Economics 100...

Yes...the class before Econ 101. It's basic really. People apply it to their personal lives daily. Don't spend more than you make. Sure, there's the use of credit cards...but credit only lasts so long. Eventually, you WILL be bankrupt. And not the kind of bankrupt where you write everything off but get to keep your house, cars, etc. The kind where you're thrown onto the streets with little more than the clothes on your back.

In your personal lives, you're expected to live realistically, lawfully, and dutifully. You can't print more money to suddenly make more than you spend. You can't insist that your friends or family give you the money so that you make more than you spend. And you can't rob someone so that you make more than you spend. You spend less, or your in the aforementioned homeless predicament.

So let's extrapolate that out to the national level. How on earth do we plan to function as a nation by spending way more than we make?? In the national scene, the government doesn't exactly act realistically, lawfully, or dutifully...at least not at the moment. And it will catch up to us. The printing money, borrowing money, stealing money...the government does that too...but it's just a temporary fix. The answer lies in less spending, and we as citizens must demand it.

Let's talk realistically for a minute. We can't afford to add all the new programs that Hillary or Barack will propose once they get into office. We can't. The war spending...yeah, that sucks. And it will create less spending once one of them end the war. But they plan on running deficits right back up with Universal Health Care, National Education programs, and a plethora of other programs.

Now, they could continue printing more money. But as I've talked about before, that temporary fix leads to low valuation of the dollar and high inflation.

They could borrow money from other governments. Yeah, let's let China, Saudia Arabia, Japan, and others practically own our government. They will surely look out for our best interests.

Or...let's look at what they will do...tax. First they will tax the rich. Besides, everyone says that the rich can afford it...that they don't need the money. But make no mistake, when that money dries up, they will come after everyone else. Basically, we will become Denmark. And Denmark's fine...for Denmark. They're no super power...they certainly aren't a wealthy nation...and they don't help other countries out because they have enough to worry about theirselves. You know how much taxes they charge? Upwards of 60%. Sure, that sounds fine to rich people and people who aren't you. But imagine your income cut in half. Then add 10% for good measure.

It's a temporary fix...raising taxes, and particuarly taxing the rich. Who do you think employs you, if you aren't self employed? Someone wealthy. Who comes up with and sees through to fruition all great inventions and ideas. Someone wealthy....or they eventually become wealthy. Why else would they see their ideas through to the end if there wasn't a payoff for all their hard work? Did I mention that wealthy people who aren't named Warren Buffett already pay almost 50% taxes? How much higher do Barack and Hillary want to go? 55%, 60%, 75%?? Do you think someone's going to come up with a cure for Cancer, or create the next great renewable fuel, if they don't get rewarded monetarily for their vision and hard work? In the words of the great John Wayne...Not hardly.

So are you satisified becoming Denmark? Again, it's a nice enough place, I'm sure. I've got nothing against them. But they aren't the leader of the world...they don't have everyone clamoring to become migrate there to become citizens. If you are, maybe you should check it out first. They don't have as many freedom's as we do. And if that still sounds good to you...you're in the minority. Do us all a favor and move there instead of making everyone else convert to your idea of happiness is. Let this country do what it was founded on...let the free market decide. Oh, and I forgot...you may not be welcome there....because diversity isn't exactly embraced there...since 90% of their residents were born and raised there. Good Luck with that.

Like all parents know...you have to let your kid fail so that he or she will learn. It's an unfortunate and heartwrenching fact of life. That's what we have to do here...some times things have to fail. Recessions have to happen. And as all teachers know...you can't save everyone. So let's say we stop before the government tried to do just that....spend the money we work for to save everyone...even those that may not deserve it...which is also unfortunate but a fact of life...some people don't deserve to be coddled.

Hope is great...I like hope. But hope in one hand and...well, you probably know how the rest of that goes. Just don't blindly buy into Barack's hope, or Hillary's rhetoric. Make sure to look beyond it and make sure it makes sense and isn't just a quick fix that could change the composition of our country...to be like a Denmark.

Just Words...

Recently there has been a controversy about a speech that Barack Obama gave that was "plagiarized". There was a clamor about his speech being lifted from a speech that was given by the Governor of Massachusetts. The coverage on this issue has ranged from non-existent to calling the Illinois senator lazy.

To be honest, I think it's all getting blown out of proportion. The speech in question contains about 30 seconds of material that Barack Obama borrows from friend Deval Patrick. The two more or less collaberoted over the material, according to Deval Patrick, and seems as though it could have easily have been Deval Patrick being made as the scapegoat had Barack given his speech first. Or more likely, it would have been a non-issue.

The coverage that I saw on the news last night did the two speeches more injustice than justice. From the two mini-clips, it appeared to me as though Barack Obama was mocking Deval Patrick. Obama delivered his speech with more passion than Patrick, if you ask me, and since both programs I watched last night played Deval Patrick's speech first, it gave it that appearance.

In reality, Barack Obama was answering Hillary Clinton's criticism that he was all words and rhetoric, implying that he had no substance.

It's just another example of how news organizations aren't careful on how they report their stores, and an example of people trying to bring others down.

So if I, a conservative, whom is supposed to be one of the ones that would leap on a story such as this, can write it off as a complete non-issue, do you think we can get the media to do the same and focus on important things such as issues, hmmm?

*Sigh* Voting Games...

In much the same respect that I don't understand people who will choose to stay home and not vote, I don't understand people who say they are Republican's but during the primary they go out to vote for the democrat that they think will have the least chance of winning.

Ignorant games like that is why those people deserve not to have their candidate win. I couldn't stand there and say, "Yeah, I voted for someone that I have the exact opposite views of." Maybe it's a self-repsect thing...I don't know.

All I know is that I don't feel justified in griping about anyone if I didn't stand up and vote for the guy, or girl, I thought best suited to represent me. If you're playing these games, you clearly don't take your duty of voting seriously, and I don't even want to hear your opinion if you can't take our democracy seriously.

Straight Talk Express on the Economy...

A while back, McCain talked in Michigan and gave them some 'Straight Talk' stating that they needed to face reality that their auto jobs weren't coming back to America. Like many other economists and experts, McCain is happy with manufacturing jobs leaving America. He thinks that we are now a service-oriented economy and that we don't have to have manufacturing jobs here because of that.

The truth is, the loss of manufacturing jobs, of blue collar jobs...that's what's killing the middle class. It used to be that a worker could put in a 40 hour work week of honest, hard work, and make a descent living at it. No longer. Those jobs have all but left...to China, Indonesia, India, Hong King, Taiwan, etc.

Why? Because it's cheaper. Think about that for a second. It's cheaper for a company to build a manufacturing plant in another country, pay for cheap labor, pay for global shipping, and pay low import taxes/tariffs than it is to keep a plant in the United States. Does anyone else see anything wrong with that?

Sure many people make companies out to be the bad guy...to be all about the almighty dollar...and in many cases they are true. But wouldn't you rather have those companies here, keeping solid jobs in the United States rather than sending them abroad?

We charge WAY too high taxes on companies. So much so that they would rather leave than keep the American dream, of merely making a descent living, alive for fellow Americans.

In one way, this may be the perfect time to reduce corporate taxes and make it easier on companies to produce things here. So many manufacturing jobs have left...there are so few here now...that we can create a new set of rules with wish to reward companies to come back. Make it beneficial to have them bring jobs back and make the plants and buildings environmentally friendly. Or not. But what I think is a mistake is to depend on the rest of the world to provide us with all of our "stuff" that we buy. We must demand that government make it easier for Americans to provide ourselves with "stuff". Perhaps then can we create the honest, hard-working middle class again.