Blackjack and the Lottery

Most every State in our nation allows lotteries of some sort within State lines, all of which, have certain and specific rules of the various games, the selling of tickets, where the lottery is sold and allowed , and where it is not allowed, along with whether the lottery is permitted online.  Whether lotteries are a good idea for States in the first place is highly debatable, as the appeal of "instant money" in return for providing no labor to earn such, is morally suspect.  However, the real crux of lottery issues is essentially that the State promotes and advertises playing the lottery as if the game is fair, reasonable, and fun, in which, in all aspects, it isn't.  For instance, there isn't a casino in America, that has the hold percentages that lottery operators have a monopoly on, in which it is estimated by researchers depending upon the State and the game, that the lottery operators, that is the State, keeps at a minimum 30% of the amount of the monies spent on the lottery, up to perhaps as high as 70%.  For instance, as reported by kslottery.com "The Kansas Lottery Act requires that a minimum of 45 percent of total sales be paid back to the players through the prize fund," which would indicate that the hold percentage in the State of Kansas is permitted to be as high as 55%.  To equate that in real terms, that would mean participants in the Kansas lottery on average for every $100 bet, would only get $45 back.

While different lottery venues offer different games, the basic backbone of lottery play in all of the States that offer it is the ability for the player to either make quick picks, have the picks automatically generated for them, or scratch off tickets, of which, none of these things have an element of skill involved whatsoever, and all of them are quick.  A better way to engage the general public in which lottery tickets are offered in an online format is to offer to the public games in which the rules are straightforward, mathematically calculable by patrons of the game, and that involve a skill level. The best game for such an adventure would be blackjack, which if you're going to offer lottery games in the first place, States should seriously consider offering as an option a game that engages its participants, without having to go to a physical casino, while having an active involvement in the outcome of a given game.

The thing about States is pretty much, once you open up the door to the lottery in your State, you can pretty much open up the door to other things in the same sort of field, of which blackjack would be one of them.  The advantage to the State of offering blackjack is the fact that it would attract patrons that need "action" in order to find some sort of fulfillment or adrenaline rush, as well as the fact that because there most definitely is a skill element involved, their decisions while playing such a game would matter.

The nice thing about blackjack, is the State could set the rules, and by manipulating those rules, know for a certainty what their hold percentage would be, to which, in aggregate because players don’t play expert strategy, while also typically gambling at a higher monetary unit than is prudent for their bankroll, as well as by making side bets that are tempting to the consumer, but mathematically a poor investment, would find that their true State hold percentage would be higher in actuality.  The State would still make its money, while giving patrons more "bang for their buck", along with that desired adrenaline rush that entices consumers into gambling in the first place.

Health care Costs

According to the Associated Press, America spends on average $10,345 per person per year in America for health care, if that sounds outrageously high, keep in mind, that the average wage for individuals as reported by CNBC was just $44,569 for 2014.  Further to the point, the Associated Press reports that for health care that: "…about 5 percent of the population….accounts for nearly half the spending in a given year.  Meanwhile, half the population has little or no health care costs, accounting for 3 percent of spending."  This sums up succulently everything that is wrong with our health care and its cost structure throughout America, in which the system not only is not very efficient in its money allocations, but apparently our health care infrastructure lives in some sort of idealistic world of not taking into consideration that time, monies spent and ultimately the billing of such, matters.

One of the fundamental problems with health care is the opacity of virtually everything that happens with patients when visiting a physician or while being admitted to a hospital.  The patient typically doesn't really know what is going on, is powerless or too ill to do much about it, and in addition, is typically clueless about the cost of what is going on, and in particular, who pays for what.  Additionally, health care should not be looked upon, as an unlimited bucket of services, that society, or insurance, or individuals, will just have to pay for, no matter the cost, no matter the reason, no matter much of anything. 

While it is understandable, that people that are sick should desire to get well, if must also be stated, that ultimately, not every problem can be successfully mitigated or resolved, in addition to the rather inconvenient fact, that all physical matter must eventually die.  This doesn’t mean that hospitals and doctors should be callous towards their patients, what it does mean, though, is that putting forth: "all the king's horses and all the king's men" is often neither the prudent nor effective course of action.

Additionally, individuals, more than any other entity, must have skin in their own health care game.  That is to say that the decisions, activities, and things that people do on an everyday basis with their body and mind, most definitely has an effect upon their overall health and therefore insurance companies, governmental bureaucracies, and employers, should incentivize people to make good lifetime choices, as this pays off in the short as well as over the long term.  Then there are those, typically the very young, as well as the very old, whose health, needs significant medical attention, which should be provided, but within a prism in which cost, equipment, and manpower are considered in conjunction with each other.

So too, fingers must be pointed at the entire health care system, as to why, with so much monies spent, America accomplishes far less than what it ought to for its people.  This would imply strongly that the system as currently structured and managed is widely inefficient and based on results, not all that effective, either.  This would indicate that from the very top on down, the heath care infrastructure must be reconfigured, re-imagined, and redone.  Health care in America isn't working very well, and it thereby needs a very significant makeover, and in order to do so, America must demonstrate in action the urgency and wisdom to effect the necessary changes required for this country and for its people that deserve no less.

The American Debt Crisis

America is the richest nation in the world, the nation with the highest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the highest Gross National Product (GNP) bar none.  Not only does America have all the advantages of being the de facto currency or reserve currency of the world, it has the military might and economic influence that permeates or influences virtually every nation on this good earth.  In addition, to all these wonderful things, America is the destination of choice of the best and brightest throughout this world, along with its being the favored nation for bringing real assets and knowledge by accomplished entrepreneurs to our shores in either actuality or in practicality.  Yet, with all these massive advantages, America seems incapable of keeping their fiscal house in order.

When President Clinton left office at the end of 2000, the deficit of America was $5.67 trillion dollars, a massive amount but in comparison to our real GDP of $12.56 trillion dollars, perhaps manageable, under the right circumstances.  Since then, under Presidents Bush and Obama, America's deficit has soared to $19.39 trillion dollars, whereas the real GDP is just $16.73 trillion dollars.  Further troubling news is that our real GDP growth from the years 2005-2016, has not exceeded 3% per annum in any of those years, which is unprecedented for America, and proof positive that America does not have the ability to grow its way out of its massive current debt.

In point of fact, in order to have enough escape velocity to alleviate the current debt crisis, America must either grow its way out of it, by producing real higher growth, something that would appear to be improbable, cut deficits, something that the politicians of this great nation refuse to take the necessary steps to accomplish, or, essentially debase the monetary currency of the realm, by inflation, which is, no doubt, the plan of the moment, but with incredible perils of its own.

The problem with stoking the inflation fires, is as follows, of which on one side, American tax revenues increase because prices, salaries, and fees will correspondingly increase, and by virtue of our progressive tax system, higher incomes mean higher tax extraction rates, effectively meaning that wage earners while earning more money nominally, are actually netting less money in actuality which also translates into less buying power.  The other positive of inflation for the government is, in theory, they are able to pay down their debt with money that has been effectively devalued, so inflation has made that ongoing deficit lower in real terms. 

However, as always, for every winner, there is a loser, in which, those that invested in bonds, and other fixed interest instruments, will while still being paid what they have due to them, are being paid back in debased currency, to wit, they will lose out not only from the interest that they should have received giving them a real positive return, but because of inflation, their real return will actually be negative.

There is though one additional problem to higher inflation, which is the biggest debtor of them all is America, and America will therefore have to pay higher interest rates on its debt, because the lenders of such, will, once convinced that inflation is here to stay, mandate that they get a net positive return for their risk.

This, would then indicate, that there is no easy or ready solution for our massive deficit solution, and in fact, if America insists on not getting its house in order, by continuing to run incredible debilitating deficits each and every year, now and into the future, this house of cards will inevitably collapse and a new monetary issue will be created, amongst the absolute chaos of this momentous and unsettling event.

Public Transportation and your Identity

The worse form of public transportation in the sense of intolerance and disrespect by far in America is by airplane, in which, citizens are essentially treated as suspects, when entering into the airport and while going through the airport security procedure, which allows governmental employees, at will, to search, screen, and pat-down whomever that they so desire.  That is the norm in America, and the chances of it changing anytime soon are pretty much zero.

On the other hand, there are other forms of public transportation which depending upon your income level, and where you live, you may take on a daily basis or hardly at all, which consist of subways, buses, and trains.  These public transportation agencies have different sets of rules depending upon the community and location, but all of them, in one form of another, are gravitating away from accepting cash payments on the spot, and instead, one must have already previously purchased a Metro card, or TAP card, or a ticket through various means to accomplish such.

Once all public transportation refuses cash on the spot, and instead insists that you have the proper governmental permitted access card or ticket to board these public transportation vehicles, than this essentially means that in order to utilize public transportation you must positively identify yourself at some point in order to get access to these conveyances.  For many people, this might not pose a problem, because they don't see the inconvenience or the hypocrisy of having to identify themselves, probably because they are so use to doing it or have been conditioned to doing it on an everyday basis, but for the indigent and very poor, it is a major burden when cash is no longer accepted, while from a freedomfor citizens to simply access public streets, public facilities, and public transportation, this mandated insistence that all must be identified, is an unwelcomed and unnecessary intrusion upon the people's rights to simply get from place-to-place without having to identify themselves, and yet another negation of their freedom of movement.

In point of fact, all the types of identification and security measures that are currently conducted in airports are subject to being enforced in the very near future for all public transportation, to which, all this will be sold to the public as necessary for their safety and security.  Certainly, the lines and screening as seen and done at airports won't translate completely for all public transportation, as the logistics of such can't be accomplished, but as long as the government has the right to stop any and all "suspects", search any and all bags, while making their presence known, this will effectively serve the same purpose as our current airport security.

Further to the point, when all must be positively identified, in order to board any sort of public transportation, than the government will have a database of pretty much exactly who and whom is on board at all times, making it far easier for the government to reconstruct events when something untoward happens.  Some will applaud this, many will not care, but others will recognize it for what it is, an intrusion upon the sovereignty of the individual, with the governmental boot increasing its powerful pressure upon the citizen's neck.

Democracy and the Tyranny of the Majority

Imagine that you live in a country in which in its simplified and most basic form, has but two families, one being the McCoys and the other being the Hatfields.  Unfortunately, for the McCoys, they are significantly outnumbered by the Hatfields, so that in this democratically elected government in which each citizen gets one vote, the Hatfields by majority vote control the judicial, as well as the legislative, and the executive branches of this government.  Although, this government does have a written constitution, its interpretation is done by the judicial branch, its enforcement is done by agents of the state, and the executive branch is the commander-in-chief of it all.  As you might suspect, this democratic government is highly favorable to the Hatfields and not at all beneficial to the McCoys, yet, in theory, since it is a government of the majority, and thereby majority rules, that seems fair, but it sure isn't in its unfair execution of justice.

One person, one vote, has its place, but in order for it to be effective as a rule in any country and at any time, there has to be a higher law that all must answer to.  This law exists and is known as natural law, basically defined as the law that all peoples are subject to, which is objective, fair, consistent, and moral in all of its myriad aspects.   The point, therefore, of any civil government, is to band together in one body politic so as to protect and defend the natural rights that all citizens have within a given country, and therefore governments are instituted amongst mankind, deriving their just powers from the consent of those governed. This government is constituted amongst the people so as to most effectively provide them with fair opportunity, safety in numbers, and the freedom to pursue their own happiness.

If, on the other hand, everything comes down to how the majority rules at the ballot box, no matter how slight or how extensive that vote differential is, in which, the majority than determines what it will do to the minority or how they will properly reward the majority, you perhaps have a democracy in name, but have a tyranny in actuality.  Above it all, in any real legitimate government, there is justice, which is in its application, equally applied to all, it is fair, it its reasonable, it is considerate, it is humane, and it is consistent.  We know when the law is just, by the fruits of the laws within a given country, to wit, there will be equality of opportunity, there will be an equality of liberty, and there will be an equality of freedom.

The rights of mankind are not held in the scepters of kings, it is found only in the Kingdom of God that has bestowed upon each of us, certain, unalienable rights.  A legitimate democracy is only legitimate when it affirms our unalienable rights, as well as recognizing that any democracy governs best, when it governs least, recognizing that good governance in all of its many forms, simply comes down to seeing the other as equal in rights and opportunity as one self, favoring none at the expense of the other, and being a good neighbor, through and through

Nature has a Sensibility that we may never fully understand

Life in all of its aspects is complicated, far more complicated and intricate than most people could possibly imagine.  It is fantastic that man sees something such as the flight of birds and believes deep within his psyche, that he too should be able to fly, or that man sees the fish of the sea, and believes deep within his psyche, that he too should be able to swim in water.  So too, in looking at the human body, man believes that it can be improved upon or modified, or re-configured, which perhaps is true to a point.  The thing about the body, is when you hear from esteemed medical doctors or pundits that you don't necessarily have to have two kidneys, or that they don't really know the reason for having an appendix, or that your tonsils aren't really necessary if you are, for instant, constantly suffering from strep throat or similar, is that your body is far more complicated, far more intricate, than perhaps even medical doctors are really aware of.

So too, when looking at nature itself, people wonder that since mosquitoes are the reason for yellow fever as well as other air-borne transmitted diseases, as well as there being other insects or animals, that seem to be rather detrimental in some respects to humans, and with humans having to be on constant guard against dangerous bacteria, viruses, and parasites, one conclusion that might be reached is that we must therefore need to live in a world which is completely antiseptic, but that isn't necessarily the truth, because, again, it is far more complicated  and intricate than that.

For instance, there is a lot that people can learn from the process of immunization, in which, the principle of such is for the body to be injected with a known agent accomplished though without its associated pathogen, this thus creates still an induced immune response from the body, and hence immunization against this particular pathogen, thereby, providing protection to the body from that pathogen without having to destroy the pathogen itself.   This is a prime example of understanding nature, and rather than taking a path of the wholesale destruction of the pathogen in nature which may or may not cause problems, known or unknown in the future, instead, the body is trained to defend itself from such.

It's wonderful, that man sees the world and wishes to improve upon it, and desires to re-make the world in all of its many aspects bend to his will, but hubris on the part of mankind can in itself set in motion tragedies that need not occur.  This is why things that are built in order to make life safer or more efficient may instead end up making life more dangerous and ultimately are found not to be efficient.  It is the reason too that the unthinking application of chemicals, or antibiotics, or myriad other things, may indeed have unintended consequences.

There is a beautiful symmetry in nature that first should be observed, than should be understood in all of its many aspects, before mankind takes the step of improving or affecting his will against it.  It is the easiest thing in the world to state that one knows what one is doing, and thereby to trust that judgment, but in reality things, more often than not, are far more complicated, and those that will not take the time and consideration to learn at the feet of nature, will find directly or indirectly that this insensitivity is akin to fire, which though it illuminates, also burns.

American Plutocracy

In many aspects of American life and governance, this is a nation ruled by the wealthy on behalf of the wealthy that exploits those that lack wealth or connections to wealth.  The simple fact is that those that have a lot of money, typically also have family, friends, and associates that they want to take care of now and far into the future, so the money that they have is a vibrant form of power, of which few when obtaining such power, voluntarily wish to relinquish such a legacy whatsoever.

It would be one thing if the wealth obtained by those that have it, came on the fair and square, that is, was properly earned through honest labor in the full meaning of the word, whereas the truth of the matter is, the rich of today, make the bulk of their money off of the poor and the exploited or receive their riches from their bloodline.  Take, for instance, money that is inherited, in which, those that are born into impoverished families or of families of modest means, of which many Americans fall into these categories, typically inherit nothing but perhaps some wisdom, or, if fortunate, a very modest sum of money.  Those though, that die with millions are able to with the aid of the appropriate lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors, to take the vast bulk of their net worth and pass it on either directly or indirectly to their progeny or foundation, in which this money will continue to exert its power for generations to come. 

Then there is the structure of corporations which is akin to a pyramid, with the bulk of employees at the bottom, and the CEO, and other executives at the very pinnacle of such a pyramid.  While employees do receive compensation, the lion's share of the profits, the lion's share of the benefits, for many American corporations, gravitates to the very, very top and a very, very few in total.  It is these high-powered executives that enrich themselves with stock options priced particularly well for their benefit, so too, it is these executives that receive the largess of over-the-top severance and retirement packages, as well as often being accorded the very best in travel, food, and entertainment, all charged to the company's cost of doing business.

America has private ownership of land, but that ownership, that access, that negotiation for prime pieces of land, has almost never been on the up-and-up and aboveboard to the general public, whatsoever.  The very best land to be exploited for its natural resources, or for its prime location, or zoned to improved its value, are all set aside for those that are members of the exclusive club that benefits from such, and thereby those that are on the outside, never are permitted a fair shake or a fair chance.  When the best land is owned by a select few, is it no wonder that they are able to exploit such so that as manufacturers, or as a rentier, or as natural resource extractors, they make money, without having to break their back in doing so.

The ordinary folk never have a chance, as they need to work at whatever wage, fair or not, in order to provide for themselves as well as their family, which is exactly what the plutocrats want. These magnates are few in number, so they understand well the necessity to spread their money around so that the justice system, the policing system, company management, media, and the application of such, are done in a manner that those working at the behest of the elite, gladly do so, because these select people benefit enough, that they appreciate the wages bestowed upon them, recognizing in their most honest moments, that the alternative to not playing ball with the plutocrats is rather bleak.

The very rich have it all and control it all, leaving just scrapes of the American dream for mainstream America to live on, in this, the richest country of them all.  This is indeed a country of the few, for the few, and by the few, in which they live, and we die.

Mars won't be a paradise, till earth is

It's perhaps a bit of a cheap shot to smirk at lines as inane as the: "Earth's surface is the shoreline of a new ocean," and “Creating a self-sustaining civilization on Mars would be the greatest adventure ever in human history,” and recognize that the personages mouthing such are hopelessly inept in their thought processes along with their woeful misunderstanding of wisdom or sensibility.  The "special ones" will always get a lot of airtime, because what they have to say sounds compelling, mainly because it serves its purpose as an escape hatch, from the everyday corruption, hopelessness, and brutishness that surrounds so many of us on planet earth and therein lies the rub.

While it's alright to fantasize about traveling to planet Mars and creating a sustaining civilization on it, it's hypocrisy at its absolute worse to take the means to do so from the people of today and generations to come without having corrected the fundamental problems that exist on planet earth.  The obligation that all humans have on this planet to begin with, is to live in harmony with each other, to see themselves in the other, and to live a life that lives by those very principles. 

The escape plan to Mars, or some other planet, or some other distant galaxy, is fundamentally unsound, because it is structured to benefit the few and the elite, while taking from the many and the unconnected.  The first principle that one needs to understand is that everything that humans need to do and to accomplish to begin with first needs to be done correctly on this planet.  There are challenges enough on earth, to keep us busy for generations, and if mankind refuses to get its house in order here, it won't have its house in order somewhere else.

It's fantastic that man's reach exceeds his grasp, and it's fantastic that man applying his mind can accomplish so many grand technical feats, of which, some of these benefit mankind, and some do not.  The overarching purpose though, of a life lived well, is not that you helped better your own bed,

although that has its place, but that you helped those most needful of help to begin with.  What credit is it to any man, if your superior mind and knowledge is utilized to aid a favored few at the expense of the masses of mankind?

In point of fact, there isn't anything much easier than working with people of a like mind, because to a certain extent, these people are sort of like reflections of your own persona.  Of far more difficulty, though, is to work with those that actively hate you, despise you, treat you wrong, misunderstand you, and abuse you, for these are the ones that really need your guidance, love, opportunity, empathy, and understanding.  After all, if they are too much trouble for you to deal with, however are they going to generate on their own the escape velocity that they need in order to attain their mission in life?

The actual greatest adventure in human history will be the utilization of one's mind to connect to the source of all wisdom and truth, to thereby understand fully: "E Pluribus Unum" at is foundational principle level, than you will see clearly as if for the very first time.

The Government and the Underclass

America has a massive underclass that lacks the opportunity in most cases to escape from their Sisyphus cycle of dependency on governmental handouts and subsidies.  This underclass often does not have the correct toolkit to lift themselves up by their own bootstraps so as to achieve some of the things that we typically take for granted as parts of the American dream such as: self-sufficiency, retirement savings, home ownership, and good health.  Over the years, governmental agencies of all sorts have stepped in to help, to which, some of these programs are a real benefit and boon for some, whereas others are so lacking in real effectiveness that they are actually a hindrance to those that they are supposedly setup to serve.

The indigent and the underclass want to see that the playing field is somewhat leveled, and consequently throughout recent history, they have more often than not turned to governmental agencies in order to achieve this worthwhile goal.  The problem though with the government, is that unlike private charitable organizations which contribute vital help to poor people often in a personal way which does not typically stigmatize the person receiving such aid, the government on the other hand, appears to want to deliberately stigmatize its beneficiaries.

There are many, many problems with governmental aid, of which a fundamental one is that those that work on behalf of the government, are paid by the citizens of the United States through taxation, but appear to answer to none other than fellow bureaucrats and certainly not to the public in any meaningful way.  On the other hand, many charities utilize a significant amount of resources in which the people doing the yeoman work are actually volunteers, of which, their volunteering of such, is typically a reflection of their belief that their mission serves a higher purpose and this gives them the satisfaction of performing their duties with a certain joy. 

The thing is that when you make it public policy that the bureaucrats that are ostensibly serving the public and their needs are in actuality making a good, living wage from such social work, the people that are the recipients of such aid, are consequently being cheated from their largess, because of the bureaucratic overhead which first takes care of the bureaucrats before it even considers taking care of its mission.  Additionally, the public are often treated as suffering supplicants in which, the bureaucrats of these various social programs make the process of receiving needed aid so circuitous, confusing, and arbitrary, that many times people are denied the very things that they really need and are eminently eligible for.

Additionally, in virtually any governmental program, the established players, that is the actual providers of food, shelter, healthcare, education and whatnot are always served first, and served in a manner by the government and its cronyism so that the program is setup specifically that these enterprises benefit the most from such, followed by the overhead of the program getting its share, and finally, whatever balance is left over is handed out to those agile enough to navigate the paperwork and rules so as to receive what has already been earmarked for them to receive to begin with.

While at some level the government, or at least a few subjects within the government, actually do want to help the unfortunate, that is truly help the needy and poor, in practicality the underclass merely represents the reason for the program's existence, of which the only true winners are the established and consolidated industry players, the bureaucrats that than get their cut while lording it over the weak and poor, leaving the poor only with the detritus of despair.

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.