The Terrorists are Winning

The terrorists are winning the battle and cowering this society. We have a President that projects weakness. Weakness is provocative to the Jihadists. With every policy action by this President, the signal of weakness shouts out loud and clear to everybody including our enemies.

It is we the American people who must now sit in airplane seats like criminals with hands visible on knees, and no bathroom trips during airport approaches, etc. We have a government that will not take a stand against the Muslim Jihadists who want to kill us. We have a President who is naïve enough to think that by being obsequious to those who want to kill us will somehow make good guys out of them. This President is a loser and has surrounded himself with a bunch of radicals with a disdain for this country. Obama does not have a grasp of the greatness of this country or the reasons for its greatness.

The radical left is too stupid to understand that the only reason we do not have to carry prayer rugs and bow to Mecca 5 times a day is the strength and fortitude of our government and military. Even in the light of such a truth, we have to suffer the fools who attack our recruitment centers, drive the ROTC away from our colleges and jeer our servicemen and women. The Jihadists prey upon our folly and gain strength from it.

I want a President who stands for something. We don’t need a President who will not be proud of his country. We do not need a President who runs around apologizing for America and bowing to other world leaders. Obama is a liar, vacillates on important issues, and is constantly blaming others for his problems. Hopefully, help is just 3 short years away, but in the meantime, we can help nullify his stupidity in November of 2010.

I want a President who understands that Roosevelt’s policies did not get us out of the depression. What you hear about WWII getting us out of the depression is only partly true. The war in the economical sense was a giant government spending spree. It did put people to work but also ran up a huge national debt. What saved our bacon was after the war and the fact that we were the only industrialized country that was not damaged by the war. It was kind of like having the only store in town. England was devastated, Japan was devastated, Europe and Russia were practically destroyed, so if the world needed manufactured goods, we were it. It was Roosevelt’s policies after the war that enabled us to make a financial comeback. Roosevelt ended wage and price controls and unleashed our private sector.

From the private sector flows prosperity. Prosperity is not generated by government. Every dollar that the government spends has to come from the private sector. When the government spends ten dollars, it has to take ten dollars out of the economy. The more that government spends, the more that has to come out of the economy. At best, the only thing that the government can do is redistribute money from one group to another.

Redistribution may sound pretty good, but it has one major flaw. The source for the money that gets redistributed goes away. The efforts of the entrepreneurs that make the money, get taxed out of existence or they relocate somewhere that allows them to operate without the high taxes to fund redistribution. And, with a declining income, if the government wants to continue spending, it has to monetize the debt – meaning just print the money. When that happens, the value of the money goes down. It is a lose – lose proposition for everybody.

The problem is very visible today in New York and California. These two states are broke and can’t find enough money to pay their bills. They have managed to tax the money makers and wealth creators out of their states. California, New York, New Jersey, and Michigan exemplify this problem. They have lost a large percentage of their wealth creators to states and countries with a better business climate. Compounding their problems is that these states don’t lose those people with their hands out, those hands get multiplied because when the wealth creators are driven out, jobs leave with them. The lose of wealth creators result in increases of the unemployed as jobs become scarcer.

That is why you need elected officials who understand how business operates. Obama has wasted the good will and hopes of the people who elected him with political patronage and payoffs to his buddies. He is dirty (politically) and the press continues to cover for him. For Shame!

I feel betrayed by this President. America is being led off the cliff by a left wing radical with the press rooting him on. I disagreed with Bush on a lot of issues, but I never thought that he was out to destroy us. He certainly would not have bowed to an Arabian King or criticized America.

Come on November. Hopefully we will survive this idiot President until we can change the makeup of the congress.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Master of Double Speak

I have never been a fan of President Obama, but never virulently against him either. I may be getting to that point however if he continues to mislead the people about his policies.

First, let us have a definition of taxes. Taxes are the revenues lost by the private sector because of actions (or Laws) mandated by the Government. All tax collections will find their roots in the private sector. Yes, even those import taxes applied to the foreign goods we import. The taxpaying public pays those taxes through the higher prices that the taxes impose upon those goods. They are unavoidable since we don’t manufacture most products that we use.

So now we have a President who tells the American public that his new healthcare plan will not add to the deficit, but will actually help bring down and save money for the deficit. He says it so smoothly that you can almost believe and hope that what he is saying is the way it will be.

Medical costs have been going up and certainly we need to do a better job containing those costs. How we do it is the big elephant in the room. Under the Obama plan, the costs are paid for from a variety of sources other than the Government. This legislation mandates coverage for almost everybody with a heavy fine imposed upon those without coverage.

Case #1 – Help for Small Business?

If you are a small business owner, the extra money for mandated insurance substantially affects your bottom line. Healthcare’s average cost is around $5,000 - $6,000/year. If you have four employees, that is the added cost of $20,000 – $24,000/year that you will have to pay – if you have four employees. At minimum wage, an employee costs the employer with no benefits from the following formula –

- 6.2% of that for FICA/Social Security

- 1.45% for Medicare

- .3% (minimum for clerical) for Worker's Compensation

- 6.2% on $7,000 salary for Unemployment Compensation/FUTA


In Texas, the current minimum wage is $7.25/hour – that calculates to roughly $13,000/year. Add to that $806.00 for the FICA/Social Security, $188.50 for Medicare, $39.00 for Workman’s Compensation, and finally $434.00 for Unemployment Compensation/FUTA. It totals to $14,467/year for the cost of a minimum wage employee. (In Texas)

With good management, your small business eeks out a gross of $500,000/year with a net of $75,000 that you keep as your reward. (That’s a 15% profit) Adding an additional 20 – 24 thousand dollar healthcare to your cost side comes straight out of your pocket.

As a small business owner, you might tighten up your expenses in other ways, but the main focus will have to be on the number of employees that you have. One of these workers will get the axe to help make up the difference.

Case #2 – Help the Economy

Obama bragged that his plan would decrease our insurance premium costs. That is, provided you make less than $200,000/year and do not have one of those so-called Cadillac plans. Oh, really! Think about it! I know several people making $200,000 and more. Most of those do not have a lot of left over money for the additional taxes that Obama wants to impose. This is the group of people who buy the better homes, pay the lion’s share of collected taxes, buy the better cars, and tip the waitress better. In short, it is their money that drives the majority of our economy. Their demands for goods and services is what keeps a large segment of our population working, and now Obama wants to tap into that money to pay for his healthcare program.

It is like he doesn’t understand the basic way that the economy works. When you mandate that a segment of the population do without a portion of their disposable income, then the ripple effects are felt by everybody. Under Obamacare, there will be more job losses as the upper middleclass of our society have to adjust their spending habits downward to accommodate for having less disposable income.

This income redistribution plan will impoverish more people than it helps.

Case #3 – Evil Insurance Companies

Medical insurance plans pay for part or all of an insured’s medical bills. But these groups of businesses are cast as the evil-doers by Obama. The man has no shame! Insurance companies have a small margin of profit. They are in business for profit. But insurance is not their only function as Obama would have you believe.

Insurance companies invest the premiums paid to them by their customers. They fund a lot of projects ranging from new startup companies, Federal treasury certificates, and industry needs. Their investment activities hold down insurance premium costs. Insurance companies have to augment what they collect in premiums with their investments to hold premiums low enough for their customers to afford. The loss of the investments by our insurance industry would cripple our economy – leading to additional job loss.

Obama’s shallowness is out front for all to see! His populist policies can only hurt this country. He is aware that his class-envy message is aimed at a population with a large number of ignorant people. This large group of ignorance is the product of the Liberal establishment. But that is a topic for another article.

Case #4 – A Prostituted Congress

Obama has literally prostituted our Congress in order to pass his healthcare plan. Hundreds of millions of dollars were paid to the recalcitrant Senate members who objected to this abomination of a healthcare plan. Then, like a thief of the night, passed the plan in the wee small hours of the night. Believe me; our Government was not set up to operate this way. Abuse of power, obfuscation and trickery, lies and non-caring, partisan news organizations have succeeded in stealing a large chunk of your freedoms.

Mr. Obama, I hope you are happy with destroying this representative republic. Your presidency will be remembered for the destruction of Liberty. In the future, people will have only fond memories of a society that once had the freedom of choice. We are in a headlong race to mediocrity with Obama leading the way.

Cheers, I think,

-Robert-

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Trickle Down Jobs

The discussions about jobs rage in the public square. The President has held meetings with the industrial leaders, bankers, his advisors, and members of Congress searching for a solution to the jobs dilemma. But the answers still elude this President.

The President and those around him hold on to the hope that the redistribution of wealth holds the key to putting America back to work, but is it? Why doesn’t it work? It has a populous attraction to those caught up on the bottom income levels. If we can just take money from the rich and distribute it to the poor, then the spending of that money by the poor will rekindle the economy. It is a bottom up theory that has been sold to this President. But will it create those jobs that are so precious to the whole country?

I will discuss disincentive a little later. But first I want you to look at what happens when the wealthy are stripped of their disposable income. Then, think about which method creates jobs and which method perpetuates social mediocrity.

It is those people with the drive and determination to be wealthy that contribute to all of our well being. How you ask? Well when the Government is not confiscating their disposable income, they spend their money on goods and services. Let’s look at a few samples.

Large Screen Flat Panel HD Televisions: The reason the rest of us can go out and buy one of these marvels of engineering without killing our budgets come from the “bleeding edge” effect. Most of you probably forget that when these marvels first hit the market, they cost $10,000 and more. It was the wealthy that bought this new technology at those ridiculous prices. It was the demand by the wealthy that funded the manufacturers and enabled them to improve their production techniques. Slowly, we saw those prices come down as it became cheaper to produce those flat screen televisions. All of us benefitted because of the wealthy. Real jobs were created for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of this new technology. The ones really responsible for the evolution were those who could pony up that money for those early flat panel TV’s. They made it possible for the rest of us.

Apartments: A lot of us live in apartments. Take a good look at them. They cost in the millions to build. They are the products of somebody wanting to make money. Yep, it is the greedy wealthy who build the places where we live. Apartment construction and upkeep provide real jobs. Adding to the benefits we receive from having somebody wanting to make money from building apartments – we get roads, sewer systems, sales of all the building materials, and last but not least, we get commercial activity from the many businesses that spring up where ever there is a bulging population. All of this activity comes from that person who sees a plot of ground and decides to develop it.

Cities: Do you like your city skyline? It too is the product of the monumental egos that want to make a statement. But egos aside for a moment, is it so hard to look at these monumental edifices and not see and comprehend the number of jobs that were created just to build those large imposing buildings. Businesses supporting the workforces that use those buildings create still more jobs. Does your job depend upon the efforts of the rich investors who say, “We want to build a large building as a monument to celebrate our success?” Most of the large buildings you see include rental spaces for other businesses. Remember, commerce begets commerce.

Fancy Boats: Ever drive around by a harbor and look at all the yachts and large pleasure craft? Building those floating pleasure palaces is a major source of employment. The wealthy among us want and buy these expensive trinkets and by doing so create good jobs for the rest of us. There are literally thousands of craftsmen involved in the building of those large pleasure craft. Then of course are the follow on businesses like building harbors for those boats which have the effect of concentrating people of wealth. That concentration of wealthy individuals in turn leads to hotels, service businesses for the boats, boat charters, and restaurants. All of which would not be there without the wealthy wanting to spend their money for pleasure boats.

In the interest of keeping this article short, I will close with the following. The people who earn the most money pay the most taxes. The top 25% income earners pay 86% of all taxes. The top 1% income bracket pays 39% of all taxes.

So the next time you enter your house or apartment, think about the entrepreneur who decided that he was going to invest money into housing. Or maybe you are a trucker who hauls goods from and to the businesses that need those deliveries for the purpose of making money. Or maybe you are the electrician wiring up one of those tall buildings or new housing additions. You might be that fast food employee serving the builders, office workers, or employees of the other businesses that have sprung up around the economical activity in your area.

Remember, it is the wealthy and those seeking wealth that make it possible for our livelihoods. When the government seeks to take from the rich and distribute their wealth to the poor, there is less money for them to operate with. They buy fewer products from that bleeding edge, build fewer buildings, buy fewer boats, and pay fewer taxes. If this is where your heart is then by all means support Barack Obama and his redistribution of wealth. But, if you value your freedom and the good things that result from those who want to make a profit, then say no to Obama’s dim vision of what makes this country great.

All of us depend upon the commerce that trickles down from the visionary few among us. The profit motive is the spur to the flanks that makes the whole economy work. What is really sad is that everybody can participate in the wealth creation of this country. Making money is not restricted to just certain people. In America, anybody with the dream and desire to achieve can accomplish their goals. But somehow that message is being lost by those who seek to kill that desire by controlling the reward side of the equation. Obama’s vision is to reap the reward while you put out the effort. But when the reward is drastically reduced (through taxation), so is that incentive for an individual to expend that necessary effort for achievement.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Good Intentions

The world is full of people with ‘good intentions’. I personally do not berate those who have the strong desire to make things better for all of us. But any solution to even the most innocuous problem needs examination for its consequences. The solution to any problem will have other effects, some good and some bad. The question that has to be answered is whether or not the original problem would be more acceptable than those created by the solution.

Usually, when a particular problem arises, somebody comes up with a solution for it. The problem solver generally has the best of intentions and means no harm, but the law of unintended consequences always lurks in the shadows for the unwary. Those unintended consequences will ultimately have to be dealt with. Now, instead of just the one original problem, unwittingly a new family of problems has been created. Ethyl gasoline is one such example.

In its early use, the burning of gasoline in an engine had a problem. Whenever the gasoline ignited, the fuel burned so fast that it created an undesirable ‘knock’ in the engine. The most common solution, and there were more than one, was to use the additive tetra-ethyl lead to smooth out and enhance the power of a gasoline engine.

As a solution, it did the job very well. Engines ran smoother and did not have the fuel knock of raw gasoline. Tetra-ethyl lead use had its controversy back when it was first used, but the moneyed interest won the day and as a consequence, became widely used as a fuel additive.

But then, we had to deal with the unintended consequences of lead poisoning in the atmosphere and toxic smog. Our history is replete with such fiascos.

New medicines are one such area of unintentional consequences. With the best of intentions, medicines like thalidomide that caused birth defects, anti-depressants that raise the possibility of suicide, and pain killers that create drug dependencies all come under the umbrella of unintended consequences.

Lithium batteries are all the rage now because they have the appearance of less pollution. But what most people do not understand is that lithium is not found just lying around for the taking. No, lithium is not an abundantly available element. Even in supposedly good deposits of the stuff, a lot of refining has to take place. One common way to get at the lithium is to drill for it, pump the slurry into vast settling ponds, and then it’s off to the refineries for purification. The process is actually an environmental nightmare.

The tradeoffs using lithium center on whether or not it solves a problem with fewer side effects than the original problem. Cars with lithium batteries do not pollute. But we have to remind ourselves that a lithium battery does not create energy. It only provides portability for the energy that charged it. We still have to produce the energy for charging those batteries. A reminder at this point, there is no free lunch. Everything we do has consequences.

Corn and palm nut based ethanol were heralded as the next great fuel – but nobody took into consideration that corn was also a food product and while ethanol may be a great fuel, the demand for corn based ethanol drove food prices so high that a lot of people could no longer afford that staple in their diet. Palm nut growing became a source of income for the tropical regions and to produce palm nuts for ethanol; they started clearing rain forest to grow palm nuts. Again, unintended consequences come out of the shadows and create more problems.

All decisions of problem solving involve tradeoffs. But tradeoffs are a part of everyday decision making. Some are personal while others affect everybody. The flap over CO2 is another example. We as citizens of the world need answers and a range of solutions if the problem exists. Cap and trade is but one solution that is being proposed to diminish CO2 levels. But the consequence of such actions affects all of us and may create more problems than it is worth. Would cap and trade solve anything? There has to be other viable solutions to this problem, if there is a problem. Whether or not CO2 is a problem is still up for debate. It has yet to be proven that the increase of CO2 is the result in human activity. We may be trying to solve a problem that is not of our making and beyond our ability to solve. The science is ambiguous at best.

It is not just the scientific resolutions that we have to think about. Personal decisions also come with tradeoffs that we have to deal with. When we go out and socialize, we decide if the hangover the next day will be worth it, or if that partner we wind up with is going to create future problems. All actions of our decisions have consequences – some good, and some bad.

Never lose common sense. Learn from the mistakes you make. Your good intentions can result in somebody else’s nightmare so think before you act. But when the good outweighs the bad, then go for it. No matter how small the decision is, it will have consequences. I am not trying to advocate not making decisions, just understand the possible results of your actions.

Remember that old saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Cheers,

-Robert-

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What Lurks Inside

The revelations about Tiger Woods only showcase the seedier side of humans. That seedier side has always been around, but we as a species, never seem to be able to get a handle on it. With the technology present in the here and now, human blemishes are hard to hide. It is not easy for anybody to escape the eyes of cameras or the instant recordings of the spoken word.

We can rail against Tiger, or others who have been caught up in the act of being less than they can be, but the awful truth is, all humans have this side of them.

Always remember, for every top, there is a bottom. The honing of our skills to perpetuate the darker side of our existence, only adds to that side. We don’t control porn because we do not want to control porn. And just like the tug of drugs to those addicted, sex is very addictive and among the highest treated causes in rehab centers.

When others get caught doing the same thing that most people do, it gives those not caught the invitation to be righteously indignant. The phoniness of this indignation is sickening. Every one of us wants to parade in public one set of values and do the things that enthrall us in private.

It may well be that we do not have the discipline to cure our prurient nature. If that is the case, we are headed towards a very disappointing life. The job of curbing that darker side of humans was entrusted to religion, but my personal belief is that the selfish, self-indulgent acts are getting worse. In that sense, religion is failing us.

As we pursue the pleasures of life, our culture is being dumbed down. We no longer have the attitude of a fiercely independent and proud people. How long will it be before the darker side of us wins the battle for supremacy? The lack of privacy in everyday events is numbing our sensibilities to those actions. Eventually, that which is considered abhorrent now, will become mainstream. The evolution of abortion clearly demonstrates this principle. This process will only get worse. There will always be a new revelation to get indignant about, and after the novelty of so many revelations about that activity, it too will become accepted into the culture.

It was easy to convince a person that killing the unborn was okay - because the unborn had no voice. Sexual deviancy will take a little longer. I invite you to read an article I penned for another website about unlimited sex. You will find it at Robfg.com.

The spiral of the pursuits of pleasure only has one direction for this culture and that is downward. There is not much to recommend about the direction our society is going in the moral sense.

As I write this, I want you to know that I am also no prima donna. I have the same warts and blemishes as my fellow humans. My concern is how to make things better. Would that I could, I would get everyone to do some inward soul searching and recognize what we are becoming. This culture desperately needs to reestablish a boundary of right and wrong. If the older spiritual model can no longer enforce that boundary, then another model is needed.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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Made in China

Christmas shopping has dispirited me to the point that I no longer want to spend money for loved ones. Why, you ask?

Our Christmas shopping once helped the American economy by supporting American industries that paid good salaries to Americans. That is no longer true. I was going to buy a tool set for my son and found a nice chrome-vanadium metal set of wrenches made by Stanley Tool. But upon closer inspection was the label ‘Made in China’. So many of our American brands have been farmed out to China, it is no wonder that so many are unemployed or have marginal jobs.

I like the American cars, especially the Chevrolet products. But they are too expensive for my wallet. It is sad that I can buy a Hyundai or Honda of equivalent quality for so much less. It is not a matter of loyalty to the U.S., the foreign brands are hands down the better deal.

It shouldn’t be this way! But as long as we have the big spending Liberals running the country, our impoverishment is what we can expect. The Liberals tax our businesses and everything that this country produces so much that they are running our job makers and creators out of the country. But being a democracy, we keep electing those same politicians telling us the same pack of lies about how they will cut taxes and restore our small businesses and manufacturing jobs.

What we get instead is a takeover of American firms and higher taxes to pay for broad and expansive government programs. Enough already!

Even my penchant for smoked oysters by the once venerable Crown Prince brand has not been able to escape the pull of favorable tax and labor practices of China. The last can of smoked oysters I purchased was labeled ‘Product of China’. It was sad to think that this once great company had farmed out their operation to China; I couldn’t eat the oysters, I gagged on them at the thought.

If we ever hope to get back on sound footing, we must send the politicians packing and get term limits established. The professional politician has been feathering his nest at our expense for too long. It seems that after a few terms in office, they get corrupted and all of their energies are focused on getting re-elected. Re-election takes a lot of money and career politicians have defined the term of fund-raising into an art form. Their favors for the donations they need for re-election cost us all dearly. Insist upon term limits from any candidate that you nominate.

Yes, I just wanted to thank the Democrats for screwing up our country. They just can’t leave anything alone. The Democrats seize every opportunity to grab more money. There was a time that I loved to go to the casinos and play the slot machines but not anymore. Once again, the Government has put their greedy paws into an industry that once thrived and is now suffering because of the tax structures placed upon them. It is next to impossible to win on the slots because of the take from the taxing authorities. Bankruptcies are now common and getting worse with the casinos. People are not stupid, and when you can’t win at least some of the time, they will no longer spend their money for a losing effort. If you drop 4-6 hundred dollars/night, the best you can hope for is maybe a free meal and a complimentary room for your efforts – but forget about winning.

Liberalism impoverishes people. Liberalism is about the acquisition of power at everyone’s expense. Wealth redistribution works until there is no more wealth to redistribute – that is about where we are now. Soon the Government will be so desperate for money that they will literally print it. They will have to because they will have taxed our businesses out of existence or drove them to the more tax friendly countries of the world.

We have witnessed the devaluation of our national currency during this past year and it promises to get even worse. Unless spending is curtailed, our dollar will become worth more as toilet paper than money.

If you have a heart and concern for this nation, you will send the Liberals packing in the next election.

Maybe it isn’t too late to undo the harm done by Obama – but it has to be a decisive victory for conservatism to reverse course.

Cheers,

-Robert-

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