A Proclamation…

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – A PROCLAMATION

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor – and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be – That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks – for His kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation – for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of His providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war –for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed – for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which He hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions – to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually – to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed – to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord – To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us – and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

GO. WASHINGTON.

Thanksgiving

Some people say that a person is the sum of their life experiences and to a large extent I believe that’s true. The people I grew up with, my relatives and friends, taught me much and I’ve taken from them and lived and learned and grown into the person I am. And I am blessed for the experiences they’ve shared with me in my walk through life. But to be totally honest I’ve gained much from people that I am only acquainted with, sometimes remotely.

They’ve caused me to think about and explore things that on my own I’d never have chanced upon . New people with new ideas and life experiences. Even in this forum I’ve found friendships and opinions that have added much to who I am.

I’ve bantered back and forth in comment sections and on message boards and come to “know” and respect many of you out there in the blog-o-sphere. You’ve stimulated me and taught me, stood beside me, or shown me the other side of so very much.

I’ve read your words and heard your ideas and in turn you’ve given me a means and method of injecting mine into a world of your own.

Silly isn’t it, that people you’ve never met and would have otherwise never known can add so many valuable things to a persons life’s experience. Even if we don’t always agree on things there has always been value in the experience.

Isn’t that what it’s all about?

To those of you I know and have known, my family, my schoolmates, and my running buddies. Those I’ve worked with and those that I have personally associated with in some form, I thank you for all you’ve given me.

To those on the periphery of my life, and to those of you I’ve never met and perhaps never will met, I thank you, too. I’m so glad to have each and every one of you along for the trip. Hopefully the journey will be long and joyous. I have been truly blessed.

Happy Thanksgiving to you one and all.

Al

The irony of it all…

You do realize that catering to special interest groups is a specialty of the democrats don’t you? It is. I think it’s in the party platform, “Thou shall covet and nurture whichever special interest has the deepest pockets”…

The Occupy Wall Street protesters want the rich to pay more taxes. They seem to think that increasing taxes on the wealthy would somehow translate into somehow benefiting them. It wouldn’t.

There is too much hype about raising and lowering taxes. The thing to always remember about taxes is that they are a COST. A cost that eventually, no matter who they are placed upon, will have to be paid by the consumer in the form of an additional price on a good or service.

Many of the “rich” that said it’s just fine to increase their taxes understand quite well that they will defer those tax increases on to the consumer, or will have a way of getting around paying it anyway. Warren Buffet made something like 8 billion dollars last year – ask yourself why he pays no taxes, yet supports a tax increase. Nobody is twisting his arm to take every deduction that his team of accountants can find.

Something else to remember as far as taxes go – GHW Bush said “Read my lips, no new taxes…” but the economy got so good he deferred to the democrats and went along with a raise to the Capital Gains Tax… and capital investment immediately dried up during a construction boom which almost overnight killed the construction industry which took down the savings and loan industry which had so much invested in that construction and almost sent the country into a depression with hundreds of thousands of people being wiped out.

There are partially build strip malls and office buildings in almost every city sitting empty today left over from those dark days. All because he went along with a small raise in Capital Gains Taxes… “Read my lips…” that’s his legacy.

The GW Bush tax cut on the other hand lowered unemployment from 6.2% to 4.2% (the lowest unemployment rate ever documented) and INCREASED revenue to the Treasury by 44%. If it hadn’t been for 9/11 and its aftermath, the war against terror, hurricanes Katrina and Rita the country would have been awash in revenue… at least until the housing crash (which, by the way, he’d been warning was coming from practically day one of his administration).

Rich people don’t sit on their money, they invest it (Wall Street!) and those investments are the engine that drives the economy. It’s what creates jobs, builds factories, and all the things that go with it. Right now “rich people” are scared of the future, the unknown costs associated with the healthcare program that no-one even today fully understands. Scared that they’ll have to share their wealth without a return like they get when they share that wealth thru investments… so they buy gold and invest in oil futures and safe havens to minimize the risk… and in doing so no factories get built, no new jobs, no… nothing.

I’ve seen pictures of the Wall Street protestors with signs telling about how hard they have it and I agree, they do have it hard. My dad had it hard when he was young, too. He didn’t have anywhere to protest. Nor the time. He had to get out and sell vacuums and then became a sewing machine repairman to make ends meet until he could save enough money to open a business for himself.

I don’t really know if my dad ever graduated high school. He talked about high school, but I never saw a diploma. After the army he worked and scrimped and saved and opened his own store and became a self employed businessman, and perhaps the smartest one I’ve ever known.

Nowadays people borrow money to go to school. Often too much money for whatever the occupation they seek. I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to catch hold of the feeling that somehow the $200,000 that someone borrowed to go thru college and graduate school only to end up with some degree in some form of “studies” is a debt that I somehow should be obligated to forgive.

I saw a sign a girl had written that told her story of making $52,000 a year, but after her student loan, rent, car note, bills and insurance, she only had a very few dollars left to spend per month. I only have a few bucks to spend a month. I have a second job. Someday her student loan will be paid off then she’ll have THAT money. And she’ll probably get a raise or two along the way. Meantime, get a second job.

Don’t tell me there are no jobs. There has been a “Help Wanted” sign on the local NAPA store door for well over a month. There may not be any real good high paying jobs, but there are jobs in most places. Get a couple. Worked for my dad, and it works for me.

YES, we need to reign in the lobbyists. YES, we need to pay our fair share of taxes. YES, we need good paying jobs for American workers and fair prices and affordable housing and all kinds of stuff. Those things go without saying. But what Wall Street does is only a reaction to the environment in which they have to operate. Protesting there is barking up the wrong tree. Go bark at the White House. Obama and the democrats received by far the largest percentage of Wall Street campaign contributions, and it was the democrats that blocked strengthening the regulations over the home loan market in the first place.

Adbusters ( a Canadian group) was given the seed money for the protests from the Tide Foundation, who gets much of its contributions from Corporations and “the Rich”… ironic isn’t it. Much of the Occupy Wall Street support comes from George Soros, a billionaire financier who is extremely influential in Washington DC among the democrats… the exact type of person the protesters are protesting against!!! The irony could be cut with a knife…

Meanwhile people that were given loans to buy houses that everyone knew they couldn’t afford in the first place are losing them because they can’t afford them… and who was it that came up with the idea to give loans to people that couldn’t afford them in the first place? It wasn’t Wall Street…

Everybody wants to blame the rich. Who among you wouldn’t want to be rich if you had the option? I know, you think you’d somehow be a “better” rich person. No you wouldn’t. Unless you didn’t respect how you became rich you’d want to make sure that your hard earned money wasn’t wasted, or given away to those that did nothing to earn it. If you were going to give it away you’d want it to go where it would do something or someone some real good, not be flittered away on some “program”.

Still the protests go on… and we sit and wait on tomorrow. It’s going to get better. It will work out. It always has. As long as we don’t get too far down the path we’re on we can turn this around… there ARE elections coming. Maybe in the mean time we’ll quit attacking the one group of people with the resources and power to pull us out of this mess.

 

-Al

 

 

Paying it forward…

“I hear all this, “You know, well, this is class warfare. This is whatever.” No! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody! You built a factory out there? Good for you! But I want to be clear: You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You, uh, were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory and hire someone to protect against this because of the work the rest of us did.
Now, look: You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea, God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” — Elizabeth Warren

Warren gives a false and misleading narrative by interjecting infrastructure into the equation. “Focusing on infrastructure as the crucial support of entrepreneurial activity is like crediting the guy who built young Bill Gates’ garage with the start of Microsoft. Yes, Gates needed a roof over his head, and garages are useful. But it was Gates who had the ambition to do more in his garage than store his car and lawn-care products.” — Rich Lowry, National Review

In truth it was that factory owner, and others like him, that built that road in the first place, not the “rest of us”. These “rich” that she rails against pay by far the largest portion of the taxes in America, with the middle class picking up just a fraction of the rest. A whole 50% of our country pays no tax whatsoever, with many getting money back via tax credits they never paid in in the first place.

It’s people like Warren, those that cry for a share something unearned from those that earned it, which have caused the majority of the grief this country is suffering right now. Programs meant to help have actually done more harm. The “affordable home loan” program is a perfect example of that. The very idea that somehow making unqualified people eligible for home loans was flawed from the very beginning as it did nothing to help people that couldn’t afford those homes in the first place pay for them. All it did was give them hope while setting them up for failure and heartbreak. And we were warned for years that what happened would happen.

Seriously, and in all actuality, ALL taxes are paid by the end user. Taxes on “the rich” are only added costs passed on to the consumer. Raising taxes only serves to raise prices that the poor can ill afford to pay. They don’t really want you to know that part of it, that taxing the rich is really just adding hurt to those that can least afford it – the poor.

Warren and her ilk have pushed the false narrative that Bush’s tax cut are what increased the deficit. This popular meme gets a lot of political play, but its far from true. After those tax cuts unemployment fell from over 6% to just over 4%. Revenue to the treasury INCREASED 44%. The increase in the deficit came from the aftermath and response to 9/11, fighting 2 wars, and the massive amounts spent on the recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Somehow all that is forgotten. If not for those tax cuts and the resulting stimulus it gave to the economy the small (and decreasing) deficit Bush left would be much larger.

Fact is that the projected (and feared) costs associated with the Healthcare changes along with the crash of our economy caused by a ill conceived meddling in the home loan industry, two programs championed by Warren and her crowd, have caused massive unemployment and hardship for the very people they pretend to support. Now, by going after the very people that can pull us out of this mess they created, will only delay and degrade any recovery for our economy and our people. The Soviet Union fell victim to the socialist idea that the masses could ride the backs of the producer to prosperity. It didn’t happen for them, and it won’t happen for us.

We need to grow our economy to provide jobs for people. Jobs are what spreads wealth, not handouts. To grow jobs you must have incentives to invest in the future. The “wealthy” don’t hide their money in mattresses, nor do they bury it in jars in the backyard, they invest it. They take their profits, put them out into the community to grow and make more profits. To grow those profits it takes investment, expansion, new construction, and people. Taxes take away from that.

To build a new factory not only provides jobs for those that will work at that factory, but jobs for builders of the materials that go into that factory, jobs for people that transport that material to and from, jobs for construction workers, jobs for people to feed and clothe those people, to house those people, and to service that new factory, the gas stations, grocery stores, etc. etc. That’s paying it forward. That’s how you get things done for the people, not stifling and taking away the means.

John F. Kennedy once said, “Don’t ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Seems some in that crowd don’t understand what he meant by that.

-Al

Reasonable Doubt…

Forensics? There was little to none. No blood. No DNA. No fingerprints on shell casings. Not even a murder weapon found. Davis was implicated in the murder do to another case which even the victim came to doubt Davis was the shooter. The person that pointed the finger first at Davis was known to own a weapon of the type that was used in the murder (and shooting) and others have said that he, not Davis, was the real shooter. No motive was ever established for Davis to have committed either act. He didn’t know either victim.

Whether or not Davis was the killer I can’t say, but I do think that reasonable doubt was raised, which leaves me to wonder what happens to “reasonable doubt” once the trial is over, but new issues raised?

One appeals court ruled 3/2 – that speaks to reasonable doubt. The supreme court had at least 3 dissenters – that speaks to reasonable doubt. A former official with the justice department said the case was worthy of further investigation and that he had reasonable doubt. The former head of the FBI said that there were questions which leads me to believe he had reasonable doubt.

There were nine eyewitnesses to the crime. Seven recanted. Not one or two but SEVEN out of the nine eye witnesses against him say now that he didn’t do it. That’s pretty unique in itself, even to have ONE witness recant. Seven out of nine – doesn’t that speak to reasonable doubt?

Even several of the jurors that heard the case now believe him innocent – does that not somehow speak to reasonable doubt. And if there is that much reasonable doubt wouldn’t it to have wise to have at least commuted his sentence to life, instead of death. To err on the side of caution.

“Reasonable Doubt” somehow no longer mattered in this case. It all became “relevant” and technicalities and absolutes.

No one may ever prove Troy Davis innocent of either of these crimes, but to Troy Davis it will no longer matter if they do, he’s dead. Of that, there is no doubt.

-Al

9.11.01 I remember…

Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.” –President George W. Bush September 11, 2001

I had been out tending to who knows what and walked into the front office on the way back to my office in the back. The television was on, but the sound wasn’t. Smoke coming from one of the towers caught my eye and I told everyone to look, that the world trade center was on fire. Before we could bring up the sound I saw a second plane come into the picture and strike the second building.

My first thought was that a news airplane circling the area had accidentally hit the other tower… but it wasn’t to be. Most of the rest of that day was a blur. A blur of emotions and reactions.

I remember discussions about our locality and our vulnerabilities. What was next? How deep would this go?

I remember seeing a friend of mine in his crop duster flying back and forth overhead long after we had heard all planes were grounded, and I remember the thought going through my head that he might be shot down… strange as it seems now. I remember the awkward pride I felt that the President had come into Barksdale, as if our state offered some shelter from the storm. I remember the pride that rose up over our country over the next few days and weeks. How proud we were to be American. The unity. The flags.
I remember also the innuendo a few months later that those few moments our President sat in that classroom with those children was somehow supposedly showing himself to be indecisive. I’m still mad about that. Mad that there are snakes in the grass. Mad that our enemies don’t always come from abroad.

Today is a day to remember the people. The loss. The heroism and the heartache. We should never forget. Like Valley Forge, or Pearl Harbor, this day is part of the fire that forges the metal that is America. 9/11 shall ever be a part of who we are. A call and rallying cry.

For the generation that wasn’t yet born, or not old enough to know, this will be an event to study and learn about. Learn it. It’s important, for it’s a doorway into our countries soul.

For those that lived it, it will be a milestone in our lives. Part of our life experience. We were all changed, even if only in some small way. It was that large.

For those that died, they become a cherished memory. Hero’s large and small. Hallowed, sacred memories of innocents taken from our midst.

For those that lived through it, words cannot describe our praise, and our condolences. We cannot know what you know. Our eyes cannot see what yours saw. Joy and heartbreak. The fear and the emotion… and the pain.

In times of trouble I’m glad that some choose not to run away, but are selfless and willing to sacrifice. Those that will walk boldly thru a doorway, knowing all too well it can all fall down around you.

 -Al

Not. His. Fault.

With the announcement of late that the government plans on suing many of the big banks and mortgage companies that lost so much in the housing market crash do to their deep involvement with risky loans, and with the seeming prevalent view among some that the fault also points back to the Bush administration, I think the truth needs to out here.

Quite frankly a lot of people made a lot of money during the housing boom. Average people… even some that would have been viewed as ‘poor’ made money and moved up the economic ladder by buying and selling as property values increased. The banks weren’t all that much at risk, for if a loan defaulted and property went into foreclosure the seemingly ever increasing value of property mitigated most of, sometimes even all of that loss. Besides, if you found yourself in the position that you couldn’t make those payments you could fairly quickly put your house on the market and unload it. Often making some money in the process… that is as long as those property values were going up.

Nothing is forever. We’ve all heard the old saw “What goes up must come down.”

This program of pushing loans for people that didn’t really qualify for them didn’t start under the Bush administration. It all started beforehand with groups advocating for the poor and disadvantaged working to end what many viewed as discrimination in the marketplace. A noble enough cause one would think, but flawed from the outset.

Many banks easily saw the fly in the ointment with giving loans to people that couldn’t really afford those loans, but under cries of racism and threat of extremely costly litigation many of those banks and mortgage companies caved and began making those loans. Even our current President Obama was a party to lawsuits forcing the industry to make these loans… loans anyone should have been able to see would do those poor and disadvantaged more harm than good.

To mitigate the risks these institutions did face they bundled many of them together in ‘packages’ and sold them to other institutions willing to take those risks. After all, property values were increasing. It seemed to be a good investment… as long as property values kept going up.

Now those same poor and disadvantaged those groups thought they were helping are finding themselves on the losing end of the high risk loan debacle. They were set up to fail, for getting a loan doesn’t automatically make one able to make the payment. Many will find themselves far worse off than they were in the beginning, thanks to this “affordable housing” scheme.

As I was saying in the beginning a lot of people want to place the blame for the current problems we face on George Bush and the republicans. I was reading through the comments on one of the articles on the plan of the government to sue and noticed many seem to think that the Bush administration failed to seek or somehow blocked regulation of the loan industry and didn’t give good oversight to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and somehow just blindly allowed the system to fail. Not so. Not by a longshot.

[The following information comes from an article a couple of years ago I believe was in The American Thinker. If you don’t believe it you can always look it up for yourself. In light of the pointed fingers I present it here again.]

For many years the President Bush and his Administration not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) but also put forward thoughtful plans to reduce the risk that either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac would encounter such difficulties.

We’ll start here in the year 2000, prior to the election of George W. Bush…

2000

March: Rep. Richard Baker (R-Louisiana) proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie’s oversight in a House Subcommittee on Capital Markets.

Rep. [Barney] Frank (D-Massachusetts) dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were “overblown” and that there was “no federal liability there whatsoever.”

2001

April: The Administration’s FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is “a potential problem,” because “financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.”

2002

May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)

2003

July: Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), Elizabeth Dole (R-North Carolina) and John Sununu (R-New Hampshire) introduced legislation to address Regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill was blocked by Democrats.

September: In an interview with Ron Insana for CNN Money, Rep. Baker warned, “I have concerns that if appropriate resources aren’t allocated for internal risk management…if something doesn’t work out the way they predict, the American taxpayer could be called on to pay off the debt in some sort of bailout.”

The New York Times reports that the [Bush] Administration recommended “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.”

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): “I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis. That is, in my view, the two government sponsored enterprises we are talking about here, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not in a crisis. . . . I do not think at this point there is a problem with a threat to the Treasury. . . . I believe that we, as the Federal Government, have probably done too little rather than too much to push them to meet the goals of affordable housing and to set reasonable goals.

2004

February: The President’s FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: “The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator.” (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)

June: Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform

October: Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: “Then there’s the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it.”

In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): “Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, ‘Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems.’ I don’t see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems.” And “But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue.”

2005

April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform,

2006

May: After years of Democrats blocking the legislation, Sens. Hagel, Sununu, Dole and McCain write a letter to Majority Leader William Frist and Chairman Richard Shelby expressly demanding that GSE regulatory reform be “enacted this year” to avoid “the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the Housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.”
2007

April: In “A Nightmare Grows Darker,” the New York Times writes that the “democratization of credit” is “turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers.” The “newfangled mortgage loans” called “affordability loans” “represent 60 percent of foreclosures.”

August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying “first things first when it comes to those two in situations. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options.” (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)

December: President Bush again warns Congress of the need to pass legislation reforming GSEs, saying “These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly.

2008

February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says “A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully.”

March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and “move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

April: President Bush urges Congress to pass the much needed legislation and “modernize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

May: President Bush issues several pleas to Congress to pass legislation reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before the situation deteriorates further.

President Bush publicly called for GSE reform 17 times in 2008 alone before Congress acted. Unfortunately, these warnings went unheeded, as the President’s repeated attempts to reform the supervision of these entities were thwarted by the legislative maneuvering of those who emphatically denied there were problems.

As you can plainly see Bush tried to prevent all this turmoil and grief. All to no avail. Don’t believe it? Google it. The democrats pushed these troubles upon us, and even our current President was an advocate of these destined to fail loans which lie at the root of it all.

But not Bush.

Not. His. Fault.

Al

BOO!

It’s “Let’s scare our senior’s” time again… It’s what the fear mongers in Washington love to do.

Our country is up to it’s eyeballs in debt. We fund hundreds of dubious projects and studies with our tax dollars. We pay huge amounts for subsidizes for things that which in many cases do more harm than good, or at the least are wasteful. We just passed a hugely expensive healthcare bill which looks for all the world to do us more harm than good as cost skyrocket and doctors flee the profession. We send billions of dollars in aid overseas and in some cases have next to nothing to show for it. And now that our expenses once again outgrow our means we want to balance our books on the backs of the very ones that can least afford it, our Social Security recipients. Yep, high on the plan is reformulation of the way increases meant to cover inflation are figured and adding years to the eligibly requirements.

What’s the first thing Obama threatened the public with if he doesn’t get his way on the debt ceiling deal? No, not some cut to a pet project, or withholding funding from some social program. Nope, it was those retirement checks that might not hit the mail.

Of course seniors are always a easy bunch to use scare tactics on. Many, frankly, have their backs up against the wall financially and anything that effects them is a great concern. Threatening them in thier pocketbook is sure to get results. Besides, the younger you are the less concern one usually has for their retirement days, so the eventual threat to them is easily overlooked. Pushing back retirement age, or a few less dollars a month sounds like no big deal… and it’s why the problems with Social Security never get fixed.

Certainly many foreign aid programs have a huge benefit to us right here in America as they help to expand markets and open doors to us, or provide needed healthcare to keep diseases and such from spreading to our own shores. And for sure there are some good projects out there. Some good studies that will help our country and mankind as a whole (but $900k to study gay men’s penis sizes?). We are wealthy enough here in America to have concern for impoverished people around the world… but we need to take care of our own first.

Yes, we are going to have to raise the debt limit. We’ve already spent the money and the note is coming due. But this need not happen again. We need to make damn sure that we put our countries financial house in order. Right now we have an administration out of control. THEY have more wants and desires than WE can healthily support.

Tax increases aren’t the answer. They take money away from where it’s needed and we get little in return. We need to cut and control spending. This allows the market to expand and with that expansion comes growth and with growth comes jobs and with jobs come tax revenue to the treasury. That’s the proper way to increase tax revenue, by expanding the markets and creating real financial growth.

The administration needs to quit threatening the people with the means to do good for our economy with “redistributing” their “wealth”. Profit is a huge incentive to people. Give investors reason to invest. Don’t threaten to take their money away in increased taxes, they’ll only look for ways to secure it away and protect what they’ve got by putting it in things like gold, which is safe, but adds almost nothing to the economy.

It’s not like they have thier money in a shoebox or stuff it into a mattress. All these “huge profits” that this administration finds so evil are reinvested into marketplace to make even more money (and provides growth to existing industry, new businesses, and the jobs that go with them, which in turn will increase tax revenue to the U. S. Treasury). Making money is a good thing. The more you make the more you spend, and the more you spend the more WE can make… and that’s a great way to ‘redistribute’ wealth.

Surely we can put our senior citizens at the bottom of the list where cuts are concerned. They paid their dues. This ain’t rocket science after all.

-Al

Democrats…

They want to control what kind of fuel you put into your car.

They want to control what kind of car you drive.

They want to control how much money you make.

They want to control your savings account.

They want to make you to join a Union.

They want to control what you eat.

They want to control your education.

They want to control your healthcare.

They want to control what you hear on television and the radio.

They want to control what kind of lightbulbs you have in your house.

Now, if your kid is fat, they say they even want to take away your kid.

They want to control you.

All of you.

They want you to submit to their will.

They want you to believe they know what’s best for you, your family, your neighbors, and your community.

We used to call this communism. We’ve forgotten that communism failed.

 Is it a testament to American exceptionalism that some of our leaders think that we can make communism work when the Russians could not? Even the Chinese had to resort to Capitalism to make it seem like it works there (it doesn’t).

Wake up America!  The time is growing late.

-Al

End of an Age…?

 

Scary predictions are afoot. It’s now predicted that the end to “The Age of America” will come as soon as 2016. It’s said that our roll and place as the largest economic powerhouse in the world will be overtaken at that time by China.

While there are others saying that our domination will last far longer than that most all feel that the day will come that we are no longer the supreme economic force we’ve been for the last century.

This effects our future in everything from the strength of the US Dollar to our security and our roll as a world military power.

In 2007 the GDP’s (Gross Domestic Product) of Japan, Germany, the U.K., and China combined didn’t equal our GDP. Right now this minute we are STILL the dominate economic power in the world, but China, Brazil, India, and others are rapidly growing while our own growth is minimal at best.

This all started when we as a people started begrudging the foreign aid we sent overseas. Money that to a large part came back to us as they purchased American made products. It snowballed under President Carter who seemingly had a policy of teaching the world how to compete against us. It was helped along by harsh tax policies that hurt businesses (and even harsher anti-business policies are proposed by Obama today) causing many businesses and factories to relocate.

It can be blamed more on the Unions that demand higher wages than consumers are willing to support, and on a minimum wage policy that kills jobs here in America. We are pricing “Made in America” out of existence.

We hollered loud and long about such things as sweat shops and child labor in foreign lands (not realizing the alternative was starvation) and cried out that these countries needed to provide for their own people… and so they did, by taking away more of our own low or unskilled jobs. We further this along every time we seek out the cheapest price on whatever product we want to buy as the main consideration in it’s purchase.

Obama isn’t to blame for this happening, but he is not only not helping resolve the problem but speeding up the process with failed policies that mimic those of failed socialist countries that overburdened their ability to pay for grand social plans.

We’ve gotten to the point as a country that our greed outruns our drive to produce. We are owed, and seek what can be provided to us, not what we can provide for ourselves and others. We march in the street now, knowing that there is a problem but unwilling to take a share of the responsibility to fix it. Like those teachers in Wisconsin we protest, and blame the messenger for the monsters we ourselves create.

We have to stop looking our gift horses in the mouth. We keep blaming the rich for our troubles, but our wealth is our best defense against this looming threat. Only “the rich” have the recourses to cause a shift back toward American greatness.

Government doesn’t create or grow anything but more government. Our Capitalist business structure is the engine to grow our economy. Taxing the rich only increases prices to consumers, hinders expansion, and burdens job creation.

Taxes can be self defeating if they take away from the ability to compete and profit. Taxes come from profits and growth produces more profits which in turn produce more tax revenue. Raise taxes and hinder the ability to grow and profit and you hinder tax revenue. That’s why tax cuts have ALWAYS produced increases in tax revenue. Those cuts stimulate growth which create profits AND jobs, both the rivers that feeds the Treasury of this country.

Restrictive regulation also restricts the ability to grow and profit, which in turn restrict taxable revenue. You kill the source of expansion you kill new jobs. You kill new jobs with overburdening regulation and you take away tax money that would flow to the treasury.

If we want to retain our place as an economic powerhouse and the benefits that go along with that, create jobs, and expand our tax base (thereby increase real revenue to the treasury) we have to lessen the burdens on our business community wherever we can.

We have to create a much better pro business climate if we are to retain economic power and avoid the pitfalls the are looming out on our horizon. We can’t strangle our main source of jobs and expect it to pay for social giveaway programs that add noting to our economy but anchor weight. We can’t keep looking to them as a cure-all for our ills and at the same time restrict their very ability to compete and succeed in a world that’s rapidly overtaking us.

Each of us needs to look at our own roll in all of this. Our ‘me first’ attitude is winning us nothing here. From our Unions and the demands they make to the way we personally shop, we all have to examine if we are doing right by our own selves in how we navigate these hard economic times. Are we adding to the problem, or are we helping ourselves and our fellow man. Yes, that goes for our business community too.

We need to stop playing games with people with ever bigger social programs. Our government can’t be all things to all people. Others have tried that and failed. There is nothing that tells us we can succeed where Russia failed with these socialist, big government programs. History shows the results quite clearly.

The political gamesmanship of blaming “the Rich” for not paying “their fair share” is a false narrative that is a dangerous thing to do in a dangerous time in our counties history. The thought that it is being done on purpose leads me to wonder if some of our current administration really have our best interest, and our future at heart.

　

-Al