And what have I received in return—nothing, zero, zip, zilch, nada, squat, the big goose egg, not even the slightest gratification or hope that things might be corrected.

So I'm hanging it up, throwing in the towel, giving up on trying to convince people that they are suffering the greatest economic injustice a crooked government has ever pulled on its own citizens—$2.6 trillion in fraudulent accounting is not chicken feed. I'm getting out before I end up in one of John Ashcroft's internment camps, while I still have the option of choice or, even worse, before I completely lose faith in my fellow man and begin to think the public deserves what it gets.

I surrender to the New World Order, the globalists, the American empire builders, the megalomaniacs who want to pretend we did nothing to provoke September eleventh, that we are the innocents just following the natural order of things, fulfilling our destiny and other Hegelian thoughts—sieg heil. If you don't see the dangerous similarity between a "super race" and a "super power," God help you.

I firmly believe that The New World Odor is founded on the premise that if you can screw Americans then you can screw the world. If people from the land of the free will give up their earnings without question or accountability, then the rest of the world will follow suit.

For awhile, I thought about waiting until after the November elections, then quitting. The democrats are going to make the most outlandish false statements imaginable about Social Security and I thought of contradicting them, showing you where they are lying. But then I remembered that the republicans could easily do this themselves if they just told the truth, but they won't because they're just as crooked as the democrats so they deserve to lose both the House and the Senate. Why should I go to bat for them when they're all crooks?

I am not a writer. I have no formal training in the art. The only professional background I have comes from market research where I enjoyed a great deal of success in pioneering qualitative exploratory research in its early days, after first playing the numbers game, realizing its limitations, and choosing instead to simply listen instead of inventing questions in a vacuum or taking the client's word for what was thought to be the problem. But I burned out on that too, only because we did it right which resulted in being eaten up by the big corporations and not having enough time for family and friends.

In a quest for the simple life, I ended up running large sailboats for millionaires in the Caribbean. In my mind, a form of early retirement that involved working in the sun, enjoying nature, and associating with people from extremely divergent walks of life. The only close to average people encountered were those I carried as passengers for hire, charter people. The rest were either rich and famous already or trying to get there by nefarious routes or like myself working in boating, one of the least sophisticated marketing industries in the world. It was fun.

After my father died in 1983, Bonnie and I were elected by the rest of my family to bring the old family house in Rockford, Illinois up to par so we could sell it. After all, Bonnie and I were just boaters without serious commitments, right?

It was a kick to be back in the house where I grew up, a house my grandfather had built on the Rock River. There were nothing but pleasant memories for me and Bonnie loved it too, partly because she had spent so many months with my father before he quickly and quietly passed away.

One Saturday, in the midst of refurbishing and going over contractor estimates, Bonnie walked into the kitchen with the morning paper saying: "Look at this, the City is trying to hire a director of neighborhood development. I bet I could get that job." Bonnie had been Community Development Director of Boca Raton and Ft. Lauderdale before I rescued her and took her off to the islands.

We bought out my brother and sister's share of the house, Bonnie went to work for the City, and I became the Great Lakes dealer for a wonderful line of very seaworthy powerboats known as Midnight Lace, a business where I was fortunate enough not to lose too much money.

In 1994, I made the mistake of buying an eight dollar pamphlet by Meredith Bagby titled "The First Annual Report of the United States of America." It read like a corporation's annual report. And it scared the hell out of me. I immediately set out to research why the country had accumulated such a horrendous debt and why today's generations could expect to have less than their parents.

Fortunately, I had worked at the Control Systems Laboratory at the University of Illinois during the Fifties when Illiac One was being developed. I did not have my generation's fear of computers. I had also associated with lots of computer people and statisticians during my early research days in Chicago.

Government finances are not complex and mysterious. Only the numbers are huge. And you cannot get into the national debt without seeing the role played by the Social Security Trust Funds and eighteen other entitlement funds that are just as phony.

It has been at least seven years now that I've been trying to point out the obvious, that American workers are being literally robbed of a good portion of their retirement, health care, highway, airport, and other money they have paid for goods and services due. Money that was paid for goods and services they are entitled to receive. Money that was stolen and is gone forever.

Worst of all, because the Beltway Bandits have played a borrowing swindle, the public is expected to pay that money back, pay the same taxes again, plus interest. Their original donations did nothing but buy debt. Conversely, if we had not given them extra money we would not have so much debt.

I'm not going to get into this Pay-It-Again Sam scam here except to say that it parallels and is far worse than anything Enron, WorldCom, Arthur Andersen, or any of the private corporations now under scrutiny have done. In comparison, it makes them look like girl scouts eating some of their own cookies.

While everyone currently wonders why the Bush administration is rushing into war with Iraq, my last article "Why The Rush" lays it out in terms of the scam.

But the public doesn't seem to care or I haven't the ability to reach and demonstrably convince them. The Internet is a wonderful thing but I'm afraid it only reaches an elite minority not using their computers mostly to play games.

I want to thank all the people who have lent emotional support over the years, the members who signed up for updates from my web sites and the other great sites like Ether Zone, DebateUSA, Impact Voters, The Sierra Times, and others that have published many of my feeble and lay attempts to sway the public in the face of overwhelming war, smoke screens, diversions, disinformation and blunderbuss from the government, the mainstream press, and a television media that has degenerated into supermarket tabloid style news and propaganda delivered by millionaire news readers.

There are several individuals like Bob Momenteller, Jack Koenig, Frank Schier, Gene Deragon, John Denton, James Walker, Jim McGrody, Joe Baker, Jon Bystrom and a host of others that I would like to thank personally. I wish you guys all the luck in the world, just watch your backs.

And so, as Douglas Adams would put it: "So long and thanks for all the fish."