Economy

I've been thinking about our economy this weekend. There seems to be no cure for our problems. I believe there is a cure but first it will take a change in the mindset of Americans.

There was a time when we produced and sold more to each other than we purchased from other countries. We had natural resources to back up any money held in our hands. Of course, these days, the money is only as good as we believe it to be (consumer confidence). I also think of it as being only as good as our government, since the government is printing the notes (money) and standing good for its value.

I am not an economist in the college-educated sense. I have lived a pretty long time and have struggled with getting money to buy the things we need to survive. You know, housing, food, clothes, transportation, movie rentals, whoops, strike that last one, it is not really a necessity and we have probably not rented more than a dozen in our lifetime.

The problem is that the global economy is good only for those countries that do not produce their fair share of the needs of their country. Maybe it is not a kind statement but poor countries soak up the wealth of other countries like a sponge. Some countries are poor, not because of a lack of resources but because they can not stop fighting each other and their neighbors. There are countries that could do well on tourism, if it was safe to travel there.

Anyway, back to the U.S. economy. I don't know when we started borrowing from China so much. I do remember when our jobs started being exported to other countries where people had to work for next to nothing. We became a country of services. Someone decided that we would do the white collar work and let others do our grunt work. It has not worked out so well. We still have many people who had rather work with their hands and make things. Instead, their working hands must learn new trades which require a delicate touch or they must slip away into the sunset.

We are in a cycle with China. We borrow money from them to buy the things they make. It does not take a genius to figure out where most of the money ends up. The wholesale price of the goods goes back to the ones who made it with cuts from the 'middle-men'. The loans accrue interest which must be paid. There goes more money out of our country. The goods are made elsewhere, so there goes the wages which will be spent in a foreign country. There isn't much wealth staying between the oceans for us to work with.

I do not believe that an economy that produces no tangible product can survive. By tangible, I mean something you can touch. We have lots of services but you cannot eat, wear, or ride in services. Renting a car is a service but it is based on a tangible.

We must cut cost, produce products that our people can afford to buy and keep the money in our country. I'm all for teaching people how to fish so they can eat. I do not believe that one nation has enough fish to feed the world. Each nation must be taught to live on its own resources and balanced trade. One-sided trade will bleed one side dry while making another rich.

The government ought to take the lead but they will not. People will have to stop using credit like currency. "Living within ones means" is a good idea. The government gets their taxes even on credit purchases. If the debt goes bad, the government still has their cut. So, it seems good to the government to encourage credit spending. Indeed, I don't think they could get along with their current wasteful spending habits, without the 'buy on credit' tax money.

No, the government will not change. It is almost enough to turn one against education. Some of the most educated people in the world are running our country and they can do nothing but get us further into debt and let wars strip the economy. If you must buy something, pay for it. If you must go to war, win it and come home.

Let Freedom Ring

Little by little, Freedom disappears. The ringing is not so loud anymore.

It seems harmless sometimes, a little is taken here, a little there. Sometimes, like Sunday, a lot is taken. I found it ironic that such a major action was taken on the Lord's day, a slap in the face to our founding fathers who honored that day.

There are a number of things that were done in the past that would not be allowed now. Some were wrong, some were necessary. The point is it was citizens taking care of business without government telling them they could or could not do it.

The way it works is that they let things get in such a big mess in the first place that many will cheer when they finally step in and fix something that they generated.

Government involvement in private affairs never works.

There are times when people must be protected from themselves. We have to have law and order. If someone does something that is harmful to another, they must be held accountable. That is protecting freedom not taking it away.

An example might be in order. It use to be that if a dog kept on eating chickens, which were providing food for the household, that dog would be shot. It had learned a behavior that was harmful to the livelihood of the family which it could not unlearn. The taste of the chicken was to much for the dog to overcome, no matter how many times it was told to stop. In our society, that reasoning would not work. It would be called animal cruelty. The dog is on a higher plan socially than the chicken. The freedom lost is that the family is not allowed to decide what is best for them. The choice was a dog that would not mind and was killing valuable resources or the chickens which provided food.

Another example is that if I found gold on my property, it would not belong to me but would belong to the government. Why? Because they decided one day that it was theirs and sent out a notice. Property owners could get a lawyer and claim the minerals for themselves if they wanted to fight the government in court. Who ever wins that battle? And, who can afford it? Certainly not a normal working person.

People use to have a barrel in their back yard where they burned mail with personal information on it and other paper products. Now, it is illegal and can reap a fine if it is done. I know, we must be concerned about air pollution. Maybe, it is no longer appropriate to do that. The point is we are not allowed to decide. it is taken to the landfill where it will rot and be treated with chemicals. Some will seep into the ground but at least we can't see it.

Freedom! We enjoyed it for a time. The generation that is graduating now will never know what real freedom is. It use to be that if I got hungry for some kind of meat, I would just take my gun and go shoot one and cook it for supper. I'd be afraid to slap a bug now if anyone was looking. Cruelty! Cruelty!

Now, I go to the doctor. He ask me a few questions. Takes my blood. Then, if it is within government guidelines, he can treat me as he determines I should be treated. If it is something insurance will pay for and as I said within government guidelines. Even the doctor cannot treat patients based on his years of training and practice.

Freedom lost! It is slipping away. You have to live a while to see it.

You know I use to could wash my car when I wanted to. Better be careful these days. It might be the wrong day to do that.

Freedom going away! We can still do more than a lot of people in other nations. If it is to stay that way, governments must be forced to stay in their place of protecting the people without running their day-to-day lives.

We have the election process. People must educate themselves on the details and not just vote the way the media sways them. We need to pray that there will not be so much damage done in this four years that it cannot be fixed when some sensible people are elected in November.

The Mess We're In

Sometimes you have to stretch the memory to get to the root of things. Way back before Bill Clinton left office, he lifted the regulations on Wall Street. It was in his last days so the change took place in the Bush administration. That was about the deal of insuring those risky Wall Street bets on the risky loans for people who could not afford the houses they bought. They bundled the loans and sold them to investors who posted them on Wall Street and got more people to invest. If you understand that, you are probably hiding your money in a mattress, if you have any money.

Next, the Democrats took over Congress about the time Bush was reelected. With Pelosi in charge, they blocked every piece of legislation the president sent to them that would help the country. Government was almost at a standstill for several years. Why would a Democratically controlled congress block even good legislation? The answer is to make the Republican president look bad and pave the way for a Democratic candidate to get elected president. Maybe some think no political party would put the country at risk to gain power in Washington DC. Maybe pigs fly too.

The housing problem is little different than the Savings and Loan disaster of a few decades ago. The associations stretched the bands of the market and it snapped leaving many in financial distress. That also cost a bundle. It was not caused by a failure of the system but was a result of greed.

Here is the danger we face. The government is putting up the money (which they don't have) to prop up companies that played the stock market (with money they did not have) and lost. Who did have the money? The citizens of our country had the money and trusted it to Wall Street. That's like giving a monkey a banana and telling it to not eat it. The danger is that instead of a free enterprise system, we are slipping into a socialist system where everyone depends on the government for everything. In the free enterprise system, you take your chances and if you loose, you start over. In the socialist system, you take your changes, and if you loose the government gives you back the money you lost and takes part in the company. We all know how good the government is at making a budget balance.

The problem is if you give a teenager all the money they need, they will never go to work and become responsible citizens. If the government gives the companies all the money they need, they will never take responsibility for their actions. Since when do we reward crooks who run crooked companies, well, since just a few months ago. Probably a lot of the people giving away taxpayer money also lost money in this mess and are trying to recoup it by building the companies back up.

Our country prospers only when the government minds their own business.

Whose to say that we can't do without the stock market anyway? Everything doesn't have to be national or international. If banks did their job, businesses would have the expansion capitol they need. The stock market is a trumped up casino where people bet their few thousand that they can make a million off it.

Drug lords Winning in Two Ways

We live in troubling times. What used to be a nuisance (drugs) has now engulfed our nation and changed our society and legal system. Drug lords are winning in two ways:

First they still get drugs into the country or make them here and manage to recruit users from elementary school level (not just in schools) and by the time they are teenagers they are proficient in the language and process of procurement of drugs, should they desire them. If a pusher can get them to take that first free hit, they are usually hooked by the drug and the false pleasure it brings. The habit continues and escalates as they go into adulthood without maturing into adults. We end up with a society of grown bodies but immature minds. They are like people with split personalities. The user will function as an adult in some ways, i.e. working and living on their own (for a time) but when it comes to proper judgment calls, they are still stuck in their adolescence. So, the pushers have a ready market. As the older users become wrecked physically and cannot hold down a job to support their habit, they become a burden of the legal system where they will either go into the prison system or support the legal system in fines.

Second, the drug lords have succeeded by changing the legal system and the attitudes of law enforcement. It seems everything is centered around drugs. Those other crimes are simply incidental to the job of law enforcement. Every stop by law enforcement becomes a combat situation while the officer expects every stop to be a confrontation with strung-out drug users. Gone is the courteous officer, who speaks politely to a citizen of a democratic society. They have stopped the enemy and the enemy must be jerked around and slammed onto car hoods. Anyone associated with the 'criminal' must be treated as a co-conspirator. So, the legal system is clogged up with user-victims of the pusher, while the pusher goes about his business of getting new recruits. Every resource is used to catch the drug addict. The pusher has already paid his way and in many cases the legal system has been corrupted. It appears that the problem is being addressed with all the arrest but the real problem is seldom addressed: the big time pushers.

I am not one who believes that all cops are crooked. I do believe that people live in fear of retaliation in this country. Obviously, the user will not report their supplier for two reasons. One is fear. The other is turning in their source for future drugs. A good cop would be putting his job and life in jeopardy if he reported corruption, especially if it was dominate in the force. We will never know because allegations will never be investigated. It should be obvious that someone is on the take when government officials live so much above citizens financially.

My solution, if there is one, would be to treat all drug addicts like victims and provide them with treatment instead of tossing them in jail and collecting money from them which parents must often come up with to try to help their children. Drug addicts are causalities of a war that law enforcement is loosing in a big way. If the drug addict were taken out of the arrest tally, results against this plague would be shameful.

I am convinced that even good elected law enforcement people should be replaced periodically to discourage the infiltration of drug money and the corruption of officials. Entrenched, appointed officials should also be replaced but that would be difficult because they are in-fact entrenched with the people who are the movers and shakers in a given county.

Conclusion. The old argument of supply and demand is just that an old argument. They say stop using and drug lords will stop making the stuff. My answer is: When they train our children to use drugs how exactly are we going to convince their drug stained mind to stop using when their judgment is already ruined. If their teeth are rotten, we take away their sweets, so why tell them to stop using drugs and we will stop the bad people from making them. No. We should be taking away the 'sweets' and treating the damage it has done. Not punishing the victim. From a legal standpoint (if I was qualified to argue the point), a person who has once used could be said to be mentally incapable of knowing what they were doing at the time of the second offense. Their mind has been altered, has it not?