I woke up and am in shock. The great Shirley Temple has passed away. I don't even know how to explain to people alive today the impact she had on generations of Americans. I am incapable.
Ms. Temple-Black was the ultimate iconic figure. She gave people hope during the great depression and made faces smile. Watching her films will not explain her impact. She was as big as the Beatles when people needed hope. Goodbye Ms. Temple and thanks for all the hope you brought us.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Lots of Financial Stuff and Some History To Remember
YouTube - Why Is America in Decline? Chris Hedges on the U.S. Empire & Death of the Liberal Class (2012). A very long video by a fascinating person who explains what is happening in the world. He hits upon many issues I have discussed in the past and I am not going to bother summarizing. It is just a link.
Yahoo - Reuters - Stronger Pacific winds explain global warming hiatus: study. We all know global warming is a lie by now.
Yahoo - New York Times - Chinese Official Made Job Plea to JPMorgan Chase Chief. It speaks for itself.
Market Watch - U.S. to suspend pension, retirement funding: Lew.
Bloomberg - Housing Bubble -- or Bunk?. This article from 2005 was by "Market Specialists" and it denied that a nationwide housing market could collapse. It attempts to claim that housing price collapses can only occur if unemployment rises or wages drop while ignoring the fact that wages had not risen and all the increases in employment were in the housing industry.
Mortgage News Daily - Housing Bubble To Bust? FDIC Certainly Hopes Not. Another article from 2005 before the bust. An FDIC report that said that nationwide housing bubbles just don't happen and that is true, unless they are intentional.
Washington Post - Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust. Again in 2005, our most trusted economists lying to us. The head of the federal reserve said there was NO housing bubble.
Bloomberg - Fed Officials Saw Housing Bubble in 2005, Didn't Alter Policy. Get it, they lied back in the day because they did see what was coming and their own documents prove it.
The Economist - The Global Housing Bubble. The housing bubble was global as this article from 2005 describes; but, Bernanke and others said that all real estate bubbles were local, they lied.
CBS - Housing Bubble Is A Local Matter.
Now, if they lied to you about the housing bubble why do you trust them when they say the economy is okay today? You cannot trust these people and that is, in the end, the saddest thing of all. They no longer care if we believe them. Please do not ask me how to avoid the coming economic problems, ask me how we recover from it in the best way possible and avoid marching in the direction that those in charge want us to so they can take even more advantage of us.
Yahoo - Reuters - Stronger Pacific winds explain global warming hiatus: study. We all know global warming is a lie by now.
Yahoo - New York Times - Chinese Official Made Job Plea to JPMorgan Chase Chief. It speaks for itself.
Market Watch - U.S. to suspend pension, retirement funding: Lew.
Bloomberg - Housing Bubble -- or Bunk?. This article from 2005 was by "Market Specialists" and it denied that a nationwide housing market could collapse. It attempts to claim that housing price collapses can only occur if unemployment rises or wages drop while ignoring the fact that wages had not risen and all the increases in employment were in the housing industry.
Mortgage News Daily - Housing Bubble To Bust? FDIC Certainly Hopes Not. Another article from 2005 before the bust. An FDIC report that said that nationwide housing bubbles just don't happen and that is true, unless they are intentional.
Washington Post - Bernanke: There's No Housing Bubble to Go Bust. Again in 2005, our most trusted economists lying to us. The head of the federal reserve said there was NO housing bubble.
Bloomberg - Fed Officials Saw Housing Bubble in 2005, Didn't Alter Policy. Get it, they lied back in the day because they did see what was coming and their own documents prove it.
The Economist - The Global Housing Bubble. The housing bubble was global as this article from 2005 describes; but, Bernanke and others said that all real estate bubbles were local, they lied.
CBS - Housing Bubble Is A Local Matter.
Now, if they lied to you about the housing bubble why do you trust them when they say the economy is okay today? You cannot trust these people and that is, in the end, the saddest thing of all. They no longer care if we believe them. Please do not ask me how to avoid the coming economic problems, ask me how we recover from it in the best way possible and avoid marching in the direction that those in charge want us to so they can take even more advantage of us.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Why Must They All Lie
Yahoo - Reuters - AOL CEO sorry for 'distressed babies' remark; reverses retirement plan. Now this has been all over the news; but, I think the real point is being missed. The CEO said that the reason AOL needed to cut contributions to their 401k plans was because of the cost of health insurance, specifically because of 2 distressed babies. This is at the same time that his company has seen it's greatest profit in years.
Here is where once again the media has failed us. What would have been the savings from cutting the 401k contributions as compared to what the "increased" costs in healthcare were? Pretty simple question and very basic; but, no reporters have apparently asked it. Another failure of the media is to talk about real wages. While companies have barely maintained wages, they have cut benefits. The fact is that wages have not kept up with inflation; but, in addition benefits have gone away that is a reduction in real compensation for your work and efforts. American workers are being paid (salary and compensation) less in real dollars (adjusted for inflation) then in a whole lot of decades and the work is the same.
I just had a thought. It is as capitalistic as they come. What if we rewarded people based on their contribution? This would include taking care of people who are incapable of contributing, just like I paid to feed my children, a community approach. So, if a company has 1,000 workers and the company increases in profit, as a margin, shouldn't all involved benefit to the same extent? A ten percent increase in profits could result in a ten percent across the board increase in returns. That would include labor, investors, bond holders, whoever had a stake in the outcome. That incentives everyone to do better in their role.
By the way, if you have an hour or two to kill, this is a great video. YouTube - Why Is America in Decline? Chris Hedges on the U.S. Empire & Death of the Liberal Class (2012).
Here is where once again the media has failed us. What would have been the savings from cutting the 401k contributions as compared to what the "increased" costs in healthcare were? Pretty simple question and very basic; but, no reporters have apparently asked it. Another failure of the media is to talk about real wages. While companies have barely maintained wages, they have cut benefits. The fact is that wages have not kept up with inflation; but, in addition benefits have gone away that is a reduction in real compensation for your work and efforts. American workers are being paid (salary and compensation) less in real dollars (adjusted for inflation) then in a whole lot of decades and the work is the same.
I just had a thought. It is as capitalistic as they come. What if we rewarded people based on their contribution? This would include taking care of people who are incapable of contributing, just like I paid to feed my children, a community approach. So, if a company has 1,000 workers and the company increases in profit, as a margin, shouldn't all involved benefit to the same extent? A ten percent increase in profits could result in a ten percent across the board increase in returns. That would include labor, investors, bond holders, whoever had a stake in the outcome. That incentives everyone to do better in their role.
By the way, if you have an hour or two to kill, this is a great video. YouTube - Why Is America in Decline? Chris Hedges on the U.S. Empire & Death of the Liberal Class (2012).
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Should We Shoot Looters?
I am sure we all remember New Orleans after the Katrina disaster. At the time people were breaking into stores to get food as none of the food that the governments had promised was being delivered. The response from the President an other government officials was to call for the shooting of looters. The number one priority was to prevent looting. While there is more than one definition of "looting", in terms of generally accepted understanding and when you get to shoot looters, it refers to stealing from others during an emergency.
The concern about looting during an emergency is that society will devolve, that lawlessness will become rampant and all order will be lost. I was in Los Angeles during the riots when there was looting going on and it was pretty sad and scary to see. It was also one of the few times I ever carried a gun on me other than when I was target shooting. I had driven into Los Angeles to make sure my elderly grandmother was okay because there had been some looting near her home.
Now here is where the media, government and the financial industry are all hypocrites. If J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, HSBC, RBS and many other banks decided to fix the financial markets during the economic collapse, were they guilty of looting? The banks colluded to fix markets and even took millions in bonuses for having done it. All order has been lost in the financial markets. Heck, even extremist right wingers like Ron Paul would agree with me on this. If a libertarian like Ron Paul believes that Glass Steagel should be the law and that banks should not be able to gamble with our deposits, then why is this allowed to continue?
At a time of our greatest need and challenge, our corporations and financial industry are looting our future. They are also planning on and beginning to loot our retirements and pensions and it is a concerted effort. I don't have a problem with conservatives or liberals, I just can't find any anymore. Conservatives and liberals in America used to worry about the country and not the profit of just a few.
It is claimed that the world has $700 or so trillion dollars in debt and that the annual GDP of the world is about $70 trillion. What would have happened if we had let the big banks fail and not have bailed them out? The answer is, a lot of the debt would have just disappeared. The banks would have defaulted on each other and the depositors equally. We can look to Iceland and see how true this is, they didn't bail out the banks. They lost some money and then made it back without being hampered by debts they did not create.
How is it that a child who was born today is assumed to have $25,000 in debt? What did he buy? How is it that it is assumed that you or I am in any way responsible for hundreds of trillions in debt, I didn't borrow the money? Heck, after getting divorced I paid off all our debt. Should I be held responsible for looters? I believe in capitalism; but, I don't believe in insider trading and thievery. When criminals work together to steal money we call it racketeering. When banks collude to steal money we call it malfeasance, a word most people don't even understand.
Now lets get specific. Back in the 1970s my father told me about the largest theft of all time by the mafia. They created an insurance company and took in over a billion (big at the time) in revenue while not putting enough money aside to pay claims and then tried to claim bankruptcy. They were prosecuted under RICO or racketeering laws and got to go to jail. How is this any different than what the banks and AIG did?
Here is where to look. We as a nation have debt because we spent more than we took in from taxes. A very simple equation. I didn't vote on that and I believe most people are against the government spending more than it takes in. All sort of Republicans claim they are against deficit spending; but, gosh darn-it somehow they continue voting for it. They try and blame it on welfare; but, honestly look at the money they vote to spend on corporations and projects that only benefit their districts. The Democrats are no better and the reason for both parties is the same. It benefits the banks when we deficit spend. I will make it simple, the wars we are waging have cost us trillions of dollars, if we stopped them all tomorrow, do you really believe we would take the savings and pay off the debt or continue to deficit spend? This should be easy if you know history and about the Vietnam war.
The concern about looting during an emergency is that society will devolve, that lawlessness will become rampant and all order will be lost. I was in Los Angeles during the riots when there was looting going on and it was pretty sad and scary to see. It was also one of the few times I ever carried a gun on me other than when I was target shooting. I had driven into Los Angeles to make sure my elderly grandmother was okay because there had been some looting near her home.
Now here is where the media, government and the financial industry are all hypocrites. If J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, HSBC, RBS and many other banks decided to fix the financial markets during the economic collapse, were they guilty of looting? The banks colluded to fix markets and even took millions in bonuses for having done it. All order has been lost in the financial markets. Heck, even extremist right wingers like Ron Paul would agree with me on this. If a libertarian like Ron Paul believes that Glass Steagel should be the law and that banks should not be able to gamble with our deposits, then why is this allowed to continue?
At a time of our greatest need and challenge, our corporations and financial industry are looting our future. They are also planning on and beginning to loot our retirements and pensions and it is a concerted effort. I don't have a problem with conservatives or liberals, I just can't find any anymore. Conservatives and liberals in America used to worry about the country and not the profit of just a few.
It is claimed that the world has $700 or so trillion dollars in debt and that the annual GDP of the world is about $70 trillion. What would have happened if we had let the big banks fail and not have bailed them out? The answer is, a lot of the debt would have just disappeared. The banks would have defaulted on each other and the depositors equally. We can look to Iceland and see how true this is, they didn't bail out the banks. They lost some money and then made it back without being hampered by debts they did not create.
How is it that a child who was born today is assumed to have $25,000 in debt? What did he buy? How is it that it is assumed that you or I am in any way responsible for hundreds of trillions in debt, I didn't borrow the money? Heck, after getting divorced I paid off all our debt. Should I be held responsible for looters? I believe in capitalism; but, I don't believe in insider trading and thievery. When criminals work together to steal money we call it racketeering. When banks collude to steal money we call it malfeasance, a word most people don't even understand.
Now lets get specific. Back in the 1970s my father told me about the largest theft of all time by the mafia. They created an insurance company and took in over a billion (big at the time) in revenue while not putting enough money aside to pay claims and then tried to claim bankruptcy. They were prosecuted under RICO or racketeering laws and got to go to jail. How is this any different than what the banks and AIG did?
Here is where to look. We as a nation have debt because we spent more than we took in from taxes. A very simple equation. I didn't vote on that and I believe most people are against the government spending more than it takes in. All sort of Republicans claim they are against deficit spending; but, gosh darn-it somehow they continue voting for it. They try and blame it on welfare; but, honestly look at the money they vote to spend on corporations and projects that only benefit their districts. The Democrats are no better and the reason for both parties is the same. It benefits the banks when we deficit spend. I will make it simple, the wars we are waging have cost us trillions of dollars, if we stopped them all tomorrow, do you really believe we would take the savings and pay off the debt or continue to deficit spend? This should be easy if you know history and about the Vietnam war.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Money Stuff
CNBC - NY probing banks for possible forex manipulation. I am waiting to find out what markets are not fixed.
Wall Street Journal - Shift Social Security’s start-up costs. More lies to see if they can steel your retirement funds.
Wall Street Journal - Shift retirement plans away from employers. There was a time when people went to work for companies because they offered a retirement plan. Wall Street has concluded that the only way to avoid that is to destroy all pensions.
Honolulu Civil Beat - Hawaii Lawmakers Agree to Pension Reform for New Hires. I love it, the word reform used to mean that you were going to improve a situation, now it is used to explain why you are taking things away. George Orwell would be thrilled.
Mail Online - Get ready for the real-life RoboCops: NYPD tests Google Glass to help foot patrol officers fight crime
. The article quotes some people who are trying to convince you that it will not be used for facial recognition. It is a lie, it will be used for it.
Yahoo - Business Insider - All American Credit Cards Will Disappear In 2015 And Be Replaced With This New Tech. So, very soon all of your credit and debit cards will carry a microchip, why is this not surprising, I have only been writing about this for 6 years.
Yahoo - AP - What's for dinner? The farm bill has a big impact. Now the fact that we are reducing food stamp benefits while increasing how much we give to agribusiness is annoying enough; but, watching "reporters" spin the story is sickening. The clown that wrote this article claims that by giving money to multi-billion dollar agribusiness will somehow cause food prices to go down. It won't and hasn't yet. The only price savings that will be seen will be on exports to other countries. This article is some of the most disgusting kiss up to the industry that I have seen.
The Motley Fool - Stock Market Warning Signs: Record $444.9 Billion of Debt Is Now Invested in the Market. This is scary, a half a trillion dollars in stock investments is borrowed money. The great depression was partly caused by people borrowing money that they couldn't pay back to bet on the market. If the market burps then those debts go unpaid and everything crumbles.
The problems of this world are not there because people are imperfect, they are there because we have a corrupt system. The system is one that benefits those in charge and penalizes those who are not. A system that promotes corruption and insider trading is the death toll for a society.
Wall Street Journal - Shift Social Security’s start-up costs. More lies to see if they can steel your retirement funds.
Wall Street Journal - Shift retirement plans away from employers. There was a time when people went to work for companies because they offered a retirement plan. Wall Street has concluded that the only way to avoid that is to destroy all pensions.
Honolulu Civil Beat - Hawaii Lawmakers Agree to Pension Reform for New Hires. I love it, the word reform used to mean that you were going to improve a situation, now it is used to explain why you are taking things away. George Orwell would be thrilled.
Mail Online - Get ready for the real-life RoboCops: NYPD tests Google Glass to help foot patrol officers fight crime
. The article quotes some people who are trying to convince you that it will not be used for facial recognition. It is a lie, it will be used for it.
Yahoo - Business Insider - All American Credit Cards Will Disappear In 2015 And Be Replaced With This New Tech. So, very soon all of your credit and debit cards will carry a microchip, why is this not surprising, I have only been writing about this for 6 years.
Yahoo - AP - What's for dinner? The farm bill has a big impact. Now the fact that we are reducing food stamp benefits while increasing how much we give to agribusiness is annoying enough; but, watching "reporters" spin the story is sickening. The clown that wrote this article claims that by giving money to multi-billion dollar agribusiness will somehow cause food prices to go down. It won't and hasn't yet. The only price savings that will be seen will be on exports to other countries. This article is some of the most disgusting kiss up to the industry that I have seen.
The Motley Fool - Stock Market Warning Signs: Record $444.9 Billion of Debt Is Now Invested in the Market. This is scary, a half a trillion dollars in stock investments is borrowed money. The great depression was partly caused by people borrowing money that they couldn't pay back to bet on the market. If the market burps then those debts go unpaid and everything crumbles.
The problems of this world are not there because people are imperfect, they are there because we have a corrupt system. The system is one that benefits those in charge and penalizes those who are not. A system that promotes corruption and insider trading is the death toll for a society.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Just Some More Lies From the Media
My9NJ.com - Vein Scan Payment System Launched. So some young people created an app that lets you verify your identity using a vein scan of your palm. Now, New Jersey is looking to expand it's use. The best part of the video is where the person claims that you don't have to use the technology if you don't want to. They completely ignore the fact that you will have to use it in the future.
Huffington Post - JPMorgan Exec Blythe Masters To Advise Wall Street Regulator. This shows just how corrupt our government is. The head of commodities for J.P. Morgan is going to advise government regulators on overseeing the commodities market. This is at the same time that J.P. Morgan is getting out of the commodities market as I had previously written about. She was in charge of the group at J.P. Morgan that was manipulating the commodities market.
YouTube - The Young Turks - A Great Way To Save USPS, But Will It Happen?. I know I just wrote about USPS wanting to become a bank for people that don't have bank accounts; but, I liked this video presentation.
YouTube - The Young Turks - John Elway, Don't Give Me Your BS On Social Safety Nets. It really irks me how some people are so selfish and self-centered. Social Security is not a gift, we pay into it. Unemployment Insurance is just that, insurance and we pay into it in case we someday need it, it is not a gift. The hypocrisy goes deep, we have just reduced food stamps; but, will not support raising the minimum wage. I personally have not made the minimum wage in 30 years, in fact, I make way above it and even with alimony and fees and blah, blah, blah, I still take home enough to have food and a roof over my head (although I no longer own the roof and rent). Lets look at this in easy to understand terms. Would you rather live in Canada which has nationalized healthcare and takes care of it's poor or in Mexico? What do we wish to become?
YouTube - The Young Turks - The Daily Show Exposes 'Retarded' CEO Comments. I have grown increasingly disappointed in Mr. Schiff, his fiscal beliefs are simply stupid. He believes that we should eliminate the minimum wage and a reporter asked him if he would be good with people making $2 an hour, she could have said $2 a day and his answer would have been the same. He said he was good with that. She asked who he thought might only deserve $2 an hour and he said the mentally retarded.
YouTube - The Young Turks - Income Inequality ROCKS, says 'Shark Tank' Host Kevin O'Leary. 85 people in the whole world own as much as the bottom half of the population or roughly 3.5 BILLION people. By the way, many of those 85 people inherited their wealth and did nothing to create it.
If I were young, I would be screaming and yelling about the raw deal you are being given. The media tries to say it was the baby boomers or the illegal aliens or the Chines or whoever. Nope, it is the 85 people that have everything. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates actually made their money, not inherited wealth, personal brilliance and hard work and risk. I don't begrudge them what they have earned and admire them; but, I do begrudge people who have lied and cheated and stolen like J.P. Morgan.
There is a statistic being thrown around by a number of neo-conservatives that around 45% of the people don't pay income tax. It is the dumbest statistic that one could use. How many two year old's pay taxes? How many homeless pay income tax when they don't have an income other than what they can beg or recycle cans for? Anyone with a working class or middle class job knows that they are paying taxes and should know that they pay a higher percentage in taxes than the wealthy.
Personally, I am for a flat income tax. It could be 10% or 15% or whatever. If you make a $100,000, you pay $10,000. If you make $1,000,000 then you pay $100,000. Simple and requires no accountants. You pay as you benefit from society. Oddly enough I believe many on the far right would agree with me, though many would prefer to end income tax. Our taxes have given literally trillions in dollars to banks and other companies and they often pay $0 in taxes. Personally, I would rather feed the homeless than see my tax dollars go to bankers who ruined this economy and then used our taxes to pay themselves multi-million dollar bonuses. Does that make me a Communist, a liberal or a left winger? When did rationality and concern for the country as a whole stop being patriotic? Do you know what you call it when one person or a small family owns everything, you call it a monarchy.
UPDATE: You know what? Mr. Schiff could not have angered me more. What an idiot. To say that mentally retarded people are only worth $2.00 an hour really irks me. Actually, the mentally retarded do excellent at a number of jobs, especially jobs that require repetitious activity. When I was young and needed a job, I went to work in a cabinet making factory. Two employees, me and the owner. At the end of the first day, I got a 20% raise. I quit the job at the end of a week or two even though I was offered another raise. You will love the reason I quit. I spoke to the owner and said that we could hire people with mental deficiencies, get a tax break and that they made great employees. I thought they could do the simple things in assembly. As a craftsman I was assembling things that anyone could have. My value was in the use of the tools and my precision which saved on waste product. He told me he didn't want to be around retards and I quit. I didn't want to be around people like him who didn't care about others.
I believe we should match people to their abilities and wants. I met a young man once with a unique situation, he cannot see how the pieces fit together to achieve a goal. At least that is how it was explained to me and you know what, he is an amazing young man, very talented, very polite and very intentionally amusing. I have been thinking about what job would he best suited to for years. I thought about it and thought about it and concluded that he would be perfect for someone who was creating assembly lines and wanted to know what the smallest part of the job was that anyone could do. People pay a lot of money to create assembly lines and I have met some of them. What would having someone like him be worth when it could save you millions in design costs and redesign costs? I bet he would deserve more than $2 an hour; but, they would still only want to pay him that. They are not concerned about the value we contribute, they are concerned about how little they can give in return.
I think we need to create a situation where people can succeed, where the average person can get a fair return on their work investment. I have worked for over 40 years and gave up my health to do so. I did it because I thought it was best for my family. Economics is about supply and demand and there is no longer a demand for humans because of robotics and technology. They no longer need people like me and you, or so they think.
Huffington Post - JPMorgan Exec Blythe Masters To Advise Wall Street Regulator. This shows just how corrupt our government is. The head of commodities for J.P. Morgan is going to advise government regulators on overseeing the commodities market. This is at the same time that J.P. Morgan is getting out of the commodities market as I had previously written about. She was in charge of the group at J.P. Morgan that was manipulating the commodities market.
YouTube - The Young Turks - A Great Way To Save USPS, But Will It Happen?. I know I just wrote about USPS wanting to become a bank for people that don't have bank accounts; but, I liked this video presentation.
YouTube - The Young Turks - John Elway, Don't Give Me Your BS On Social Safety Nets. It really irks me how some people are so selfish and self-centered. Social Security is not a gift, we pay into it. Unemployment Insurance is just that, insurance and we pay into it in case we someday need it, it is not a gift. The hypocrisy goes deep, we have just reduced food stamps; but, will not support raising the minimum wage. I personally have not made the minimum wage in 30 years, in fact, I make way above it and even with alimony and fees and blah, blah, blah, I still take home enough to have food and a roof over my head (although I no longer own the roof and rent). Lets look at this in easy to understand terms. Would you rather live in Canada which has nationalized healthcare and takes care of it's poor or in Mexico? What do we wish to become?
YouTube - The Young Turks - The Daily Show Exposes 'Retarded' CEO Comments. I have grown increasingly disappointed in Mr. Schiff, his fiscal beliefs are simply stupid. He believes that we should eliminate the minimum wage and a reporter asked him if he would be good with people making $2 an hour, she could have said $2 a day and his answer would have been the same. He said he was good with that. She asked who he thought might only deserve $2 an hour and he said the mentally retarded.
YouTube - The Young Turks - Income Inequality ROCKS, says 'Shark Tank' Host Kevin O'Leary. 85 people in the whole world own as much as the bottom half of the population or roughly 3.5 BILLION people. By the way, many of those 85 people inherited their wealth and did nothing to create it.
If I were young, I would be screaming and yelling about the raw deal you are being given. The media tries to say it was the baby boomers or the illegal aliens or the Chines or whoever. Nope, it is the 85 people that have everything. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates actually made their money, not inherited wealth, personal brilliance and hard work and risk. I don't begrudge them what they have earned and admire them; but, I do begrudge people who have lied and cheated and stolen like J.P. Morgan.
There is a statistic being thrown around by a number of neo-conservatives that around 45% of the people don't pay income tax. It is the dumbest statistic that one could use. How many two year old's pay taxes? How many homeless pay income tax when they don't have an income other than what they can beg or recycle cans for? Anyone with a working class or middle class job knows that they are paying taxes and should know that they pay a higher percentage in taxes than the wealthy.
Personally, I am for a flat income tax. It could be 10% or 15% or whatever. If you make a $100,000, you pay $10,000. If you make $1,000,000 then you pay $100,000. Simple and requires no accountants. You pay as you benefit from society. Oddly enough I believe many on the far right would agree with me, though many would prefer to end income tax. Our taxes have given literally trillions in dollars to banks and other companies and they often pay $0 in taxes. Personally, I would rather feed the homeless than see my tax dollars go to bankers who ruined this economy and then used our taxes to pay themselves multi-million dollar bonuses. Does that make me a Communist, a liberal or a left winger? When did rationality and concern for the country as a whole stop being patriotic? Do you know what you call it when one person or a small family owns everything, you call it a monarchy.
UPDATE: You know what? Mr. Schiff could not have angered me more. What an idiot. To say that mentally retarded people are only worth $2.00 an hour really irks me. Actually, the mentally retarded do excellent at a number of jobs, especially jobs that require repetitious activity. When I was young and needed a job, I went to work in a cabinet making factory. Two employees, me and the owner. At the end of the first day, I got a 20% raise. I quit the job at the end of a week or two even though I was offered another raise. You will love the reason I quit. I spoke to the owner and said that we could hire people with mental deficiencies, get a tax break and that they made great employees. I thought they could do the simple things in assembly. As a craftsman I was assembling things that anyone could have. My value was in the use of the tools and my precision which saved on waste product. He told me he didn't want to be around retards and I quit. I didn't want to be around people like him who didn't care about others.
I believe we should match people to their abilities and wants. I met a young man once with a unique situation, he cannot see how the pieces fit together to achieve a goal. At least that is how it was explained to me and you know what, he is an amazing young man, very talented, very polite and very intentionally amusing. I have been thinking about what job would he best suited to for years. I thought about it and thought about it and concluded that he would be perfect for someone who was creating assembly lines and wanted to know what the smallest part of the job was that anyone could do. People pay a lot of money to create assembly lines and I have met some of them. What would having someone like him be worth when it could save you millions in design costs and redesign costs? I bet he would deserve more than $2 an hour; but, they would still only want to pay him that. They are not concerned about the value we contribute, they are concerned about how little they can give in return.
I think we need to create a situation where people can succeed, where the average person can get a fair return on their work investment. I have worked for over 40 years and gave up my health to do so. I did it because I thought it was best for my family. Economics is about supply and demand and there is no longer a demand for humans because of robotics and technology. They no longer need people like me and you, or so they think.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Unemployment the numbers
Well "they" have just published the fact that 331,000 people lost their jobs last month. Read the older blogs and ask yourself why anyone should be surprised that people got laid off after the holidays. It happens every year. "They" say the good news is that they thought 340,000 would lose their jobs. Don't you understand how little Wall Street cares about you? They are worried about bonuses and not about jobs; but, they have missed the real game. Unemployment just dipped and is probably under 6.5% which means no more free money and no more taper. ROFL.
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