A little over a year ago I posted Guilty of Fraud about Elizabeth Warren and her brainchild, the then new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). I stated: “Perhaps an agency with illegitimate powers, run by a fraudulently appointed director and designed by a fraudulent person is best suited to root out fraud from consumer financial products? Perhaps I don’t understand the wisdom by which Washington governs today?”
Despite its now brief tenure as a going concern, the CFPB is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office and the House of Representatives Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee where 32 CFPB employees have testified. Employees also filed 115 official grievances in 2013 alone with their bargaining unit, the National Treasury Employees Union. Described as a toxic workplace, the CFPB is rift with intimidation, retaliation, favoritism and cronyism. Black employees are segregated into a low level data entry unit known as the plantation. They have no promotional path from this unit, despite their often outstanding credentials.
Some unaware people might find it ironic that the Democrats during the House Subcommittee hearings accused the Republicans investigating racism of racism. But it is not surprising since the CFPB partly finances itself by creating racism where none exists. Foregoing evidence, they use “disparate-impact theory” to accuse banks of racism and blackmail them with threats of litigation and bad publicity for profitable out of court settlements. Those that thrive from racism must keep it alive. As a consequence those at the CFPB they have internalized (or reinternalized?) those sick attitudes. Apparently they are too arrogant to realize that the spiritual poison of prejudice is infectious.
This past June in Wild & Scenic at Pardee and Environmental Observations I posted: “The SR-71 Blackbird spy plane replaced the ill fated U-2 and served us from 1964 to 1998. It was 92% titanium. We had to buy this titanium from the Soviet Union through various foreign intermediaries. And while global demand for titanium grew by 60% from 2009 until leveling off in 2013, DuPont granted their titanium deposits near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, totaling 16,000 acres, to The Conservation Fund. I call this treason.”
Also this past June, an F-35 Lightning II engine caught fire. Pratt & Whitney immediately suspended production and considered the likely culprit to be suspect titanium in a key component. This component has already been installed on about 150 aircraft. These engines are anticipated to cost us taxpayers a mere $68.4 billion over the course of the entire F-35 project, a joint strike fighter for the Air Force, Navy and Marines.
Our defense and aerospace industries are dependent upon America importing 79% of our titanium needs. Most of this comes from Russia and often through third party enterprises. One of these was recently received a Federal indictment and is best described as a billionaire Ukrainian titanium gangster. Not surprisingly, Crimea and other places being contested between the Ukraine and Russia are titanium rich. But it’s easy for Washington to turn the other cheek as the body count rises, since we now import our spy satellite rocket launchers from Russia, along with many key minerals. Boeing’s need just for titanium alone has resulted in an ongoing investment totally $18 billion in Russia. At times my mind fogs over trying to remember who won the Cold War. I sarcastically hope that the Conservation Fund bird watching guides, as they hike over our domestic titanium resources, feel secure and also sympathetic to their unemployed neighbors.
Following that 1778 winter of sacrifice at Valley Forge, Alexander Hamilton observed that we have no blankets because they are made in England, and that we have no gunpowder because it, too, is made in England. He concluded that political independence is a weak position without economic independence.
We appear to have gone full circle, all 360 degrees, to where we started. We import almost everything.
We finance it through debt held by hostile nations. We pay more for milk because much of ours goes to China.
Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett
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