What must the level of desperation be by the big time corporation folks to push for a continued lowering of "interest" rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve? It must be at all time highs!

What the heck is the Federal Reserve anyway? Whenever the stock market starts to crash real bad, they step and provide "liquidity" or "stability" or other "ity." This is always done by hefty donations of cash, but where do they get the cash? I never understood that? Do they get it from taxpayers' money or not?

Then they set the interest rates. "Interest?" Yes, I guess we all are interested. Interest is how much money costs. Wait a minute - how can money cost? It is what it is, isn't it? No, not really. If you borrow it or loan it, it costs. The rate that cost is calculated is "interest."

The Federal Reserve says that "inflation" is suppressed if interest is higher, at the cost of slower growth. Lower interest rates promote growth, but have the risk of inflation. Who knows. Usually the institutions get these kind of grandiose questions wrong. I have no reason to believe that they aren't wrong this time. But let's just assume they aren't wrong - that in fact they are right.

How can the Federal Reserve in any way shape or form come to the conclusion that inflation isn't that bad in the U.S. (inflation is prices going up, by the way.) They come to this conclusion by basing their conclusions on "core" inflation figures. This excludes the cost increases in energy and food. Duh! I mean, it is so totally absurd that it is laughable. The average family spends more money on energy and food than anything. To try and pretend that measuring prices going on on everything but the two things that influencing it more than anything is beyond ridiculous. We're all hurting out here.

And what about us savers? They keep saying it would be good if more people saved, but they keep cutting the benefits from saving. Maybe we should all invest in Brazil Reals. They have a great interest rate - almost 8%, in short term CDs. The way dollars are going, they aren't going to be worth much in the world - thank you W. When the rest of world dislikes what your nation is doing, but you have more nuclear bombs so they can't really say anything, what they do is kill your currency. That's what is happenin' to us.

I can't leave this statement without commenting on the US bitching about Russia's elections. Is that the pot calling the kettle black or what? We had an election where we knew that more people voted nationwide for one candidate, but he didn't get elected. Instead, thousands of votes were nullified without any attempt to determine what these individuals wanted, and the person without the most votes was forced in by 5 people. And we have the nerve to complain about someone else's elections? ha ha ha. That's a good one. Let us make sure that all of our citizens that are eligible to vote get to vote uninhibited, and that all of those votes are counted fairly. When we get to that level, then we can expect it from other nations. But for us to be slinging mud at other country's elections at this time is just a bit disingenuous, don't you think?

I'm not sticking up for Putin. I'm sure he is just one more oil industry, corporate man. But if anyone thinks our "system" is inherently better than theirs, get real.