Streaming Media Autoplay

Whether you are watching Facebook newsfeeds, or YouTube, or Netflix, or something similar, those organizations have demonstrated the true value of your eyeballs to their websites to which that all of them have added autoplay features to the video that is streaming in front of you.  The bottom line is that the more engaged you are with any particular website the more that the providers of such can improve their viewership numbers, advertising numbers, and so forth.  While it is true that for motivated people one can actually shut off the autoplay feature, there is something rather strange about the experience that precludes certain people from doing so.  Whether the media being displayed is inherent mesmerizing itself,  or you are just too lazy or lethargic to click away, or you are curious, or bored, or possibly even desiring to watch and watch and watch, the autoplay feature does keep more people on particular websites for longer periods of time, and some of those people, for considerably longer periods.

In the world of television with commercial advertising, keeping viewers engaged is a trickier route to take, simply because most advertisers want to take up the full screen with their advertisements, and also because most shows being shown on the half or full hour, that people know that they will have a few minutes of commercials before the next program begins.  One way to get around this, is to utilize some of the same tricks that streaming media does, which is to take the previous program and reduced its screen size, while adding the pending program to the corner with some previews, and perhaps have some banner ads around the television, with the hope that you can rope in your viewer into watching the next program and then hit them with commercials at the ten or twelve minute mark, after you have gotten their attention.

The streaming media autoplay is a feature that can be shut off, but many people just don't get around to doing that, and the brilliance or insidious of such an autoplay feature is the fact that so many people allow the autoplay to be the master of what they are viewing rather than taking responsibility themselves for what they really want to watch.  This implies strongly that for a significant amount of people and for a significant amount of time, that viewers of streaming media aren't necessarily watching what they are watching because they really love the program, but rather that they are watching the media to fill in their free time because they are bored and rather blasé in their overall outlook.

Everyone has seen some version of a commercial stating that "I bet you can't eat just one", and often times this is true, because the particular product does taste so good, or doesn't fill you up enough, or whatever, and you really do eat more than one.  The streaming media autoplay takes advantage of the fact that for many people, watching streaming media is a relatively passive experience, so that the providers of such makes sure to keep the punchbowl full so as to keep viewers watching, whether that is what they really want to do, our ought to do or not, the bottom line is that it works.  At least, at this point, there is a way to stop the autoplay feature, so that the ultimate control in still in our own hands, and eyes.

The United States has over 11 Million Illegal Immigrants

As reported by Wikipedia: "The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States in January 2012."  To the uninitiated or for those that are just waking up from a Rip Van Winkle sleep, the number of illegal immigrants present in this sovereign nation is absolutely stunning, almost unfathomable.  After all, the United States spent within the last decade over $2 billion dollars on border fencing and has over 21,000 border patrol agents to patrol our borders, yet somehow or other, millions of illegal immigrants have migrated to America and live and work amongst documented Americans.

The top four countries that illegal immigrants originate from are all Spanish speaking, of which, by far, the country that provides the most illegal immigrants to America is Mexico.  There are a lot of questions to be asked about why there are so many illegal immigrants in America, but most of the answers to those are rather intuitive or become rather obvious after any sort of thought.  For instance, although America at the federal level does not have an officially designated language, it is quite obvious that if it was to declare one, that it would be English.  Yet, strange to say, calling just about any customer service agency in America from any place within America, will almost invariably give the caller the option of hearing instructions or information in either English or Spanish.  The reason that this is so is because America has an incredible amount of immigrants, legal, illegal, permanent residents, and those granted amnesty to which their first language is Spanish, to which, quite clearly, being able to communicate utilizing their language of preference makes everything easier.

The next question of interest, would be, once someone has crossed the border somehow, they have to find means of employment, housing, and so forth, to which with all the identification rules, laws, and policing that America has, would appear to be quite formidable.  The answer to that particular puzzle is to understand whether in war or peace, that there is always and always will be an "underground railroad" or similar, to which all it takes is citizens or businesses that out of humanitarian concerns, or for self-serving economic reasons, or for various other reasons, feel a need to help, abet, and support illegal immigrants in their quest for the American dream.

The fact of the matter is, that hotels need housekeepers, restaurants need dish washers, cooks, and janitorial services, dual working families need both maids as well as nannies, construction sites need cheap labor in order to be competitive, agricultural interests need hands in the fields, and so on, to which each of these industries in one way or one form or another, have a need that an illegal immigrant can easily fill, and usually at a much lower price point than legal domestic labor.  This means that these businesses and personal interests have a vested interest in illegal immigrants being part and parcel of this land, and thereby the local governing authorities not wanting to upset what already works and is common knowledge, for the most part, allows it to be.

Then there is the fundamental question, as to how do so many illegal immigrants actually successfully cross the border to begin with, and the most basic answer to that question is that there are now and always have been powerful vested interests that make sure to accommodate policing and governing authorities so as to permit the crossing of these immigrants into our nation.  The bottom line is that the sheer number of illegal immigrants in this country can only mean that these illegal immigrants are strongly desired by influential and important people in conjunction with business interests for their benefit, and until such a time as those interests dissipate, the number of illegal immigrants and those needs will not materially change.

The Impossible Task of Pension funds

We have lived primarily over the last decade in an era of low inflation, historically low interest rates for borrowing as well as investing, and historically low GDP growth rates.  America is a mature country that is aging, has a population growth rate of less than 1% per year, and devotes more and more each year of its money or its borrowing of money for legacy items such as social security and healthcare.  All of this means that for investors, investment returns must be lower, because inflation is quiescent, and therefore real returns are more proximate to the actual invested returns, than what was the case back two or three decades ago. 

One of the fundamental things that helps defined benefit pension funds, that is to say pension funds that stipulate how much and how long you will receive a certain amount of money upon retirement, is that those numbers may or may not be tied to inflation, may or may not be limited to a certain cost of living increase ceiling, and may or may not be correlated with an inflation rate that favors the pensioner.  This means in most cases, that inflation helps pension funds earn their particular goal of 7.5% or whatever it is, because inflation helps to push investment results up, even though the real return will actually be considerably lower because the value of that money has been devalued through inflation.  This means that with inflation investments are able to utilize a tailwind that helps to achieve desired investment goals, and deflation or very low inflation provides a headwind.

The last decade has proven that low inflation, low GDP growth, and low interest rates, are not necessarily going to be transitory, that indeed, they may be part of the "new normal", which means that the type of safe investment choice, such as bonds, which historically offered a steady rate of return with minimal risk, are not an investment vehicle that many pension funds can take advantage of, because bond yields at the present day are so anemic.  This means, that pension funds must increase their investment choices as well as their investment risk, which makes for a much higher volatility in their investment returns just to achieve what previously they had achieved, with relative safety and sanguinity.

In the investment world, there are going to be winners as well as losers, with those that just have to make 7.5% or thereabouts, forced to take risks in order to achieve their benchmark, because by not doing so, their pension fund will begin to suffer shortfalls to its commitments to its pensioners.  At the same time by taking those risks, the volatility as well as the standard deviation of these investments will begin to accelerate into previously uncharted and shaky territory.

In the US stock market, all the major indexes at the present time are either at their all-time peak, or near them, which suggests that the easy money has already been made, further to the point, GDP growth in America has not exceeded 3% since 2005, and inflation has exceeded 4% just once since 1991.  All of the above, points to the invariable fact that to get a return north of 5% going forward, pension funds have to invest outside of the United States market, which increases risk and unknowns, with invariably disasters coming back to haunt pension funds.

A more prudent course of action with pension funds is to reduce the benchmark to something far more legitimate, such as 4%, and make wholesale changes to defined pension plans so as to reflect those more realistic returns and therefore pension pools that will be disbursed must be lower in the future; rather than pretending that benchmarks of 7.5% can be hit year after year, when, in fact, in aggregate, that will not and cannot happen.

Don't Call this a Revolution

Our Declaration of Independence was approved by Congress on July 4, 1776, a date that is still celebrated each and every July 4, with fireworks, parades, and family gatherings.  Although many people call the war between those that had declared their independence from Great Britain, the revolutionary war, the words revolution are not found in our Declaration of Independence, mainly because those that debated and signed this document did not believe that that their purpose was to declare a revolution against Great Britain but instead that their purpose was to present to the world the candid facts as to why they had a right to dissolve the political bands that connected them with Great Britain.

While some people may consider that the words revolution and independence, and the denial that we fought a revolutionary war, some sort of semantic dance, it fundamentally is not.  There are many people that rebel against their government for all sorts of reasons, legitimate or not, carefully constructed and debated or not, but far fewer, that put pen to paper, to declare the reasons why they must declare and have the right to their independence from the tyranny that presently oppresses them.

In the case of America, the Declaration of Independence is the seminal document that is the very essence of what our Founding Fathers risked their lives, their fortunes, and their scared honor towards.  Their appeal was made to not only other men and other nations, but more importantly was also made to the Supreme Judge of the world, signifying that their underlying belief was that the rights of mankind was not bestowed upon them by the so-called Divine rights of Kings, but instead that each of us are gifted by our Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these very rights, governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and when the form of that government is inimical to these unalienable rights, it is the right, it is their duty, to throw off the chains of that oppressive government and its agencies.

The petition made by our Declaration of Independence, was a well reasoned and carefully constructed argument that justified Americans from further remaining under the oppression and control of the British State, and that the illegitimacy of the present rule was entirely to the disgrace of Great Britain, for a litany of abuses and usurpations to which the British government had enacted against the people, without their consent, as if the people were mere pawns to the British crown.

The Declaration made clear that the King was unfit to be our ruler, and that any ruler that becomes destructive of our life, liberty, and happiness had no place as our ruler and was by definition, a tyrant, and therefore illegitimate in his power.  Further, in order to secure our natural and unalienable rights, America had to fight Great Britain, in a war of Independence, to which our justifications were clearly delineated, clearly understood by the people, and clearly declared to the world. 

This war was not a revolution it was instead, a war to return to the people fair access to the public good, as well as to their natural state of free association and freedom, to which these natural rights had been wrongly taken from them.  It was, therefore, a war of independence, lawful in its purpose, against the lawlessness of those that believed that they were above the law.

Walk a mile in my Shoes

By far the easiest type of prejudice, prejudgment and the like, relies simply upon the look of the man in question, to which, ingrained within the American milieu, those that are other than white in complexion, are invariably treated by the white ruling class with at best suspicion or perhaps a begrudging respect, sometimes with apathy, and to a large extent by a significant portion of the status quo with disgust, outright hostility, and categorical racism.  Although overt prejudicial conditions within America have most definitely improved over time, that progress is quite deceptive, to which even a cursory glance at justice and injustice in virtually every community clearly demonstrates that minorities, especially minorities of darker complexion are far more likely to be incarcerated as well as poor with little real hope of progress.

The one thing in America that has not changed and is not subject to being changed, is the systemic attack upon minorities that are impoverished and are living in poor conditions whether ghettos or the equivalent to, with significantly high numbers of single parent households, anemic employment opportunities, pathetic and unequal public schooling, substantially higher incarceration rates, and substantially lacking all the positive accouterments that  so many of us take for granted, such as safety, love, respect, positive role models, and so forth, replaced instead with being treated as less than human and unworthy of our respect.

There is though a rather disturbing tale that isn't told often enough, which is the hubris of the ruling class in regards to those that they feel are not worthy to sit with them at the same table and this is that the truth of the matter is that it is the circumstances of our life, that is to say, where we were born, who we were born to, our wealth or lack of it, our good education or lack of access to it, our good family or lack of one, and the complexion of our skin, that define so often the choices or lack of choices that we really do have. 

There isn't any reason to cue the violins, because when you deprive a man of his self-respect, when you deprive a man of fair merit-driven opportunity, when you deprive a man a fair wage or even a fair opportunity to make a fair wage, when each day is a struggle, when you are in debt to your eyebrows, and harassed or targeted by policing authorities, when the area that you live in is both dangerous as well as dilapidated, when the laws are unequally applied specifically against you, and the color of your skin convicts you of crimes that you have not committed, you are going to basically get the results that we presently see in these communities that are forsaken.

While certain white people are inclined to feel high and mighty that they would never freefall to such depths, we know that it can't be because white people are created with superior stuff, because there is also an underclass of white people that are impoverished, ill-educated, and oppressed.  When we take a look at those white people that have nothing, are nothing, and have no opportunity to be anything other than nothing, their lives intersect rather dramatically with blacks of the same milieu, signifying that so often it is the conditions that we are borne into and live with on a daily basis, that ends up becoming our identity and thereby our destiny. 

While it is true that we are the masters of our fate, what is also true and extremely relevant, is that the dice held in the poor man's hand is dice tooled specifically to roll only snake eyes.

How Not to Govern the World

We read in Matthew 26:52: "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."  We read in Leviticus 19:11: "Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another." So too, there are many more passages dealing with the general comportment that we should have person to person and thereby the way that we should properly conduct our life.  The thing is, no matter how complicated the world may seem, no matter how modern this day and age may be, the most basic morals and ethics that mankind has been bestowed with, are timeless as well as always being relevant.

That is to say, it is the height of hypocrisy to believe that the courteous rules of conduct, and of treating our neighbor as our self, somehow only apply to individual human interactions, and are not applicable to the government and its actions.  Ultimately, any government is made up of individuals, and this very government, on the most fundamental and meaningful level,  if it is to be legitimate, is thereby a government meant to be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, so that, therefore, when the very government that we pledge our allegiance to, the very government that we pay our taxes to, the very government that professes to offer the golden door to the huddled masses that are yearning to breathe free, is, in fact, by its very actions, working not for the people, but against the masses, so as to support its own agenda of favoring the elite and powerful while deceiving and cheating the many, than this government has lost its aura of legitimacy.

We are taught, or at least it appears that on paper we are taught, that honesty, courage, selflessness, mercy, and teamwork are all part and parcel of what makes for good Americans; but is this exemplar lived by the very government that leads us?  It is pretense to believe the lie, that in order to bring peace and harmony, you must bomb, shoot, and kill those that don't believe these things or are inconveniently in our way.  You cannot create peace by killing, you cannot have harmony by dropping bombs indiscriminately on other countries, and you cannot have justice when you are unjust to others.  If you take from another without due process, whether that is liberty, land, or their life, you must recognize that by doing so, any validity that you may have had has effectively been compromised.  If most everything that you do of real import, involves deceit, lying, misdirection, and outright cheating, as well as many more things that you do are obfuscated because they are hidden behind layers and layers of classified bureaucratic walls, along with convoluted, distorted, and unequally applied laws, than you will never be able to be an honest man, because dishonesty has never birthed honesty and never will.

You cannot successfully preach peace, love, and harmony while wielding the sword of war in one hand, and in the other taking away the fruits of one's labor by the tyranny of your injustice.  The war to end all wars will not be another war, so too the end of injustice will not be from stealing another man's liberty; these things can only be conquered when governments that represent the people, recognize and live the Word as stated in Matthew 16:20: "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them." 

Fuel Pumps, Warnings, and Fires

There use to be a time when gas stations offered as a consumer choice: full service, that is a designated person would pump your gas, clean your windows, check your oil gauge, and so on, while still offering self service at a lower price point, before eventually the lower price crowded out the need for a full service option.  This means that in modern times with the only exceptions being two States, Oregon and New Jersey, there is nothing but self service, so, yes, even little old ladies, have to pump their own gasoline. 

Although gas stations have existed for decades and decades we see that in this era of constant warnings, litigation, and governmental overreach that the list of warnings at gas stations seems to have increased substantially.  For instance, the only two warnings that you really need at gas stations, are to not utilize an open flame near the gasoline fumes while pumping gas and to be wary of static electricity and its ability to create a spark that could ignite the gasoline fumes into a possible fire.  Both of these warnings are pertinent and make sense with most people intuitively understanding that fires and gasoline are not a prudent combination, whereas many people are pretty much blithely unaware of any danger of static electricity but should be.

However, in an era where obfuscation replaces common sense, there are warnings for all sorts of meaningless things of which none of them help the safety of people at gas stations.  For instance, some States place the age that you can legally pump gasoline at 16 years old, which is ridiculous, as if you can't treat your own children as free labor and give them a few simple tasks to do from time-to-time; I mean at what point are children going to actually stand up on their own two feet?  In addition, there are the ubiquitous not to talk on your cell phone warnings, but there are no known cases of cell phones creating any fires at a gasoline station; and whatever are people supposed to do when pumping gas, anyway, especially in States in which you aren't allowed to talk or text on your cell-phone while driving?

If gas stations were really concerned about more safety, than as a matter of course, they would add static discharge pads to their gas stations and would take the means to make sure that gasoline vapors from their pumps were both regularly maintained as well as minimized.  Instead, we get warnings that go on and on and on, to which sort of like prescription medicine warnings, people are just going to ignore them because of their length and overall lack of applicability.

Of course, if pumping fuel really is that dangerous, than perhaps the government should eliminate self service, and replace it with nothing but full service stations, while this would mean that the price of gasoline would go up by a small percentage, it would also bring some employment back to the gas station industry, as well as probably cutting down on loitering, fighting, cursing, and just general rudeness that one will see at certain gas stations from time-to-time.  It would also be in keeping with the governmental nanny state, and ties in well with the government's overriding objective of trying to keep its population forever fearful, and thereby necessitating more governmental oversight and control.

The economic fall of Cuba

In 1959, Cuba suffered a revolution and the regime of Batista was replaced by Fidel Castro and his cohorts.  Incredibly, Fidel Castro is still alive today but because of poor health relinquished his Presidential position to his brother Raul Castro in 2008, and of course, Cuba as a country still exists, a scant 90 miles from Key West, Florida.  In February of 1962, America imposed an embargo on Cuba, an embargo that might be lifted soon but still is in effect; in the meanwhile Cuba has trading partners and alliances with other countries, most significantly with Venezuela, Russia, and China. 

The website solidarity-us.org has estimated the Cuban growth rate from the years 1950 to 2006 at 0.80%,  in which from 1950 to 1958, when Batista ran the country the growth rate was 1.61% nearly matching ”Latin America's average per capita GDP grew at a rate of 1.67%," which was from the period of 1950 to 2006.  Additionally, "In 1950, Cuba ranked seventh in per capita GDP in (the 47 countries of) Latin America (and Caribbean)," but because of its anemic growth rate since then, the GDP per capita of Cuba at the present day is estimated for 2013 and as reported by tradingeconomics.com is at $5351, whereas for Trinidad and Tobago it is at $16093, and for Puerto Rico, a United States territory, it is at $19801.  Quite clearly, the Cuba economy since the revolution has done quite poorly, especially poorly in comparison to other Latin American countries, as well as in comparison to where Cuba once ranked before Castro, despite the fact that Cuba has made alliances and received funding from countries that typically have been inimical to America and its interests.

The above does not mean necessarily that conditions under Batista were better in aggregate for most Cubans, although it certainly does mean it was better for certain privileged people under Batista, but it also means that in whole Cuba as a nation has regressed, in other words, while there may be a more even distribution of income in Cuba, that simply translates into essentially being that there are more poor people in Cuba that are poorer, with the middle class simply no longer existing.

In regards to Puerto Rico and Cuba, in comparison of these two Caribbean countries, while Puerto Rico has its own troubles and a rather shaky economy with high unemployment and high debt, it still represents as a massive success in comparison to Cuba.  The fact that one country, Puerto Rico, is a territory of the United States, while the other country, Cuba, has an embargo impressed upon it by the United States, would strongly imply that spitting in the face of your rich Uncle, is probably not going to be beneficial for your people or your country.  Further to the point, Trinidad and Tobago whose GDP is three times the amount of Cuba, proves conclusively that if Cuba would make the structural and political changes that would normalize its relations with other Latin American countries and America that its GDP would surely grow so as to make up for lost ground.

They say that you cannot be an island to yourself, Cuba proves the point, has proved the point, for a period of over fifty years, that their version of all for one and one for all, has enriched only the very elite of the elite, and left the masses worst off and with little economic hope.

The True Meaning of our Religious Rights

The First Amendment to our Constitution states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…" to which in 1962, Justice Black delivered his opinion in the Engel v. Vitale case for the majority that: "….For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State."  The thing is, the Constitution itself does not once use the word "wall" or "separation" in its entire document, nor does it ever use the above metaphor or imply such separation within its words.  This Supreme Court decision wrongly takes away our religious rights to such an extent, that the expression of religion within governmental buildings, schools, and other public areas subject to federal jurisdiction has been eliminated, eradicated, or on the defensive.

The most important thing to take away from all this, is that the very people that met to put together, argue about, write, debate, and finally to approve our Constitution with its amendments as representatives of each of the thirteen States would have as a matter of course if they truly wanted a wall of separation between Church and State, expressed that very viewpoint in black and white in the Constitution to begin with.  The fact that they did not do so, indeed, did nothing of the sort, proves that the present day interpretation of such is wrong and a prime example of judicial activism in which if the justices can interpret and make our Constitution to mean whatever that the prevailing winds wish it to be read or interpreted as, then we effectively have no Constitution.

In point of fact, when the thirteen States met at what became the Constitutional convention, America was a confederation of States with a weak central government, in which that central government had no real power over the sovereign States of the union, yet, the representatives of the respective States, recognized that in order to provide domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, and provide for the common defense, this would necessitate a National government.  Not too surprisingly, having fought for their freedom from the iron hand of the oppressive tyranny of Great Britain, the arguments against such an alliance were vociferous and highly charged, yet at the end of the day, the advantages of having one Federal government that would unite the States into one body politic outweighed the disadvantages.

At the time of this convention, different States had different established religions as part of their respective State Constitutions, to which none of them desired to sacrifice their established religion to the National government, to wit, the primary purpose of the First Amendment was to preclude the National government from establishing a national religion that all would have to pay tribute to.  Further to that point, the First Amendment, made it clear that the National government would not interfere with the free exercise of one's religious belief.  The very point and purpose of the First Amendment was not to tread upon the free exercise of religious conscience, nor to eradicate religion from the Nation; which if this was truly the case would be senseless, since our unalienable rights come via our Creator and not by our government.

Our National government should as a matter of course encourage religious faith, devotion, moral and ethical behavior, with the only caveat being that this government cannot establish one particular exclusive faith that all must pay homage to.   To not do so and instead to continue on our present course of removing God from the public square will inevitably mean the destruction and denial of all our liberties.

Land and Migration

As physical beings we have to in order to live, reside on physical land, to which, land is legally owned either by government and its agencies or by private individuals.  In regards to either the government or to private individuals, the fact that they control the land, means that essentially whether you call it taxation, rent, tribute, or whatever, you as individual have to come up somehow with some sort of income to live upon some part of land, or you will be reduced to becoming a "squatter" by taking over a small portion of governmental or private land.

Not too surprisingly, in areas of a country, such as rural lands in which the land itself is often primarily owned by a few select individuals or organizations, in order to have gainful employment, you as a non-land owner are going to have to play the game per the rules of that given community, which typically means that the "income" that you earn there will only be enough to sustain you and your family, but not enough to provide you the velocity to escape from this particular economic prison.

This means, because of the gross inequitable distribution of land in rural areas, that, one way or another, many residents of such, will find a way to gravitate to cities, not because the land situation will be better in a city in the sense of ownership, but primarily because economic opportunity as well as the accouterments of city life will beckon people to come, for better or for worse.  The above often means though that the new city residents without any material net worth, will take accommodations any way that they can, in any manner that will provide them with some sort of shelter.

This then essentially translates into cities becoming subdivided into specific blighted areas, overcrowding, and slums because the residents of such more often than not, don't own any real property and don't have the means to improve their living quarters because their income is often too low, too erratic, or non-existent. 

The correction to poverty, whether for city dwellers or rural, can come from many means and directions, but, by far, the best solution to such endemic conditions, is a more equal distribution of land, property, and opportunity.  For if a man does not own any land, is not permitted to hunt the land, or fish upon the waters surrounding the land, or to create things with his hands without a license or a permit on the land, to which, in all of these things he has been crowded out of in order to protect the status quo, than he is without the reliable means or wherewithal to sustain himself and his family.

While America prides itself on being perceived as the land of opportunity, the actual reality of it, is that America is a land of a huge divide, between the elite wealthy of the very few worth monetary sums unimaginable, against a massive underclass of those that basically are worth nothing, to which marketplace.org recently stated: "Around 50 percent of the US population, Zucman said, has zero net wealth."  While there are a lot of reasons why this is so, the three most primary reasons are lack of land ownership, lack of capital, and lack of ownership of your own means of production. 

Paroled and no Right to the Internet

As reported by crimeinamerica.net, "An estimated 4.7 million adults were under correctional community supervision in the United States on December 31, 2014," which is an absolutely staggering amount of people that are under probation or parole or similar.  Not too surprisingly, most people in a position of incarceration or the threat of incarceration will sign up for just about anything that the government insists upon in regards to restrictions and access in order to have "freedom" or a modified version of freedom on the outside by being released, rather than being kept locked up.  In some communities, and States, there are restrictions or outright prohibitions for parolees in regards to the access to the internet, in a time in which any smart-phone, tablet, laptop, play station, and similar devices can access the internet readily, and in an era in which many job sites no longer accepting applications except through online forms, and/or employment jobs are basically only listed online, this restriction or prohibition seems to be out-of-touch with reality.

The most basic problem with outright bans of internet access to parolees is that it limits or precludes said parolees from being able to access information or to stay in contact with people and opportunities, so that they are at an expressed material disadvantage to other people, no matter how motivated they are to become productive and gainfully employed citizens of America.  It's one thing to setup monitoring software on a parolee's computer or for governmental authorities to have access to email or other social media sites of the parolee for the purpose of verifying and confirming that the parolee is not operating outside the law, but it's an entirely different thing to simply ban it, as a condition of a given parole.

The fact is virtually all parolees are willing to sacrifice some liberty for the opportunity to be on the outside but it isn't fair to take away necessary and vital tools that are part and parcel of modern life, to a person that will be handicapped enough already, just trying to find something to legally do that provides real worth.  The critics that provide the impetus for the restriction and prohibition of the internet for certain law breakers, in particular those that have been convicted as sex offenders, seem to as a matter of course, want to punish such offenders for an unending period of time, whereas once a convicted felon has completed his time behind bars, that person should not be then judged guilty of future crimes, when they haven't done anything material in the first place that reflects that charge.

in addition, many of the people that are currently under correctional supervision have in common that they are poorly educated, substance abusers, lacking self-control, and with a poor family structure background, so in reality, their biggest crime they have committed is having been born into compromised circumstances.  Far be it for America, rather than making their lives even more difficult, by denying them the internet or mandating other insensible and unreasonable restrictions, should take it upon itself, to willingly provide the tools to these parolees that will enable them to have a decent fair chance, so that they too can pursue happiness.

Christianity and the Resurrection of the Christ

The Bible is full of stories, some symbolic, some metaphorical, and some in parables, so too there is the story of Jesus the Christ.  In order to understand the Messiah, it is important, of vital importance, to comprehend and to understand that Christianity would not exist, without the resurrection, without the ascension of the Christ, and without the Pentecost, because without these events you have a man of great wisdom, a great prophet, and a great mentor, but you do not have the immortal Christ.

While there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with presentations of Jesus that ends with His death, because physical death is almost invariably the lot of humanity, believing this though in such a manner, that Christ died on the Cross, never to return is foundationally wrong, and isn't consistent with Biblical truth, or the life of the Christ.  Those that somehow can't accept the concept that anyone could ever come back from physical death in any form, aren't Christians in the most complete sense of word, but rather are those that are essentially reduced to the admiration of a good man, a prophet, and a wise soul. On the other hand, in order to be considered a Christian, you have to implicitly believe that Christ rose from the dead on the third day, that he thereby consorted with his apostles, later to ascend to the Father on the fortieth day, followed by the Pentecost of the Holy Spirit that descended upon the apostles on the fiftieth day of Jesus' death by crucifixion.

The thing is, the apostles that went forth to preach the Word, did not do so, under the impression that they were preaching about a good man, or simply a prophet, or remembering the wisdom of a wise soul, they were instead specifically preaching that Jesus the Christ, was crucified, that He died, andthat on the third day, Christ rose again as He reconstituted his body, still containing the wounds of his crucifixion, and walked, preached, and mentored his apostles, before ascending to the Heavens, from which he originated in spiritual form, and on the fiftieth day the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles, which created a unity of spirit, through the "tongues of fire" which rested upon each of them.

The apostles of Jesus now well understood, that the man that they had been listening to, learning from, and walking with, was not just another great prophet from God, was not just a spiritual man who could heal people from injuries both psychological and physical, was not just a man gifted with the ability to raise the dead back to life, but that He was the son of man, that is physically present here on earth, as well as through his spiritual oneness with God, the son of God.  This meant, that the Christ the apostles preached and ultimately the Christ that they proselytized about, was the immortal, unchangeable, omniscient, Creator God of the universe, the alpha and the omega.  It was their firm belief in the knowledge that Christ rose from the dead that inspired these good and common salt-of-the-earth men, to preach boldly, knowing that in time that they too would become martyred but that their deeds would live on in the generations to come.

The story of the Christ is not and cannot be complete without the story of His Resurrection and ascension, demonstrating conclusively that fallen man suffers from the illusion that mortality is the end, whereas instead all that we are is actually contained within our indestructible soul which cannot rest till it rests within the heart of God.

Nutrition and their Governmental Regulators

When we go to the grocery store and select our items for purchase, one can't help noticing all the nutritional information placed on the label on the products that we buy, of which, some people pay very close attention to that specific information, and many, perhaps just a cursory glance.  In any event, for most people, the fact that these products are sold in grocery stores in the first place, implicitly means that these foods can't be outright dangerous for our bodies, so typically people stress less about the nutrition and stress more about its price and value.

The government through the FDA and other general rules and regulations appears to have an abiding interest in the food items that Americans eat, in fact, based on charts such as food pyramid, the government provides to its citizens guidelines as to how much to eat from a given food group, so that through this and other means the government distinctly presents the impression that it cares what its citizens eat. 

The FDA has a budget of about one billion dollars specifically earmarked for food items which is directed towards protecting and supporting the public heath of its citizens, but does the FDA do its job uncompromisingly?  One way to answer that question is to understand that the most basic reason why anybody works is to earn an income, to which, people that have expertise in nutrition and food items would be in demand by both private as well as governmental agencies.  Not too surprisingly, the FDA and multinational corporations, clearly have a revolving door type of policy, in which, the regulators migrate over to private enterprise, and private enterprise employees move over to the FDA.  While there isn't anything wrong with this from the perspective that people should be entitled to work where they desire while utilizing best their skill-sets, there is a fundamental issue though, when there is either a quid pro quo or understanding that what is good for PepsiCo, with sales of $40 billion dollars is also good for American citizens as the prevailing viewpoint, supported by an acquiescent FDA.

The fact of the matter is, that the regulators are in fit and function not really independently regulating the food providers in a manner that places real science and real nutrition in the forefront, but more akin to rubber stamping the biggest players in the industry, because multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft foods, and the like, have billions of dollars invested into their infrastructure and products so that if the government would somehow rule that, for instance, refined carbohydrates or sugar and its equivalencies were a bane to the health of American citizens, their stock price would take a massive downward hit, which would eviscerate market capitalization and portfolios.  If, on the other hand, the government merely allows bygones to be bygones, or gentle suggests that perhaps we should ingest a little less sugar or a little less refined carbohydrates than it will pretty much be business as usual. 

What the FDA isn't going to do, is to actively take on the biggest players of the food industry, for first of all, that revolving door precludes such as action, and secondly the FDA seldom produces truly independent research that challenges prevailing wisdom so as to not come abreast of an inconvenient truth that would thereby force its hand.

Freedom of the Press and Groupthink

The first Amendment of our Constitution grants all Americans the access to a free press as well as free speech, to which these rights are absolutely vital for our country so that we as fellow countrymen can hear and respond to the cacophony and symphony of press and speech in order to become more informed about the things that matter to us.  In order to learn and to be thereby an informed citizen, one must have a free and open press, as well as the right to openly communicate with other citizens on the things that are of most importance to us via an interchange of ideas, thoughts, and concepts.  While America does have a free press as well as free speech, the mainstream press itself has consolidated so much in modern times that the press has fundamentally been reduced into two basic viewpoints: a more liberal leaning one, and a more conservative one, but although it might appear that these two viewpoints are at war at one another, they aren't really, as both have the same basic incentive, to pass off propaganda as news, to keep the masses in perpetual fear and dependent, and to create profits for their corporate masters.

Any citizenry that truly thinks for itself is dangerous to the status quo, because a thinking man is someone that might take positive action to effect real change, and that change, could well affect the dynamics and the players of this great nation.  The importance of a free press that impresses upon the public, real debate, real viewpoints, clear, controversial, and comprehensive thinking and thought, is the type of free press that our citizens deserve, but that isn't necessarily what we get.  Instead, freedom of the press has in the main, devolved into corporate speak, or political hatchet jobs, and is carefully processed and manipulated so as to guide the mass of its citizens into believing that they are truly receiving all the news that is fit to print, but instead are absorbing only the news that the mainstream press feels will best guide these pliable citizens into actions that benefit the media owners and their power structure.

The things that we read and hear are vital to us, because from this information, we build a viewpoint of what America and its citizens represent, so that, if certain views are held in abeyance, or unspoken, or ignored, than many citizens will be blithely unaware of them.  Today's purpose of the press isn't to inform the public of what is really going on, as that is far too dangerous, but to instead sell them a fraudulent bill of goods, that falsely represents what America is, when it really isn't that at all.  If, the press can mold the public into believing that life consists of essentially a benevolent government that bestows a safety net upon all, and/or a government that always makes sure to keep its citizens safe from all enemies foreign and domestic, via our strong military and homeland security, than they have hoodwinked the general masses into essentially acquiescing to such a belief made more intoxicating by providing in whole enough entertainment, food, shelter, and health services to sustain them.

A true freedom of the press is messy, inconvenient, vociferous, controversial, loud, and vibrant.  Our governmental leaders should be challenged, we should think, question, and debate the great issues of our day recognizing that by doing so we become what the government fears most: active, involved, informed, accountable, and with free minds that think and take positive action, accordingly.

The Preacher, the Doctor, and the Lawyer

Preachers, medical doctors, and lawyers are all highly respected professions, which as a requirement demand from its disciples: diligence, studious effort, persistence, intelligence, post-secondary education, and desire.  These esteemed professionals are certainly worthy of our respect and appreciation because we need a good preacher for the good and training of our soul, we need a good medical doctor for our birth and to maintain good health, and we need a good lawyer for the trials and tribulations that living in this complicated world will invariably bring to our door.

However, there is another way of looking at these professions, no matter how noble, and how appreciative we are of them and that is, that these professions are all somewhat dependent or very dependent upon the foibles of human nature.  That is to say, the preacher needs sinners, as isn't this what Jesus the Christ preached about when he said that: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:32).  So too medical doctors depend upon sickness and illness that will bring to them a multitude of patients that will need healing or amelioration on these things.  Then, there are lawyers, who are dependent upon each man's nature to want his own way, regardless and even to the point of cutting off his nose to spite his own face.

It's good to look at things from time-to-time from a different perspective and a different prism, because really if you think about it carefully, if man was so good, he would have no further need for instruction, prophets, or a savior, and the fact that mankind does indeed need these things, reflects that we are not as good as we might wish or believe.  If we all ate healthy foods, exercised, got our proper rest, practiced proper hygiene, and basically carried ourselves in a manner that treated the body and mind as things that needed proper attention and tending to, there would be far more healthier bodies and subsequently far less illnesses.  Then too, if we were better listeners rather than talkers, more concerned with building bridges rather than sowing hatred and strife, there would be far fewer disputes, with far less rancor and far less bitterness than we presently experience, and hence less of a need for lawyers to mediate or to champion such things.

It's a bit amusing or perhaps disturbing, to recognize that preachers need sinners, doctors need sickness, and lawyers need quarrels in order for them to be successful in their respective professions, signifying that even these professions, highly respected and valued, are at least in some respect, parasitic, in the sense that they make their profit off of the errors and shortcomings of man's ways, so that if there was to become some sort of heaven on earth, these professions, would be significantly impacted, for there isn't a compelling need for the preacher to preach to the choir, nor for a doctor to spend much time or attention to the healthy, or for the lawyer to do much of anything if each party treated the other with respect and fairness. 

Think about this: goodness matters, decisions matters, and our choices matter, so that in heaven, there isn't any need for a preacher, because we are one already with God, so too there isn't any need for a doctor, because our soul is now forever free of error, illness, and darkness, and we certainly don't have a need for any lawyers, because our heart now epitomizes pure justice and truth.

Karma ultimately is Always Good

People like to divide karma into good karma and bad karma, to which, it is supposed that good karma consists of doing good things and right actions, whereas bad karma consists of doing bad things and wrong actions.  While there is truth in this statement, this also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what karma is all about.  Karma isn't about rewarding the good and punishing the bad, it really doesn’t represent that at all, instead karma is more akin to a vital aid that is helping and allowing us to stay focused and on- point in our life and our decisions, because without karma to prick our conscience and to thereby help us mend our wayward ways, we would instead have a strong tendency to keep doing whatever wrongs that we were committing with very little real hope that we would ever change because our thought processes would be fundamentally wrong.

While you aren't necessarily what you think, you are what you are, based upon your actions and the thoughts behind those actions.  That is to say if your mind isn't right in the first place, so that, for instance, you say one thing, but do another, sowing misdirection and deception, all of the above essentially being done in order to serve yourself above all, you are eventually going to have to face those traits in another person who can play the game at a level far beyond yours.  It is often only when you begin to recognize that your behavior is negative and those negative consequences reap what they have sowed, that you will finally recognize the error of your ways, for the pathway back to God can only ultimately be accomplished through the straight and narrow road, no matter what games you play about that with your mind.

You can look upon karma in somewhat the same way that pain acts as a warning mechanism for us, permitting us to understand that searing pain often signifies that something has good awry, and thereby we should correct this thing before the pain becomes truly intolerable and debilitating.  When it comes to our conscience, karma acts as an early warning system, to help to correct us, before one little misstep becomes several significant missteps, and an error of judgment once, becomes ingrained instead as a part of our character and habit.  The more we veer down the path of error, the heavier the consequences, so that, for many, only when the burden gets too heavy, do we even contemplate for a second, that the fault might indeed lie in ourselves and not in our stars.

We need karma for our own good, because without karma life would actually be total chaos, as lives built around one's own selfishness, aggrandizement, lust, and greed, if it was to meet nothing but the same, would result in such a cutthroat world, that it would simply be intolerable, and completely unbearable.  We don't live in that world, because our Creator has gifted us with grace and wisdom, as well as the very tools that we need so as to build our stairway to Heaven, to which, our God, no matter how many times we fail or fall short or do wrong, keeps reminding us through karma, to dust ourselves off, and press on, because His heart never rests till we rest in Him, as it was, from the beginning.

Goodness, Peace, and who you really are

There are a significant amount of people that really do want goodness, peace, harmony, and brotherhood in this world, of course, many of those, simply wish for those things without actually bringing much meaningfulactions to effectuate such a change.  The thing about goodness and peace is that these must first be the primary motivators of your own life, before you can possibly believe that your influence, testimony, and duties will bring positive change to those around you.  That is to say, proclaiming "peace, peace" isn't going to do much good at all if there isn't any peace within your own household, because if one cannot achieve harmony with those that are the closest to them, how it is possible to do so with strangers and other people that one comes across in everyday life.

This signifies then that the very first step in change and in positive healing behavior is to look within, find out what truly motivates you and what upsets you, and thereby do something tangible to bring about a more pleasing balance in your life.  A person that lives a life which is consistent with the words that they speak in conjunction with the actions that they take is a person that has become more transparent and more accommodating to his fellow man.  This world already has enough injustice, hurt, hate, wrong, selfishness, greed, and misery that it doesn't need any more of those things but instead needs the best of what people are truly capable of.

If, when you wake up each day, you are truly motivated by wanting and desiring the good of the other, your behavior will reflect this, by bringing forth love when there is hatred, by bringing forth peace when there is war, by bring forth patience when there is a rush to judgment, as well as bringing forth justice when there is injustice.  To accomplish these things will not be easy, but is there or has there ever been anything of real merit and worth that does not demand in return, dedication, consistency, and effort?   

Far too often, we wrongly believe that the process of change that we deeply desire in this life, is out of our hands, but instead lies in a remote God, or in governmental force, or in more laws, or other people, or elsewhere, but these all miss the very basic point, that it is our deeds small and large, our actions little and big, that each day brings us closer to goodness and peace, or takes us further away.  We may not be able to control the actions of others, but we can certainly control our own mind, our own beliefs, our actions, and our motivating factors and by so doing set an exemplar for others that they may draw upon.

The race in this world has not ever and is not to the swift, but to those that seek the very things that are everlasting and are a true reflection of the beauty that our Creator has bestowed us with, and we can find these in the beatitudes of the Christ, for these are the very lifeblood of all that are consistent with the very essence of the Alpha and the Omega, to which this should be the primary motivating force of our fruitful lives.

Man and Self-Restraint

Depending upon what nature channels you watch and the content of the shows, you may be somewhat under the misimpression that there are some sort of harmonious relations between different animal species, and a sort of beauty contained within the animal kingdom.  There is a small amount of truth in this observation, but animals especially and particularly carnivorous animals, out in nature, without the interference of man, are no agents of mercy, but instead most definitely follow the adage of survival of the fittest, so that the strong devour the weak, and live that out on a daily basis.  This is the nature of the beast within animals, which utilizes its instinct, strength, and force to prey upon primarily the weak, the defenseless, the unfortunate, and the injured.

In this world that so often views itself as secular; man has consciously thrown off the cloak of spirituality to embrace the "fact" that man is the measure of all things. So too, it then follows logically, that mankind now sees itself as just another animal, even believing, that its brotherhood is not one of spiritual brotherhood, having in common thereby the divine spark of our Creator, but instead, that we have evolved from apes, and therefore are, no better and no worst, than mere animals in this material world.

When you believe that you are just a sophisticated beast, than quite naturally, you will behave as one, which is what we see so often in the politics and play of today's society, to which, mankind has thrown out the book of justice, peace, equality and liberty, and instead replaced these with the simplicity that the strong will vanquish the weak, the strong will control the defenseless, and the strong will exploit the impoverished.  We see examples of this in how America rather than risking its own personnel and soldiers, drops "smart bombs" on target after target, acting as judge, jury, and executioner, to those countries of illicit rebels which do not have the air defense mechanisms to properly defend themselves, or the collateral damage done to its innocent civilians and infrastructure.  We see this as well in the financial exploitation of third world nations, in which the ever "generous" America and its cohorts, eviscerate local economies and thereby dump their own goods onto these peoples, so that they are perpetually dependent, and thereby forced to borrow from western nations sums of money that they will never have the means to repay, and be therefore perpetually indebted to us.  Then too we also see it in our criminal justice system in which the poor, uneducated, and indigent are rounded up and selectively prosecuted to sweep them off of our public roads and streets so as to be tough on the crime of being poor, whereas our feudal overlords milk the rest of our population for tribute leaving them little but a hollowed-out American dream of a car, a home, two children, and a job that never lets them get too far ahead of their household debt.

The difference between an animal and what a man at his best represents is self-restraint.  An animal has no compunction about tearing another animal limb by limb, because that is its nature, and neither will it have any guilt, because that is its instinct.  A man to actually really be a man, demonstrates this attribute by exercising self-restraint, which can be exhibited by love, by mercy, by self-sacrifice, by teamwork, and by caring for the other as if the other is as worthy as thy self.  Unfortunately, way too often, America demonstrates again and again its material belief that might makes right, which is a throwback to the time of cavemen and pure brutality, while in actual fact, man only does right when he is able to see the divine spark within each man, and lives by the credo of turning swords into plowshares, and enemies into friends.

European Immigration of the 19th Century and Free States

During the 19th century of the antebellum era in America, European immigrants came in waves of somewhere around 100,000 to 400,000 peoples per year and while the most popular debarkation point was the great harbor of New York, there were also ports available for European immigrants in Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, and others.  At the turn of the 19th century, the most populous State of the Union was Virginia, yet, by 1850, New York had nearly three times the population of Virginia, Pennsylvania was doubled the population of Virginia, and Ohio had nearly 75% more peoples than Virginia.  This meant, in a relatively short period of time of about 50 years, the North and Midwest portions of the United States, had gained a considerable number of people, whereas the South, while growing in number, was in aggregate falling further and further behind.  The biggest factor in the population growth of these sections of America was the great wave of European immigrants that came to our shores.

While certainly there is an advantage in being the port of choice, as in New York, immigrants aren't stupid, as the most basic point of them immigrating to the United States, was to take advantage of the opportunities that the country offered them and for that, they would as a matter of course, go to where they perceived the opportunities were most favorable in regards to employment, land, skill-set, and so forth.  It is in this regard, that the North and the sparsely settled Midwest offered far more basic incentives for European immigrants than the South, as for instance, the Midwest had plenty of open land, available for agricultural and for homesteading, while the Northeast was the great manufacturing center of America, ideal for skilled artisans and the like.  The problem that the South had was that the distribution of their land was held in very few hands that utilized as a matter of course, slave labor to enrich their lands and themselves, so that many Europeans would not have a great interest in trying to compete against interests that favored the ruling class, as well as trying to compete with their free labor against slave labor.

Had the South been more accommodating to European immigrants, the history of the States, might well be different, but because the South was setup essentially as a feudal republic, this closed society, fundamentally limited itself to land assets and the fruits of their lands, as opposed to mechanization and the industrialization, as well as the education which were all part and parcel of the Northern States.  This meant that the European immigrants that came here, highly motivated and delighted by the economic opportunities now available to them if they applied themselves in the meritorious North, as well as appreciating the basic freedoms of religion, assembly, and speech gravitated to the States of the Union that did not or were in the process of eradicating legal slavery from their territory. 

The obvious thing about the economics of slave labor, is that if you as a free man have only as assets your own hands and the skills that you bring to your labor, and those that would employ or need your services have the choice of paying you a fair wage or taking labor from the sweat of the brow of a slave, than they will do the latter, and you, as a free man will find somewhere else more accommodating to ply your given trade.

Smalltime Towns and the Lure of Wal-Mart

America is an open and mobile society so that just because you are born in a particular town or city or State, you don't have to spend the rest of your life there.  This means, that there are small communities that stay small, or even regress, for a myriad of reasons, with one of them being opportunity and the quality of life.  Big multinational corporations are always looking to grow, because they know that if they aren't growing, then that means that someone else is catching up with them or surpassing them.  A case in point, is the biggest big box retailer of them all, Wal-Mart, which has a market capitalization of about $232 billion dollars, and sales of nearly $500 billion dollars annually.  Wal-Mart employs about 2.1 million peoples worldwide, of which about 1.4 million of those employees are located in the United States of America.  To get a better idea of just how big Wal-Mart is, its market capitalization is larger than the GDP of either Portugal or Greece, and its sales are nearly as much as the GDP of Taiwan.  This would signify that when Wal-Mart comes knocking at your town's doors, that they are a formidable force.

Depending upon the size of your country, your town, your little city, and so forth, the annual budget for such a community could easily be significantly less than $100 million, with essentially part time civil servants typically making modest pay.  The thing about Wal-Mart is that they are experts in understanding the law, politics, taxes, real estate, demographics, and so forth, and consequently only a fool would believe that in a land and tax deal negotiation with Wal-Mart that they would be their equal at that table of negotiation, yet, many communities seem to feel that this is so and while they may smile to the cameras later and get praise often through their local paper, the deals that are typically constructed with Wal-Mart are of questionable benefit for the community at large, as way too often, the civil servants sacrifice the very thing that they most desperately need, which is the fresh money of new tax dollars, in poorly structured deals, that directly benefit Wal-Mart though their property tax set asides, which is not only incredibly unfair to all the other real property owners in town that aren't privy to such tax benefits, but to the residents of the community itself.   Sure, no doubt, Wal-Mart will bring to their new locale some employment, but for goodness sake, it's Wal-Mart, so almost by definition, these aren't exactly high paying jobs.

Of course, every town that gets suckered or burnt by the allure of Wal-Mart, says something to the effect, that they had to do the deal that they did, because, this is what is necessary to do business with Wal-Mart and with the legitimacy that Wal-Mart brings, things will get even better.  The thing is, once you open up the lockbox for Wal-Mart, all other comers, will want to drink at the same trough, so the time to negotiate the best deal is right there at the beginning, so to speak, with Wal-Mart.   The best way for the city council members to negotiate with Wal-Mart is to bring in competition, that is to say, if Wal-Mart is bringing to the table a developmental proposal, than almost for a certainty, competitors such as Target or Costco, or others, would probably too have an interest.  The bottom line is that if you want to have any hope of getting a fair deal from Wal-Mart or similar, you have to contact its competitors, and work them one against the other, and if things fall through, they fall through, but there isn't any good reason to give away the store, especially since Wal-Mart never does.