The Reverse Mortgage Trap

The con of reverse mortgages is in the very way that they are presented on business programs or other television programs in which the intended audience includes a significant amount of people that are both senior citizens and also have a good chance of owning their own home.  These ads that are shown are not the quick cut and jerky motion that you come across in so many other advertisements that appeal to younger generations, but are instead carefully constructed with just the right music, a front pitchman, often recognizable to the audience as well as being a respected senior citizen, who carefully enunciates the value of the product using his sonorous voice of somber and dignified tonality.

The very first hint that all that you are seeing on your television is a con is how earnest that the ad is in its their pitch to senior citizens, as if, these pitchmen, who are strangers to your family on a personal basis, know what is best for you, when, in fact, they don't know anything about you whatsoever.  Your house is often the biggest material asset that most people own, and because mortgages are initially sold with thirty-year payment terms, those that have reached their senior citizen years, frequently own their own home free and clear, and thereby have no mortgage payment.  As a home owner, you are still responsible for property taxes, upkeep, and so forth, but the mortgage payments have ended, so all is good, except for one fundamental thing and that thing is that homes, unlike an investment in a bond, for instance, do not throw off any income in a given year, although home values may go up, there isn't any dividend being kicked out to the owner.

So then, enters the reverse mortgage pitch, able to sell their siren song, of monetizing your biggest asset, which, for many senior citizens has its place, especially when the income of senior citizens is minimal, because many do not work, and many do not have pensions or other reliable income generators, so an offer to get cash, up front, may sound quite enticing.  The reverse mortgage pitch makes it sound even more palatable by stating that the loan taken out doesn't need to be paid back till you die, or move, or sell your home.  It almost sounds too perfect, because the structure is setup to provide the money that you need to live on now, as well as your home is still yours to live in, too.  Of course, there are many terms and conditions that might upset everything, with the most obvious one, being that when the last principle to the contract has died, the reverse mortgage loan must then be paid off in full, or the bankers will own the home.

Additionally, as in all mortgage or mortgage-like products, negotiation and understanding of what your financial obligations are is paramount.  For instance, reverse mortgage terms are going to be variable and typically tied to some indicator with periodic rebalancing such as the LIBOR rate or they are going to be set to a firm fixed rate.  Obviously, a fix rate makes it pretty darn clear about your monthly financial obligations, whereas the variable is almost always constructed in a manner to deceive buyers of the volatility of such, and is always written in a way to help protect and benefit banks over the long term, although sold to consumers as if by having a variable rate, it benefits them.  The reason that the reverse mortgage terms matter is because upon contract completion, by your death, or similar, your heirs would prefer to have equity in the home, and therefore be able to benefit and inherit something, whereas the issuer of your reverse mortgage would strongly prefer to have it all.

If you are retired and own your home but are cash-strapped, reverse mortgages are probably not going to be your best choice, they may, however, be a convenient choice, but financially for your heirs, for your legacy, and because of the dicey terms and conditions of such, they aren't a good choice.  Remember, banks are in the business of making money and vulnerable senior citizens with ready assets that can be exploited are a comfortable way for banks to make an easy killing.

Relationships and Happiness

We live in a social world, in which our interactions with other people, probably more than any other single thing, provide us with our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with our life.  In America, especially America, you might think that there would be a straight line correlation between the more money that you have and thereby the higher the happiness, but that isn't true.  The thing about money is that it may or may not help bring you happiness, depending a lot upon whether your focus is upon money along with the power, security, status, and options that money may bring, or rather, whether your focus is more in tune with the recognition that while money has its place, successful relationships and meaningful interactions with other people, family, and friends, has a higher and more important value.

Long before civilization as we know it in our modern day age existed, we lived in more primitive times in which simple survival, literally on a day-to-day basis, was the objective of everyday life.  In that life, in which there really wasn't much of a social safety net, because society itself wasn't all that safe or secure, where good health was problematic, and the future consisted of what needed to be accomplished the next day, the relationship of those that bonded together, was of paramount importance, because each person had his duty to the other.  This joint dependency in trying times, created a life which may indeed have been brutish, short, and desperate, but had at its core the need for togetherness in order to achieve survival, if nothing much else.

Fast forward to today's world, and while family structures still exist, the vibrancy of such, are often problematic for reasons which vary from: ill-education, ill-health, substance abuse, ill-opportunity, ill-housing, selfishness, ill-decision making, debt, and various other things.  Yet, through all the confusion and havoc of everyday life, people, friends, and family do matter, in fact, they matter the most.  All of us want to be happy, or at least express that we do; we want to feel satisfaction and importance, in which these things pretty much don't require large monetary means to accomplish, but instead, involve the need of the investment of time, attention, listening, and interaction to achieve.

Just about everyone wants to be validated, wants to believe that they have value in this world, and oftentimes in order for that belief to come to fruition, it will come from those closest to them, that pay them mind, that smile and interact with them, as they try to see the world from the perspective of the other, in order to more fully comprehend who they are and what they are about.  When we pay attention to our friend, listening to their words, monitoring their body language, and accepting them for who they really are, we become a true friend, simply for being there and actively caring about them.

If you really get to know those that surround you, really get to know them, by spending undistracted time with them in meaningful conversation which enlightens both of you, connecting with one another in ways that bond you together because of your mutual respect and acknowledgment of your mutual worth, than that binding attachment will allow you to bring out the best in each other, and to thereby unearth priceless happiness through the gift of faithful devotion to someone other than yourself.

When thought crime becomes a crime, than all are criminals

George Orwell's 1984 is brilliant fiction, meant to serve as a warning to mankind, that when the very things that you think but have not acted upon, are considered to be crimes by the state, than your freedom of thought has been revoked, and thereby you are no more than a cog in the machine of the state.  You would think that a country that permits the selling of the book 1984, and movies such as the "Minority Report", would not fall down the rabbit hole of supporting the prosecution of thought crimes, but in fact, that is the direction that this country is progressing towards.

The reason that the state wants to push the envelope of creating crime out of thought, is quite obviously, to control the thoughts and thinking of the population, so that they are more easily manipulated by state resources.  Some people might consider that to be a good thing, that we all therefore should have banal and dull minds, but if nobody is pushing the envelope, if nobody is actually utilizing their mind in all of its grand capacity, then we have essentially sacrificed freedom, free will, free thought, in order to behave as if we were created to be servants to those that do not suffer from these same imposed limitations.

We do not know the thoughts of anybody's mind, and there is a very good reason why we do not, which is that even if we were to know the thoughts of somebody's mind, we still would not know all the things that were part of the process that created that thought in the first place; for instance, the psychological makeup of the thought, the complete understanding of the person that has the thought, the depth or doubt of the thought, the conviction of the thought, the hidden meaning of the thought, the reason for the thought, the symbolism of the thought, and so on, and so forth. 

It then follows that if we cannot really know what a particular thought means, how is it possible, to know for a certainty, what a person means, when he writes something, or says something, without any real action that affirms what has been written or said.  If everyone that ever said, "I'm going to kill you" went to jail for attempted murder or similar, simply for making that statement without taking into context the whole panorama of what was happening at that time, than the prisons would be overflowing with people, simply for speaking out their frustration at a particular moment, or joking at a particular manner, or similar.

The state has taken upon itself to have the power, rightly or wrongly, to monitor everything that we do on our computers, everything that we say or text on our cell phones, everyone we contact and associate with on social media, to which, obviously, if the state is with anybody 24/7, there are going to be numerous instances of thought crimes.  The state more and more wants to stop crime before a crime is even committed, but unless there is real tangible evidence, that a crime is going to be committed, by that person taking overt and tangible actions to commit such a crime, than the state has obviously crossed a bridge too far.

In actuality, the state wants to make thought crime a crime, just as the state desires having so many laws upon laws on its books, so that at any time for just about any reason, people that the state considers to be a threat, can be arrested, in which, thought crime is the easiest of all crimes to pin upon an individual, because from a state perspective, thoughts can be broken down into little evil sound bites, and that distortion ensnares virtually everyone.

Forceful Compliance

Life is full of all types of examples in which people, have to at one time or another, comply with another, simply because not to do so, will result in the usage of force, violence, punishment, or a form of constraint of which none of these things are desirable, so that person, young or old, small or big, complies.  For example, a small child, doesn't have a lot of good options when parental authority rears its fearsome head, and will comply, with or without tears or bellyaching, because not to do so, will have very negative consequences.  So too, protestors in all of their various forms when confronted by police officers in full riot gear, that are armed to the teeth with lethal as well as other accouterments of their trade clearly can create real havoc on citizens, who will often comply, reluctantly or not, again because of the consequences of not doing so, could be catastrophic.

The fact that people in all sorts of situations comply with authority, legitimate or not, has more to do with the physical or psychological punishment that they could receive if they do not comply, and little to nothing to do with actually agreeing that their compliance is legitimate and not coerced.  This means that those that believe that overwhelming force is the way to lead the world or society and are able to signify its effectiveness by showing that this force compels people and countries to drop to their knees in submission, are missing the most important and vital point of the whole matter, which is that individuals and societies are not foolish when submitting, if by doing so, they maintain their integrity and typically the higher moral ground.

The fact of the matter is that submission or compliance with authority in all of its many guises, does not mean, and often does not represent, an agreement or a belief in the validity of whatever that authority symbol is representing, although, of course, sometimes, it might.  In the cases in which there is harmony between those that exert force and those that comply, that harmony represents a respect for either the entity applying the force or a general agreement that the force is legitimate in that particular case, or, it could be simple cowardice.  In other cases, compliance can be an expedient to minimize damages to the person or society in the hope that by providing such compliance, privileges will be extended in the future or consideration of such compliance will be looked upon favorably.

The thing that those that apply force seem to forget or not to recognize, is that those applying force cannot do so indefinitely, without themselves continuing to fully believe in its rightness and legitimacy, as well as, those that are submitting, are often submitting while calculating their options for future responsive actions.  Everyone has been that child that has been bullied, and within their mindset, there is often a defiant plot of revenge, waiting for the right circumstances, or triggered at some other party that is actionable within their sphere.  Citizens that are being abused, browbeaten, and manipulated by their government, are also plotting their revenge, in one form or another, because they will at some point, not take it anymore.

It's not that difficult to get most anybody to submit to force, it is, on the other hand, far more difficult, to get people to submit to you purely out of respect, because that calls upon the qualities of: forbearance, love, wisdom, integrity, fairness, and goodness.

The Principal-Agent Problem

The Principal-Agent problem is basically any situation in which the principal, that is to say the person or company who has authority or has been given authority to make decisions on behalf of its client as per a business contract or a negotiated agreement, in which then the agent, that is to say the person or company contracting for said services, believes perhaps naively that both parties are aligned in purpose, when In fact, implicitly or explicitly that isn't necessarily true in many cases.   For instance, you might think that your stockbroker or your financial advisor or your mutual fund management or your hedge fund manager would always be working in your best interests with the money that you have invested and entrusted with them, but in fact, that is hardly ever the actual case.  People that work in financial institutions are typically incentivized by their management to increase assets under management or to increase trading velocity, not because doing so, means that your investment portfolio will perform better, but because these are often fee-based services and more fees generated by account size or activity, the more that they will in-turn, benefit. 

While financial investments are a rather obvious principal-agent problem, the same problem occurs frequently with doctor-patient, lawyer-client, and employer-employee, depending upon how the setup and interaction occurs.  For instance, while medical doctors most definitely provided a much needed and vital service, there are many times, when their interests are obviously conflicted, as when it comes to medicine or surgery, as the medical doctor may be incentivized by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe certain medications, as well as in elective surgery, in which doctors make money on surgeries, which may or may not be the best or most appropriate option for a patient, and even if a medical doctor believes strongly that as a professional the color of his medical advice would not differ, self-serving monetary incentives, change most people's behavior.  In regards to lawyers, depending upon how the contract is structured there is a similar principal-agent problem, for instance, if the contract is by the hour, with no real limit on hours that can be billed on a given basis, most lawyers will do a very good job of billing for a lot of hours; however, on contingency fee basis, these contracts, in which, lawyers already have in mind a settlement figure that they are trying to achieve for their client, they will often prefer to work the minimum amount of hours to achieve that number, knowing that, while they could work more hours, their personal upside is probably minimal, so they choose not to do so.  As for employers, usually the higher you are up on the pecking order, the more incentive that you have that more things are built and sold at a good profit margin, because your bonus and your advancement depends upon it; whereas, if employees are compensated by the hour, your strong tendency is to increase productivity by cracking a strong whip without having to come off any additional monetary inducements, or if you do, the lion's share will still be wrested the management's way.

Lots of economists like to look at the principal-agent problem as something that can be resolved, or reduced, or negated to some small or large degree, yet, the problem despite it all still exists and is quite prevalent.  The fact of the matter is that when principals and agents get together and their interests are not perfectly aligned, you will have this problem, especially when each party has its own self-interest as its primary concern.  One way to negate part of the principal-agent problem is to have interactions with far more transparency, far more openness, and far more disclosure in all agreements; as well as a recognition too, that a little more humility, a little more helpfulness, a little more teamwork, a little more thoughtfulness, and far less selfishness, improves the character of both the principal as well as the agent

National Detention Internment

America proclaims that this is the land of the free, but example of example, proves without a doubt, that this has never been true, isn't true today, and probably never will be true, in this nation, which believes it was blessed by God.   While freedom has its limits as well as its responsibilities, great Presidents, are able to steer this magnificent ship, America, in times of trouble and war, through the shoals of destruction, such as the incomparable Abraham Lincoln, while others, weak-minded Presidents, are but pawns in the military-industrial complex seasoned hands.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, considered by many to be one of our nation's finest Presidents, authorized Executive Order 9066, which permitted the Secretary of War in 1942 to prescribe military areas in America as enacted on February, 1942, to which this order was further enforced by Public Law 503, "making it a federal crime for a civilian to disobey a military relocation order."  The effect of this Executive Order and Public law was to forcefully remove Japanese-Americans from their homes and businesses to internment camps, as well as interning some Germans and Italians.

Somewhat surprisingly, in this time of World War II, this Executive Order was challenged in the Supreme Court, in Korematsu v. United States, which was decided in 1944, in the favor of the government, which ruled that the Executive Order was indeed, Constitutional.  This, in essence, meant that the government ruled that its right to be secure and protected from sabotage and espionage during wartime, meant that the government could  in particular intern persons of Japanese descent,  but even more chilling that the government could intern "… any or all persons…" such as Germans or Italians, or well, anybody. 

The Executive Order and its execution, in effect, was specifically enforced against Japanese-Americans, mainly because there were so few of them, in which, they were located almost exclusively on the West Coast, they were also conveniently racially different, and hence easy targets to round-up with a minimal amount of protest and in many cases, implicit approval by the public.  On the other hand, those of German and Italian ancestry, were effectively left alone, except for a selected portion of visitors from those countries, or recent immigrants from such, as massive internment of these peoples could have easily lead not only to "blowback" but would surely have overtaxed the capacity of our detention facilities.

The past is a prelude to the future, in which, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of this government, found that the Constitution allowed under certain conditions that citizens of the United States, could be rounded up simply because the military determined that from their vantage point it was necessary for the defense and safety of our nation, and thereby detained certain peoples in internment camps, until such time as the government decided or declared them free of such restrictions.  There is absolutely no reason not to believe, that the United States will, almost for a certainty, do the very same thing, of which, it is clear, that those of Islamic faith, and/or of Middle Eastern heritage, have already been identified and sorted into an actionable database; with specific instructions, logistics, and detention camp facilities, waiting only for this action to be implemented, at the appropriate time.

Private and Public: Sex and Religion

In today's schools, the most important thing for our youth to learn, which is a sound moral structure, as well as the importance of understanding that they are spiritual beings created equally by a loving God, has been superseded by laws, rules and regulations, stipulating that no religion should be taught in our public schools, to which, by removing the validity of religion in student's lives, you lift the very moral foundation and code of human behavior when interacting with others, and replace it with secular means, which changes with the times.  On the other hand, while removing prayer, religion, and morals, America has replaced such with subjects such as sexual education, which, while important in its own right, never seems to ask the most pertinent question, which is why is something that is so private; sanctioned and discussed in public schools with impressionable students.

Today's world is upside down, especially when public figures which when being written or talk about, or too often labeled not by what they really are and what they really represent, which we can garner from their behavior, interactions, and accomplishments, but instead are tagged with being known far too often by their sexual orientation, or sexual openness or lack thereof, as if sex and all its accouterments, was somehow of actionable relevancy to their public persona.  On the other hand, their religious persuasion, especially in cases in which their faith means something very much to them is not discussed, as if a person's values and morals, had no public value, and when discussed by the press, far too often is done in a dismissive fashion.

Any country that makes it public policy to take religion and essentially banishes it from the public square, as if talking religion, faith, and morals, is somehow dirty and unworthy, and hence must be only expressed within a person's mind or in private with consenting others, is a country that is madly confused.  Even a cursory reading of history, of literature, of art, or of anything of real enlightenment, would indicate that it is man's search for God, of man's understanding of his obligation to other men, of man's understanding that no man is an island entire of itself, would indicate that nothing is of more importance than religion and its morals.

Sex is needed in order for the population to procreate, but sex can be accomplished with or without love, with our without commitment, with or without responsibility, with or without consent, with or without anything but pleasure being foremost in a person's mind, and so forth, therefore, the teaching of sexual education, without any moral guidance, without parental input and supervision, is of questionable value and of inimical value to students at a public school.

Fools shout from the rooftops that there should be a wall of separation between religion and the state, but a state without religion, is a state which has become for all essential purposes the religion and therefore a god, onto itself.  All religion has at its core, a belief in God, that this God is our Creator, and that our Creator is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.  Further, that the mission of man besides finding oneness with his Creator, is to see God in every person, and by so doing, the correct morality about how we should behave, and how we should interact, will be implicitly comprehended and acted upon.

For the Few: Private Profits and Socialized Losses

America is a nation proud to embrace capitalism, but the capitalism of today's America, is a bastardization of capitalism. In true capitalism, there is freedom of choice, freedom to decide where to invest one's time and money, freedom to produce what one desires to produce, and the marketplace decides whether to buy and what they are willing to pay for the goods that they desire or need.  The government 's role in this pure form of capitalism is strictly to determine that the overall exchange and production process does not damage or harm public space such as our natural resources and spaces owned collectively by the people and that the playing field is not corrupt or unfair to the general public.

The thing about taxation as represented by what occurs in America today, is the very fact that goods and income are taxed on so many different levels, so too that there are endless rules and regulations, along with licenses, various bureaucracies on the Federal, State, and local levels, politicians and their lobbyists, of which all of this combined, serves to upset the normal order of things.  This means, that business as run currently and monitored by governmental and tax authorities is widely divergent in the effect and fairness of the overall treatment of individuals, corporations, partnerships, and so forth, so that those that are on the inside have massive advantages over those that are on the outside.

Further to the point, while America once prided itself upon failing or succeeding on one's own merits, this has morphed into a game, in which those at the very top, or at least those with the money and connections to play at the very top, are able to bend, mend, and change the rules so that the risk of their businesses are managed in such a manner that when times are good and profits are thereby generated, that those profits remain in privatized hands of corporate interests for the most part, with an absolute minimum amount of taxation being returned to the government, which, in theory, represents the people.  On the other hand, should these businesses make bad choices, overextend themselves, run their business with reckless risk, if they are large enough, or are connected enough, these losses aren't stuck on the business, itself, but instead are foisted upon the government which absorbs this loss, and leaves the people, the taxpayer and thereby future generations suffering for mistakes not of their own.

Any country, that can say with a straight face, that particular institutions are "too big to fail" and thereby props them up or doesn't initiate wholesale changes so as to make them smaller and more manageable, is a country that has betrayed its people.  The business of business in America today, is business in which the government works with the favored few, so as to manipulate rules and regulations to specifically benefit certain businesses at the expense of other businesses and the people; creating tax laws that are so convoluted and corrupt that there is no fairness, and allowing again and again, those that have no skin in the game, to wrongly reap the cream of crop, while sticking the taxpayers with the inevitable losses from overleveraged bets gone horribly awry.

If America will not hold accountable the debts and mistakes that large corporations make by saving such corporations from their failures and thereby socializing those debts and losses to the overburdened public, while at the same time allowing these same corporations and especially their principle players to reap the benefit of their large ill-gotten gains, than the American people will become, in effect, perpetual serfs to their feudal lords.

When Murder Becomes Assassination

Every assassination is a form of murder, but clearly not every murder is an assassination, as America has broken down murder into two general categories classified as first-degree murder and second-degree murder.  In modern times, though, basically the only crimes associated with the term: assassination, are typically when a very prominent public official is killed in a premeditated act of violence such as we saw in the assassination of President Kennedy and in Dr. King, Jr.  However, there are times when the word assassination has been used such as in the newspapers of the time as well as the movie entitled: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford". In which the notorious killer and criminal Jesse James, that some common people saw as a folk hero, was shot in the back of his head, unarmed and unaware, by his own gang member, turned traitor, Robert Ford.

Basically, assassination as defined by the "Dictionary of Law" is: "A murder committed treacherously, or by stealth or surprise, or by lying in wait,"  to which, this term assassination is seldom utilized today except in cases of prominent figures being killed in such a manner, even though, there isn't any real reason why the word assassination can't be utilized more often as long as it is in conformance with the definition of the word, as the connotation of an assassination carries that extra element of being especially sinister as well as the element of cowardice as the assassinated person, never saw the foul deed coming.

So that, if the word: assassination was used more commonly, we would expect that the perpetrators of the 2002 D.C. sniper murders would be more appropriately viewed as assassinations because it fits the definition.  Further to the point, by utilizing the word: assassination more often, it would be of help in differentiating murders in which the murderer used stealth, surprise, committed it treacherously, or by lying in wait, because in each of these instances, the victim of the murder did not see this fatal action coming, indicating that there was no opportunity for the victim to protect himself, or to collect his thoughts before his untimely departure from this material world.

So too, when it comes to police actions against the public, in which deadly force is used against civilians, these incidents, in which there is the use of that deadly force as sanctioned by public institutions, should thoroughly be investigated by an independent committee for each incident.  In point of fact, shooting any unarmed man or boy, is in many instances not only an act of cowardice, but a direct dereliction of duty, as well as an attempted or actual assassination.  Additionally, shooting anybody fleeing from the scene of a "crime" that has no weapons upon him, to which the "crime" would not be one that would typically necessitate deadly force, and there is no imminent danger can be seen as an attempted or actual assassination.

The type of justice that any civilized nation should have within their own country, should be an impartial justice, in which each party has its opportunity to present its story to a court made up of their peers, and thereby those that take the law into their own hands, should suffer the appropriate punishment for having done so.  Assassination by State agencies should never happen, and assassinations by the public should be dealt with severely, as cowardice in all of its many guises, has no legitimate place at the table of public opinion.

They shoot Blacks, don't they?

Being a police officer means that as part of the function of that service you are permitted to use deadly force, that is kill other people, but that deadly force must have and does have limits.  In America, those limits as supported by important elements of the public and media, and as supported by the justice department, and in particular those prosecutorial agents of justice, seem to be left far too often at the discretion of the police officer, almost without taking into account pertinent factors, such as justification, necessity, reasonable action, or imminent danger.

In addition, to the wrong mindset of an "us v. them" to begin with by far too many of our police officers that engage with the public, American officers have a love affair with weapons in which these weapons by their very nature, when utilized, are extremely lethal in their effect upon human targets, as any instrument that allows multiple bullets to be shot off in the span of one second or less, is a weapon with extreme lethal force.  The bottom line is that the more lethal the weapons that are utilized, and the more shots that are fired from such a weapon, the more humans that will die.

From a police perspective there is this perception that police need to have strong body armor, sophisticated toolkits, and heavy firepower in order to match or outmatch their adversaries.  This type of thinking has its place, but that place is against rogue elements that for some reason or another, would want to engage the police in the first place, which virtually never happens, instead, most police are involved on a day-to-day basis with regular folk on the streets, of which, indeed, some of these people will be armed, some of these people will be dangerous, but very few of them have any desire to wish to provoke a firefight with the police. 

There have been numerous protests over the last several decades, over the deliberate targeting of minorities, by the police, or agents of the police, or people acting at the behest of the police, or people given free rein to do whatever that they wish to do to minorities by the police, explicitly or implicitly.  In many, many instances of the police shooting at, wounding, or killing of minorities, the aggression is on the part of the police, not of the person.  The police in this country, again and again, shoot far too often, shoot far too many bullets, and shoot far too many people that don't need to be shot.

In life, there aren't that many things really worth deliberating targeting and killing a person about, which should translate into as it has in virtually every other civilized nation, into less police violence against the very citizens that they are sworn to "serve" and to "protect".  Yet, in America, police clearly treat people differently depending upon where they live, the color of their skin, the way that they are dressed, how they are acting, the overall fear factor, circumstances, their own ingrained or learnt prejudices, and thereby make far too often split decisions with fatal consequences based on cursory things.

The police or their agents throughout American history shoot blacks, been shooting blacks, ever since plantation times, of which this sick mentality is still ever in play, which is, that a black man, a minority, must when confronted by the "man" immediately bow his head down, show proper respect, and demonstrate abject subservience in all aspects, or risk to get shot in the coldest of blood, and die like an animal, then left dead in the street as a warning to all others that this is no country for blacks.

From Cradle to Grave and Who Controls it

America was founded upon the principle of individual sovereignty that is to say, that each of us is created with the unalienable rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that the only legitimate government that can be instituted among the people would be a government specifically established to secured our unalienable rights, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.  Today, the government in all of its many forms and facets that the people must deal with on an individual basis has over the decades morphed into a nanny state, and this very state, can imposed its will, its dictates upon the people, because that state controls and determines in far too many instances crime and punishment, as well as who is continually eligible for benefits and privileges.

There are all sorts of people that reside in America, of which some of those very people, embrace the nanny state, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps not, perhaps without a real choice, perhaps not, but in any event these people appreciate in one form or another, the fact that the state will feed, clothe, and shelter them in such a manner that they will live.  Then there are others, that don't particularly care one way or another about the nanny state, they may see it as an irritant some of the time, or even most of the time, but for all practical purposes, they are able to conduct their business in a manner that remains acceptable to them.  Finally, there are those that are actively and fundamentally opposed to the nanny state, these people are outnumbered, and are in almost all cases outside the power brokers of the state, and recognize fundamentally that the nanny state as an institution is at loggerheads at what America was established for, as well as recognizing that every freedom that is relinquished by the people for security, for sustenance, for whatever, is fundamentally a relinquishment of the sovereignty of the individual.

If, you aren't really responsible for your life, if you aren't allowed or permitted to be responsible for your decisions of any meaningful sort, then, you have for all practical purposes, seized to be sovereign to yourself, but have ceded or relinquished such sovereignty to the state.  A state that provides you with everything, is a state that owns you cradle to grave for whatever beneficial possibilities and reasons, to the most nefarious and diabolical ones.  There is nothing wrong with a country and its attendant institutions providing a helping hand or acting as an aid to the public, as long as it is recognized implicitly, that the aid desired is more akin to "learning to fish" as opposed to be given fish, which as might be imagined, has strings attached for the continuous acceptance of this gift.

There are many millions of people in this country without much of anything, of which the state as currently constructed and operated, has determined that in order to control and to manipulate thosemasses, so that the elite of this country can maintain its control and exploitation of them, that a combination of fear and lack of economic opportunity, will keep in their place the people, as long as there is a big enough stick to beat the masses back as necessary, and enough sugar, bread, and circuses to amuse them often enough.

A person that lacks control over the most meaningful decisions in their life becomes helpless, and a helpless person will inevitably turn in the direction of that institution that will sustain them and hence lose control over their lives.  Whereas it should be recognized that we were created from the beginning with free will, free choice, and hence free decisions, and if we do not assert ourselves to be and to do what we want to accomplish, that freedom will be ceded to the agents that have taken that control from us.

Don't Dwell on the Negative

Living life involves making decisions, taking actions, and doing all sorts of things, of which some of those decisions, some of those actions, and some of those things are going to be in error or wrong.  It is good that each of us strives towards perfection, that we want or should want to be the best that we can be, so mistakes, missteps, are all part of that learning experience, and life as lived most definitely is an experience which has its positives and its negatives. Negative things are inevitably going to happen both to us, and by us, and our overarching objective should be to minimize the negative, understand that negativity so as to deal with it better and thereby to correct it, or ameliorate it, and then move on.

Those that beat themselves up the most about negative things done to them or by them, are not the worse or most unfortunate people in the world, by virtue of the simple observation, that as long as they being in recognition that something has occurred that is negative, endeavor to correct it or deal with it in a positive manner.  The fact that you recognize negative actions and wish to correct them reflects that you consciously want to change things for the better and by making changes in your life so as to make things more positive, makes for a better world.

Everything that we do has consequences, of which, fair to say, we don't always know the consequences that will occur from what we do, so that there are times when truly unintentionally we create havoc or harm when that was not our intention.  While it is true that what is done is done, what is also true is that we have a responsibility to ourselves as well as to others, to make good on the trouble that has been caused, so as to balance out our actions, and, if possible to make things better.

The mistakes that we make are mistakes that we must, in order to be considered an autonomous individual, we must take responsibility for.  It's convenient to place the blame elsewhere, for some reason many people are seemingly programmed that way, but that programming fundamentally comes from our self, in which by denying our guilt, we deny the right to be punished for it, allowing us to believe that we have escaped forever that punishment and lived to fight another day, even though all we have done is denied something which is true, and truth will, sooner or later, reign triumphant.

Nobody should mire themselves in the negative, as castigating themselves again and again, serves little purpose, because it is not constructive.  Negative things that happen to you, or are caused by you, are things that have been done, meaning that in the present time that one's positive action should be to recognize such errors, recognize the damage, and endeavor to find the capacity to either correct it, overcome it, or mitigate it, so as to do better next time when it or something similar happens. 

A life lived in darkness is lived in the negative, as this life cannot amount to much because it lacks the clarity that we receive from the brightness of light, thereby in order to find that brightness, we must first burn off the dross of negativity by embracing the positive aspects and bright sunshine of a life lived and fulfilled by integrity, fairness, and brotherly love.

Hey, Hey, LBJ! How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?

Lyndon B. Johnson became President of the United States, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  Unfortunately, for President Johnson, who accomplished many meaningful things, especially his civil rights legislation, that still resonates today, he also inherited the Vietnam War which was passed by the Eisenhower Republican Administration to the Democratic Kennedy administration and then onto Johnson.  While President Johnson as Commander-in-Chief had many choices available to him in regards to the Vietnam war, his conscious decision to escalate the Vietnam war, to escalate the personnel and monies needed to engage in this protracted war, and to utilize the draft to conscript young men into fighting in the Vietnam war had unintended consequences.

While the American people in its history, of fighting wars, had previously demonstrated its patriotic spirit and determination to serve their nation in a time of need, with minimal degrees of protest by pacifists, and other objectors on numerous other grounds, the Vietnam War ultimately touched a nerve within the American public, previously not displayed which became a very public debate.  There were, for instance, many factors working against Johnson, such as television and its broadcast of the Vietnam War and the many tragic deaths of young United States soldiers, the pictures and videos of Vietnam civilians having suffered through American napalm bombings, the fact that America was not achieving the results so desired or promised, the lack of spirit and drive of the South Vietnamese regime and its soldiers, and the draft that seem inherently unfair by allowing those that were married or attending college to defer their enlistment, while sticking those of the lower socio-economic levels with conscription.

The fact that thousands and thousands of soldiers were either dying or being severely wounded in a country, that many Americans would have difficulty locating on a map, for what appeared to be nebulous and inchoate reasons, and the sheer length of the war, which seemed each year to be escalating to involving more men, more personnel, and more war material, began to grate on the nerves of many Americans.  So too the 60s were a decade of real protests, of a public, that no longer was willing to buy the mainstream line, which lead to nationwide protests and the devastating slogan of: "Hey, Hey, LBJ! How Many Kids Did You Kill Today? " 

LBJ didn't run for re-election in 1968, for many reasons, such as his popularity within his own party was waning, he was tired and frustrated, and all this grief from a war that he inherited.  Yet, if we fast forward to the 21st century, America still has its wars, which are passed from one President to another, one party to another, and these wars, against nation-states such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, as well as organizations such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda, are still protested for the most part but that protest playing field has definitely changed.  Nowadays, the protests and media emphasis are party-centric, that is to say, if the President is Republican, for example, Bush, the press and street protests are visible and active, but if the President is Democratic, for example, Obama, the press and street protests are muted and quiescent. 

This would imply strongly that the 60s was an era of more integrity, that saw wrong, and wanted to correct it, whereas the 21st century, is an era of disingenuous politics, because if all our foreign war excursions are wrong under Bush, they sure the heck are just as wrong under Obama, inherited or not, escalated or not.  A country that changes its opinion based on the prevailing winds of the present time is a nation that has no core integrity, and will inevitably collapse upon its own lies and hubris.

Recognizing wrong actions and then doing wrong again

A proper life must first recognize the difference between wrong and right, and then subsequently we must in our actions, and in our thoughts, determine to concentrate on doing right things and right actions, and avoid to the best of our ability, the doing of wrong actions and wrong things.  In order to accomplish this successfully, this must inevitably involve some sort of discipline, because without discipline, we will have a strong tendency to give in to the moment, to make the exception to the actual rule, and to fail repeatedly especially to something that we have in our clearer moments, already determined is the wrong thing or the wrong action to begin with.

It is entirely one thing to perform wrong actions and wrong deeds, without consciously recognizing our error, and while this may indeed be corrected over time, as our wisdom increases and our selfish tendencies diminish, if we aren't able to see this at the time, it isn't going to change.  On the other hand, many, many people do wrong things and wrong deeds, again and again, while clearly knowing that they are wrong in doing them, yet consciously want to change such behavior, but fail at it again and again.

The dichotomy between doing wrong and wanting to do right comes down to the fact that many people's willpower is surprisingly weak.  For instance, if you have made up your mind that eating cookies is not only not good for you, but will add empty calories to your diet, and thereby ultimately add weight to your bodily frame, of which none of these things are desired, yet, you persist in somehow eating those very same cookies, you haven't resolved anything, and, in fact, because you recognize that what you are doing is wrong, and still you do it, reflects very poorly on your psyche, let alone your physical body.  If you cannot resist the cookies in the first place, then the very best advice to enact is not to have cookies in your house to begin with, not to buy them, not to smell them, not to see them, and to avoid them at all costs, as they say, "out of sight, out of mind". 

If you have a short temper, and that temper gets the better of yourself again and again, with it being especially vexing that having that short temper, reflects poorly to others that you both love and care about, the thinking and the acknowledgment that this vice has no place in your life, will not necessarily end it.  In order to control your temper, you first need to slow things down, that is to say, just because something happens rather quickly or unexpectedly, especially something that gets you hot under the collar does not mean that you need to instantly react to it.  The very first understanding of controlling a temper, is to recognize, unfortunately or not, that the world does not revolve around you, and further that some people or things are going to bother you, but if you take a step back, or two steps back, for a better perspective, often you will recognize that this too will pass, and therefore you should let it pass, or if a response is warranted, the response should be a controlled and reasoned response.

We do wrong things and perform wrong actions, every day, yet repeated mistakes again and again, signifies that we need to pay attention to what we are doing, and thereby endeavor to learn from our mistakes, as to why we do the things that we do, act the way that we do, and determine that we will do better, and then do that.  Nothing really worthwhile, is ever easy, and breaking bad behavior and bad habits, is never going to be easy, but it can be done, by replacing your former bad habits and bad behavior with good habits and good behavior, recognizing often that the change we want in others must first start with ourselves, and nowhere else.

VIP Citizenship and the Masses

While this is supposed to be a country of equality, in which the law and opportunity, is applied equally to all that is in actuality on every single level imagined a complete lie in America.  In fact, in America, now, more than at any time in its history, this is a country that separates the sheep from the goats.  There are subtle ways that those that are VIP citizens are treated differently simply by the fact that they live in areas of communities that provide them with better schools, better houses, better shopping, better "public" places, less crime, and policing forces that do not harass them, but rather are actually there to protect their property and persons.   Then there are those VIP citizens, which are on a completely different level than regular citizens, because they are privileged to have access to information, property, jobs, security clearance, or other pertinent things that the public is precluded from even knowing about or having access to information or transparency about on any sort of real-time actionable level.

There are clear dangers in dividing the population into those that know, and the vast majority which is not in the know, which basically means that certain people are privileged to know things, to decide on things, to do things, on behalf of the American people, whereas, the general public has to deal with the consequences of it, good or bad.  The easiest way for the government to lord it over the people, is to preclude the press or the public from knowing things that they have a right and need to know, all under the color of national security, or war, or basically by simply stamping as many documents and institutions as possible as subject to being classified as "confidential" or subject to stringent trespassing or access rules.  If the public isn't permitted to know what its government is doing, than what are we paying our taxes for and what are we fighting our wars for, if the public isn't permitted to know what is actually really going on?

Then there is the mass of land labeled as governmental property, in which, some privileged people are allowed to work, walk, and access such property, but the general public is restricted from accessing this very same governmental property and land.  While there may be legitimate reasons why access should be restricted under certain circumstances, for both security reasons and safety, that situation should be exception and not the rule, because this is, in theory, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, and thereby not a government that serves a selected few of the people in privileged ways to the exclusion of the general public.

America claims that it needs the Transportation Service Administration (TSA) as utilized, for example, in airports, to secure us from enemy sabotage and safety, but as with any governmental program, there are exceptions to help and aid the privileged as opposed to regular citizens.  For instance, the whole purpose of TSA-Pre is so that those that are traveling and are "privileged" will have access to utilize an expedited and segregated security lane, thereby avoiding the masses, and reducing their time spent being treated as something that would infer that they were mere common citizens.

The more that any government, sets up classifications of citizens, in which some know all, some know some, and most know virtually none, than that government has betrayed its citizens by becoming a law unto itself, without justice, without equality, without fairness, without oversight, and without the blessing of our Supreme God.

Freedom of Conscience and the Pursuit of Happiness

The seminal American document, which is second to none, that truly represents what this nation aspires to and should still aspire to be, is the incomparable and masterful: Declaration of Independence, this Declaration stands alone as the centerpiece for the formulation and the foundation of America to which we as a people should be wholly appreciative of.

In our Declaration of Independence it states that: "…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  As magnificent as these words are in both their significance and their meaning, one would for sake of argument, take possible exception to the phrase the "pursuit of happiness", and wish instead that Jefferson had written in its place: "freedom of conscience".  It is important to recognize that "happiness" as written in our Declaration was not written as some sort of homage toself-pursuit or self-gratification, but meant in that era more of the sense of civic virtue and community good will.  That is all to the good, but freedom of conscience, is in actuality, the most important freedom, the most important liberty, the most important gift, granted to us by our Creator, for if we do have true freedom of conscience, to do as our good conscience urges us to do, then and only then are we truly free to pursue happiness.

Freedom of conscience, speaks directly to the individual and that individual's relationship to his Creator, of which the government, as instituted by men, for men, has no right to violate the inviolable.  The question must ever be asked, as to whom mankind should answer to, whether that is government in all of its many forms, legitimate or illegitimate, employers of all aspects and types, the dictates of a court of law, arbitrary or not, the barrel of a gun, or to his Creator?  The answer is clear, which is why freedom of conscience is and should be, as a matter of course, the true foundation of all human rights.

While the Bible may be read on many levels, the good book is primarily about man's relationship to God, and this pursuit of that relationship, is the most important pursuit of any sensible man's life.  The Bible makes it clear again and again, that mankind must make the choice, their choice, of to whom that they will serve, and therefore a legitimate government, recognizes that this government as instituted amongst the people does not have the right, at least not the God-sanctioned right, to impose its will upon the people, in violation of God and man's freedom of conscience.

It is indeed unfortunate that freedom of conscience was not written into our Declaration instead of the pursuit of happiness, because freedom of conscience is the touchstone, that serves to remind and reprimand government, that this is a nation founded on the principle that all men are indeed created equal, that therefore the just powers of the government, any government, comes from the consent of the people, and those people, all of the people, have the unalienable right to freedom of conscience.

Investments and Volatility

If one was to look at the return of stocks vs. bonds over the period of 1980-2013, as reported by barbarafriedbergpersonalfinance.com we would see that stocks have clearly outperformed bonds by a simple average annual return of 11.17% for S&P 500 stocks vs. 8.42% for the Barclay’s U.S. Aggregate Bonds, a very significant and meaningful difference between the two investments classes.  On the surface, this would imply quite obviously, that those that recommend any allocation other than 100% stocks to be foolish, as stock returns have clearly demonstrated their superiority over bond returns, and this holds true in virtually any extended time period.

The problem that is often missed between investment classes or investments in general, is that most investments unless they have a fixed return, have a volatility part to the equation, which must be taken into account.  Additionally, past performance, as they say, is definitely no guarantee of future performance, as the go-go stocks of the 1960s are definitely not the go-go stocks of today's market.  This means, taken together, that stock investments, especially in comparison to standard bond investments, are significantly more volatile, and this volatility, affects negatively the average return that many investors actually receive from stocks.

For instance, over the 1980-2013 periods, there were no instances of bonds declining more than 2.92% in a single year, and in fact, in only three years, did bonds even decline in their investment return.  On the other hand, stocks declined in twice as many years as bonds, with also a period of time in which stocks declined for three consecutive years, as well as having declines in their worst years of -11.89%,

 -22.10% and -37.00%.  Again, to put it in perspective, stocks clearly outperformed bonds, despite having some gut-wrenching negative years; yet, it is those years, which actually determine for the average investor as to whether his investments did worst or better than the averages so indicate.

The thing about the stock market is that the cost of buying and selling an individual stock or index fund and so forth is relatively trivial, very liquid, and as easy to do, as the click of a button on your computer, or a phone call to your broker.  Additionally, stock brokerages, while they make money in a lot of different ways, definitely make part of their income on your approvals or decisions, depending upon how they are structured and executed.  For instance, buying or selling a security at the "market price" probably means that your order has been executed at a price that costs you a minute amount of real dollars, but that inefficiency adds up over time; brokers advise clients, of which this advice ostensibly is for the customer's benefit, but in actuality has a strong component of benefiting the brokerage and their bonus/commission incentives over yourself.  Also, brokers like customers that trade, and the more that you trade the more that they appreciate you, because each trade is a commission, and hence a benefit to the brokerage bottom line.

If the stock market never did much of anything, or barely went up, or barely went down on a given day, there would be less trading, but in fact, TV financial programs are all about, urgency, panic, and "opportunity", all presented to you as a reason to trade.  This means, also, that psychologically for many investors, when there is euphoria in the air, when times are good, you have a tendency to be a buyer, typically near the peak of a given security, and when times are bad, you are seller, often just before a bottom is made on a security. 

The fact of the matter is the volatility of the stock market affects investors, in a manner that they will thereby make decisions based on the fear, unfounded or not, of potential financial ruin.  This means, that despite the stellar returns of the stock market in the past, most people have not seen that same stellar return, and because past performance is no guarantee of the future, there isn't any guarantee that they ever will.  This is why, diversification in investments is impressed upon investors, because diversity, such as bonds, and in particular investments that do well or as a countermove for "bear" stock markets helps to balance out returns, reducing panic, and the potential of devastating financial ruin of a lifetime of savings.

Your Excellency and Your Honor

When the United States was successful in fulfilling its Declaration of Independence, by winning its war against Great Britain, it later decided to upon its formation of its Constitution, to elect its first President, which was George Washington.  At the time of Washington's election, most other established countries were led by royalty, which given that the United States was a republic, presented a problem as to how to properly address the new President.  There were many suggestions given, such as "Your Highness", "His Exalted Highness," and "His Majesty, the President," but it was pointed out that the Constitution itself clearly stated that "No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States," and further that “No State shall…grant any Title of Nobility.”  This meant, that it was imperative that the President of the United States, not be addressed in such a manner that would reflect even a tinge of nobility, of which, nobility, itself, is a class of persons, that are considered to be higher and thereby exalted in status and power simply because they were born or gifted into the right family, and not therefore by the merits of that given individual.  The United States, on the other hand, was established so that all would be treated equally in accordance to that all men are created equal by their beneficent Creator, and thereby this is a country of meritocracy and not heredity.

Therefore, today, the President of the United States, is addressed as Mr. President, or President <surname>, and not thereby addressed as "Your Highness", "King", or any other salutation that would imply or signify nobility.  This then leads to the question as to why the legal profession, through the use of such terms as Esquire as added to the end of a given lawyer's name, need to do so, when the industry standard for those achieving higher education degrees, is to add so to their last name, for instance, Ph.D, or D.D.S, or J.D, rather than the rather lofty term of Esquire.  That is to say, if medical doctors and those achieving doctoral degrees of all sorts, don't add on additional titles such as Esquire, why should lawyers do so?  However, Esquire, often simply abbreviated on a business card, as Esq., is relatively innocuous, in the sense, that few lawyers, if any, are ever addressed by their full name, followed by the word:  "Esquire".  On the other hand, in the courtrooms all over America, for whatever reason, a judge typically and almost without exception, is addressed in the manner of "your honor", and while "your honor", in and of it, is not in actuality a title of nobility, it sure has the very strong tinge of nobility attached to it.

While America can state that the addressing of judges, as "my lord," or "your Excellency" or "your honor" is rather common the world over, that doesn't mean that this particular tradition is right, and in particular, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be changed.  If the elected leader of this country is known as President <surname>, you would think that Judge <surname> would be good enough for judges, who aren't even always elected to their post in the first place.  While it certainly makes sense that people deal with each other in a civil manner, especially in a court of law, it doesn't necessarily equate that some privileged people, should have salutations that imply that they are more honorable than the common man, of which, it was this common man, that has shed his blood, his life, his sweat, and provided his toil, in order to make this nation free, which, a reasonable person might reflect as being the highest or truest honor that one can provide for his country.

The People and the Government

Countries are made up of people, and "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," at least that is what is stated in our Declaration of Independence.  However, nowadays it is indeed a very hard thing to even swallow these very words: "Declaration of Independence", for back when those words were written, the representatives of the United States of America, declared that they had the right to be free and independent from allegiance to the British crown, whereas over two hundred years later, clearly the people are neither free nor independent from a country that has devolved into a government that behaves and acts effectively as an imperial law unto itself, that dictates to the people, what they can or cannot do with deliberate obfuscated reams of laws, and demands tribute through taxation from the masses, while protecting the elite from the same.

Every day in almost every way, we are reminded, if it isn't already clear to us to begin with, that there is a massive divide, between the people, and those that, in theory, represent the people, be it the executive branch, the legislative branch, or the judicial branch.  There are many, many problems with today's government, of which, the foremost is the sheer size and power of the government forces aligned against the people.  For instance, the budget of the federal government is $3.8 trillion dollars, but the federal government, is not even limited to spending up to that budget, as it actually spends way beyond that budget, and places the responsibility of making good on these massive deficits onto the people.  So too there are many other governments on the local, municipal, and State levels, that the people must contribute their hard earned monies too.  The money taken by the government from the people, is utilized to employ certain people, that make public policy and enforce public policy, of which, the upshot of all these people and all these monies spent is building upon building, institution upon institution, in which the people must request permission or must follow stringent rules, to even set foot upon such property or to utilize such institutions. 

For instance, you want to drive the nation's roads, you must have a license. For instance, you want to open up your own business, you must have a permit and frequently have to have passed certain specific tests or have an approved higher educational degree.  For instance, you want to sell goods to a neighbor, you must collect taxes on behalf of the state.   For instance, you want to buy and maintain your own real property, which is your own home, you must pay property taxes on it or you will ultimately forfeit that home.  For instance, you walk outside your home; you are potentially subject to essentially unlimited searches and seizures, by the policing agencies of the state. For instance, you are inside your own home, but the government routinely issues a no-knock warrant that enables them to take or control whatever property that you have, as well as to control you and your movements.

Does the government answer to you, on any level?  Does the government represent you, on any level? Does the government have the capacity to spy and monitor you at all times without limits? Does the government have the power to seize and impound all of your assets and to imprison you, without warrant or warning?  This is today's government, a law unto itself, and while for the most part, the government primarily targets the low lying fruit, such as petty criminals, specific dissidents, and drug abusers, it will ultimately demand complete subservience to its arbitrary dictates from the middle class, the unconnected and the non-elite, to either abjectly bow down to its imperial might, or suffer the boot placed firmly against the people's neck.

The Stunning Decline in America's Crime Rates

Crime rates in America have come down considerably in America since 1991, to which nationalreview.com in 2015 reported that: "Today, the national crime rate is about half of what it was at its height in 1991. Violent crime has fallen by 51 percent since 1991, and property crime by 43 percent."  Most people then correlate that the credit for this significant and meaningful reduction in crime must be given to the increase in the numbers of our police forces along with their corresponding more sophisticated monitoring tools, that serve to stop crime before it is committed, and the well known fact that America incarcerates more people on a per capita basis than any other well developed country in the world, keeping the "bad" guys off of the streets. 

Upon further reflection, this conclusion about why crime rates have fallen in America is not backed up by real evidence that actually supports such a finding.  For instance, you can't find a country as similar to America and as close to America as Canada, our contiguous neighbor to the north, which both has a substantially lower overall crime rate than America's which is 43% higher than Canada's, while America's police officer manpower is 27% higher than Canada's as reported by nationmaster.com, but Canada incarcerates people at a rate of 114 per 100,000 persons in comparison to the United States which incarcerates people at a staggering 693 per 100,000 persons as reported by Wikipedia.com. 

One of the most important reasons why crime rates in America have fallen so dramatically, is simply the demographics which demonstrates that America is an aging country that today has a median age of 36.8 years as compared to 1990 when it was just 32.9 years, very pertinent, as a significant portion of criminal activities are committed by young people, so that an older population will consequently have less crime.  Additionally, many crimes are committed by people that grow up in impoverished environments, in which positive role models are sorely lacking, free time is spend unproductively, good educational opportunities are limited, delinquency is rampant, and parental supervision is anemic.  The birthrate in America has declined markedly since 1990, especially telling is the significant decline in the birthrate of those in the lower socioeconomic level, indicating that less children overall are being born into families that have difficulty supporting them in a proper manner conducive towards their successful upbringing.

The fact of the matter is that crime is committed most often by those that believe that their opportunities are limited, are immature in their thought processes, and that have lost hope that they will ever succeed given their current condition.  So too, successful social programs that provide the disenfranchised with enough food, shelter, and healthcare, has been successful in taking away some of that fuel to the fire of the angst that the underclass suffers from.

Although experts and social services have all sorts of reasons why crime has declined so markedly in America over the last twenty-five years, nobody seems to know for a certainty, exactly why.  The thing about crime is that it is often a reflection of real frustration and anger, and so too it is done often in imitation of others, therefore when you are able to replace these things with hope, with good examples or viable alternatives, and with an inclusive society that lives the principle that it will not leave a child behind, there is that belief, that one's destiny may truly rest in one's own actions.