America's Longest War

I suppose if you asked most Americans which war was our longest, you might get answers such as our Revolutionary War or the Vietnam war, both of which are meaningful answers andnearly correct, but in actuality it is the ongoing war with Afghanistan that started in October of 2001.  Afghanistan?  Give me a break.  We went to war in Korea and Vietnam to help prevent or contain the spread of communism, but Afghanistan?!  We've been told that the reason we went to war with Afghanistan is because of al Qaeda.  That reason certainly doesn't seem fair to Afghanistan, or to its people, or to the people of the United States.  You should not, nor do you not, need to attack a sovereign nation for the unproven crimes of a few.   You certainly don't need to be at war with this country for over twelve years and counting.  It doesn't make any sense and it can only make matters worse.

The United States claims it is fighting against al Qaeda and the insurgents, on behalf of the Afghan people.  Really?  That seems not only highly unlikely but very doubtful in the real world.  Afghanistan can take care of its own people and its own governance and in the event that it has difficulties in ruling its people, it can call upon many resources such as neighboring countries, historical precedents, or the United Nations.  Al Qaeda was the rallying point for United States intervention into a sovereign nation and incredibly after twelve years we still haven't completed our mission.  The fact of the matter is if al Qaeda is hanging out in caves and mountains, isn't that exactly where we want them?!  Why do we need to hunt them down or to chase them if they are far away from civilian populations and their size is so puny?   If al Qaeda and the Taliban are interfering, subverting, or running government and/or paramilitary agencies within Afghanistan bordersisn't that an Afghanistan issue and not ours?  Is Afghanistan really and realistically a country that we need fear for anything?

If there are any al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan that were part and parcel of the 9/11 attack upon American soil, they should be brought to justice, and I suspect that they already have in one way or another.  Any new al Qaeda operatives created since then have a lot more to do with our meddling into Afghanistan affairs, killing civilians, disrupting their economy, and invading their country.  Besides the unnecessary destruction and deaths of Afghanistan people, we have also put our own resources and troops into harm's way.  For what?  Is the world really safer, is the United States more respected, more feared, than it was twelve long years ago, or is the United States more despised internationally with certain foreign countries that have felt our unending wrath.

Of course, the more cynical pundits believe that the Afghanistan war has been waged so that we can get access to the invaluable minerals that Afghanistan has such as gold and lithium, and a deep desire to see an oil pipeline and possibly a natural gas pipelined extend from the Caspian Sea to the Arabian Sea.  Sad to say, there is more truth in this previous sentence than anything the US administration has been shoving down our throats for the past twelve years.

The military and the Presidency

Our first President, George Washington, was General and Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, the highest military position in our land.  Grant was appointed General-in-Chief of the Union Army during the civil war and later became President for two terms.  Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion of Europe during World War II and was elected to two terms as President.  Another nine Presidents reached the rank of either Brigadier General or Major General in their careers before they too became elected as President.   In fact, most Presidents have served in the military in some capacity or other in their lives, with only twelve of our forty-four presidents having never been in uniform.  Should such a high percentage of Presidents having been at such a high military ranking worry us?  Yes, I believe so.

While I have the utmost admiration for Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower, there is a supreme danger in any top military leader becoming President of the United States.  Our defense department today is our largest employer, has a monstrous global footprint, and a budget that is somewhere around $650 billion to nearly $800 billion, depending on what departments that you do or don't assign to the Department of Defense.  Our military is second to none, and has the power, personnel, and strength to annihilate, dominate, overturn, control, or invade virtually any country in the world in which that country will either have to submit forthwith or bear the consequences of their obstinacy.

While you can make arguments either way, that for instance the United States given its awesome power has been remarkably restrained in its use of it in foreign endeavors, or you could also argue with validity that the United States has acted as the world's bully policeman with virtual impunity; what can't be argue, is that power of that sort is truly dangerous in the wrong hands.    A man that commands respect from the military knows the military, and how to use the military, is one or two steps removed from being a quasi-dictator in our country.  If a man has control of the military, what use are our laws, our courts, or our people (especially if unarmed), to stymie the tide.

The declaration of martial law is a distinct possibility in America.  But it is also something that has to be carefully planned and thought about.  One problem that the military has is that we have a civilian police force, but the military has already been working on that.  The bridge to control the police forces of America is Homeland Security, and through close cooperation between Homeland Security and police departments all over America, there has been created a symbiotic relationship between the two.  This is critical, because it is that civilian police force which will initially give our Department of Defense "boots on the ground" in every significant city.  The government is also actively promoting its agenda of taking back Americans' right to arms, and specifically the arms themselves.  They will do anything to take back those armaments from the wrong civilians, including simply buying the arms back at any price.  Taking those arms back is an important step, not absolutely mandatory, but highly desirable.  If the government is not successful in their actions they will make it their business to know precisely where the arms are located and when the time comes they will move in a military like precision to neutralize those people and to seize control.

It can't happen here.  It can and it will.  The government wants to believe that it knows best and prefers not to argue about it.  The more power that we cede to the government and to the military-industrial complex, the tighter the rope is around our collective necks.  Great USA military leaders who understood their responsibilities and had integrity and restraint of power appear to be a thing of the past.  If General Washington was to come back to life today, he would be marginalized, compromised, or assassinated.

The Last best Hope on Earth

On December, 1, 1862, over 150 years ago, President Lincoln delivered a message to Congress in which he impressed the importance that in giving freedom to the slave, we would assure freedom for all, and concluded that "We hall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope on earth." Is the last best hope on earth, alive and true to its principles or has our freedom become compromised, corrupted, and a thing of the past?  Is America truly free?

Many people are confused about the meaning and significance of freedom in which they believe that freedom is simply the right or desire to do whatever you want, whenever that you want.  That isn't freedom at all; instead it is a form of chaos.   True freedom is far more limiting than not having the right to yell "fire" in a crowded theatre.  We are not free to do whatever we like, or to behave any way that we desire, that would be a childish world with only cries of "mine, mine.".  Our individuality in a community implies a responsibility to that community and to a universal moral code that applies to all.   That is not to say that we as individuals give up our freedom in order to be part of the community, the choices are still our own to make, but within those choices there are consequences to man, to man's law, and to moral law.    

However, in America our real freedom is being compromised every day.  When you are walking in New York City, for example, and you are stopped and frisked for no other reason than that you fit some predetermined profile that sure isn't equal freedom, equally applied.  When you go to the airport and are randomly screened, even though you are old, crippled, disabled, and you are subjected to an intensive and invasive body pat-down, that isn't freedom properly administered, in which a rational person would not administer such a degradation and humiliation to a citizen of your stature as a needless necessary precaution before boarding an airplane.

The government butts its head into all sorts of things which are not legitimately government business.  Who we talk to, who we message, who we visit, where we go, what we do, is really our own individual business and not the governments'.  The government in conjunction with large mega-corporations wants to track and monitor all of its subjects, in the guise of safety.  This is a smokescreen, the real purpose, is to exploit us, to manipulate us, to control us, to utilize us, to make money off of us and/or to compromise us.  Our freedom to just be ourselves is now being tracked and monitored through massive databases that are controlled by entities that we have no power over.

The freedom and last best hope of earth that Lincoln referred to, was the freedom to do the things that we ought to do, to live up to that high standard of seeing that every man is a brother, and therefore should be treated as such, and further that we are all sons and daughters of God.   The government should be our servant, and our ally, it should be a fortress to protect us from those that would destroy us from the outside, and a bulwark in defending morals, and right choices within.

Should Police Ticket You for Driving Infractions?

Let's face it; the main reason that Police officers ticket you for various traffic offenses is for revenue, and not for the infraction itself being some sort of public menace to the citizen's safety.  For instance, it's late at night, there isn't a car around, and you make an illegal u-turn, I mean, what's the point of the ticket, right then, cause really it's real purpose is for ticketing people that make that illegal u-turn during heavily trafficked times of the day in which a u-turn at that intersection, for example, interferes with other cars turning right at the intersection.

Another real good reason to eliminate police officers from ticketing you for traffic offenses is the perceived threat that you feel to your liberty and to your safety when you see those blue lights flashing behind you.  An officer is supposed to uphold the law, and many do most of the time, but some do not, some of the time.  When you are pulled over by an officer, you are at the mercy of someone that has handcuffs, a firearm, and other weapons, and the law that can be arbitrarily applied against you.  All this you have to suffer for some minor traffic offense and for simply driving on a public road or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This though could gradually change with switching the responsibility of ticketing drivers for infractions from police officers who are highly paid and replacing them with by-law enforcement officers, who are paid considerably less.  A by-law enforcement officer is a civilian working as an adjunct to a police force but is not a police officer (e.g. parking meter officer).  Because a by-law enforcement officer carries no firearm and has no direct arresting power, you as a civilian can feel more relaxed that a traffic offense will simply be treated as a traffic ticket and not be escalated to something far more drastic.

I don't believe that it's any real stretch of the imagination to take someone that is capable of slapping a parking violation ticket on your car to someone that is capable of ticketing you for running a stoplight or for not yielding or various other traffic offenses.    These by-law enforcement officers could work with a sophisticated video camera attached to their dashboard to first record the infraction and then in situations in which the offender tries to outrun the by-law enforcement officer this information could be transmitted to a nearby police officer for further action.

Utilizing by-law enforcement officers for traffic offenses, would free up more time for police officers to perform their primary duties within their communityThe budget for overtime in police departments should also decline considerably along with police officer personnel reduction due to attrition or non-hiring.    Because by-law enforcement officers will specifically work traffic offenses they will be motivated to do a good job because that is their specific job.  Since most traffic violations are minor and are not criminally prosecuted, but are simply treated as fines, this seems like a practical transition to make.

Military loves football

Football is the most popular sport in America.  It's popular in high school, it's popular in college, and it's the #1 grossing sport in America at the professional level with revenues of $9.5 billion for fiscal year 2012.  There isn't any question that football is big business and that it is beloved by many Americans.  Professional football is also the premier sport in holding its own in ratings on primetime TV week after week, and the Super bowl is the most watched event in America year after year.

There also isn't any doubt that football is the military's favorite and simpatico sport.  The military teaches unity and the necessity of individuals becoming subservient to orders commanded from superior officers without hesitation.  The military is not a democracy it is an autocracy.  The military makes the rules and creates the orders; it is therefore your job as a solider to obey these orders, not to debate the merits of them.  A good solider is a soldier that is loyal, courageous, selfless, and decisive, who works well together with a team of soldiers to carry out their specific duties or missions with precision and purpose.

A lot of the above could be used to describe what makes up a good football player on a given team, subject to the actual position that he plays.  For the offense, the quarterback would be considered its general, and for the defense, most likely the middle line backer would be its general.  In the NFL, there are no spontaneous plays, like you might have had on your school playground, with so-and-so just trying to wing it past his defender and some other player heading in the general direction of some signpost.  Every play in the NFL is in the playbook which is itself the bible that the coaches refer to again and again and again.  It is repetition, it is precise execution, and it is consistency and courage under duress that they demand from their players.  The plays must be executed "as is", sure they are contingencies that players must adjust to, but that is the nature of battle.

There are plenty of military terms used in football, such as when a quarterback is "sacked", which equates to what a military does to a city that it conquers. Also, "blitz" which is probably a shorter form of blitzkrieg; when the offensive and defensive lines meet in the middle of the field that is "trench warfare" and "field general" which stands for the quarterback directing his team on the field of action. 

The military and football go together.  Their similarities are so striking, it's no wonder that the military isn't delighted to see that football is not only popular to play but popular to watch.  Consequently, football can also be seen as a form of propaganda for the population as a whole.  Propaganda that helps to indoctrinate the population that service for your team is the same as service to your country.  Further, that the individual is swallowed up by the whole, that there is an elite head coach or president that will train you and direct your movements for the betterment of the team and its end result.

"Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country."  That is one sentiment, apropos to football, but there is a better one: " …and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."  That is democracy and true unity.

Meet the new subprime

The housing subprime crisis had a humongous rise up and a massive meltdown.  One sincerely doubts that the thinking that created the subprime crisis and the repackaging of those loans into credit derivatives markets could ever really go away.  I mean, greed just doesn't simply disappear and evaporate.  So, no doubt, the sharpest minds in the room, said to themselves, that there had to be another area that could be exploited just as well and they came up with it: our vehicles.

The biggest material asset that the typical person purchases in their lifetime is their home, and the second biggest material asset that people purchase is their vehicles.  However, there are a few important points to make: one is that a significant portion of the population will never purchase a home and therefore that means their most significant material possession of their lifetime will, in fact, be their vehicle.  Secondly, there are some people that actually spend more money on their vehicle than they do on their housing.  Thirdly, a vehicle is a very important component for most people that have a job.  If you take all of these attributes together, you will recognize that there is a huge underclass of people that need a car, that don't have good credit, and will pay whatever it takes to purchase a car.  That leads to innovation and/or exploitation.

What lenders like about cars as compared to homes is that cars are stable as compared to homes which are extremely illiquid, with home pricing that can crater a significant amount in a very short time period, so that when a home goes bad you are looking at the potential of a substantial banking loss, especially with a low down payment on that home.  Vehicles on the other hand are sold in the thousands throughout the entire United States, their historic pricing is consistent, their resale value is consistent, and with GPS being well-nigh universal, a car is very easy to find, retrieve, re-possess, store, or re-sale for reasonable fees.  The other important factors about vehicles are that they are fairly expensive and the volume that is sold each year is huge.   With all those factors taken together, cars are the prime place to be to work that subprime magic.

For General Motors Financial and its 2nd quarter of 2013, the credit worthiness of their customers was staggeringly poor, to wit, 97% of the loans were to people with credit scores of 659 or less.  While GM Financial is only about 10% of the GM loans in aggregate within its retail financial transactions,  the credit worthiness of these customers is pathetic, and the monies involved is not trivial.  In fact, according to Experian Automotive for the first half of 2013, 27 percent of loans for all new vehicles went to subprime borrowers, that is, people with credit scores of 670 or lower.  According to hotair.com, at the end of 2012, there were 6.6 million borrowers of subprime loans.  The total dollar amount of these loans for 2011 that was sold to investors was $11.7 billion, in 2012 it was $18.5 billion, and for 2013 it should rise even higher.

Greed hasn't gone away, it's only been repackaged.  It's a shell game, or perhaps a game of musical chairs, but it will too end poorly, the economy is sputtering along, and money is extremely tight in most households.  America lives and double-downs on borrowed money, unfortunately the fat lady is getting ready to sing.

Judges Overruling our Democratic Process

The democratic process should seldom be overturned by the judiciary, as that essentially leads to or creates a subversion of democracy and undermines the entire process and validity of democracy itself.  If the people are not in charge of their destiny, but in fact, are subservient to a certain judge or judges, then democracy effectively ceases to exist and are lives are no longer in our own hands, but in the hands of those who would believe that they know better, and often have agendas that are in conflict with the majority of the population.   If judges feel that they can indiscriminately work outside the rule of law, than law itself, has no effective meaning or stability.  No law, once firmly established, should be overruled without good and valid reasons to do so which must be not only enumerated but well reasoned.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected to be the 16th President of the United States.  Despite Lincoln not being on the ballot in ten southern states, Lincoln received the most popular votes of any candidate and a majority of the electoral votes and thereby was elected as our President.  Before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, a total of seven southern states had seceded from the union.  Lincoln presciently stated in his Cooper Union Speech of February 27, 1860:  “Your purpose then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, in all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.”  The civil war was fought for many reasons, and certainly one of the primary reasons was that for those that are democratically defeated in a legitimate nationwide election, that they should never have recourse to take up arms against their own democratically and constitutionally elected government.    The people had spoken and in response the southern states on their own volition and without merit, arbitrarily overruled the democratic process.

In most cases it is very bad law, and very bad judgment, to overturn ballot results with a singular judge issuing a ruling that favors the defeated party.  Any judicial decision that overturns the people's democratic process, essentially creates a system in which it is the judicial branch itself that determines what the law is or isn't, what it should be or shouldn't be and therefore it is the judicial branch that determines what laws will be implemented, how they shall be implemented, and where they will be implemented.  This thereby becomes a very slippery slope and the more power that is put into the hands of the few, who are extremely difficult to remove from office, the easier it is for an elite judiciary to pass and execute laws that fulfill their particular vision to the possible detriment of the public as a whole.

Judges that create arbitrary law breed contempt of the law.  Additionally, rather than believing that this country needs more law, or changing law, or reversing law, or morphing law, or new law, what it does need, is less law, and more common sense for the common good.

Is Big Oil Evil?

The liberal mediaand crazed environmentalists would have you believe that big oil is the biggest threat to our climate, our earth, and our humanity.  They would have you believe that these are rogue companies that have no legitimacy in our democracy.   Yet it amuses me while they froth at the mouth and pretend to present unbias facts, that they are hypocrites and liars of the highest order.   The liberal media bends and presents information in which they show one side and distort the other side.  This is bad newsmaking and quite frankly this is propaganda.

I don't have any real love for big oil, but I also recognize their necessity and their usefulness.  Without big oil and what hydrocarbon products bring to a modern society, society as we know it, would simply cease to exist.  Our standard of living without readily available and price competitive oil would plummet to levels that we have not seen in over 100 years.  So I certainly would never throw out the child with the bathwater.  The United States needs big oil but just because we need big oil doesn't mean that big oil necessarily plays fair.

On the plus side, oil is the engine that runs America, and this is demonstrated by the fact that three out of the top five companies in gross sales are oil companies.  Additionally, it is the oil companies that are also the top three payers in tax revenues on a yearly basis to the government.   On the negative side, oil companies pollute, lie, corrupt internationally, lobby, consort, and push their weight and power around on a global basis. 

But herein lies the problem with the critics of big oil.  They would like to replace big oil with renewables such as wind, solar, and geothermal.  The fact of the matter is that these alternate or so-called renewable energy resources today make up less than 2% of our energy usage and they will never be anything other than a fringe energy source for communities within America.  Each of these renewables also has its own negative environmental impact, an inconvenient truth ignored by their supporters.  There is only one energy source that can put a sword to oil, and that is nuclear, there are no other sources besides this, yet most environmentalists put their heads in the sand about nuclear and deliberately choose to ignore its usefulness.

For those that are concerned about big oil and its carbon emmissions, its contribution to climate change, its pollution and corruption, those that see big oil as evil, they must have the courage to step out of their self-induced caves of ignorance into the bright rays of a proven energy source which can handle the demands of America and reduced considerably our dependence on big oil.  If the fear-mongers would wake up from the  haze and daze of their mass delirium, they would recognize that their pretend world of pastoral little wind farms, sweet solar panels, and delightful geothermal ponds, doesn't exist.     It didn't work for Thoreau, and it won't work now.

Internet Sales Tax

Nobody really enjoys paying taxes and it isn't too surprising that when it comes to paying sales tax on goods purchased that there is plenty of controversy because most states having a sales tax in which the state, the city, and the country get their portion of the taxes paid.  When it comes to the interstate commerce and the sales tax there is a misimpression that this hasn't been adjudicated previously at the highest court level, but it has.   In the National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of Illinois, case of 1967, the Supreme Court determined that National Bellasshould not collect sales tax from Illinois residents and stated:  ” "The Commerce Clause prohibits a State from imposing the duty of use tax collection and payment upon a seller whose only connection with customers in the State is by common carrier or by mail."  In 1992, the Supreme Court made essentially the same decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota.  On December 2, 2013, the Supreme Court refused to rule on or review the New York state law mandating the collection of sales tax for online purchases from residents of New York.  This non-ruling by the Supreme Court neither sets a precedent nor overturns previous relevant interstate sales tax decisions.

The general rule for sales tax collection is that if the seller has no physical presence within the state in which the product is being sold, and further to the point has no sales agent within that state, and that the only connection between the seller and the buyer is by common carrier or mail, that a sales tax should not be imposed, as it would be in violation of the 14th Amendment, in particular the due process clause.  Additionally, the Supreme Court pointed out that the: "simple but controlling question is whether the state has given anything for which it can ask return."

Fast forward to 2013 and with the massive amount of transactions performed via the internet, the sales tax authorities of most states are salivating to get their hands on this money, as according to Bloomberg.com States lose: "an estimated $23 billion a year in uncollected sales taxes from web retailers."  What hasn't changed though is that the transactions that are conducted through the internet are essentially the same sales process of buying from a mail order house of yesteryear, but updated and refined to take advantage of today's technology...  Also, while critics complain about the advantages of out-of-state retailers versus in-state retailers, one must also keep in mind that the products being ordered must travel from one state to another, that freight, postage, and packaging does cost money to the out-of-state retailer, and that those that are out-of-state are competing against the proximity, convenience, personal touch, and nearness of brick and mortar retailers. 

The fact of the matter is if sales taxes themselves were not so high and so prevalent, that there would hardly be the argument that we have today.  State and local governments are aware of this fact, that is why it is quite common for states in conjunction with local tax jurisdictions to have periodic "tax holidays" from time-to-time. 

A sales tax should be equally applied within a state, subject to local jurisdictions, and the consumer should not be penalized for shopping outside of his state.  Consumers vote with their dollars again and again and again.  The taxing authorities just hate losing that money and rather than looking at their taxing policies internally, they want to take more from a consumer who is savvy enough to make himself a better deal online or wherever.

DNA and the law

The first DNA exoneration was in 1989, through 2010 another 310 former convicts have been freed through DNA exoneration which demonstrates how infrequently DNA, in and of itself, is able to overturn a wrongful conviction.  DNA is an important ingredient in the arsenal of the defense for those that are accused of certain criminal offenses, but it is also something that you have no specific constitutional right to have obtained or to argue for in your defense.   When given the opportunity to provide DNA in order to prove your innocence in regards to a crime, you are well advised to do so, certainly in circumstances in which you are not complicit in the crime, doing so, is one of the few dramatic measures that you can take that could materially impact your criminal case in your favor.

In an ideal world, the prosecution and the police would not work in conjunction against you as a defendant, but instead would submit themselves to a higher purpose which is to discover truth, no matter to where it should lead, and to pursue impartial justice on behalf of the public which they are sworn to protect and to serve.  Unfortunately, prosecutors and police are under time-pressure and budget constraints to find justice and to get convictions in an expeditious and efficient manner, in which justice itself ends up often taking a backseat. Determining that a crime has been committed is usually quite straightforward, but finding the perpetrator is something of an art form, and takes concerted and concentrated effort and resources.  Consequently, the name of the game is just to get things done.

Those that become convicted through our criminal justice system either via the courts or through a plea bargain are in a nearly hopeless position, becauseonce convicted, your changes of overturning the conviction on procedural rules, DNA inconsistencies, new evidence, or whatnot is a long-shot.  The question then becomes: should DNA evidence be a mandatory procedure in all criminal trials in which DNA is available.  The answer is yes.  It should be noted, however, that the fifth amendment is not applicable to DNA samples from the accused, subject to the bounds of procedural grounds in which a “witch hunt” cannot be instituted to collect DNA samples from the so-called usual suspects.

In fact, it is in the best interests of justice to see good police work, good prosecutorial work, and good defense work in our criminal justice system.  When there is good DNA evidence available from the crime scene, it should probably be mandated that DNA testing be provided showing the connection or non-connection between the accused and the actual crime.  While suspects may still be sold down the river through our compromised and distorted criminal justice system, despite evidence that exculpates them, you are in a far more favorable position to fight an effective defense or appeal with bona-fide factual information that has previously been submitted to the court and some of the best possible objective evidence that can be provided for all sides in our justice system is DNA

College Campuses and Free Speech

Students that attend college campuses across the United States are almost without exception, adults.  While juveniles may have some of their rights truncated in order to protect them or for other valid or well-meaning reasons, adults are adults and therefore are entitled to all of their constitutional rights.  While on a college campus, one would think, that students would always be given the option to freely discuss, debate, and criticize important issues of the day.  That means, of course, that you are allowed opinions that are not only wrong on the surface, but wrong through and through.  While there are some logical and legal limits on free speech, one of them typically is not whether what you are espousing is true or not.  If we were limited to simply stating true facts, or prevailing opinions, than it would be the government or the college campus that would determine what we were or were not allowed to actually think or speak and that isn't freedom of speech.  Freedom of speech includes the freedom to speak untruths, make defamatory remarks, and to torch conventional wisdom.

The fact that it is estimated that over sixty percent of college campuses have restrictions on free speech, and have instituted the ironically named "free speech zones" to restrict free speech to certain physical areas, for certain specific times, and only with previous permission granted by college administrators should send shivers down our collective spines.  If college campuses are no longer bastions of free thought, free thinking, radicalism, and such, than what has our country degenerated itself into.  It appears that colleges want their students to conform to groupthink.  They, the college, will tell what is and what isn't appropriate to think, to believe, to say, to write, and how to behave.  The colleges believe that by doing so, they will make a better America, in which we will all willingly get along, out of mutual respect and love.  What crock!!

The true goal of these college campuses is nothing less than intellectual eugenics in which a brave new world of properly indoctrinated students will be our leaders of tomorrow.  Those that don't have the desire or willingness to conform to these predetermined beliefs will be marginalized, and shutdown.  That is why campus liberals make such a concerted effort to preclude or prevent speeches from lay and prominent people who espouse viewpoints that they are not in agreement with.  The type of thinking that believes that only their thoughts,  and only their world view is valid is anti-American, it's unconstitutional, and its demagoguery and totalitarian at its core.

When you take away one's freedom of speech, you have taken away one's freedom of choice.  The elimination or reduction of free speech, in which that speech can be inconvenient, intolerant, misguided, hateful, or derogatory, also means that you have precluded speech which can be beautiful, inspirational, meaningful, important, and inspiring.  The free flow of ideas, thoughts, and beliefs are part of the cacophony and freedom of democracy.  Anything that stands in the way of free speech for whatever ignoble or noble purpose it proposes is wrong, and that simply is the inconvenient truth.

Who should run State lotteries?

Most States have lotteries, which ostensibly are setup to get additional funds for education, teachers, firemen, roads, parks and other assorted State necessitated expenditures.  Whether you are a supporter of lotteries or not, the cat is already out of the bag, so the question then becomes how to maximize revenue and minimize expenses in running State lotteries. 

The first problem with lotteries is that they are State run which typically leads to unnecessary personnel, overpaid bureaucrats, inefficiencies, misplaced priorities, mismanagement and the like.  There isn't any good reason to assume that the State knows how to best run a lottery and there isn't any reason to expect them to be good at it.  There are however, very practical reasons to believe that if the lottery contract was put out to bid, that the response would be excellent, and that the results would overall be quite beneficial to the State.

Many cities and State agencies have already contracted out such items as parking meters, toll bridges, prisons, and roads to private corporations in which these tasks have been competitively bid, audited, and implemented.  In most cases, doing so has more efficiently used the taxpayers' dollars while making it easier for State or city budgets to be met; in addition, services are often improved so you then get the dual benefit of both lower costs and better results.

It doesn't take any real stretch of the imagination, to see that the same sort of thinking could be quite beneficial for State run lotteries.  Lotteries could be bid in several different ways; for instance, the lottery could be outright subcontracted out to a proven gaming company in return for certain fixed percentages being earmarked for various State programs to be delegated by the representatives of the State.  The lottery could also be leased or presold to a private company in which the State receives a large upfront payment and then a certain percentage of residuals over the length of the contract.  The bottom line is why should the State be actively involved in the gaming business, when that isn't there raison d'être for being.

States are already beholden to the lottery business to meet certain expenditures for various services so this isn't a game that the State can afford to lose or to misfire on, therefore it is in the States' best interests to explore all avenues that will enhance this money flow.  To a large extent, the first State to privatize the lottery will have a major advantage over all the other States, and that is because the shackles will be off, the flow of ideas will be turned on, the deadwood will have been eliminated, and the motivation will be very high.

Ultimately lotteries are a form of taxation and while it may not be the best form of taxation it is at least voluntary in the most meaningful and straightforward sense of the word.  In fact, you can make a pretty strong argument that lotteries are a wonderful form of taxation because at least when you willfully spend your money on a lottery ticket there is a chance that you as an individual might receive a large monetary reward, and if not, at least you can take some solace in knowing that the monies that you have contributed will at a minimum go to a good cause.

Pensions v. 401(k)

Successful corporations aren't run by stupid people and when a significant percentage of corporations either don't provide a pension fund or have replaced their pension fund with a defined contribution plan, 401(k), you should definitely wonder why.  The defined contribution plan was never meant to replace pension plans but it has morphed into that very thing over a period of years.  In 1978, Congress passed an add-on to the 401 tax code.  The 401(k) allowed employees to set aside a certain amount of their income into a special account, in which they would not be taxed, until such time as they made a withdrawal which would typically be done at a lower tax rate, because they would then be retired, and the timing would be at their discretion.  The main positive of the 401(k) was that the money would be invested with pretax dollars but what really brought it over the top to the general public was the matching percentage provided by the corporation itself.  This would appear to be free dollars, and in a certain sense, it is because that contribution is coming from the company itself, but like some benefits in life, there is a darker side.

401(k) plans were originally known as "salary reduction plans" and their intended purpose was to help tax defer the highest paid executives and employees.  However, in order for these highly compensated employees to get their big salary deferrals, there had to be a significant portion of the lower-paid or regular compensated employees participating in the 401(k) plan or the plan itself would not be in compliance with IRS code.  Deferring income for a highly paid executive is a preference; deferring income for a lower paying employee who is simply trying to make ends meet is much more problematic. Eventually, though, high level brain-storming sessions came up with a total win for the corporation, when it was discovered that by providing a matching percentage to employees, this would be enough of an incentive to get those reluctant lower-paid employees to sign up for the program, especially with colorful graphs and displays showing how much money these fortunate employees would have over a period of time, after assuming continued employment, steady pay increases, steady matching, and robust returns on their tax-deferred monies investment.

The one thing that the corporation left out or downplayed, however, was that the pension, if one was previously in existence would be phased out and therefore everyone would now opt in to the new 401(k) plan.  For companies that were newly coming into existence, the pension plan would never even be on the table.  Pensions for executives and highly compensated employees are not usually in their best interests, mainly because pensions and their long-term liabilities make it more problematic to merge or to be sold to other corporations for a favorable price.

According to suite101.com the average 401(k) and 403(b) balance for someone aged 55-64 at the end of 2009 was $124,472.  An investment return of 6% would bring in an initial yearly return of $7,468 if the principal remained untouched.  USA TODAY and Asbury Park Press reviewed records covering 1.9 million federal civilian pensions and the average federal pension was found to be $32,824 annually. 

I wonder which one you would prefer.

Money for Nothing

As reported by the Weeklystandard.com the US federal government has spent $3.7 trillion of your money on welfare over the past five fiscal years (2009-2013).  That number itself should give you pause, because it's simply enormous and this welfare state in America has continued to grow year by year.  What irks me the most is that the government gets the bulk of its operating revenue from taxpayers and it is to those taxpayers that it should answer to but it seldom gives us the courtesy of doing so.  The first question that should be asked, is whether our government has been a good steward of our money?  That answer is clearly a negative. 

The welfare system is primarily setup to make recipients dependent upon government aid.  This dependency clearly creates an ongoing tendency to make those recipients not only loyal but extremely protective of "their" benefits.  That isn’t good stewardship of other people's money that is in the most basic sense, taking the taxpayer's money in order to control and manipulate a significant portion of our population.  The federal government by its actions clearly wants people to be dependent on them.  That isn't the history of the United States, it is very poor policy, and a slap in the face of what charity truly represents.

I don't believe that it is any stretch of the imagination to say that government welfare is a form of charity.  It is a very bad form of charity as currently presented, but it’s a form.  The most significant problem with government welfare is that its primary purpose appears to be to feed itself and thereby to ensure its growth.  It has little or no interest in seeing programs reduced in size, reduced in their influence, or reduced in employment, and neither does it appear to care as to whether the program(s) is effective in accomplishing its objectives.  A charity is on the other hand, created by people who donate voluntarily and if they are unsatisfied, the charity will be materially impacted.  Therefore, a charity has a vested interest in seeing that its monies are wisely spent on the programs that it is setup for, so as to demonstrate not only to its Board of Directors that they have used their monies and people's labor in a prudent manner, but that they have succeeded or are succeeding in their mission.  If a charity is unable to demonstrate this on a consistent basis, or unable to manage its money prudently, they will cease to stay in business or their model will effectively change.  This is simply known as accountability.  It is also a reckoning.

The federal government on the other hand consistently behaves in a manner in which their primary goal is to have you "game" their own system.  That's a real sickness of the government welfare program as currently structured.  It isn't really about helping people; it's about getting your "fair" share.  The one thing that we do know, for a certainty, is that when you offer people money or goods or services for little or nothing, the more the programs will find an avenue to accommodate this and to increase. Everyone loves a bargain, a free bargain is even better, and to top it all off, if you don't have to even work for it, you won't. 

ISP Data Limits

Internet Service Provider (ISP) data limits are becoming a fact of life.  Two out of the big three players now have data limits.  AT&T's monthly limit for their cheapest DSL plan is 150GB of data per month with an additional $10 charge per 50GB of overage after a couple of warnings for exceeding the limit.  Comcast's limit is 300GB of data with an additional $10 charge for overage but you will be allowed up to three courtesy notices within a twelve month period in which you won't be charged for that overage, if you do exceed the limit your penalty for doing so is an additional $10 charge per 50GB of overage per month.  Both plans are subject to change, but the die has already been cast, and data limitations by ISPs are something that is here to stay.

Ostensibly the reason for the data limitations is to crack down on the data hogs and as always, the ISPs try to make it crystal clear that it's only because of a few miscreants that they are forced to provide data limits of our usage but that statement is nothing but a convenient smokescreen.  The fact of the matter is that entities such as Netflix, Hulu, and people that download data from torrents are getting a free ride on the ISPs' back and they mean to put a stop to it. 

In only a few short years, Netflix' internet subscription customers has surpassed HBO, as shown by Netflix' most recent quarter of 2013 in which they now have 29.2 million U.S. streaming video subscribers, which noses ahead of HBOs' subscriber base of approximately 29 million as of year-end 2012.  To get a perspective of Netflix's growth, in the 3rd quarter of 2012 their internet subscription base was a mere 21.7 million, so it is quite clear that the lead of Netflix v. HBO will continue to widen.

But within Netflix there is a crucial business flaw, they are at the mercy of ISPs.  Should that spigot be slowed down in any way or the cost to the consumer rise appreciably, this will impact their business model and their bottom line.  With Netflix having a market cap of approximately $20 billion they are too large for any of the ISPs to gobble up, even if the FTC was to give the merger a green light.  Instead the ISPs will fight back by controlling the amount of data that a household can utilize within a given month.  The ISPs will start high, as they have done, but this will be lowered, manipulated and reformulated.  How difficult is it to imagine that like the proverbial highway that we utilize to go to and from work each day that ISPs will begin to charge higher or lower data rates depending upon what time of day it is and therefore data streamed at primetime hours will count more heavily against you. Additionally, buried within their terms and conditions will be a new clause stipulating that any content that is streamed and under the umbrella from the ISP itself (e.g. xfinity streampix from Comcast) will not be counted against the data limit or perhaps will be significantly discounted because the ISP will state that this data is far easier to stream and therefore you can never exceed the limit of it.

The ISP controls the gateway to your home viewing entertainment received via the internet.  In their world there is good data and there is bad data.  Good data is data that they can make money on and keeps you within the family, bad data is everything else.

Is Bitcoin the future?

You know that you have made the big-time when there is a congressional hearing about your product which recently happened to Bitcoin.  Of course, that type of exposure has its good sides and its bad ones. Bitcoin is the industry leader in the virtual currency world, but it also has numerous competitors that may or may yet supersede it.

Before there was Bitcoin, there was PayPal.  PayPal also had its competitors but PayPal became the industry standard for eBay transactions that were previously slowed down by vendors because they were limited to accepting paper checks, or money orders, and most small-time vendors were not thrilled about using credit cards and having to pay their associated transaction and monthly fees.  PayPal ended up being a win-win situation for both vendor and customer and became the de facto standard for e-bay transactions and other peer-to-peer transactions on the internet.  The simplicity of the vendor seeing the payment appear in his eBay account via PayPal, allowed the seller to expeditiously mail the product to the buyer, furthering PayPal's' growth.

As we fast forward to about a decade later, Bitcoin, pushes the envelope to a new level by offering to accomplish transactions anonymously through a virtual currency that is fast becoming widely accepted.  However, there are several problems with this method when it comes to the government.  They are: it's not government regulated, it is utilized as a digital currency, it's anonymous, and it competes against our own legal currency and specifically our banking system.

I don't believe the government has any interest in putting Bitcoin out of business.  In fact, you could make a strong argument that the US government would like to see Bitcoin or one of its competitors become the de facto digital currency standard.   What the government and private enterprise like about digital currency is that it is quite traceable, unlike cash transactions, and anything that pushes or nudges the public, the youth, and especially the intelligentsia to transactions in which the government and companies can log your every move, is exactly what they want.  Advertisers would be overjoyed to be able to hit your cell phone or tablet with targeted advertising as you walk or drive into any area in which they conduct business.    Big Brother will monitor you through your own portable devices and your digital wallet, and as long as you can get that Caramel Macchiato $1 cheaper, you won't seem to care.

Of course, a government's beneficence does not come without some conditions.  Specifically, whether Bitcoin likes it or not it will have to adapt or it will be legislated out of business.  I predict that one of the major banks will purchase Bitcoin, and buried deep within the terms and conditions you will find some fundamental changes at Bitcoin.  For instance, no more will transactions be guaranteed anonymity, this digital currency will also be regulated by the US Treasury, there will be certain transaction fees, and over time Bitcoins will be tied to something, perhaps not a physical product, but something that will stabilize its value such as the population of the USA.

Corporate Welfare for Wal-Mart

In fairness, corporate welfare for corporations, defense contractors, and utility companies are endemic in America and the overall cost of this welfare is billons of dollars of wasted and distorted incentives from tax write offs to tax write downs and everywhere in-between.  This welfare is so prevalent, the crony capitalism is so disturbing, and the lobbying is so intensive, that I could go on a rant for pages.  Instead, I figure it was probably best to just focus on one large conglomerate, specifically Wal-Mart.  What makes Wal-Mart unique is that it is the largest corporation in the world by revenue (the next seven are all oil conglomerates!) and it is the second largest private employment corporation in the world (China Railroad Engineering Corporation is #1).  Wal-Mart is ubiquitous in America and it is an unusual man or woman that doesn't frequent their stores at some point during the month.  I am a member of Sam's Club (a subsidiary of Wal-Mart) and I can verify that Wal-Mart and Sam's Club pricing is as competitive as it comes, so from a consumer perspective it's very difficult to have an argument.

However, from a level playing field perspective, Wal-Mart does not play fair.  It hasn't played fair in a long time and I don't see Wal-Mart playing fair in the foreseeable future.  As in anything in life, there are major consequences for this distortion of the free market capitalist system.  In fairness to Wal-Mart I will say this, they couldn't take advantage of the system, manipulate the system, lobby within the system, if the government favoritism didn't exist.  That is to say, if there wasn't a door of entry to curry favor within government movers and shakers, than Wal-Mart would not be able to receive the benefits that it gets.  If there was no pot of gold to be raided, than the raiders would have nothing to aim for.  But alas, that clearly isn't the case.

Whether various government agencies are gullible, stupid, corrupt, unable to adapt to game theory, or a combination of all of them, I do not know.  I do know that Wal-Mart does not need free land, tax subsidies, subsidized financing, property tax breaks, subsidized infrastructure improvements, eminent domain workarounds in order to conduct its business.  Wal-Mart will work every angle to get these things because the smartest guys in the room are in Wal-Mart's room but they don't need those breaks in order to conduct or to accomplish their business!  It is therefore the height of hypocrisy to hand these things over to Wal-Mart and then to honestly believe that you as a government representative have been diligent in your job, and by consequence been fair to other businesses when in fact, you have been discriminatory in favor of Wal-Mart to the detriment of other competitors or competing businesses or usage ideas.

The more transparency that government representatives provide to its population, the better the negotiations will be when conducting proposed business with Wal-Mart or other like entities.  Ultimately, accountability starts at home; a true democracy is a raucous place, filled with the hustle and bustle of a cacophony of voices, in which a consensus will be fleshed out over time.  Wal-Mart wants its deals done in private, undercover, and for their publicity releases to be accepted as gospel.  The defense to that tactic is an open government filled with doubting Thomases.

Cigarettes, the law, and NYC

Mayor Bloomberg signed into law on November 19, 2013, a measure that had previously passed through the NYC legislature, raising the legal age to purchase cigarettes from 18 to 21, effective 180 days from the date of the mayor's signature.  As bad as that law is, a companion bill, sets a price floor on the selling price of cigarettes at $10.50 a pack.  The people that are most rejoicing at this new law aren't whom you might expect, that is to say, the "nattering nabobs and nanny state nincompoops", but the wanna-be shadowy underworld elements that are part and parcel of NYC.  Here for them lies a golden opportunity to sell product that is desired, commonly used, with a ready market that is underserved, legal to purchase and store, and with a very healthy profit margin that cannot be undercut by NYC law.

The bottom line, unfortunately though, for small mom and pop stores that legally sell cigarettes in NYC is a heap of trouble, because their consumers are going to find other avenues to purchase their smokes.  Not only that but peripheral purchases of other products within these mom and pop stores will decline because if you aren’t purchasing your cigarettes there, you aren’t going to pick up any other impulse purchases as well.  That makes for a declining and hence a bad business model at these small stores and probably will force the closure of some of them, making it less likely for fellow New Yorkers to find a corner store that is in close proximity to them.

As for the cigarette smokers themselves, the law may be a blessing in disguise.  Freed of the necessity or desire of frequenting and thereby paying high prices for NYC cigarettes, they will band together, preplan, and find alternate and cheaper sources for their smoking pleasure.  Not only will these smokers ultimately end up paying less per pack for cigarettes, there will still be a massive profit margin built in for cigarette bootleggers, enough to make sure to take care of paying off those in the know.  Monies that would have flowed in steadily to NYC tax coffers will flow instead to the underworld, corrupt entities, and street hustlers.

Adults of ages 18-20, who are old enough to vote, use to be old enough to drink, are old enough to smoke, are old enough to die defending their country's liberty and are old enough to be involuntarily sent to adult jails, will be put into that gray area of "adults with lesser rights" and this new NYC law will simply breed more contempt of the law.  It will also bring into play a new type of man, one not selling illegal drugs and paraphernalia, instead he will be providing a legal product that is highly desired, inconsistently regulated, and well placed to exploit.

Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t wish to acknowledge that Americas' first successful cash crop was tobacco, and it was our most successful export from 1617 to 1793.  Without the success of tobacco, America as we know it may not have ever come to pass.  Vilifying tobacco serves no good purpose and never will.  If tobacco really was all the evil that opponents make it out to be, it would have already faded into the trash heap of history.  Smoking survives and will continue to survive because tobacco provides some notable benefits such as: appetite suppression, reduction of anxiety, relaxation, and yes, pleasure. 

Cell phones for free!

I was recently talking to my Aunt who told me that there was a program for people to get free cell phone service from the government.  That seemed a little hard to believe but to humor her I commiserated with my Aunt in my agreement that this was indeed "appalling" and to be honest, I didn't think much further on it, because I chalked the whole thing up to "urban legend."  I mean, people pay incredible amounts of money for iPhones month after month, for the iPhone itself, for the service, and a meaningful amount of iPhone users are struggling just to pay their bill monthly so I knew that there couldn't possibly be a program that provides free cell phone service in America.  I thought, perhaps, they might have a free cell phone program for senior citizens, especially the ones that fall down and can't get up, but that program is run by a private company called "lifecall" and it definitely isn't free, so I figured case closed.  But to my surprise, a recent Stossel  TV program covered the free cell phone scam and did a tremendous job in opening up my eyes, and while I don't have that much to really add to the story I thought I may as well put in my own few cents.

Apparently the lifeline program was created in 1984 to provide a discounted landline for low-income Americans to communicate and therein lays the first fundamental error.    Instead of subsidizing phone usage, the government should have subsidized or provided CB radios.  CB radios are both portable and reliable in true emergency situations and allow you to receive news and weather updates in crisis situations as well as the ability to communicate with others.    Fast forward to 2013, and the lifeline program has morphed into providing free cell phones for impoverished people, in which it appears just about anyone can skirt the rules and be issued a phone.

In fact, the free cell phone deal is so good; I was tempted to take advantage of it myself.  I mean you get a free phone, you also get 250 fee talk time minutes as well as the critical 1,000 text messages, so to be honest, the free cell phone would hardly crimp my style and certainly I could use it as an adjunct to my main communication device.  I decided to visit the safelinewireless.com website to see how easy the application process was and it's remarkably easy to navigate, in fact, you can finish your enrollment in less than 5 minutes.  They then give you three categories to qualify with:

            Income

            Program (like Medicaid, Section 8 housing)

            My child belongs in the program

I looked at all three categories and decided that income was the best fit, after selecting "income" the next webpage showed me the income level that you could not exceed, depending on the total persons in your household, I then selected a low-income level that was appropriate for my household size and the final webpage indicated that I was approved, but there was that "penalty of perjury" clause that precluded me from feeling comfortable with clicking all the way through on that final page.   Had, I instead, signed that form, I would have received my free cell phone, subject to any potential penalties for perhaps perjuring myself.

The reason the free cell phone plan is such a horrific scam is the following.  First off, the marketing guys that try to sign you up outside a welfare office, for instance, are paid per enrollment, which according to SafeLink wireless is "…up to $10 per enrollment!"  With that kind of incentive, you're motivated to sign up as many people as possible, whether they are eligible or not, after all that's not your problem.    The next issue is the phone companies themselves find the program to be quite lucrative, in which the parent company of SafeLink wireless (Tracfone) received $452 million in 2011 from lifeline's subsidies according to money.cnn.com. Finally, the program itself just isn't necessary, a cell phone isn't a right, it's a tool, and a convenience.  If the government really believes that cell phones are necessary for impoverished people, than perhaps they should make that a category that is covered under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.  Of course, I can hear the cries of disbelief now, "you mean to say that you believe people should be able to spend their food stamp monies on cell phone service."  Yes, I do, and if they are really hungry, they can always call a friend.

The Bilderberg Group

Who doesn't remember the notorious Mafia meeting held in Apalachin, NY in 1957 in which some of the biggest mobsters got together at Joseph Barbara's home in upstate New York to have a meeting to discuss outstanding issues about various criminal enterprises and to smooth over potential internecine warfare.  On surface, the meeting seemed brilliant; to get together with the significant players that could make a deal, shake hands on it, and to come to consolidated agreements about whom, what, and where.  The unforeseen problem, however, was the meeting was held in the middle of nowhere and the expensive cars that rolled into a small community was a massive red flag, encouraging the local police to investigate and thereby to raid the meeting, with the upshot that the biggest Mafiosi in the United States were identified and detained, exactly the type of outcome they most feared.  Instead of a quiet, secluded meeting, the Mafiosi got the type of publicity and notoriety that is very bad for business.

Around that same time period, the first Bilderberg meeting was held in Hotel de Bilderberg in the Netherlands.  Just like the Mafia having their agenda, so do these gentlemen and ladies who represent the biggest and most powerful bankers, politicians, and businessmen in America and Europe, who together map out strategies and think sessions about how best to use their influence, their money, and their power to keep them at the controls of any significant actions or events that will influence their spheres of power and maintain their control of the keys to the gate.

People in power do not willingly give it up, and groups of powerful people working together will consolidate and crystallize that power so that in aggregate they are the only true force that matters in the western hemisphere.  When Jeff Bezos (CEO Amazon), Robert Rubin (Secretary of Treasury 1995-1999),  Eric Schmidt (Chairman, Google), Timothy Geithner (Secretary of Treasury 2009-2013),  amongst over 100 more international and national personages of the highest and most influential caliber get together at the Bilderberg conference of 2013 in which the media is not invited,  you should be concerned.  These aforementioned people do not have time to waste with trivial pursuits, their agenda for more power is clear, these are the true insiders and power brokers that make the deals that influence our lives for better or for worse.

The Bilderberg group does not consider themselves to be evil, they believe instead that their interests in working together with other powerful leaders of other nations makes for a safer and saner world in which they are all in agreement that we can no longer afford the human and damaging material costs of our previous European World Wars of the prior century. But there is a huge price for this largesse of protection; in return, the Bilderberg group most fervently desires a passive and docile population.  A population only too happy to sacrifice freedom of choice, true liberty, and free thought, for a life in which each person is assured food, shelter, mindless entertainment, and some sort of dead-end job.