Who here thinks that any of the following are high: mortgage rates, taxes, inflation, gasoline, GDP

Feel free to add any other financial factors that you think are high.

I ask only one thing: please explain why you think they%26#039;re high and, above all, give some historical perspective. That%26#039;s a fancy way of saying: THEY%26#039;RE HIGH COMPARED TO WHAT OR WHEN? As opposed to: they%26#039;re high %26#039;cause I don%26#039;t like the price. Or, they%26#039;re high %26#039;cause I can%26#039;t afford %26#039;em. That sort of thing.

Who here thinks that any of the following are high: mortgage rates, taxes, inflation, gasoline, GDP %26amp; income?

I%26#039;m not sure about mortgage rates (although home prices are high historically...they grew too fast and now we are seeing a correction to stabalize prices) as i don%26#039;t really follow mortgage rates, but keep in mind that all my answers take inflation into account...a dollar just ain%26#039;t worth what it used to be worth.

you should add interest rates for bonds as well as the short term interest rates as market indicators/predictors. short term rates are controlled by the SEC in an effort to prevent recessions (negative GDP growth) and unsustainable positive GDP growth which leads to inflation.

short term interest rates are high for recent years, but low historically. the lowest is actually 0%...this is used in dire circumstances such as the stock market crash of 1986...worse than the one that caused the great depression. thank you, allen greenspan. it has been around 20% in the past when GDP growth was too high like in the late 70%26#039;s and early 80%26#039;s. almost every single time, however, the fed has kept interest rates too high for too long leading to recession. this is due to the SEC mostly looking at past data as it becomes available rather than forward looking data.

although taxes are low due to tax cuts (and they%26#039;re lower for everyone who pays income taxes...the %26quot;tax cuts for the wealthy%26quot; is political spin), tax revenue is at historic highs. see, when people and businesses have their own money to invest, with the goal of investment being profit....people and businesses are making more money today which means the government is able to take more even though rates are relatively low.

inflation is low today...yet Bernanke, the current SEC chairman, is stubborn to admit victory...it%26#039;s even low by recent history as it was much higher in 2000. the fed overreacted then, raising rates to over 6%, which lead to the recession you always hear about bush inheriting when he took office. people blame clinton...but it%26#039;s practically all on the overreaction of greenspan%26#039;s SEC. i believe it%26#039;s presently at less than 2% inflation and has been higher than 4.5% in the past 6 yrs...and MUCH higher in the 70%26#039;s and 80%26#039;s.

gasoline price at the pump is the highest it%26#039;s ever been. it is higher this summer than it was immediately after katrina which is the first time prices broke through the previous record during the 1970%26#039;s US led oil embargoes...which hurt the US economy sending it into a recession. the fact that we are not in a recession at these prices is another testament to the strength of the economy today. nothing can stop the US consumer it seems.

GDP is pretty average currently. It was as high as 4% in recent years which was worrisome because when the economy grows too fast, inflation rises to problematic rates. It%26#039;s about 2% now which is very nice. the economy is not too hot for inflation to be a worry and not too cold that a recession is likely. as GDP is very strongly tied with short term interest rates which are controlled by the SEC, historically, GDP growth goes between -1% to about +5%.

personal income is at historic highs. both mean and median income are higher than ever...meaning the average person earns more than ever and the middle class earns more than ever.

you should also consider unemployment rates which are at 50 year lows. we have about 4% unemployment meaning 96% of the workforce is employed.

all in all, the economy is amazing right now...though you rarely hear the media discuss it. i don%26#039;t know if they just don%26#039;t want any credit given to this administration (it%26#039;s the only thing they seem to have gotten right it seems). they would have you believe we%26#039;re in the crapper even though most numbers are better than they%26#039;ve been in decades if not better than ever in US history. it takes big events like Dow 13,000 and new daily record highs for most media to report on good economic indicators (it took years to get from 11-12, and it took just 6 months to go from 12 to 13...we%26#039;ve already gone over 13.5 k....we%26#039;ll be over 14,000 sometime near the end of the year...and much higher if the fed does what investors are begging for and declares victory on inflation so they will lower the interest rates).

Who here thinks that any of the following are high: mortgage rates, taxes, inflation, gasoline, GDP %26amp; income?

People whom didnt care otherwise, because they%26#039;ve been programmed that way, are paying more attention and becoming more united. On the latter, the more totalitarian, and capitalistic ways of this %26quot;regime%26quot;, have brought about more division amongst the classes, hence %26quot;the have more, and the have mores%26quot;- GW...He says things like this and many other slogans because he is a puppet of the New World Order, the Enlightenment secret society, Illuminati.

Pre-Weishaupt origins are given to the Alumbrados of Spain and Illumin茅s of France. This claim holds in name and mystical concerns, but no solid historical lineage is known. Their practice of mysticism and attempt at communication with God through meditation, along with claims of enlightenment while living, communication with Lucifer, and sexual practices, all denote a seeming connection with later Illuminati groups, but claims of later connections of other organizations%26#039; familiarity with these early movements are unsubstantiated. A movement of freethinkers that were the most radical offshoot of The Enlightenment 鈥?whose adherents were given the name Illuminati (but who called themselves %26quot;Perfectibilists%26quot;) 鈥?was founded on May 1, 1776 in Ingolstadt (Upper Bavaria), by Jesuit-taught Adam Weishaupt (d. 1830), who was the first lay professor of canon law. The group has also been called the Illuminati Order, and the Bavarian Illuminati, and the movement itself has been referred to as Illuminism. In 1777, Karl Theodor, Elector Palatine, succeeded as ruler of Bavaria. He was a proponent of Enlightened Despotism and in 1784, his government banned all secret societies, including the Illuminati and the Freemasons.

While it was not legally allowed to operate, many influential intellectuals and progressive politicians counted themselves as members, including Ferdinand of Brunswick and the diplomat Xavier von Zwack.[1] Although some Masons were known to be members there is no evidence that it was supported by Freemasons. Indeed, membership in the Illuminati, unlike that in Freemasonry, did not require belief in a Supreme Being. As a result, atheists having only the former organization open to them, congregated disproportionately in it; this over-representation, taken along with the Illuminati%26#039;s largely humanist and anti-clerical bent, likely accounts for many of the claims of atheism leveled at the alleged world conspiracy of which the Illuminati supposedly remain a part.

The Illuminati%26#039;s members pledged obedience to their superiors, and were divided into three main classes: the first, known as the Nursery, encompassed the ascending degrees or offices of Preparation, Novice, Minerval and Illuminatus Minor. The second, known as the Masonry, consists of the ascending degrees of Illuminatus Major and Illuminatus dirigens. It was also sometimes called Scotch Knight. The third, designated the Mysteries, was subdivided into the degrees of the Lesser Mysteries (Presbyter and Regent) and those of the Greater Mysteries (Magus and Rex). Relations with Masonic lodges were established at Munich and Freising in 1780 by Alexander Gibson and Joseph Vincent respectively.

The order had its branches in most countries of the European continent; it reportedly had around 2,000 members over the span of 10 years. The scheme had its attraction for literary men, such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder, and even for the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar. Internal rupture and panic over succession preceded its downfall, which was effected by The Secular Edict made by the Bavarian government in 1785.

[edit] Illuminati after 1790

Conspiracy theorists (like David Icke and Was Penre) have argued that the Bavarian Illuminati survived, and perhaps even exist today, though very little reliable evidence can be found to support that Weishaupt%26#039;s group survived into the 19th century. However, several groups have used the name Illuminati since to found their own rites, claiming to be the Illuminati, including the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) of Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley (England), Grand Lodge Rockefeller of David Goldman (USA), Orden Illuminati of Gabriel L贸pez de Rojas (Spain), The Illuminati Order of Solomon Tulbure (USA), and others present in Internet (External links).

In 1995, Gabriel L贸pez de Rojas founded Illuminati Order in Barcelona, Spain, and he elaborated the Operative Rite of The Illuminati of Bavarian. This Rite is based on the Rite of the Illuminati and high degrees of Scottish Rite of 33 degrees.

The System of its Illuminati Grand Master, Gabriel L贸pez de Rojas, is the Redism. This system is based on the lemma HOMO EST DEUS, or %26quot;man is god%26quot;. Illuminati Order have members and chapters (lodges) in the whole world.

Spanish journalist Santiago Camacho, in his book Illuminati Conspiracy, interviewed Grand Master Gabriel L贸pez de Rojas. He offered information about Illuminati Order too.

[edit] Cultural effect

The Bavarian Illuminati have cast a long shadow in popular history thanks to the writings of their opponents; the allegations of conspiracy that have coloured the image of the Freemasons have practically opaqued that of the Illuminati. In 1797, Abb茅 Augustin Barru茅l published Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism outlining a vivid conspiracy theory involving the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Jacobins and the Illuminati, during the course of which Barru茅l blamed all of what he regarded as the disasters of his times such as the French Revolution on the said groups. A Scottish Mason and professor of natural history named John Robison started to publish Proofs of a Conspiracy Against all the Religions and Governments of Europe in 1798. Robison claimed to present evidence of an Illuminati conspiracy striving to replace all world religions with humanism and all nations with a single world government.

More recently, Antony C. Sutton suggested that the secret society Skull and Bones was founded as the American branch of the Illuminati; others think Scroll and Key had Illuminati origins, as well. Writer Robert Gillette claimed that these Illuminati ultimately intend to establish a world government through assassination, bribery, blackmail, the control of banks and other financial powers, the infiltration of governments, mind control, and by causing wars and revolution to move their own people into higher positions in the political hierarchy.

Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, claimed they intended to spread information and the principles of true morality. He attributed the secrecy of the Illuminati to what he called %26quot;the tyranny of a despot and priests.%26quot;

Both sides seem to agree that the enemies of the Illuminati were the monarchs of Europe and the Church; Barru茅l claimed that the French revolution in 1789 was engineered and controlled by the Illuminati through the Jacobins, and later theorists even claimed that the Illuminati were responsible for the Russian Revolution of 1917, although the order was officially defunct prior to 1789. Few historians give credence to these views; they regard such claims as the products of over-fertile imaginations.

Conspiracy theorists highlight an alleged link between the Illuminati and Freemasonry. They also suggest that the United States%26#039; founding fathers鈥攕ome of whom were Freemasons鈥攚ere rife with corruption from the Illuminati, and that the symbols of the All-seeing Eye and the unfinished pyramid in the Great Seal of the United States are an example of the Illuminati%26#039;s ever-present watchful eye over Americans.

While Weishaupt%26#039;s group did not survive into the 19th century, several groups have since used the name Illuminati to found their own rites, claiming to be the Illuminati. Groups describing themselves as Illuminati say they have members and chapters throughout the world. About the time that the Illuminati were outlawed in Bavaria, the Roman Catholic Church prohibited its members from joining Masonic lodges, on pain of excommunication.

According to Principia Discordia, the Bavarian Illuminati were revived or rediscovered in the 20th century under the leadership of Mordecai Malignatus. In the original Steve Jackson Games card game Illuminati and in the trading card game Illuminati: New World Order that is based on it, the Bavarian Illuminati are an enemy organization of the Discordians. These games were based on a work of fiction by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea entitled the Illuminatus! Trilogy, which collected a large number of past and contemporary references to the Illuminati and helped popularize interest in them from the 1970s through the present.

The British writer David Icke also claims that the Illuminati secretly manipulate world events, citing bloodline connections between the British Royal Family, the Windsors and Mountbattens, and United States Presidents and, he says, a connection to the Illuminati.

American writer Joshua Seraphim traces the Illuminati as a thread of various secret societies which all have central occult teachings in common, citing their origins in ancient Egypt. According to Seraphim, secret societies that constitute what he coins the %26quot;Illuminati Heritage%26quot; intentionally release disinformation to the underground and mainstream media, going at great lengths to influence modern day conspiracy theories, diverting attention from their own immensely secret Brotherhoods.