A critical creative look at issues of Economics, Politics and Finding a Purpose in Life - Let's talk about it. I try to leave the woodpile higher than I found it.
Saturday, October 01, 2011
If you are overweight, you are in BIG trouble. OK, I am. BUT non the less the slippery slope that started with the antismoking nazis is going to start making your life verrry uncomfortable
This is a reality that most people do not understand. If you raise the minimum raise, you create more unemployment and people who might have had a chance to come up in the ranks. A higher minimum wage means more poverty. BUT who comes up with these ideas. TEA PARTIERS??? Think again.
IF there were men and women of God who wanted to take on a great mission field, these workers are unchurched and rough. Who has the courage to do this? Boom Towns are always difficult but there are a lot of souls deceived by new riches.
I am disturbed by this. How does it come to this kind of aimlessness?
I am turning 22 and I have no idea what to do. I am living at home with my parents and four younger siblings. I am unemployed and have only worked a few odd jobs since high school. I have taken a few courses at my local university but do not have a degree, let alone any idea what to get a degree in. I was never able to decide ...if there was any point in going back to school without a real focus.
I also have no social life, and if I do actually have any communication skills, they’re overshadowed by my social anxiety. I don’t know what I’m interested in or what my skills are. I feel so ashamed of what I’ve become that I avoid contact with people in case they ask me what I do or what my plans are. I can’t discuss anything with my parents and often pretend to be working on things or I go to the library so they think I’m busy.
This has gone on far too long and I’m desperate to do something about it, but I don’t know where to start. Could you give me advice on what to do?
I am glad this scumbag is gone. YET...it makes me uneasy. IF Obama or whoever follows him in 2013 can have a hit list to kill "enemies" is that OK if those enemies are US Citizens? I am a US Citizen. There are crackpots who might consider me an enemy of the state if they had a chance. I'm Conservative, Christian, White and against many things the mainstream culture is for. I look for the sli...ppery slope. I fear that's what we have here. YES, Anwar took up arms against the USA. That is treason. He can then be killed in the name of the state. BUT...if the state went too far against citizens like me...might I not take up arms to defend myself? I'm uncomfortable with this outcome. Osama Bin Laden is one thing...this is another. How close would this precedent be used to eliminate the second amendment for people like me?See More
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. This administration once more banged your head against the wall. INSANITY!
From the article: it was Mr. Hamm's turn to talk briefly with President Obama, "I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this."
The president's reaction? "He turned to me and said, 'Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to g...reen and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.'" Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, "Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing."
Washington keeps "sticking a regulatory boot at our necks and then turns around and asks: 'Why aren't you creating more jobs,'"
MY QUESTION: How can this administration be so out of touch with reality? Is the only solution to vote them out? Is there no turning away from this blindness? Is the legacy of his administration destined to be a period of Mass Ignorance? I don't hold anything against the man personally, I just wish he would quit listening to the people who keep leading him down these primrose paths.See More
The president's reaction? "He turned to me and said, 'Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to g...reen and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.'" Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, "Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing."
Washington keeps "sticking a regulatory boot at our necks and then turns around and asks: 'Why aren't you creating more jobs,'"
MY QUESTION: How can this administration be so out of touch with reality? Is the only solution to vote them out? Is there no turning away from this blindness? Is the legacy of his administration destined to be a period of Mass Ignorance? I don't hold anything against the man personally, I just wish he would quit listening to the people who keep leading him down these primrose paths.See More
Every generation has some guy who teaches people how to do this. I learned how forty years ago. Still can. Used to do parlor tricks with it. This has been around for hundreds of years. My wife is very good at this and can memorize a room full of people in a few minutes. BUT...we get older. It gets harder. IF you want to know how to do these things... this is as good as anything taught for the last few centuries.
Is is possible for ANY man or woman identified as an African American or Black (make your choice) full on conservative in social and fiscal values and to not be labeled by the media culture as an uncle tom, lover of Jim Crow, Oreo or House Negro? I just saw this and had to ask the question. I think the hatred for anyone off the reservation or as they might say off the plantation is so overwhelming that peer pressure has caused many to check their brains at the door. Herman Cain is right on this.
This is a despicable "Human" being. Everything he does demeans.
Exposing the heinous acts against the innocent around the world committed by Lutheran fundamentalists.
Can the rest of us be brave enough to face the truth?
Thursday, September 29, 2011
One of the most important Posts I have Ever Put up. Your world is about to end
Read his whole post which says in part:
There are actually two recessions:
The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There's plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful.
The other recession, though, the one with the loss of "good factory jobs" and systemic unemployment--I fear that this recession is here forever.
Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created.
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This means we may need to change our expecations, change our training and change how we engage with the future. Still, it's better than fighting for a status quo that is no longer. The good news is clear: every forever recession is followed by a lifetime of growth from the next thing...
Job creation is a false idol. The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done.
This revolution is at least as big as the last one, and the last one changed everything.
He's right you know. Get Ready
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
IF you can read and understand this clear explanation of the Kondratieff long wave, you will understand why and how I know what is coming. ALSO, embrace what Harry S Dent says regarding the demographic Shift. It's all a matter of knowing what is driving our economics. Sufficient to say, with all going on in the world, we are in for a really hard time.
People have wondered why I do NOT recommend Gold as a hedge or investment. It's currency..but it's currency that has Government Control written all over it. Look at the 1930s. Confiscation. This will come here. Now even if you bought gold for 1800 per oz...you can only SELL it for 1/3rd. Be careful
The Job as we have known it is gone. Learn to live by your wits. Take what is there. You will grow up and out as you do. Doing the Groundhog Day Job search is a dead end street. Send Resume, or Fill out on line application, get rejected, look again fill out application, get rejected etc etc ad infinitum
This is a boondoggle WORSE than Solyndra. More green energy fantasy. Crony "Capitalism" on a metaphysical scale. AND, when you see who is behind all this...it leads back to the Chicago Way. Other People's money at waste. People should start going to jail soon, perp walks, right? Right? Disgusting. I keep hoping for a breakthru in energy production..but get the government out of it. In fairness...BUSH did the same kind of foolishness..ergo all the junk littering the landscape disguised as wind energy.
Watergate didn't have a Body Count...the Gun Scandal DOES...hundreds. Eric Holder must be arrested NOW and placed in prison.
I know this is true, and how did we come to this???
Can anyone name 10 greatest inventions created in the last 50 years by any Muslim Country or Greece? I don't mean to be cruel, but does anyone ask this question: Why do those in Israel have a corner on the creativity market? I suppose one could say, well they have good education, they have good family values, or such. IF you leave out the Blessings of God on Israel, it's a tough call. OR coul...d it be what the Prophet said: Isaiah 45:1 I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. OR Proverbs 8:12 I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.See More
If you are overweight, you are in BIG trouble. OK, I am. BUT non the less the slippery slope that started with the antismoking nazis is going to start making your life verrry uncomfortable
Monday, September 26, 2011
a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff
Remember, not only did you contribute to Social Security but your employer did too. It totaled 15% of your income before taxes. If you averaged only 30K over your 49 year working life, that’s close to $220,500.
If you calculate the future value of $4,500 per year (yours & your employer’s contribution) at a simple 5% (less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows), after 49 years of working, you’d have $892,919.98. If you took out only 3% per year, you would receive $26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years, and that’s with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit! If you bought an annuity and it paid 4% per year, you’d have a lifetime income of $2,976.40 per month.
The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had. Entitlement, my foot, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout !! Congressional benefits, aka free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements !!!!!!
They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place? 99% of people won't have the guts to forward this. I'm one of the 1%.
VDH on Cultural Decline
Redistribution of wealth rather than emphasis on its creation is surely a symptom of aging societies. Whether at Byzantium during the Nika Riots or in bread and circuses Rome, when the public expects government to provide security rather than the individual to become autonomous through a growing economy, then there grows a collective lethargy. I think that is the message of Juvenal’s savage satires about both mobs and the idle rich. Fourth-century Athenian literature is characterized by forensic law suits, as citizens sought to sue each other, or to sue the state for sustenance, or to fight over inheritances.
The subtext of Petronius’s Satyricon is an affluent, childless, often underemployed citizenry seeking inheritances and lampooning the productive classes that produce enough excess for the wily to get by just fine without working. Somewhere around 1985 in California I noticed that my students were hoping for a state job first, a federal job second, a municipal job third — and a private one last. Around 1990, suddenly two sorts of commercials were aired everywhere: how to join a law suit by calling a law firm’s 1-800 number or how to get a free power chair, scooter, or some other device by calling the 1-800 number of a health care company that would do the paper work for Social Security on your behalf.
Why is it more moral for a federal bureaucrat in a state-supplied SUV to shut down an offshore oil rig on grounds that it is too dangerous for the environment than for a private individual to risk his own capital to find some sort of new fuel to power his government’s SUV fleet? All affluent societies believe that they are just too rich not to be able to afford another regulation, just one more moralizing indulgence, yet again an added entitlement. But as we see now in postmodern America, idle 250,000 acres of farmland for a tiny fish, shut down an entire oilfield, put off a new natural gas find in worry over possible environmental alteration, add a cent to the sales tax, mandate yet another prescription drug entitlement not funded, or offer yet another in-state tuition discount to an illegal alien — and the costs finally equate to an implosion as we see in Greece or California.
Read the whole thing
Things you NEED to know
- A pig's orgasm lasts 30 minutes. (O.M.G.!!!)
- A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death. (Creepy. I'm still not over the pig.)
- The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. (Honey, I'm home . What the...?)
- The flea can jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a football field.
- (30 minutes. Lucky pig! Can you imagine?)
- The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds. (What could be so tasty on the bottom of a pond?) Some lions mate over 50 times a day. (I still can't believe that pig ...quality over quantity.)
- Butterflies taste with their feet. (Something I always wanted to know.)
- Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump. (Okay, so that would be a good thing.)
- A cat's urine glows under a black light. (I wonder how much the government paid to figure that out.)
- An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. (I know some people like that.)
- Starfish have no brains. (I know some people like that, too.)
- Polar bears are left-handed. (Talk about a southpaw.)
- Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure. (What about that pig? Do the dolphins know about the pig?)
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Never lie to your Mama
About a week later, Tina came to Anthony saying, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the silver sugar bowl. You don't suppose she took it, do you?" "Well, I doubt it, but I'll email her, just to be sure. " So he sat down and wrote an email:
Dear Mama, I'm not saying that you "did" take the sugar bowl from my house; I'm not saying that you "did not" take it. But the fact remains that it has been missing ever since you were here for dinner. Love, Anthony
Several days later, Anthony received a response email from his Mama which read:
Dear son, I'm not saying that you "do" sleep with Tina, and I'm not saying that you "do not" sleep with her. But the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her OWN bed, she would have found the sugar bowl by now. Love, Mama. ------
Moral: Never lie to your Mama
Why do so many people believe sports, entertainment or a political job is the way UP?
They are heroes of Sports, Heroes of Entertainment, Heroes of politics.
Those heroes are OK if you get to be a big time rap star, ball player or President of the USA. The truth is you won't ever get there without exceptional luck, opportunity and skill. Chasing that dream of the unachievable imposed on the culture is soft classism.
The reality is, those heroes exist because they show a way out, a way up. Why basketball, football, baseball or a job is the only way out is because the REAL WAY OUT is not taught in schools. It is not given a place of prominence. In fact if you watch television programs, those in business are often portrayed as evil or conniving. The truth is opposite of that. When I grew up, businessmen were my heroes. Melroe (I met Les), Shaffer (I met him), Carnegie, Ford, Edison and on and on. They were heroes because I read books about them that showed them in the light of accomplishment.
Therefore today I am a businessman. I became what I Fixed my Gaze upon.
Somehow we must have our children reading about the greatness of the businessmen and women who hire others, who provide opportunity, who are making a difference in creating the middle class.
I don't understand how in the world we got away from teaching business, entrepreneurship and the idea of unlimited opportunity in the classroom.
There were 33 people in my small school graduation class. We all came out with aspirations to do something great. Many did. Making a difference.
Today, many leave school with no dream because they were not exposed to the reality of how to find it.
I asked a Friend of mine why in a mob of a hundred thousand agribusinessmen there were zero members of the community of which he is a part. He said that it was never taught that there was any opportunity in agriculture. I saw every nationality, every language, but only one african american person. There is something wrong when people think entertainment, sports or a political job are the only ways up.
IF you want to have your young person, your child, your friend break out of the pit of poverty, start buying them positive books on the lives of successful businessmen. We need to know their stories.