This is a rather lengthy transcript of the CAFR video as aired on public access television. (Approximately 32 pages) Walter J. Burien, Jr. - December 17th 1999
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Transcript is of the nationally distributed CAFR video:
"The Biggest Game in Town" 2000
PART ONE
The Biggest Game In Town is of major importance to every American. You are encouraged to video tape it for further review and sharing with others.
This program is a comprehensive disclosure of governmental financial operations that have been deliberately concealed and kept from the American people by the governmental financial agencies as well as by the syndicated media. The scope is huge; the personal financial impact of vital concern to all.
Do the people of this great land own the government or do the collective governments think they own the people? Is it time to mandate "effective action" through united efforts of the American people?
Can David still fling the rock true and straight to hit its mark and defeat Goliath?
Are you aware that 30 years ago only 8-12% of the financial activity and ownership of our nation resulted from the activity of the government, but today the figure is conservatively 48%?
We the People have been victimized by the largest organized syndicate on the face of the Earth. The Constitution declares that all political power is inherent in the people and that all powers not directly and specifically delegated to public servants remain with the people.
Our public servants are accountable to us and it's time we hold them accountable with genuine liability and cause the profits resulting from governmental activity to directly benefit the people!!!
************************** Walter Burien ; Narrative ******************************
Good morning. What we're going to be talking about today is what I've called The Biggest Game in Town. My name is Walter Burien. I live in Prescott, Arizona. I became aware of something approximately 10 years ago, which changed my life. I will give you a little analogy of how I learned about the complete financial takeover of the wealth of this country by composite government.
Back in 1989 1 lived in New Jersey. There was a governor by the name of Jim Florio who was running for office under a no-new-tax platform. He won, and as soon as he got into office a $2.8 billion tax increase was enacted---the largest in the state's history. It's obvious that the public was not too thrilled about Mr. Florio's actions and one of the local radio stations, 101.5 FM, started doing some rabble-rousing, taking calls from listeners on examples of waste and misspending in government. My first two days I was listening, and I heard people calling in with examples of $5,000, $15,000; $85,000 was the highest figure I heard. I pulled out the State of New Jersey's budget report, which is the only thing I was aware of at that time. They had $11 billion on budget, $6 billion off budget; the total annual service budget was $17 billion a year. I called in to the show and I made the comment, "Come on, guys; you're missing the whole point. The highest figure I heard was $85,000. The state's dealing with billions of dollars." I read off the figures. I said, "If there's fraud, waste and misspending taking place, it's taking on tunes of tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars." The DJ at that time challenged us, the listeners, to start a tax protest organization to repeal the $2.8 billion tax increase.
Ten of us got together the next day and incorporated a group called Hands Across New Jersey. We scheduled our first rally ten days out from that point. And basically, with the help of 101.5, we had 115,000 people converge on Trenton from all the shore points in New Jersey, effectively shutting the city down. Now, during the course of organizing that rally, I took over looking at the budget, revenue and finance of the state.
For about fifteen years I was a Commodity Trading Advisor, I was one of the first tenants of the World Trade Center, back in 1979. And large figures didn't bother me-a hundred million and one dollar - there was no difference. So when I started looking at the figures on the New Jersey budget report, as I mentioned, there were $11 billion on budget, $6 billion off budget, it showed a net available of $25.6 billion. Then, I asked myself the number one question that IRS asks in an audit: What are the cash gross receipts? I started noticing the large cash cow groups in state government - the New Jersey Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, Port Authority of New York, and New Jersey. The revenue was not inclusive in the budget report. I didn't see any large returns from investment funds on the budget report. And I said, "They have to have two sets of books here. They're not accounting for the whole picture". The director of the budget at that time was an individual by the name of Richard Keavey. He was on vacation till the following Tuesday of that week. I found out who his lower assistant was, called in, and the conversation went just like this:
I said, "Hi, this is Walter Burien. I'm working on a report for Richard. Have to have it done by Tuesday when he gets back from vacation. I need all the figures on the autonomous agency accounts, interest accounts, investment accounts. And the reply I got was, "Oh, you want the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report". Bing!!! First time I ever heard that before in my lifetime. Got it that Friday. Started crunching numbers. It showed a total liquid investment funds of $188 billion dollars --- $188 BILLION DOLLARS---of which common stock ownership $70 billion, on loan to public and private corporations $10 billion, insurance company equity participation, $14 billion, on loan to public and private corporations $10 billion. And I started looking for the total cash gross receipts. As I mentioned, what IRS would ask for in an audit. I found it on page 174. Now this is 1989's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. On page 174 under Cash Additions, all agencies, all departments, all sources, here's a state with a declared service budget of $17 billion, who was bringing in $86 billion, 799 million in cash. I saw that figure and instantly realized the definition of syndicated organized crime. Here, we had a representation to the public that the state of New Jersey was bringing in $17 billion when in reality, they were bringing in close to $86 billion. They had $188 billion in liquid investment funds. I also learned the principle of operation that day. Anything that was a cost and an expense, traditional service side of the budget report, health and welfare, human services, motor vehicles, was left under the budgetary basis, and the public footed 100% of the bill for 100% of the services. Now, anything that was a profit center, had the ability of being a profit center, large investment fund that generated tens and hundreds of millions of dollars, totally restricted by a statute for no tie or inclusion whatsoever with the budgetary basis.
Now, this is what I have called The Biggest Game In Town. I saw it first in New Jersey and I said the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report� here I am a Commodity Trading Advisor, I was doing a national news line coast to coast at the time and I never heard of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. I wanted to find out why. I was mad. I mean, there was such a distinct difference between the revenue shown on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and the minuscule revenue that was shown now on the budgetary basis. I said, "Why did I not see this in a newspaper, radio show, TV show?"
Now, the department that mailed out the report the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report was from the Department of Treasury. I called the mailroom, and the mailroom usually doesn't get a call from the public, so they were very cooperative. I wanted to find out who the report was sent to. I thought it was a short list. They said, "I'm sorry, sir. The list is too long - we can't read it to you on the phone." So I start qualifying. I found out it was sent to every editor of every paper on the East coast. It was sent to the deans of all the colleges. It was sent to the CEO and every one of the directors from ABC, CBS, and NBC. When I verified that, I started smelling cooperative effort for nondisclosure. I then got the telephone number for ABC and NBC on where the report was sent to. I called, and the conversation went just like this:
"Hi. This is Walter Burien calling from the Department of the Treasury. We've been sending you our Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the last fourteen years and we're doing a logistical survey on how many other states are sending you their reports. Could you please help me?"
ABC was getting it from 36 states; NBC was getting it from 34 states. When I heard that, now I'm getting very mad. I'm starting to see a clear-cut cooperative effort for nondisclosure on the most important information that exists in this country...Period. The extent of the financial takeover by composite government of the wealth of this country, with the full cooperation of the syndicated media for nondisclosure.
My next step was I called New York, got New York's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, which showed approximately $735 billion in liquid investment funds. I then got the city of Manhattan's report. Now, when I mention the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, it's not just the state-the majority of all cities, counties, school districts, pension funds, autonomous agencies such as the New Jersey Turnpike or New York Throughway Authority, put out a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. When I got Manhattan's report it showed liquid investment funds of $1.2 trillion, more than the entire state. My mind started getting boggled, thinking of the composite totals-for all the states, all the cities, and all the counties.
Subsequently, over the last ten years I've been factoring in, compiling, the aspect of composite totals. The current figure stands at about $60 trillion plus, in liquid investment funds - the composite totals for all cities, counties, states, and the federal government. Now, the viewers of this show would say "Oh, wait a second here! Wait a second here! I thought we were in debt for the state, in debt for our school districts, or in debt for the federal government". Well, let me explain something. I'm going to give you the biggest wake-up call in your life. This example holds true all across the country, for every city, county, and state and the federal government. You always hear the budgetary basis referenced - "the budget report, the budget report."
Now, I'll use this one example. Say, for example, you are making $100,000 a year, and your budget for operating your house is $20,000 a year. You could audit you3333111r budget a hundred times over - account for every nickel, dime, and penny on your budget report. If you spent $19,000 this year you'd have $1,000 surplus. If you spend $21,000 this year you'd have a thousand-dollar deficit. Now, in reality, if you decided you wanted to spend $30,000 this year on your budget for operating your house, would you go knocking on your neighbor's door, saying, "Hey, John, I had $20,000 allocated to operate my budget, but I spent $30,000; can I borrow $10,000?" No, you'd pull from your $100,000 salary.
Governments across this country on the city, county, state levels, and federal, have created a two-tier accounting structure. One, the annual operating budgets, the cost side of operating government for the year - the monies they bring in for the year to handle that cost and what they expend. What's being left out is the decades -- the decades of investment wealth, enterprise ventures which generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year, which are not inclusive in the budgetary basis. Government has turned into a financial empire across the board. And the public, basically, allowed the foxes to write the laws on how many hens they could eat from the hen house. And of course, foxes being foxes, they've eaten all the hens.
When you start looking at composite totals of revenue and compare it to the private sector, government currently now is substantially bigger than the private sector. We are standing at about 65% government, 35% the private sector.
Now, when you look at stocks, as I mentioned, New Jersey State Government I saw, had $70 billion in common stock ownership. That floored me. I never even thought about New Jersey as a state owning $70 billion in stocks. Composite totals city, county, state and federal on stock ownership, equates to approximately $32 trillion. That's over 53% of the entire open interest of all issued stocks from all exchanges is owned by composite government sources. You won't have one city or county or state owning a phenomenal base in one stock, but you'll have thousands of the different cities, counties and states owning the composite totals. They own over 51 percent. So, when you look at individual corporations, Xerox Corporation, IBM, AT&T the primary owners are composite government funds, and they'll be listed as institutional funds - when you see the word "institutional funds" - that is government monies, in most cases. So, when you have a supposed public corporation - say, 72% owned by composite government funds, I wouldn't call that a public corporation; I would say that's a government operation. Xerox is approximately 72% owned by composite government funds; AT&T is up around 42%, so on and so on...
But the bottom line here is, when I learned this, this was a revelation that changed my life. Up until this point, when the comprehension finally dawned on me, prior to that, I always thought government was maybe 5% of the GNP of this country and this was a free-market economy, and I learned I was wrong. Basically, what the public has done here - I did this, you did this - we all have done this - we left the vault door open. In fact, 95% of the public would say, "Vault? What vault?" And those sharp little crackers said, "Thank you very much. Have a good day."
Now, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report I brought, this is from Missouri, there's a total press blackout of mentioning of the name of this report, - the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. This is Missouri's of 1997. This is Ohio's cover page for 1998. I have the state of Utah's 1998; I also have Washington's and Maryland's figures. Also, this is from the state of Arizona, the state of Arizona retirement fund Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for 1998, which I will make some very interesting notations on. Now, the federal governmentï, this is the federal government Combined Financial Statement, the last page from the report, one notation . . . The federal government, in 1981, mandated that all local governments prepare a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report -every city, every county, every state, or, in the alternative, a Combined Financial Statement, if they did not prepare a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.
The background on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report: a group by the name of GFOA, Government Financial Officers Association, in 1946 created the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reporting accounting structure. I think the city of Manhattan produced one of the first ones in 1951, as a large entity. So, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report has been around for quite a long time. There are 54,000 separate government corporations; cities, counties, school districts, authorities, that produce their own separate report - that's 54,000. You start looking at the composite totals of the revenue from 54,000 reports - the cities, the counties, the states - and you see the $60 trillion inclusive with federal government's revenue.
Now, about five months ago I got a call from an individual by the name of Joe Long, who runs a group called Federation of New Jersey Tax Payers. He called me up on a Sunday morning. He goes, "Walter, we just got New Jersey's 1998 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. They have $295 billion in liquid investment funds. Isn't that awful?" I said, "Joe, you're just looking at the state report. There's 21 counties, a couple hundred cities and municipalities, autonomous agencies - all separate reports. If you take the composite totals of the liquid investment funds, you're well in excess of $1.2 trillion. If you take the population of New Jersey and divide it into $1.2 trillion, that comes out to a cash allocation of $146,000 per man, woman and child living in the state or family of four (sic) [five], that equals seven hundred and some odd thousand dollars. The obfuscation of the wealth has been excessive.
But just one notation regarding the federal, because this is not just going on in local governments - you know, cities, counties and states. Federal government's playing the exact same game. And I've noticed a lot of people always point the finger at the federal government as the bad guys, but when you break down the actual revenue of the $60 trillion, two-thirds of it belongs to the local governments - the cities, counties and states - and one-third belongs to the federal government.
Now, I'm going to try to do a close-up shot of this one page here. Okay, here we have the-this is the last page from the federal Combined Financial Statement. This is the appendix list of significant government entities included in the Combined Financial Statement. Now the majority of the items included, if we can scroll down the page here, can we get a close-up there?, now the majority that are included are agencies which most people are familiar with. We go to the back here - this is the final listing of agencies that are included - but the last column, down below, it -says "Significant entities excluded from these statements." (I think we're on that.) Now, they give honorary mention to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Reserve, which I think we all know by now are basically private. But then they list the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, the Thrift Savings Plan, the Farm Credit System, the Federal Home Loan Banks, financing corporations, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Sally Mae, Resolution Funding Corporation. These groups are the cash cow investment groups of government.
Now, also, I want to make special note to three items that are listed at the bottom. We have the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, the Navy Exchange Service Command, the Marine Corps Exchange. Folks, this is not the PX. We have funding operations for exchange of foreign troops to the U.S.- U.S. troops on the foreign soil, which they kept separate from the Combined Financial Statement of the -federal government so it wouldn't be so easily seen. But if we take the federal investment groups, the cash federal cow investment groups, and look at their revenue - and, very important, they have a phenomenal amount of revenue on loan, that's been loaned out there... if you take the accounts receivables and their current cash on hand, you come out to about a 16 trillion positive on the total operation.
So, here, even the federal government is taking their cost side - the expense side- leaving it on the Combined Financial Statement - they call that their budgetary basis - but they've separated the cash cow investment groups of federal government so that they don't show on the budgetary basis. So, currently, the federal government shows a slight deficit on budgetary basis, but the profit centers, which would show a $16 trillion positive, are excluded. Now, we started on national exposure about 18 months ago on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and the structure behind it, and I think that a few of you may have heard on the network news the feds saying, "Oh, by the way, we happened to find we're going to have a $6 trillion surplus going into the year 2004." They mentioned a surplus, a $6 trillion surplus? Keep in mind, that $6 trillion surplus is on the budgetary basis. They're not including the cash cow investment agencies. If they were being 100% honest, inclusive of all revenue, the federal government would have approximately a $12 to $14 trillion surplus. And, in fact, if they included the cash cow investment agencies in with the budgetary basis, they could probably have a 50% reduction across the board of all taxation, on the federal side. Something to think about.
Let's go back to the local governments. The states, the cities, and the counties, they have their budgetary basis, the annual operating budget but they have enterprise funds. In my little city of Prescott, Arizona, where I live, the city owns a golf course. Why does the city own a golf course? So the judges and the attorneys can get lower greens fees? Here is a $45 million dollar asset which is paid for by tax payer funds, developed, and not $1 goes back directly to support the budgetary basis. They have investment funds sitting as idle funds -- $48 million.
Now, with this much money out there, this phenomenal base of wealth, empires that are being built, it is mandatory to keep the public oblivious to what was going on. If the public was aware that this type of wealth was being built and obfuscated as tax dollars are being drained out of their pockets, where people are citing a shortfall of budgetary revenue, there would have been an uprising 30 years ago. But the government, to perpetuate this game, they needed the 100% cooperation of the syndicated media. That they have. You will not see ABC, NBC, saying, "Oh, by the way, we just happened to find out about the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and we found out that the budgetary basis is this big (small noted) but the revenue shown on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report is this big. (Large noted) You will not see that happen. They have been in cooperative nondisclosure for 25 years. That's why the situation has taken place.
It's mandatory to get the word out. It's mandatory to have your local radio show, your local TV show, call in, mention the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Depending upon what city, what county, what state you're looking at the ratio of the budgetary basis, the annual service budget, to the reality of the total wealth, usually ranges from a percentage of 8:1 to as high as 40:1. That comparison between the budgetary basis and the reality of the wealth. It's not. Right.
In retrospect with what I've learned, it reminded me of something I was taught in grade school. I remember back in fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, I'd hear a lot about Russia, and how the control Russia had over the public was bad. Well, when you look at the financial takeover of the wealth by composite government in this country, it dwarfs the control Russia had, in comparison, based on that financial control. In fact, did you ever wonder why Gorbachev went democratic? He looked and he said, "Hey, the boys in the United States have more control than we do, and they're making ten times as much."
A federal auditor of 30 years, I briefed him eight months ago. He was in charge of auditing one of the largest federal agencies in the country and also eight of the central western states prior to his retirement. He was always looking at individual budget reports, the individual leaves, branches and trees in the forest. And I briefed him on the composite totals. Floored him! He looked, he verified, and three months later he made the comment to me. He goes, "Walter, what we have here in this country is 100% Communism under the guise of a free market capitalist system." He goes, "The government owns everything." [http://www.cafrman.com]
Now, the public is constantly complaining about higher taxes, higher taxes, more money being taken for this, for that. And they're conditioned - year in, year out. We had the Boston Tea Party--I think it was for a 3% tax on tea, caused the revolution. Here we've been conditioned to 45% of our pay going back to government. And when you look at all aspects of what the government's getting - export tax, import tax, duties on manufacturing, the composite total is phenomenal on the money that's taken by government.
The principle of operation in this country is, the boys running this structure - they keep the chipmunk running on the treadmill chasing the carrot as through trickle-down economics they provide just enough revenue to keep that chipmunk running at optimum proficiency as they tap off 80% of the energy produced. This is not right. The country was established for the public to rule in this country - for prosperity, for our families, education, the whole nine yards. If you see the country going down the tubes, it's strictly due to the factor that we have greed taking place on an unprecedented level in all levels of city, county, state government and federal government. Empire- building, power mongering. When you start breaking down the figures, using fifth-grade addition skills, just knowing where to look, adding up the composite totals as I mentioned there's 54,000 local government, separate reports, separate corporations, school districts, cities, counties, states, autonomous agencies - 54,000; the totals of that revenue is phenomenal.
I have the summary from the state of Washington, I'll just use for an example - I'm not picking on Washington. But Washington state, on the statistical section which is in the back of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, it shows a ten-year demographics of revenue taken in, population growth, the whole nine yards. Retail sales, the top employers, Washington state, in the course of a ten-year period of time, there was a 100% growth in government. During the same ten-year period of time government took 115% more revenue. The revenue over doubled in ten years in what they're taking from the public. You have a runaway freight train. As I mentioned, the public left the vault door open. And the sharp little crackers said, "'Thank you very much."
On the government pension funds - city, county, state, federal - they're standing at about $28 trillion-$28 trillion. The private sector will never see $28 trillion in their lifetime. I go back to that word "Russia" and "Communism" under the guise of a free-market capitalist system. The figures are there. We're not talking about any gray area; there's no speculation here. This is outright their figures. This is a massive operation-it's a multi-trillion dollar organized syndicate of composite government wealth. They needed to keep their own accounting of their own structure - the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report was their accounting. The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report showed the wealth. And the reason it was never mentioned to the public was it did show the wealth. Let's take a break for right now and we'll get back into this in a minute.
** [a public service announcement (PSA) aired encouraging the watching of programs on public access television] **
Welcome back. Previously, I had mentioned the state of Washington and the growth of 115% on the revenue taken. I've had people look at their Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, and they'll say, "Well, the figures are all here. It's all here. They account for everything. Here's the billions of dollars." I said, "You're seeing the billions of dollars that you never saw before in your lifetime. You're now seeing them for the first time, you now realize the scope of the billions."
I want to show you one other point. Now, I'm going back to the chart, this is from Washington's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report 1998, it gives a ten-year demographics of the revenue taken in a ten-year period. I think you should be able to see these figures. This starts in 1989. This is in millions of dollars. The total taken by the state from the public was $9,514,000,000. Now, as we go through the years, 1990, 91, 92, over to 1998 - the total revenue now taken was $18,008,000,000. So, we went from 9 billion to 18 billion, in a course of ten years. That's 100% growth!! This is ludicrous!!! The population growth in the state of Washington was approximately 8 percent during the same time period. And by the way, that is total revenue taken - the budgetary basis for the same period went from $6 billion to approximately $10,900,000,000 in the same period of time. That's the budgetary basis, but the total revenue taken is $18 billion. So it's a $6 billion disparity between the budgetary basis.
So we're not just talking the extent today of how much money government has taken from the public and the decades of wealth that's been building. We're talking also about the runaway freight train of growth on the city level, the county level, the state level. If you go back 25 years ago, government was approximately 6 to 8 percent of the GNP of this country, gross national product total revenue base. Currently, today, composite government - city, county, state and federal - it's 48% of the GNP based on cash and ownership. This is not right. We fell asleep at the wheel. We allowed it to happen. You have to realize this is the largest organized syndicate - a multi-trillion dollar organized syndicate - with thousands of facets that spends billions, billions of dollars, to make sure the public is looking off in right field as they conduct business as usual in left field. You'll see the orchestration in the media on different events which keep the public spinning their wheels over here as the boys are making their billions of dollars over here. They laugh their asses off on the way to the bank every single day. They're becoming wealthy, empires are being built. When you look at the $60 trillion in liquid investment funds, the composite totals - the billions...
Let's look at the state of California, with approximately $12 trillion under management. Now, under the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report you'll see about, oh, a total of maximum of about $3 trillion. But when you start tracking down the cities, the counties, all the revenue base, you're up to about $12 trillion. Now, in California, say, for example, one of the investment managers who is handling, say, $400 billion in funds, and he had, say, $150 billion -with Shearson Lehman Hutton American Express institutional banking. That's a very powerful position. If that individual contacts the director of the institutional banking, and said his brother in Argentina needed a $120 million loan in Argentina for a sugar cane energy development project, unsecured, do you think he's going to say NO? I don't think so. He'll have one of his associates from another company that he deals with closely cut the loan. If it's defaulted on he'll just make up the difference on some business he'll do with that firm.
The power mongering and the elbow rubbing that takes place here is obscene! And it's not just one group, one organization, doing it, it's the principle of operation. Since we started our national disclosure 18 months ago I've had thousands of phone calls from people all over the country.
I'll get a call from New York, "Walter, I just got the New York through-way Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. They had $31 billion in liquid investment funds and -they're still charging us." I'll say, "Don't worry about it." I'll get. a call from Anchorage, Alaska, "Walter, I just got our Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for our city. They're making $100 million more a year than they're showing on their budget report." I'll say, "Don't worry about it." I said, "Stop focusing in on a leaf, branch or tree in the forest. Start focusing in on the forest; understand the principle of operation of the forest. There are ten thousand of these operations going on all over the country." I said, "If you're going to apply your efforts, apply your efforts to change the principle of operation of the forest, which will affect every leaf, branch and tree in the forest. "
That's the bottom line here, folks. We're not talking any gray areas; there's no speculation here. This is black and white. You know, the public has been complaining for the last 25 years. Every problem I've seen in this country to date has to do with extortion of revenue from the public. Period. It is the root of evil in this country - the wealth being taken from the populace. And one of the problems here is, a lot of people have been looking for the needle in the haystack, trying to find government corruption and wealth being stolen from us. Well, we're not looking for the needle in the haystack here, folks. It's the haystack sitting on top of the needle. All you have to do is look and start adding up the composite figures. Stop being distracted by one leaf or branch or tree in the forest. Start qualifying the forest. And when you do you'll see the clear and unequivocal financial takeover of the wealth of this country by composite government, right from the city level to the state to the federal level. It's power mongering it's empire building. The boys that are in there on the inner circle; the wealth is absolute.
Now, I'll give you a few examples going back into New Jersey from ten years ago when I got New Jersey's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. It listed the state universities and colleges, and gave a composite total for all. I noticed right off the bat they had $8.5 billion in liquid investment funds - this is 1989. It also showed they made a $1.1 billion profit on their investment funds for the year. My next question to myself was, "I wonder what the total tuitions are for all students attending colleges and universities in the state." Total tuition base was $644 million. I said right off the bat, "Hey, they made a $1.1 billion profit and total tuitions are $644 million. They could have sent all students to school for free for the year and paid them to go to school." In reality, what they did that year was sighting a shortfall of budgetary revenue, they had a 7% tuition increase.
The game is absolute, and we're talking there is so much money behind the game, and you have the participation of the syndicated media in the game, the public really has not stood a chance. The only way the public stands a chance is through full and open disclosure of the wealth - not being distracted, just sitting down crunching numbers. Not looking at one leaf, or branch or tree in the forest, start looking at the forest, adding up the totals, and it becomes evidently clear. Corrective action is needed and is needed immediately. With the scope of the financial takeover that is in existence today, they're consolidating that ownership. Within several years you'll have composite government owning 85% of the wealth in this country. And at that point in time the public may just become a liability - they don't need them anymore. So, it's very important that the public starts taking a serious look at what's going on.
I'm going to go into two other points here. I'll give you an example from Edgefield County, South (sic) [North] Carolina. I briefed a doctorate in economics, she wrote for a little paper in Edgefield County called the Edgefield County Advertiser. She got a hold of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports for the state, the county, and the city and ran into a few obstacles trying to get them. They don't like to give them out in some cases. But she noticed that their school district - Edgefield County School District - participated in the local government investment pool. So, she requested from the state ... you know, it showed where to request the financial report from the local government investment pool, and it showed that Edgefield County School District had $36 million invested in the pool. Now, this is a school district, which was rather poor and had several tax increases over the last couple of years, citing a shortfall of budgetary revenue. She approached the county school commissioners, saying, "What are you doing investing millions in the market?" The school commissioner said, "We don't invest in any ... the market. We don't have any monies invested. You have to be mistaken." She then produced the financial report. His next response was, "Well, this is our account for paying salaries and expenses for the year." She goes "Okay." She produced the prior year's report, which showed they had approximately $29 million invested in the local government investment pool. Now there were additions and withdrawals, the principle never changed, and now it jumps up to $36 million - close to a $7 million profit for the year. The money that's involved here is, on the broad spectrum, it's one big game. The politicians will lie straight to your face.
As I mentioned earlier, when I found out about New Jersey's report I found out that it was sent to every editor of every paper - had been for 14 years. It was back in 1990 I was checking. It was sent to ABC, CBS, and NBC. When we started on national disclosure...I've participated in about 60 radio programs, probably reached about 25 million people across the country in the last 18 months. I requested that everyone send a certified letter to their editors and producers of their news shows asking, requesting that simple and conspicuous mention of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report be made. All have refused. Now, the cutest response I got back was from someone in California, I think around Bakersfield. The editor replied, "We've received your request." Now keep in mind what was being asked was to make simple and conspicuous mention of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. He said, "We've received your request. We do not have the staff or the resources to report on a story of this magnitude. So your request is declined." I thought that was real cute.
Now, everybody remembers Orange County. Years ago Orange County, on their management funds, they got burnt playing with derivatives, such as options, calls, puts, features, they lost a little bit over a billion dollars. And they were crying, "Bankruptcy! Bankruptcy! We have to shut down! Stop all operations! Close the parks. Fire the police officers." Well, someone stumbled across their Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, which just happened to show that they had $16 billion in profitable investments. Well, all of a sudden Orange County left the news, they never went into bankruptcy. In fact, Orange County created a situation where they drew light to the reality of the investment finds, and they created liability for every other city, county and state across the country by bringing light to their loss and the investment funds. So, corrective action was taken after Orange County to make sure no one else ran into the same situation because of that light brought to the situation.
I think everyone's heard of Lucky Luciano from back in the Twenties and the Thirties. There was something called Luciano's Law. Lucky Luciano was the banker for the syndicates - he moved the money between New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami. And Luciano's Law was once you're suspected you're out of business. Anyone who spoke Luciano's name regarding a transaction disappeared. Luciano died of old age - never got indicted; he got exported from the country, but never had a problem other than that.
Government's been operating under the same principle of operation. If we're not suspected, we can continue business as usual. They have fronted up the budgetary basis to the public - continually, budget, budget, budget, shortfall of budgetary revenue. As per the example I gave earlier the difference between your budget for operating your house and your salary, there's a substantial difference. And when you break down the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, as I mentioned, the ratio comes out 8:1 to as high as 40:1 in comparison between the budget and the total revenues that are held by that government body. The examples I've given here - whether it be New Jersey, Missouri, Washington - they apply to every state, every city, every county, some more, some less.
I had a few notations here from Maryland. This is out of Maryland's 1998 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. Then let's see here, Pension assets were about $31 billion total contributions were $814 million, total investments returned was $3.7 billion; they'd increased $3.5 billion. Okay, here we go. Total government wages in the state of Maryland; and by the way, on the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, they started making a change. They used to list the top employers, in the state, and it always was the state, the cities, and the counties. Usually, government was 7 of the top 8 employers. They've now changed their statistical section to the top private employers. But if you pull one of the old Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, which, by the way, have been sent to your local library. You'll find back issues going back 15-20 years. The game here was not making the Report not available; the game was never mentioning the report no one knew to look for it. So, the game continued. But, total wages for the year paid in Maryland, to government employees, was $15 billion, 349 million. Total private sector wages were $55 billion. Okay? Total manufacturing was about $6 billion in Maryland. What this is saying is for every 4 people in the private sector working in Maryland, they are paying the salary of one government employee.
It's not right. The growth is ridiculous. It's runaway growth. It's a very serious situation -something needs to be done about it. Disclosure is the key factor. If you go to your editor - in fact, actually, for your state, confirm that the editor of your paper has been receiving the reports for 10-15 years. And when you go to him ask him if he's heard about it. If he says to you, "Never heard of it. I guess I'll have to look into it," you'll know he's lying straight to your face after you've confirmed in advance that he's been receiving it. Require, require these characters to make immediate simple and conspicuous mention. Require these characters to give the difference between the budgetary basis and the total investment wealth in what's held by governments. Require it.
This is no game, folks. We've had our heritage stolen from us right under our noses. As I mentioned, if you go back 25 years ago government was about 6-8 percent of the GNP; currently, we're standing at over 48%, and that's a conservative figure. That's a phenomenal amount of wealth. We have the largest orchestrated syndicate on the face of the planet, which is composite government wealth. A little notation. This is supposed to be a country of laws, correct? Law is supposed to protect people of this country, correct? Well, when I got New Jersey's report, it had the pension plans listed. I didn't understand pensions or the actuarial basis used. One of our Volunteers for Hands Across New Jersey, he wrote the pension funds for Blue Cross/Blue Shield nationally. I gave him the book, and I asked him to break down the pension funds and compare them to a Fortune 500 company. He told me it would take him about two weeks. Two weeks later I check back and I say, "Well, what have you got?" He goes, "Well, on a scale from I to 10, with the Johnson & Johnson being a 5, all of New Jersey pensions came in at a 7, excluding the judicial branch." He said the judicial branch was the millionaire boys' retirement club. Every state judge in New Jersey was guaranteed $5 million after serving one year tenure. In other words, they didn't have to work five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years to get their pension. All they had to do was their tenure - one year and they got their full benefit package, which was excessive. Now, district ... let's go to federal. District court judges, how many of you out there think that district court judges have a pension or retirement fund? I guess you would assume they have a pension or retirement fund. Well, they don't. District court judges are appointed for life. They get their full paycheck for life and benefits for life. And, in fact, two years ago they just took the action that when they die they can assign their full paycheck and benefits for the life of their surviving spouse or dependent relative. Now, that's a sweet deal.
The game is absolute. You know, we don't have the Joe Six-Pack crowd. here watching TV, betting on the football game, "Hey, five dollars on Dallas." We have the sharpest crowd, sharpest crackers on the face of the planet that are running one of the most sophisticated structures on the face of the planet - composite U.S. government - that is drawing in trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. And it has turned into a parasitic situation. The blood that's being drawn off the host ... if you look at the public as, being the host for the parasite, the parasite is now substantially bigger than the host. That's a serious problem, folks. Anyone have any Raid? I think we're going to need it. But, the bottom line is disclosure. Yeah, the public has this phenomenal growth on its back, and the majority of the public, they keep saying to themselves, "Is there something wrong here? Why are things not right? Why are things going to hell in a handbag?" The problem is these guys are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each - millions, in some cases. They have phenomenal backing to do it - to perpetuate the game. The public is struggling to get by.
The runaway growth is rampant. Doesn't... whatever city you look at, whatever county, whatever state, the average has been a 100% growth each ten-year period. Yeah, we're closer to where Russia wanted to be than Russia ever got. And, you know, we have to make the decision right now in our lives, a commitment to ourselves. This is not right. We have to take corrective action. We have to change this immediately. We only have one advantage, folks--one advantage only. As I mentioned, this is a $60 trillion organized syndicate with thousands of facets behind it. The judiciary is controlled, the finances are controlled, and the wealth is controlled. We have one advantage. And the only advantage we have is we outnumber the boys running the structure, about 400: 1. This happens to be our country. What has developed is wrong. We fell asleep at the wheel; we have to correct it.
In Part Two of this program, we'll be discussing what I call a CITA: Citizens Investment Trust Account, which can be implemented by initiative across this country. What the CITA is, is it's an organization started by the tax payers. They will have approximately two to three CFAS, Certified Financial Auditors, which (sic) will examine the books - city, county, state, as will be applicable to those residents in that city, county and state to identify surplus funds, venture projects - which, no way government should be involved in but the private sector should be handling, which the CITA would recommend for sale. The CITA, upon identifying and recommending for re-appropriation of the surplus revenue, and also sale of different venture projects like golf courses and different other items which cities and counties now own. The revenue that builds up in the CITA has one exclusive principle of operation. That exclusive principle of operation ... it's set up basically as an annuity pension fund for the resident tax payer. From the interest and dividend yield that's accomplished, it is to satisfy the budgetary requirements of that city, county or state.
I'll use an example of my little hometown in Prescott, Arizona. I had a couple of federal auditors go over the books; they identified $200 million on a cursory review, first glance. The city's operating budget's $17 million a year, the ... if you include the school districts, comes out to $34 million a year. The current rate of return 16-17% on pension investment funds. On $200 million that's $30 million at 15%. There goes the budgetary basis. In fact, the $34 million they are collecting, $30 million of that becomes surplus revenue for redeposit back into the CITA. They can eliminate the majority of all taxation and still have a surplus, which is returned to the resident property owners as an annuity dividend check. Because it's set up for their benefit.
Now, folks, what we're talking about here is not cutting back on a tax increase. What we're talking about is changing the principle of operation, of government - where, from the existing liquid investment funds that have built up over the decades, the wealth projects that government's operating right now, combining the operation as a whole where the revenue that is ... you know, the surplus revenue, the revenue that can be re-appropriated into the CITA - that fund, the CITA fund, just from the interest and dividend return on that fund, can satisfy the budgetary requirements, thus eliminating all taxation for that city, that county, that state. [ In effect, an annuity pension fund for the resident property / taxpayer having the ability to phase out all forced taxation and upon prudent financial management, provide a dividend return on top of no forced taxation]
Also, we can recommend downsizing of government to get it back into an appropriate proportion to private sector versus government. We have a chance here to change this country immediately through effective action and disclosure. We're up against a very powerful structure [syndicate]. The arrogance factor behind that structure is absolute. The top individuals running this structure on the investment side, the brokerage side, the banking side, they have egos the size of the World Trade Center. They have accomplished their objective, they have the control. But the public does own this country. Through effective action and unified force between the public we can correct this in a very short period of time. The structure has built up over 65 years and can be reversed in three to four years. And if the public unifies across the country it can be done on an effective level where we can eliminate taxation in this country for all time to come and create a situation where a dividend return comes back to the public. We'll continue on Program Two of this series on specifics on the CITA. I thank you for your time.
*********** End of Part One ***********
Notice: This program (#1 and 2) is a comprehensive disclosure. Permission is granted to air it in its entirety only. The airing of partial segments of this program would be misrepresentative of the disclosures being made. Such partial airing is strictly prohibited without express written authorization from:
*********** End of Program One ******
********** Beginning of Program Two ****
Introductory text on screen:
PART TWO
The Biggest Game In Town is of major importance to every American. You are encouraged to videotape it for further review and sharing with others.
This program is a comprehensive disclosure of governmental financial operations that have been deliberately concealed and kept from the American people by the governmental financial agencies as well as by the syndicated media. The scope is huge; the personal financial impact of vital concern to all.
Do the people of this great land own the government or do the collective governments think they own the people?
Is it time to mandate "effective action" through united efforts of the American people? Can David still fling the rock true and straight to hit its mark and defeat Goliath?
Are you aware that 30 years ago only 8-12% of the financial activity and ownership of our nation resulted from the activity of the government, but today the figure is a conservative 48%?
We the People have been victimized by the largest organized syndicate on the face of the Earth. The Constitutions declare that all political power is inherent in the people and that all powers not directly and specifically delegated to public servants remain with the people.
Our public servants are accountable to us and it's time we hold them accountable with genuine liability and cause the profits resulting from governmental activity to directly benefit the people!!!
******************* Walter Burien; narrative **************************
Welcome to Program Two of The Biggest Game In Town. The prior program ... on Program One we discussed the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report and the structure behind it. That structure shows the clear and unequivocal financial takeover of the wealth of this country by composite government. On the local side, cities, counties, state and federal, 54,000 separate individual government corporate entities filing separate reports with investment wealth, enterprise funds, venture projects, well beyond the scope of the public's knowledge and comprehension. We're going to bring it within the scope of the public's knowledge and comprehension for effective change. The ... we left off ... on Program One ... if you have not gotten Program One I highly recommend calling the station and getting a copy. There's a lot of information contained therein, so you'll be able to appreciate Program Two and Program Three.
At the end of Program One, we ran a little short on time, and I wanted to bring up one point. It had to do with the pension funds within government. This is for all of those government employees out there who are about to find out there's a good chance they're getting severely shortchanged. It's not just the public, friends. The same is happening to your government employees.
Now, in my hand . . . I'm from Arizona, Prescott Arizona. This is a copy of the state retirement Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the state of Arizona, 1998. The state of Arizona, under the state retirement fund, has 175,000 participants, retired and active. Using the highest actuarial basis possible to determine 100% funding for all participants required, approximately, based on current standards, about $14.5 billion dollars. Now, I have a page from the report, page 42 - I'm going to put it up, I think you should be able to see this. Now we're going to page 42 here, on camera 3.
Now ... right here, it says the ... lets see here ... this is for the total actuarial accrued liability; and what total actuarial accrued liability means is what is required - the money required - for 100% funding of all participants, in the fund. That figure is $13 billion, 63 8 million. With $13 billion, 638 million, this funds 100% of all 175,000 participants in the fund. Now I have a separate page from this report, this is page 15, from the Arizona state retirement Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. The total assets of the fund, at the end of June 30th 1997, is $20 billion, 353 million. Now as I mentioned, the total accrued, actuarial accrued liability, was about $13-1/2 billion and they're sitting with $20 billion, 353 million. Now the current report, the current figures, I've called to verify the standing of the fund, the current actuarial accrued liability is approximately $14.5 billion now. The fund's balance, after getting a 16.65% rate of return for the year, is standing up close to about $28 billion - with contributions and returns into the fund. Allowing for a 125% funding of all employees - 100% funding of their pensions, they're $9 billion over funded; in other words, the Arizona retirement fund is reaching 200% funding. There is not one city, county or state statute that even addresses the return of surpluses back to the employee or the employer - the cities, the counties, the school districts, the state agencies. Legislature showed their culpability two years ago on these surpluses. With these types of surpluses in the pension funds, there was no requirement for any payment from the employees or the employers. In fact, they should have been getting substantial refund checks back. What the legislature did was they passed their own internal statute mandating to participate in the fund a minimum payment of 2.18% for the employee and the employer, as a separate statute. They don't want to return those billions. When you break down within the report where those monies are invested, there's what I call "the blue list" of stocks and investments, things we all know and you can recognize easily. Then there's what I call "the red list," things I've never heard of before.
I'd be very interested to find out what judge, what attorney, what congressman, what senator, what county supervisor, is behind some of those investments, who is the shell owner of some of those investments and how many of those investments are actually real corporations providing goods, products and services and how many are shell corporations. It'd be very interesting to find out.
But the administrator of the fund, I chatted with him a few months ago and I brought up the point on allowing for 125% funding of the employees' pensions that freed up $9 billion. You cannot return $9 billion in investments through liquidation without causing a major catastrophe. Because if Arizona liquidated $9 billion from the pension funds for return to the employees and the employers, every other state with substantial surpluses, in theirs, would say, "Oh, my God. Arizona's moving openly, we'd better liquidate our funds, you know, while we still have a chance," and you could create a 1929 scenario crash; everybody moves at the same time.
I said there was a very easy solution. For the government employee, based on his pro-rata share participation in the fund, he is issued an individual IRA account as his refund. Nothing's liquidated, nothing sold, paper transfer, total order, no problem. For the city, the county, the school district, the state agency, based on their pro-rata share and participation in the fund, they're issued an individual market annuity account as a refund. Nothing's liquidated, paper transfer, same management, no problem. Now, the interesting point is, on the refund - just from this one account, one fund - the state of Arizona retirement fund, just on the surpluses, back to the employees and the employers, that's $4.5 billion back to the employees, $4.5 billion back to the employers, and they're still 125% funded. I asked the administrator "Could it be done?" He goes, "Sure, if there was a law addressing it, we could easily do it." And the rightful beneficiaries from this one fund, being that it's a retirement fund, would be the employees and the employers. But the refund back to the cities, and the counties, and the school districts, just from that refund, the return as I mentioned, they accomplished a 16.65% rate of return this year, that's been roughly their average for the last four years ... the return for the cities and the counties and the school districts just so happens to equal about 15-20% of their operating budgets for the year. Anyone sense a tax reduction here?
I mentioned at the end of Program One the CITA, Citizens Investment Trust Account. We covered the points extensively as to the composite totals of the government revenue- city, county- state, and federal - equaling about $60 trillion in revenue. There is no national debt - there is no debt, as we know it. They have a debt under their budgetary basis, their annual operating budget. And the example I used during Program One was if you had a budget for operating your house of $20,000 a year but you were bringing in $100,000 a year on your salary, you could spend $21,000 on your budget and you'd have a $ 1000 deficit. [Your liquid net worth under this example over your $100,000 annual income could be 1.5 million]
The same applies here. When you look at the budgetary basis of a city, a county, and a state, and then look at their total investment net worth, total enterprise projects, toll ways, bridges, different venture projects they've started which are generating substantial revenue, if you look at the whole picture there is no real deficit From the liquid investment assets they could wipe any deficit instantly, if they chose to do so.
But on the CITA, the Citizens Investment Trust Account, I'd like to cover that in depth. The CITA is established by the resident property owner, tax payer, for your city, your county, your state. The CITA is initially formatted with the use of CFAs, Certified Financial Auditors, who examine the books - city, county, state - as would be applicable to the residents of that city, county or state, to identify surplus revenues and projects being operated by government which should be operated by the private sector - golf courses, whatever, places where government has started venture projects which no way should they have their hands on, that should be sold back to the private sector. The CITA recommends for re-appropriation of the surplus funds, which were identified, into the CITA. It recommends for the sale of venture projects, their assets, which should be sold back into the private sector, for that revenue to be deposited into the CITA. The CITA recommends for the downsizing of that government, city, county or state. As I brought up in Program One, each ten years, it's been about a 100% growth in government on the city, county, state level-in general, across the country. The CITA can have a phenomenal amount of revenue built into it in a very short period of time.
I use the example of my hometown of Prescott, Arizona. A CFA identified $200 million in surplus funds in a cursory review. The city's annual operating budget was $17 million; the school district's included, that came out to $34 million. $200 million on deposit with the CITA, generating 15% return, equals $30 million. That eats up the budgetary basis. In fact, the city's still collecting $34 million to support their operations, which makes the majority of the funds at that time surplus revenue for redeposit back into the CITA- You can eliminate taxation at that point in time, in most areas, and there's still a surplus in the CITA. And being that the CITA is established as an annuity pension fund for the tax payer, when it has a surplus, the resident tax payer gets a dividend check -on top of no taxation.
It's the way it should have been 200 years ago. And it's possible to happen right now through disclosure and effective action by the public. I think we're all tired of having the people building their empires from within their city, their county, the state, or the federal government, imposing their will for more money, more revenue from us. [And control over us]
The one thing I'd like to bring up to make myself perfectly clear. Most people are familiar with taxation, ok, sales tax, property tax, you know, taxation. When you break down government structure and you look at where the revenue is coming from, alright, especially the money on the investment returns on the decades of wealth that have been building up in different areas, which the public, in most cases, is totally oblivious to but they can see if they look. When you look at the entire structure, taxation, including on the federal level, is approximately 30-35%, in some cases 40%, of the income for that government body. They are bringing in the majority, at this point in time, they are bringing in the majority of the revenue, not from taxable sources, from taxation, they're bringing in the majority of the revenue from returns on investment funds, from enterprise projects such as toll ways, roadways, bridge ways, financial authorities.
I've noticed in many of the states, I saw this first in Missouri; they have the Missouri Finance Authority, the Arkansas Financial Development Authority. We have at this point in time, states creating these financial authorities where the cities, the counties, other state agencies, can invest with these financial authorities their surplus revenue, their investment funds. And these financial authorities, when they have the bond issuance for the school district, the new roadway, the county jail, and they have a bond issuance, most of the public would think that bond issuance is being funded by the public. Wrong! The states are using their own investment funds, your monies, to fund their own bond issuances, locking the public, under irrevocable trust, for repayment of those bonds. Thus, the state is securing their own return on their own investment funds, your money, through putting you in debt.
It's a big wake-up call. The game is going on unabridged. I mean, the whole point here you know, they operate with immunity due to the factor that the public is not looking. If the public looks and sees the scope of the revenue, where it's held, where it's built for years, you start seeing how the game is played. School districts ... you know, look very closely ... if you look at your Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the state, most states have a local government investment pool and a list . . . you know, get the report for the local government investment pool, and you'll probably see your school district, your city, your county participating.
I gave an example, Edgefield county, North Carolina, school district was crying poverty, and someone dug into it and found out they had $36 million invested in the local government investment pool. Initially, they denied it, then they tried to justify it by saying it was an expense account. Then, finally, the truth came out. They had shuffled away $36 million off the budgetary basis, it was an idle fund account. The public had no idea. And North Carolina also showed a total participation of about $1.1 billion from other government entities within the state.
But, back to the pension funds. You know, just on this one account, $9 billion being freed up. $4.5 billion back to the government employee. In fact, on the individual IRA accounts returned to the individual government employee, it's substantially larger than their guaranteed pension fund. In other words, from the surpluses that exist right there in that one account, they would get a refund back substantially larger than their entire benefit package. That should catch the car of every government employee out there.
Now, I'm using Arizona as an example. I've looked at some states and they're just ... you know, supposed to be at 100% funding on their pensions, some are at 140%, some are at 160%. But you have to look. As I mentioned, in Arizona, there's not one city, county or state statute that even addresses the return of these surpluses back to the employer or the employee.
You have to make it happen. On the CITA account, we have the ability here, folks, to change the course of this country, to make the public the beneficiary of the wealth. It's been a runaway freight train. We all complain, we all.... you know, have our heartache stories about too much money being taken from us, from the city, from the county, from the state, from federal government. We have been conditioned - psychologically conditioned - to accepting it. We've been given the term "the budget report," "the budget . . . shortfall of budget," "we need to have money for this, money for that." There's no difference here.
I'll use this one example. If everyone watching this show ... say, for example, we had a 12- and a 13-year-old boy. And we gave them carte blanche to write their own allowance check each week. And we made $1200 a week. In a very short period of time, they're going to be cutting a check for $1000 a week. Now, if we said we're going to cut them back to back to $800 a week, that 13- and 12-year old are going to scream, they're going to holler, they're going to kick; they're going to use whatever logic possible to them to justify how a 12- and a 13-year-old boy could not survive off of $800 a week. There's no difference here. We just have bigger boys and smarter players.
When you examine the records - any state, any city, any county - you'll see the growth, the runaway growth, of government. It averages out to almost 100% growth, they double in size over every ten-year period of time. [ Arizona State Government, 1984 to 1999, in 15 years had a 1000% increase of annual revenue income] It's not right. You look at the scope of government 25 years ago was about 6-8% of the GNP. Currently, it stands at about 48%. It's not right. It's money out of our pockets. It's creating a power base, multi-trillion dollar power base, which is totally contrary to the constitution of this country, the best interests of the public. Its sole motivation is to perpetuate its own wealth and power mongering and -control of the populace. Now, the composite government wealth that has been obtained, right now, by the cities, the counties and the states, as I mentioned in the last program, international stock ownership is at about $32 trillion, which is over 53% ownership of all issued stocks from all exchanges. Government has' become the market place. If you follow the hype on investing in the market and so forth and follow the news - CNN and FNN and you bounce in and out of the market and find yourself losing $10,000-$20,000, well, guess who your opponent is? Your opponent is the government, the composite government funds. They're not just liquidating your revenue through taxation, through toll ways, through insurance company equity participation; they're liquidating your money through participation in the stock market. When you break down the numbers it's there. There is no gray area here; there's no speculation. Anyone with fifth-grade addition skills can start compiling the figures and see the unequivocal financial take over of the wealth. And we're at a crossroads here in this country. We left the vault door open. The sharp little crackers said, "Thank you very much." We fell asleep at the wheel. We listened to the propaganda from the syndicated media, which is in 100% partnership with composite government. If you break down the revenue that's brought in from ABC, CBS, NBC, from composite government sources - city, county, state and federal, from the so-called public corporations, which the government owns over 51% open interest of those corporations and they can exercise their proxy votes for direction to media campaigns. The syndicated media is getting a phenomenal amount of the revenue from composite government sources.
Now, back in New Jersey, when I found out about this and I saw the cooperative efforts, this being ten years ago, I saw the cooperative effort from the syndicated media for nondisclosure on mentioning the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report or mentioning the difference between the budgetary basis and the cash gross receipts and the investments. They would never mention that.
Jim Florio, who was elected governor, when he was elected, he appointed 14 editors and reporters with directorships inside state government. The individual they pitted against myself at that time was an individual by the name of Harvey Fisher, who, prior to the Florio campaign, was one of the top Bergen Record reporters. Now, Harvey was appointed as the assistant treasurer of the state of New Jersey. And, by the way, Harvey had no formal financial training whatsoever and he is now the assistant treasurer. This kind of cued me. I started looking. Harvey was making $35,000 a year as a reporter, as assistant treasurer he's making $65,000 a year. I said, "Well, that's not too big of a difference." I said, "I wonder what his expense account is?" He had a $125,000 carte blanche expense account of discretionary funds, tax-free. I said, "That makes a big difference." My father used to work for the Department of the Treasury as director of personnel for four years. That's in charge of all agencies and departments within state government. I knew within the Personnel department, they had a data search department run by four individuals, which tied all agencies and departments together under Personnel. All resumes are key inputted into the data bank for keyword searches. I called up one of the four individuals. He was cooperative. I asked him to do a keyword search on all directorships and key-level supervisor positions on how many were ex- editors and reporters in their past. He told me I'd have the report by 2:00 the following day. I called back and said, "What have you got?" He came up with a data bank of about 3400 names, as far as total supervisory and directorship positions. Out of that, I think it was 1783 were ex-editors and reporters. The fix is in deep. There's a lot of money here.
As I mentioned, I come from Prescott, Arizona, and I moved out there about ten years ago. I found out about the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report ten years ago. Then I backed off from public disclosure for about eight years, seven years. But, when I was out in my little city, I saw the, you know, local police, the judges, and local politicians acting as a little organized crime syndicate with no fear of consequence or liability for their conduct or action. I saw the fix being in right through to the attorney general's office, to the governor's office. And I said to myself, "What allows these little piss-ants to act like an organized crime syndicate with no fear of consequence or liability for their conduct?" I said, "The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. The only reason they do what they do on the lower levels is because everyone above them has their hands deeper in the pockets."
The same holds true in every city, county, and state across the country. When you have this type of wealth, this type of wealth, held in the hands of the management of the pension funds, the enterprise groups, the ... the corruption is absolute. You know, did you ever wonder why that politician spends, you know, $400,000 to get into a $65,000-a-year job? The payola from cutting one deal, a construction project, an investment, is worth 50 times his salary. 'The power structure, it's there. It needs to be corrected.
The CITA, Citizens Investment Trust Account, is a viable vehicle for the public to get involved to grab the bull by the horns and flip it on its back. Because through disclosure and looking at the figures, looking at the revenue, what they don't want you to see, you identify the money, the revenue, the investments, you identify the power structure. You do not want to allow yourself to be distracted. Focus on the principle of operation. Focus on business as usual - not what they're telling you to look at but looking at the whole picture, look at the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports, look at the notes within the reports, go to the other noted reports that show substantial amounts of other revenues.
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