Hong Kong’s financial district. Already the protests have disrupted the city’s bus schedule and traffic. The subway is still operating.

The following was posted on Tuesday, September 30, 2014 on Breitbart.com

By Joe Hoft

Starting October 1st, Hong Kong celebrates two days of government holidays which will no doubt be the peak of the recent ‘Umbrella Revolution’. What started as a protest last Wednesday by university students in Hong Kong has now filled the streets and hearts of many living in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is an island, a city, a country, and is also a part of China. The country includes Hong Kong, the mega city across the harbor of Kowloon and the surrounding ‘New Territories’. The entire region is referred to as Hong Kong Special Administration Region (SAR) by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and houses 7 million people. The Kwun Tong District has 54,530 persons per square kilometer, is one of the most densely populated places on earth. In spite of its tight quarters, Hong Kong houses one of the healthiest populations on earth with a life expectancy for the average citizen of greater than 80 years.

Hong Kong has been named the top Financial Center in the world two years in a row by the World Economic Forum. Hong Kong was also tops in the world in the Index for Economic Freedom sponsored by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. This index is a measurement of a nation’s commitment to free enterprise on a scale of 0 to 100 by evaluating 10 categories, including fiscal soundness, government size and property rights. Hong Kong also consistently rates among the top countries in the world by the PWC/World Bank’s Tax survey due to its low tax rate and ease of tax administration.

With all going so well in Hong Kong, why the protests? The reason is that the people in Hong Kong like their freedoms and want to keep them in place. When Britain handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997 a de facto constitution was put in place called the Basic Law. The law stated that Hong Kong would be able to select its CEO, the top spot in the Hong Kong government, through an open election, but Beijing now wants to select candidates for the CEO position. The people in Hong Kong are protesting this decision and calling for universal suffrage.

The protests have been renamed the ‘umbrella revolution’ after the protestors used umbrellas to protect themselves from pepper spray and tear gas in recent clashes with police. With the holidays coming the next few days, the protests are expected to grow. Some recent tweets show that China has put a unique twist on the ‘umbrella revolution’ by reporting that the people are in the streets in Hong Kong to celebrate the National Day of China. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For information on solutions for the US from Hong Kong and other Asia Pacific countries and for information about how to order your own copy of new book Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers, see www.joehoft.com.

The following was posted on Saturday, September 13, 2014 by Jim Hoft at theGatewaypundit.com.

Guest Post: By Joe Hoft

(Salon)

Most people outside the financial industry don’t really understand how grim things were in 2008 when the major banks around the world began to collapse. Almost overnight the liquidity in the markets froze as money was hard to obtain and companies around the world began hoarding money they did have. The markets were in turmoil and the entire financial system, built on trust, was facing collapse. As is typical in today’s major media, the real social culprits were ignored and the capitalists were blamed as the cause of the upheaval. But was this accurate?

As noted in my new book, Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers, in the United States massive change has occurred over the past century moving the country more and more towards a social state. When the Great Depression came to the US in the 1930’s, President Franklin Roosevelt used it as a vehicle to push for social change. Social change in the US has not gone so well. Some changes have taken a long time before culminating in financial disaster. The 2008 financial crisis is an excellent example of this.

In his book The Big Short, Michael Lewis explained in great detail the factors that led to the financial collapse in 2008. Individuals with poor credit histories were provided ‘teaser’ loans by financial institutions. These loans had low interest rates or required little or no support for the borrower’s ability to repay the loan. The loans were then bundled and sold to investors. Complex financial instruments were created to insure these investments and the rating agencies classified these instruments as high quality without fully appreciating what they were rating. When the borrowers were not able to repay their loans, the whole system crashed.

Per Charles Rowley and Nathanael Smith, in their book, Economic Contractions in the United States: A Failure of Government, the root cause of the US housing market crisis in 2008 really began in the 1930’s with the creation of a wide range of social institutions. The Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which guaranteed bank’s mortgage risks and the Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), which effectively insured mortgages by purchasing mortgages from lenders, both products of the 1930’s, shifted risks from the lenders to the US taxpayers. Then in 1977 the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was signed into law under President Jimmy Carter. This law was designed to promote home ownership for minorities by prohibiting banks from refusing mortgages in poor areas due to the loan’s high risk. In addition, mortgage lenders were required under the 1975 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) to provide data about who they lent to. Then in 1991, HMDA rules were tightened and included specific demands for racial equality in the institution’s lending.

Per Rowley and Smith, in 1992, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published a manual advising that a mortgage applicant’s lack of credit history should not be viewed negatively in a loan assessment, that the borrowers should be allowed to deploy loans and gifts as deposits, and that unemployment benefits were valid income sources for lending decisions. The manual reminded banks that failure to meet CRA regulations violated equal opportunity laws and exposed them to actual damages plus punitive damages of $500,000.

“So the great housing bubble-party began. With credit-worthiness no longer relevant, the volume of sub-prime loans exploded.” This ultimately climaxed in 2008 with the sub-prime crisis that sent shock waves around the world and financial markets in turmoil.

Another “time bomb” ticking as a result of social programs in the United States is related to the colossal amount of debt which the US is amassing. In October 2013 the federal debt load in the US surpassed $17 trillion for the first time in its history. This amount may only be a part of the story. No government in world history has ever accumulated the amount of debt that the US has in recent years. In the US, conservatives on the right want to solve the debt problem by cutting government programs, or cutting spending, or both, whilst those on the left propose tax increases. Many Americans want neither option, but clearly, something has to be done. The current spending causing the annual deficits that lead to the ever increasing growth in the US debt is untenable, and as you read Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers you will realize that the situation is desperate and must quickly change.

See www.joehoft.com for information about the author and how to order your own copy of Falling Eagle – Rising Tigers.

Posted by Jim Hoft on Saturday, June 21, 2014, 9:00 PM at www.thegatewaypundit.com

Guest post by J. Hoft

As noted by Ed Morrissey at the website The Week the IRS contacted Congress late last Friday to claim that a hard drive failure on Louis Lerner’s computer wiped out two years of Lerner email data in precisely the time frame that investigators were interested in. Not only that, but the IRS then claimed it recycled its backup tapes so that it only had six months of server backups available.

There is no way that an individual in a lead position at the IRS could lose emails by their computer crashing. For the current IRS Commissioner to say so is either a lie or he is extremely incompetent on too many levels to count.

Here’s a list of the more obvious questions leading to this being a fabrication –

Why the delay in telling Congress of the lost emails? As Morrissey notes “First, despite having demanded these records from the IRS for over a year, the agency waited until now (and in a Friday afternoon document dump, no less) to inform Congress of the supposed loss of emails. That makes it look very suspicious, and put together with Lerner’s refusal to testify, even more so.”

What are emails doing saved on an individual’s computer? This is not standard practice in the corporate world and certainly not with the IRS. Ask any IT novice and they can tell you that emails are stored on email servers which are distinct pieces of hardware, separate from an individual’s computer or laptop. These servers are then backed up on a regular basis (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually). Emails at most companies can be retrieved for as far back as 10 years or more and the government surely has standards to retain emails for a number of years. As Morrissey notes: “While people send and receive emails via client programs on their computers, the messages go through databases on servers, which is where records are stored and duplicated for backup. A local hard-drive failure would have nothing to do with that record retention in a professional IT environment. The data would still reside on the servers and could be easily reconstituted from the backup. In fact, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen testified in March that the data existed on the agency’s servers, and not the local hard drives.”

What is the IRS’s email retention policy? Congress should ask the IRS what its retention policy is, and why has it not been adhered to, assuming the IRS acts as other government and corporate entities do in regards to retention of emails. Many regulators require companies to maintain information for 7 years or more. Does the IRS adhere to government standards and requirements? As Morrissey notes, the federal government has strict expectations for publicly held corporations and under the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations, corporations are specifically required to retain email data for five years, and destroying emails like the ones claimed lost by the IRS would be a crime punishable by 20 years in prison. In addition, the IRS’s own manual made it clear that the storage of email was important enough to have permanent backups of their data. “IRS offices will not store the official recordkeeping copy of email messages that are federal records ONLY on the electronic mail system,” and even went so far as to require hard copies “for record-keeping purposes.” The manual reference is clear, per regulation 1.10.3.2.3 (07-08-2011), the Federal Records Act applies to email records just as it does to records you create using other media.

Does the IRS only keep emails for the past 6 months for all employees or only those whose emails have been requested by Congress? Again, if the IRS is only keeping 6 months of emails, then it is out of compliance with federal laws and its own policies.

Why does the IRS have retention standards that differ from taxpayers? As Morrissey notes, “the IRS is the one agency that demands everyone else keep spotless records for seven years or more on their returns. Now we find out that they’re only keeping their own documentation for six months? For a nation founded on the rule of law and equality under it, this retention for thee but not for we will likely offend a lot more people than extra scrutiny for conservative tax-exempt applicants did, and the lame dog ate my homework excuse will offend the rest.”

Does the IRS have a contingency plan to recover lost data? All corporations today have contingency plans in place in the case of lost data. Losing the head of the department’s emails would surely be an event that would ignite specific actions by IT personnel to recover the data. Were these procedures performed when the data was lost? If they were, and the data is still lost, what is wrong with the contingency plans and have these gaps been addressed? The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Computer Security Division Computer Security Resource Center site lists government publications related to computer security systems: One publication numbered 800-34 which is titled Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems.

According to this publication, Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) are developed by NIST in accordance with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). FIPS are approved by the Secretary of Commerce and are compulsory and binding for federal agencies. Since FISMA requires that federal agencies comply with these standards, agencies may not waive their use. Congress needs to determine if the IRS complies with government regulations regarding contingency plans. If not, then the IRS is not in compliance with government regulations noted in publication 800-34. If the IRS does have a contingency plan, did the IRS adhere to the plan when the computers of employees whose emails have been requested by Congress crashed? If not, why not? If so, what failed?

Why did the most recent external auditor’s report of the financial processes and internal controls in place by the IRS not mention any IRS noncompliance with government regulations in regards to data retention or business continuity practices? The US Government’s General Accountability Office (GAO), in accordance with the authority granted by the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, annually audits IRS’s financial statements to determine whether (1) the financial statements are fairly presented and (2) whether IRS management maintained effective internal controls over financial reporting. The GAO also tests the IRS’s compliance with selected provisions of applicable laws, regulations, contracts, and grant agreements. The latest audit performed by the GAO for the fiscal years ending in 2012 and 2013 had no mention of the IRS being out of compliance with data retention or disaster recovery statutes. There was mention of material weaknesses in internal controls over unpaid tax assessments, but no mention of data retention or disaster recovery noncompliance

Have any internal audits or quality control reviews been conducted of the data security or contingency plans at the IRS, and if so, has there been any mention of the IRS’s noncompliance with government regulations in regards to retention or business continuity practices? Internal audit or quality control reviews performed by the IRS entity itself or by other regulatory bodies of processes related to retention or business continuity practices at the IRS could be damming to the current alibi of the IRS in regards to the lost emails. These reports may even discuss the policies in place at the IRS for these areas which might conflict with the current story.

Why are not more IRS personnel standing up? I’ve met good and sharp people that worked for the IRS when sitting for the CPA examination and it is puzzling why more of them are not standing up and choosing to share the truth about this obvious scandal with Congress.

Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, June 16, 2014, 7:57 AM at www.thegatewaypundit.com

Guest post by J. Hoft

Sunni Muslims march in Iraq.

Iraq is falling to ISIS but so far Obama has denied the current Iraqi government any support. Why would Obama not act to support an ally – especially after the blood sacrifice of so many Americans ? Obama is not gun shy, as his go it alone policy with Libya demonstrated. He was more than willing to fight alongside Al Qaeda in the war in Syria. What exactly is his policy?

As first reported by the GWP in August 2013, Obama’s policy in the Middle East has been one of alignment with the Sunni Muslim branch. Obama’s current actions add credence to the theory. There are multiple examples of this as pointed out by the GWP:

1. Obama was on the same side as Al Qaeda in Libya when bombing Gaddafi and his forces. In prior posts GWP showed Al Qaeda flying their flag after Gaddafi’s murder.
2. Obama also sided with the terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, even providing them with $1.5 billion in aid, and then taking it away after they were overthrown.
3. GWP reported from theIndependent, that if Obama had attacked Syrian leader Assad’s army, the Obama Administration and Al Qaeda would be on the same side.
4. When Obama was contemplating plans in Syria, per the Washington Post, Obama was also open to a conflict with Iran.
5. In September 2013, when Obama was unable to obtain the American public’s or American allies’ support to send US soldiers to Syria, the Washington Examiner and other publications reported that Obama waived a provision of federal law designed to prevent the supply of arms to terrorist groups to clear the way for the U.S. to provide military assistance to “vetted” opposition groups fighting Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
6. Now that Iraq is in trouble, Obama gives a speech and goes golfing.

The Muslim Sunni and Shia sects have been at war for over 1300 years, since Mohammad’s death. Iran, Syria’s Assad, Hezbollah and the current Iraqi government, are from the Shia sect. The rest of the Muslim world, including Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, and ISIS, the terrorist group currently murdering people in Iraq, are all Sunni sects. Obama won’t send troops to Iraq because the Iraqi government is led by Shia. Sunnis kill Shia. Obama may claim that he doesn’t want to send troops to Iraq because Bush was wrong in sending US troops there in the first place, but that doesn’t explain why he is eager to send US troops and/or support to Al Qaeda in Libya and Syria and to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

One policy is becoming clear – Obama’s support for the Muslim Sunni sect. Maybe he gained this affinity for the Sunnis in his youth in Indonesia (a predominantly Sunni Muslim country). Regardless, with Iraq burning, this cannot be overlooked.

See original post at http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/what-is-barack-obamas-middle-east-policy/

The Census Studies–

The following was posted on Friday, May 30th, 2014 by Jim Hoft at Progressives Today.  Jim and I worked on this together.

Census Report Day 3: Democrats Are the Party of High School Dropouts

The Census Studies–

Background:

In late March 2014 the Associated Press (AP) reported that eight of ten US House of Representative Districts with the highest annual mean incomes were districts held by Democrats.

This was somewhat surprising as the media constantly labels Republicans “the party of the rich.” The article went on to list the top ten Congressional Districts predominantly on the East and West Coasts and led by several well known and very liberal Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman and Jerry Nadler.

In response to this article, we decided to review the most recent Census data ourselves and see what other items of interest might be found hidden in this data.

Progressives Today first collected the 2012 US census data housed at the government census site. We also obtained a list of Congressional Representatives and their party affiliation from the US Congressional website for the 113^th Congress voted into office starting in 2012 and combined these files into one massive spreadsheet to obtain relationships.

Earlier this week Progressives Today reported:
** 36 of the poorest 39 districts in the US are Democrat districts

** The Middle Class – Working Class districts in the US are represented by Republicans by a two-to-one ratio

** The shameful results of the Black Congressional Caucus districts – Their constituents are black, poor, have low incomes, and rely on the government for their health care. They rent rather than own, are high school dropouts and are unemployed.

Today we have this tidbit on the education level of Republican versus Democrat districts.
– Just as with income levels, the Democrat Party represents the extremes in education levels. Democrats tend to be high school dropouts or post graduate students. Republicans tend to be individuals with a high school education and individuals with some college experience but have not attained a degree – typical working class Americans.

Education – Of the sixteen education related categories, two categories are highly correlated with Republican led districts and two categories are highly correlated with Democratic led districts. Republican led districts correlate highly with individuals who have attained a high school degree or equivalent (31%) and individuals who have had some college but have not attained a degree (27%). Democratic led districts on the other hand correlate highly with individuals who are enrolled in college or graduate school (31%) and individuals with less than a 9th grade education (30%).

By Joe Hoft and Jim Hoft

** Check out http://www.progressivestoday.com/census-report-day-3-democratic-districts-highly-correlate-with-high-school-dropouts/ for original post.