Our Constitution and Our Liberty

The United States would not be considered historically as the beacon of freedom for the world, if not for our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. Our Declaration of Independence declares: " We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."  Additionally, our Constitution in its preamble declares: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." These sentences contain the touchstone of America and in their words rest the entire meaning of our existence. It is of critical importance to recognize that our rights to life and liberty are inalienable rights that are provided to us by our Creator, and not by our Government, and further that these inherent or natural rights supersede the rights of our Government, in which our Government is to be our servant and not our master.

Unfortunately, the above viewpoint seems to be currently out of favor and instead we have courts that instead of ruling on the correct enforcement of law instead make new law.  This is not the intended purpose of the judiciary and to make matters more pernicious, it is this judiciary that once appointed to their posts, are appointed for life, creating an unwelcomed situation in which the people are unable to remove from their posts the very power that oppresses them.  Additionally, the judiciary acts and believes that they have a monopoly on the interpretation of the Constitution, if this then is so, the Executive and Legislative branches of our Government are virtually toothless in stopping the Judiciary from enacting or interpreting laws which are injurious or detrimental to the Constitution and to the people.  In fact, our Constitution as enacted is a Constitution of delegated powers in which powers that are not specifically enumerated are reserved to either the States or to the people themselves.  In short, over time, the Judiciary has overreached its boundaries, having infringed upon our liberty, which is in contradistinction to natural law which impresses upon us that our liberty is the reason for the Constitution being ratified in the first place and consequently anything that abridges our liberty and is not specifically enumerated within the Constitution is in violation of it.

Judges that believe that our Constitution is a living and breathing instrument, subject to the mores, times, and conditions of our age are out-of-touch with the actual intended meaning of the Constitution.  Either we are a people born of individual liberty in which the highest form of our Government that we have consented to is that we the people are its sovereign rulers with inalienable rights, with the only legitimate purpose of Government being to ensure that our rights are not taken from us through either foreign or domestic enemies or we have a Constitution which means whatever some Judge interprets it to mean, subject to his rules, his penalties, and his enforcement, in which we will either obey this edict or suffer the consequences for not doing so.

Either this is a country of liberty or it is not.  Our liberty comes not from our Government, but from our Creator.  Any Government that means to take away our life, our liberty, and our pursuit of happiness, is a government at odds with our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence.  Our Constitution was created and ratified to assure ourselves that these protections and these rights would never be violated without consequence and that as Thomas Jefferson said: "whenever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force."  

Our Government, unfortunately, has become a law unto itself, and we merely its little pawns.  This is far from liberty, far from freedom, and far from what we fought for and what we stood for.  It is up to us, to reassert the American way, piece by piece, brick by brick, inch by inch, or to be crushed by its tyranny.

Liquor advertising on Television

Advertising is a powerful medium, all the more powerful, when it is displayed on your TV in the comfort of your home in which you can see and often relate to a short story about the product that extols its benefits and attributes through the power and polish of advertising and marketing people who know their business and how to target their particular clients' ads for maximum effectiveness. 

Liquor advertising had been absent from TV from 1948 through 1996 by a voluntary ban from the industry itself, but in recent years this voluntary ban has been lifted and TV ads for liquor have been running consistently on cable TV stations, before recently migrating over and encompassing the major networks such as NBC and CBS on late night TV shows.   This change of heart by the liquor industry relies on its confidence that they will not receive any blowback from these ads that would negatively affect their previous ability to advertise on TV for wine and beer in which losing television access for these products would be a devastating blow to them.

The trade association that represents the liquor industry is the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) in which they have particular standards that their members must adhere to.  For instance, DISCUS states that the basic principles of their members when advertising are that: "digital marketing communications should be placed only in media where at least 71.6% of the audience is reasonably expected to be of the legal purchase age."   This principle says a lot about the liquor industry devious advertising standards when you realize that DISCUS is only discussing what their advertisers "should" be doing with their ads, using "reasonable" expectations, in which no more than 28.4% of viewers are of illegal purchase age.  The standard that DISCUS sets in which it is acceptable that up-to nearly 30% of their audience are viewing a product that they are not of legal age to purchase is a standard that is set far too high, especially considering the dangers of using said product.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD) states that: "alcohol is the number one drug of choice for America's young people, and is more likely to kill young people than all illegal drugs combined."  While you can make a very strong argument that liquor ads should be allowed on television because the product is legal for adults age 21 and older, you can make an even more compelling reason why those same ads should not be readily available for those that are underage.  The voluntary standard by DISCUS of at least 71.6% of the audience being of legal age is a percentage which is tragically too low.  DISCUS should amend their Code of Responsible Practices to increase that threshold to at least 90%, effective immediately, or find themselves endangered to a ban on all television advertising such as the tobacco industry suffered in 1970.

DISCUS states in their preamble that: "the overriding principle of our Code is to market our products to adults of legal purchase age in a responsible and appropriate manner."  It is high time that we held these purveyors of alcohol to this standard, a standard that they should only be too happy to comply with, or have them to suffer the consequences of their irresponsibility for a product that mandates it.

Government Debt Burdens Future Generations

Our current national debt is at 17.5 trillion dollars which equates to around $55,000 per every man, woman, and child in the United States which is an absolutely staggering sum of money that is owed by the citizens of this country.  But it gets much worse, as there are unfunded off-balance sheet liabilities which have not been factored into our true federal deficit for such items as government-guaranteed mortgages, government-guaranteed student loans, FDIC guarantees, social security guarantees, Medicare guarantees, and other trust funds guarantees, in which these off-balance sheet liabilities may total up to as much as 70 trillion dollars as estimated by economist James Hamilton of UCSD.  As bad as that is, it's shocking that our national debt did not first cross the 1 trillion dollar mark until 1982, so in the last thirty years, this government has run up a stunning and unprecedented deficit which is left for future generations to pay for.  This is both morally and fiscally wrong.

Our current deficit which continues to grow larger each year is the legacy that we leave our children and our children's children. I ask how fair is it to make the younger generation responsible for our parent's debts and our parent's bad decisions in which we had no part of it, no votes on it, and no power to prevent it, but yet upon their death their debts become our debts.  We read in Proverbs 13:22, "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children…", but the inheritance that our forefathers leave to us, are an unreasonable and an almost immeasurable debt, which is the equivalent to a double-taxation or worse on our earnings and income, forever. 

Thomas Jefferson stated that "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living," and not thereby to the dead.  Further to this point, we may ask, are the living to be the slaves and servants to the dead?  It's not difficult to understand the importance of not being in perpetual debt.  When you are in debt, your monies are compelled by law to go to your legally-protected creditors against your desired will, in which should you resist your fate you will suffer the indignity and the consequences of the removal of your personal property, liens on your salary, or a combination of both. Your diligent labors will no longer be a means to advance and sustain yourself and your family, but instead will become an instrument for your debt masters to extract all that they can from you.  This means that for all practical purposes you are not your own man, and further that you will never be your own man, and that you are compromised, easy to manipulate, and weak.

America has become a country in which there is a rush to take everything that can be taken, to be entitled to everything that one can be entitled to, without thinking through the consequences of those actions.  You cannot continually create something out of nothing nor repeatedly wring the bread from the sweat of other man's faces without facing the day of reckoning yourself at some point.  Karl Marx said: "Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury, and bankrupt the nation.”

It is high time to demand fiscal restraint and accountability from our government.  The buck, my friend, lies with me and you.

Exploitation of Illegal Immigrants

In 1969 it was estimated by http://immigration.procon.org/ that our illegal immigrant population in the USA was approximately 540,000 in a nation of just over 200 million peoples, which works out to a percentage of about .27% of illegal immigrants in our nation.  Fast forward to 2011 and that estimate of illegal immigrants had grown to a staggering 11,500,000 in a nation of about 312 million peoples, which is a percentage of 3.69% illegal immigrants within our borders.  This means in those 42 ensuring years that our total population in America increased about 54% but our illegal immigration population increased a staggering 2000%.  This could only have come about by empowered interests in our nation aiding and abetting this massive increase in illegal immigration. 

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in 2006 that 57% of illegal immigrants in America originated from Mexico, with an additional 24% from other Latin and Central American countries for a total of 81% of immigrants coming from primarily Spanish speaking countries that reside within close proximity to the United States.  While the USA is obviously a much desired nation for immigrants, whether illegal or legal, in order to maintain residency here, one must have some means of income or support.  Part of that support comes from our welfare society that has been created and expanded over the last few decades, and part of that income comes from performing jobs that are low-skilled, labor-intensive, have few language barriers, and are prevalent. 

Illegal immigrants are heavily employed in America as cooks, fast food employees, construction labor, housekeeping, gardening, janitorial duties, painting, and agricultural work.  In any business that is labor-intensive, the cost of the labor is of utmost importance to the owners of that business, whereas the makeup of the peoples performing that work is of little or no importance.  In fact, owners and managers of fast food restaurants like to pride themselves on their openness in hiring unskilled labor and in their increasing of diversity within the workplace.  The real answer, however, is that they like cheap, exploitable labor, and what better way to do so, than to take advantage of peoples that are both illegal and unable to speak or write English well.

America has actually gone back in time to bring back conditions similar to our antebellum days,  changed a few things here and there to give it a more palatable taste, and gone about business as usual.  Ask yourself this question, how is possible for not only the sheer numbers of illegal immigrants to get across our border, but for them to find shelter, employment, food, health, transportation, and the means not only to survive, but also to be able to through their sweat-labor, dedication, and thriftiness, to send back home funds to their impoverished brethren. 

America is quick to point out success stories of illegal immigrants, those that have gone on to apply and get granted citizenship or to receive their green card, become entrepreneurs in their own right, become bi-lingual, and to proudly wave the American flag, but all of these stories are built around a familiar foundation.  That foundation is that these immigrants are too often, exploited, abused, mistreated, ostracized, and often live lives that aren't even worthy of second-class standards.  Their masters, however, sip their proverbial mint juleps, and enjoy their modern-day plantations built upon the backs of those that only wish for the opportunity to straighten them.

Diesel Fuel

Our cars and trucks are primarily powered through petroleum, a hybrid fuel of petroleum and ethanol, a hybrid combination of petroleum and electric, or diesel fuel; although there is a multitude of other power and fuel sources for cars that are used in America, the primary ones are the ones listed above.  The first question to ponder when looking at these fuel sources is to know the overall British thermal unit (BTU) or heat energy for each of these fuels and their numbers are listed in order as follows:

                Diesel                  138,000 BTU

                Petroleum          118,000 BTU

                Ethanol                 76.000 BTU         

Clearly then we can see that diesel is the most efficient of these fuels by a considerable margin.  Currently, diesel fuel is priced higher than petroleum but part of the reason is the higher state and excise taxes for diesel fuel as contrasted with petroleum, and further that our refining infrastructure is setup for petroleum which far outsells diesel in the States. 

According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy, in 2001, 51.8% of car sales were diesel in the European market which contrasts to the USA in which just 3.2% of auto sales in 2012 were diesel.  This doesn't make a lot of sense in which diesel fuel is more efficient, fuel economy is better, and engine life is longer.   In almost all cases diesel cars depreciate at a significantly lower rate than petroleum base cars and this fact overcomes their purchase price being initially more expensive.  Unfortunately, in America, we have a tendency that when we see the same car such as Volkswagen Golf offered as either a diesel based vehicle or petroleum based vehicle, to notice exclusively that the diesel price of said vehicle is perhaps 10% higher, therefore we instantly conclude that only an idiot would buy the diesel version since the initial cost of the car is higher, gas stations typically devote no more than two pumps to diesel, and the cost of the fuel that runs the car is higher.  That is the disadvantage of not actually running all the numbers through which when taken into account factors such as: fuel efficiency which lowers the amount of money that you spend on fuel, depreciation, and upkeep (diesel engines have no spark plugs) clearly shows in most cases that diesel is on an overall cost basis: cheaper.  In fact, for the Volkswagen Golf as estimated by bankrate.com the savings over three years and 45,000 miles is approximately $5,013 for the Volkswagen Golf diesel over its gas version.

While the USA spends a considerable amount of time and resources on alternate versions of fuel for cars which run the gamut from vegetable oil to solar to electric, right in front of our noses, is a solution that will increase our fuel efficiency, is well proven, highly available, and can be scaled up in a very short period of time.  In the world of diesel v. petroleum, it is the USA that is the outlier.  That position needs to and should change. 

BMW in Spartanburg

There are plenty of foreign manufacturers that assembly their vehicles in the United States such as Acura, Honda, Hyundai, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, Volkswagen, and BMW in Spartanburg, South Carolina.  The United States is definitely not noted or known for its low labor costs but these mega-conglomerates recognize that labor costs are just one small component of a much greater whole in which the biggest factors in their opening of automobile plants in the USA approximately thirty years ago can be laid down to these three factors:

1.       Quid pro quo/free trade agreements

2.       For decades the USA was the largest auto market by sales volume in the world and now is second only to China

3.       Tax incentives

Vehicles are known as big ticket sale items in the world,  and with an average sale price of a new vehicle in the USA being just over $30,000 in 2012, the numbers involved in this industry are positively staggering.  Therefore, it is in the best interests of foreign manufacturers to come to a negotiated agreement with the government of the United States that allows these manufacturers to preclude tariff costs or to reduce them substantially based on certain contingencies being met, so that their vehicle prices are competitive with other manufacturers in the United States.  The United States is far too lucrative a market to pass up or to not take advantage of in all of its aspects, especially since the USA's transportation and ports are first rate, its labor force is available and scalable, its labor holidays are reasonable, its manufacturing capability is state-of-the-art, and further that the United States does not mandate using Union labor.

Additionally, the United States is somewhat unique in the world in that each of its fifty states competes against the others, in regards to incentives, tax rates, cost-of-living, and amenities.  In fact, it appears that States within this country will fall over themselves in providing special tax incentives and tax breaks in exchange for commitments in capital and labor investment.  Unfortunately, for most cities, the politicians that negotiate these deals on behalf of their citizens are not seasoned entrepreneurs with sophisticated business acumen but mere pretenders at the negotiation table.  This results in press releases that spin the job creation in one way, while saying little or nothing about the tax giveaways and other incentives that undercut the very deal that was made.

To make matters worse, too many city and State government lack transparency in their business deals in which the citizens have an absolute right to know.  Additionally, situations in which a certain manufacturer is provided special tax incentives and deals, means that the playing field for other businesses in the community is unlevel and consequently that their burden of taxation is unnecessarily higher.  The Nerve recently looked at BMW's $900 million expansion project in Spartanburg and through the Freedom of Information Act they were able to determine that: "...in a Dec. 2, 2011, application to the state for incentives, BMW said it had 3,822 permanent, full-time jobs in the entire state as of Jan. 1, 2011, – slightly more than half of the number that was cited in the press release."  In addition, "records … for BMW's latest expansion project show that the company will receive millions, and possibly tens of millions, in incentives over time."  Finally, "the incentives agreements for BMW’s latest expansion project allow job development credits if the average wage for the new employees is at least $15.12 per hour, which, based on a 40-hour work week, is slightly less than the 2011 per-capita income for the county."

Is BMW good for Spartanburg, or is it mainly good for BMW?  For fiscal year 2013, BMW's yearly revenue was just over $76 billion dollars, with a net income of over $5.3 billion dollars, whereas the city of Spartanburg just voted itself a yearly operating budget of $33.6 million dollars for fiscal year 2014.  I wonder just how badly outclassed Spartanburg was in its negotiations and their continued negotiations with BMW and how little it would take for those select few that represent Spartanburg in these talks to be compromised.  Further, because BMW sells high-end automobiles and SUVS, you would think that there would be plenty of middle management and upper management jobs within the corporation that would quite pay well.  No doubt, these jobs do exist; they just don't seem to exist at any meaningful level in Spartanburg.

USA Arms Sales

You can't have it both ways; that is to say, you are not going to make the world a safer place by manufacturing and selling military arms that have the absolute capability of wreaking havoc and destruction throughout the world, whether or not the buyers of these arms are your allies or not.  The more arms that are manufactured and sold, the more potential there is of destruction and harm. Additionally, there is also the reasonable fear that some of these weapons will ultimately fall into the hands of those that are not our allies, perhaps even avowed enemies of ours or 'allies' in name only.  Also, affiliations of countries and regimes will change based on political upheaval or political expediency but the weapons sold will remain in their possession. 

Those who profess the adage that there is peace in the strength of having a strong military, strong armed forces, state-of-the-art weapons and the like, are missing the point.  While military strength certainly has its place, so does moral suasion and moral courage.  The more weapons that are sold to foreign countries that you do not have control of, the more balls that you are juggling, and the more balls that you are juggling, the greater the chance of error.

The economics of arms sales are also a grand disservice to most of mankind.  While these sales are of great benefit to giant multi-national corporations such as Lockheed Martin. Boeing, and Raytheon, they aren't necessarily a real benefit to the recipient countries.  Countries such as Algeria, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco all rank within the top 15 countries in expenditures for imported arms, yet these countries are either relatively impoverished or have massive wealth inequalities within their borders.  The arms sales to these countries as a whole are not beneficial for the peoples that live there, because these expenditures don't provide food, shelter, or employment; these purchases instead are perhaps beneficial for those that are the privileged, the military, and the elite class. 

According to the NYtimes.com, the overseas weapons sales for the United States in 2011were over $66 billion, yet the world as a whole is no safer for these sales having been made.  To fight modern wars, you need modern weapons, such as helicopters, aircraft, missiles, tanks, radar, technology, knowhow, and the spare parts that go with them.  All of these things cost a lot of money and the price to keep pace with your neighbors is a continuous game of one-upmanship which never ceases.  For instance, sales that are made today do not appear to satiate a country's needs, instead they appear to place recipient countries on a never-ending binge cycle of additional sales which are bigger, better, and more advanced than the previous goods.

Saddam Hussein spent billions upon billions of dollars arming Iraq and strengthening its military forces but what did it ever accomplish?  Iraq attacked neighboring Iran in 1980 but this long and costly war ended in a stalemate in 1988.  Then Iraq attacked Kuwait, partly in order to cancel a $30 billion debt incurred during their Iranian war, but ultimately Iraq was subsequently defeated by allied forces in a matter of weeks.  Finally, in 2003, Iraq was attacked by mainly USA forces in which the total and unconditional defeat of Iraq and its military forces was accomplished in less than sixty days.  What then had Saddam Hussein received in benefit for those billions upon billions of dollars wasted on military expenditures?  Nothing, but death, destruction, and defeat.

Tipping

According to wisegeek.com the average American spends about $2,700 on eating out each year and although I don't have that number further broken down by restaurants in which a tip is expected as opposed to fast food restaurants in which a tip is uncommon, that dollar expenditure by Americans is in aggregate in the billions of dollars.   In North America, tipping at sit-down restaurants which offer table service is expected, and in fact, based on the salary of the wait staff that serve you in which the majority of these servers make less than minimum wage per state law, it is mandatory for these servers to receive good and consistent tips in order for them to make ends meet.  What is surprising about this whole thing is the tip that you provide to your server is neither something that you are legally compelled to do, nor is consistent from table-to-table nor person-to-person nor dining experience-to-dining experience.   You, the consumer, have absolute discretion, subject to social pressures, to tip the amount of money that suits you.

While it is suggested that your tip range should be in the 15-20% vicinity, tips can widely range outside of these boundaries, depending upon the dining experience, your financial situation, your mathematical skills, and your personality.  I believe that the restaurant is doing you and their servers a favor when the bill is presented to you with suggested tip percentages of 15, 18, and 20 percent already calculated out, since there are such a significant amount of people that are either math deficit or excuse proficient when it comes to paying an appropriate tip.

Although tips have been a standard in America for a number of years, tipping and the compensation of servers in other countries does vary considerably from the American standard.  For instance, in Japan, there is no tipping permitted, and in many European countries tipping has been replaced in the most part by "service charges" in lieu of a tip, although a smallish tip of 5% or so is not considered out of the ordinary. 

But just because tipping in America is the norm, doesn’t mean that the model should be continued in its present form.  The main problem with the American model of tipping is the fact that the amount of money that a particular server will make is unnecessarily inconsistent based on the consumer having the power to withhold appropriate tips from servers as a form of punishment, ignorance, or cheapness.  A better model would be akin to the European model in which a restaurant will make it clear to its patrons that in lieu of tipping the wait staff, that a service charge of 18% has been added onto the check for all table service (but not take-out) and additionally that no tipping will be expected from sit-down diners.  This model is both simple and straightforward, additionally; it allows the restaurant to take better control of the distribution of the monies received from the service charge so as to fairly compensate cooks, busboys, hostesses, and other members of the restaurant, should management of said restaurant be so inclined.

The only real perceived negative of the service charge replacing the previous tipping policy is that some consumers might resent this new program, that is why it is important not to make this proposed change mandatory for all restaurants, instead make it a choice by the restaurant management itself and let the market sort it all out.  As for the wait staff, they too will have a choice, and I suspect most of them will prefer the new policy of a service charge, which appears both fairer and more consistent.

The Money Elite and their favoritism of socialism

The United States loves to spread the lie that the wealth of this country is honestly earned and evenly distributed subject to the laws of capitalism and individual human effort.   While there is little doubt that there are plenty of successful people within America that are indeed upstanding, hard-working, and play by the rules in both a legal and moral sense, there are also a select few that are able to bend the rules to their ego and to their desire.   In America, there most definitely are laws and rules that are setup to enhance the money elite and their power brokers and to serve their needs and their purposes.  In the USA, in virtually any business activity, the field is not level; it favors some and thereby opposes others.   

Quite frankly, the rich want to maintain or to increase both their money and their power, and those that have the political means to assist them in doing so will best maintain their own power and influence in providing these certain elite with that assistance, while those that can judge issues or issue rulings in the favor of these privileged elite will also benefit from their particular governance.  The wisest thing to remember is that the rich and powerful will never willingly give up any of the material advantages that they have and will do everything to protect and to foster their continual profit at the expense of others.  This is a zero sum society, in which there are winners and there are losers; winning gives you power, money, influence, and options; whereas losing at best builds character, and at worse destroys you and everything that you believe in.

The question then becomes why would the money elite favor their particular brand of socialism or socialism at all?  This is a very valid question which has some equally pertinent answers.  One does well to remember that the true money-elite are out-numbered by not just 99:1 but more like 999:1, or in all actuality, at an even higher ratio.  In order to maintain their existence, let alone their power, they must have control over the law, politics, media, and force.  Getting all of these things to work in the master's hands is not easily accomplished, unless you are able to offer to those that provide these things, lesser kingdoms that will satisfy them.  For the law, you offer honors and certain judicial power, for politicians you offer fiefdoms and lackeys to serve them; for the media you allow them to provide and profit enormously from mindless entertainment of any sort as long as they also provide the appropriate propaganda; for the military/police you offer battles, killing machines, and respect.  In all events, you make sure that these essential people are well taken care of and therefore have something of value worth protecting and fighting for.

Still that doesn't answer the question at hand in which the vast majority of Americans are neither the elite, nor the favored classes; it is for these people that socialism raises its ugly head.  In any country, there is a vast amount of people who are not interested in working, in applying themselves, or in educating themselves and are all too happy to be complacent and relatively passive if given food, shelter, and entertainment, in return in which their only duty is to acquiesce.  Because of the sheer numbers of these peoples it is desirable to disarm them, and for those that will not comply, to incarcerate them for having not done so.  For the people that make up the engine that makes America run, the workers, whether blue-collar or white-collar, that are diligent in applying themselves to their duties each and every workday, for these workers you most tax them, nickel and dime them, frighten them, indoctrinate them, promise them, and sell them the political illusion of choice, in which no matter which lever they press, the result is, in effect, the same.  Their purpose is to enrich the money-elite; in return they should be satisfied with their 'free' healthcare, 'free' schooling, 'free' military/police protection, and their 'free'dom. 

The money elite cannot afford a free-for-all, they, above all things need both law and order that supports them and their status.  This can best be done with a population which is distracted by wars, rumors of wars, secularism, or by entertainment that amuses them.   The money elite favors giving the mass of humanity just enough of the American dream to make them believe that the dream that they have amassed is the dream, whereas in actuality it is a sham.  The money elite cannot afford to be challenged and will not allow a challenge to their status and to their power, therefore the siren song of socialism is sung to the public to make them believe that there is only so much to go around, and it's fairer if we all share in it together, equally. 

The Dow Jones

The equity stock market has plenty of indexes that purport to represent the market, but the daddy of them all is the Dow Jones, named after Charles Dow and Edward Jones, who formed the nucleus of Dow Jones and Company, the future publishing company of the Wall Street Journal.  The Dow Jones Index was first published in the WSJ on May 26, 1896, and the average consisted of 12 stocks in which the simple addition of the closing price of the 12 stocks created the closing price of the Dow Jones.  By 1928, the Dow Jones consisted of 30 stocks and this remains true as of today, nearly 100 years later.  The oldest surviving member of the Dow Jones index is General Electric and the index itself makes few changes.  From the years 1999 to 2009, there were a total of eight additions and subtractions from the Dow Jones in which for most years there were no changes to the index at all.

The U.S. Stock market has approximately 5,000 stocks that trade on a given day, yet the Dow Jones represents just 30 stocks and it is considered by many to the be the "market" because these companies represent the "blue chips" of the U.S stock market.  Consequently, when most pundits report on the market on a given day, this reference is almost always referring to the Dow Jones and its 30 stocks.   Most of the names of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones are recognizable to most people, (e.g. Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Disney, and IBM) because these stocks are huge corporations with massive sales, global presence, and market capitalization.  The Dow Jones is often seen as a proxy for the economy as a whole and that is why so many people pay attention to how the market is doing on a given day.

The one flaw within the Dow Jones average is that the "Dow" weighs companies solely by their share price as opposed to weighing them by their market capitalization, therefore you get the strange phenomena in which Visa at a current stock price of $222.81 and with a market capitalization of $141.18 billion dollars has a substantially greater influence on the Dow as compared to Cisco which has a current stock price of $21.82 and a market capitalization somewhat comparable to Visa at $112.66 billion.  Consequently, Visa has a current weighing of 8.75% on the Dow, making it the #1 influence on the index whereas Cisco current weighing is a mere .86% or a ratio of just over 10:1, conversely on a market capitalization ratio that ratio would be just 1.25:1.  Additionally, Visa has the lowest yearly revenue by far of any component on the Dow, and its market capitalization is also in the bottom five, yet Visa has the biggest influence on the Dow.  Quite simply, because the Dow weighs companies by their share price, instead of market capitalization, or by some other fair metric, certain companies within the Dow will have an outsized influence on the Dow price and others will have significantly less influence.  As it stands today, creating your own Dow Jones index is as simple as purchasing the exact same amount of shares of each Dow component.

The Dow Jones could change its formula for creating the index and perhaps should change it.  For instance, by market capitalization, the two biggest stocks are Apple and Google in which neither are part of the index and neither has any hope of being part of the index because of their very high stock prices of $532.36 and $1218.26, respectively.  Google, itself, if it was part of the index as currently formulated would be well over 33% of the weighing of the Dow.  Therefore, in absence of either Apple or Google splitting their shares and assuming that their market capitalization remains at or near the top, the Dow Jones will change its formulation sometime within the next decade in order to maintain its relevance.

Taxpayer funded Stadiums

You can virtually always count on mega-rich owners of sports franchises using their power and influence to fleece taxpayers of their chosen city to subsidize and to build their sports stadiums.  The most egregious stadiums of public waste rest In the NFL for two primary reasons: the size and capacity of the stadium itself and the fact that the NFL can't guarantee more than ten home games a season (two: preseason, eight: regular season).  It doesn't take a genius to recognize that a state-of-the-art stadium that costs upwards of $650 million or more and is created primarily as a NFL stadium is a colossal waste of both money and space, yet 14 new NFL stadiums have been built since 2000.

Too often these stadiums are built without true taxpayer approval, the deep-pocketed owners instead preferring to do the runaround and deal directly with the city council or the mayor itself, as it is far easier to convince a handful of empowered people of the supposed benefits of a new stadium than to take the risk of putting the vote to the ballot.  The taxpayers will often be stuck with any or all of the following: a small increase in their sales tax rate, or hotel occupancy tax, or car rental tax, and an issuance of bonds to cover the expenditures needed to create the stadium and its inevitable cost overruns.

Of course, the proponents of the stadium building are always quick to point out the benefits of having such a modern and state-of-the-art facility.  It's great for the city image to have or continue to have this particular sports team, it will bring in spending dollars from surrounding communities, it will create jobs, and it will increase the value of the land surrounding the stadium.  Most of these statements are made up of whole cloth or close to it.  Instead, mayors, city council members, and other influential people within a city should be reminded that they have an absolute obligation to be good stewards of the public's money and not to build edifices around a wall of lies.  For instance, Los Angeles hasn't had a NFL team since 1995 and is the country's second largest media market.  Is LA any the worse for not having a team?

As bad as these matters are, what makes them worse is the shelf-life of stadiums continues to get shorter and shorter as time goes on.  In the NFL, in recent times, there have been five stadiums that were abandoned or demolished before they ever reached thirty years of occupancy.  Why is it that new stadiums have to be built as compared to a more sensible solution, such as the renovation of existing structures?  The oldest stadium in the NFL is Soldiers' Field in Chicago, which was built in 1924.  The only other stadium that has been in existence in the NFL for longer than 50 years is Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, all other stadiums in the NFL are no older than 38 years old, a mere blink of an eye in time, when historic stadiums such as the Roman Coliseum have been standing for over 1,900 years and was in use for approximately 400 years or possibly more.

Stadiums cost a lot of money and this money should ideally be spent by the owners or the sports franchise itself, and not be something that is tacked onto taxpayers and unjustifiably takes away from necessary and sensible infrastructure usages such as roads, plumbing, schools, public services, and the like.

Sin Taxes and Alcohol

I do support sin taxes for items such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, legalized marijuana, and would like to see sin taxes added onto porn (including all adult media and strip clubs).  But first, what is a sin tax?  A sin tax is a form of excise tax which is placed on certain specific commodities, such as tobacco, and not placed on other commodities such as milk. That is to say, it's a special tax placed onto special items in which these items are not mandatory to procure in the normal course of everyday affairs, that they are in fact, discretionary expenditures by the consumer and additionally are perceived by the general public as being something less than wholesome.  Further, an excise tax when applied to a specific product often has more than one excise tax component, that is to say, there will be the federal excise tax, the state excise tax, and in some instances a municipal excise tax applied to the particular product; not to mention the usual local and sales taxes applied.  Some people criticize sin taxes as being a form of regressive taxation, because it impacts poor people at a higher percentage of their income as opposed to rich people, but that is true of all taxation which is not progressive in nature.

Sin taxes, however, are not equally applied in fixed percentages to products, the specific excise tax rate varies from product to product and how it is applied.  A case in point is comparing the excise tax rate for both federal and state levels for tobacco and alcohol.  For instance, in April 1, 2009, the federal excise tax rate for cigarettes increased from .39 per pack to $1.0066 per pack, an increase of 158%, whereas in the last 55 years the federal excise tax on beer has been raised just once, in 1991, and consequently from 2009 to the present there has not been an increase in the federal excise tax rate for wine, beer, or spirits.

State excise tax rates vary from state-to-state, but taking recent history and only concentrating on four northeastern states that already had very high excise tax rates we can do a comparison of tobacco v. alcohol over the years 2008 through 2013.  Each of the states of Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, and New York increased their alcohol taxes during this period, but Maine which increased their wine and beer excise taxes by 116% got this tax increase reversed by referendum within the same year, so in actuality, their wine and beer excise taxes didn't increase.  The aggregate increase for these four states was 16.25% for the wine/beer/spirit categories.  Over the same period of time, their cigarette excise tax in aggregate increased 33.51% for these four states, but this increase is really even higher, if we were to include the NYC excise tax of $1.50/pack which I have left out of this calculation.

Looking at this somewhat small footprint of time and states, from a state excise tax level of tobacco v. alcohol, the tobacco increase over the years of 2008-2013 is more than 100% higher than the alcohol excise tax.  In regards to the federal excise tax of tobacco v. alcohol, the tobacco excise tax rate increased 158% while the alcohol excise tax rate increased 0% (it remained the same), and all forms of alcohol have remained the same since 1991.  While each state is entitled to raise or lower their excise tax rates per their discretion and/or voter and legislative approval, it is puzzling why tobacco has suffered such a huge increase in its federal excise tax rate in which in 1991 it was increased to .20/pack and now stands at $1.0066/pack or an increase of over 400%, whereas alcohol after seeing its federal excise tax increase in 1991, has not had it change since! 

One can only conclude that the lobbyists for alcohol must be amongst the most effective lobbyists in all of America, because alcohol is certainly not a product that is without its demons and abuses.  It is high time that the federal government increased substantially its taxes on alcohol in which at best they have fallen asleep at the wheel, and at worse, have been compromised.

Gun Shows and Private Sales Loopholes

In most states and counties purchasing a gun in America through a licensed gun dealer is relatively easy but does involve a background check and filling out a form 4473 and there may also be a waiting period for the gun transaction to be completed and finalized.  For a semi-automatic firearm purchase you will need a certificate from a firearms safety training course and a more extensive background check in which there will be a mandatory waiting period depending upon the state or possibly the county that you are purchasing the semi-automatic firearm from.

While some states have enacted laws that preclude private gun transactions that don't also go through a licensed dealer in which the transaction is recorded, most states do not.  Consequently, people that are disqualified from owning a gun or that prefer to make their gun purchases anonymous can easily circumvent the law by purchasing their gun from either a Gun Show or through a private sale transaction and this is routinely done in America.

While there is a lot to be said that private transactions should be allowed without interference between individuals for most things, when it comes to firearm sales that are transacted between individuals it would be far wiser that these types of sales be monitored by and recorded by a licensed dealer within the state.  In particular, it is both dangerous and disturbing that individuals that are unable to pass background checks to purchase a firearm have an easy and an accessible way to purchase a gun in which there is no paper trail, no liability, and no recording of the activity that has been accomplished. 

Gun Shows should be re-constituted so that only licensed dealers may sell guns and that all buyers of said guns must pass the same background checks that they normally would have to pass in order to purchase a particular firearm.  That is to say, that all private sales should be prohibited as matter of course in Gun Show events, unless further transacted with an authorized and licensed dealer of firearms at the show.

To many people, however, there will be a hue and cry that we all have the right to bear arms and that anything that interferes in our ability to purchase said gun are as a matter of course a bastardization of our 2nd Amendment.   While I do have some sympathy to this viewpoint, the fact of the matter is that guns are lethal weapons and that it is not unreasonable to establish strict, fair, and exacting standards in regards to the purchase, distribution, and resale of firearms.

Many people do not want the government to know their business, to know what they do or don't have, because they may legitimately fear the government and its military/police powers turning upon them in times of intense crisis or chaos.  While this viewpoint has its place and its validity, we should be far more concerned about guns being in the hands of clear lunatics, unsavory characters, and violent criminals.  That is our clear and present danger.

The Great Pyramid

Mankind likes to believe that progress is linear, that is to say, that each generation improves upon the previous generation, even though there are plenty of times when barbarians, for instance, have conquered more civilized nations, such as when the Visigoths and Vandals, amongst others, took control of essential parts of the Roman Empire.  Progress is not always in a straight line, there are byways, detours, knowledge gained and knowledge loss or forgotten or forbidden, and those that believe that there is something new under the sun, apparently aren't familiar with or believe in Ecclesiastes 1:9: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."   

The great pyramid is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and it is the only one of these seven wonders that stands today.  The sands of time and the unfortunate vandalism by Muslims have changed the face and therefore the finished look of the great pyramid in which upon the completion of its construction it once was covered with huge blocks of finely-grained polished white limestone which reflected the sun's light. However, these stones were apparently loosened after a 14th century earthquake and over time were then removed.  The great pyramid is estimated to have over 2 million limestone blocks in its construction in which the weights of these range from two to up to fifty tons per block.  The height of the pyramid as originally created is estimated at 480 feet, and the estimated total weight of the great pyramid is a staggering total of nearly 6 million tons.  The great pyramid is also aligned at true north and it is located at the center of the land mass of earth.

Although most experts put the construction of the great pyramid at around 2560 BC, there are also estimates that date it thousands of years earlier.  The great pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world for nearly four thousand years (depending upon the dating of the great pyramid)  until surpassed by the Lincoln Cathedral in England in 1311, and then by other cathedrals for a number of years, until these were all surpassed by our Washington Monument in 1884.  Yet, despite all of our advances in technology, knowledge, wisdom, engineering, and application since the construction of the great pyramid, we would be very hard-pressed to build the pyramid today with the same limestone blocks and construction materials that this pyramid was created with.

Mankind comes up with all sorts of theories of quarries, levers, pulleys, ropes, ramps, and thousands upon thousands of workers that put the great pyramid together through incredible manual labor in conjunction with absolute precision and perfection.  The theories that are put forth by most modern scientists for the creation of the great pyramid are utter bunk and laughable.  The great pyramid was the greatest of the pyramids built in Egypt, but there are estimated to have been built about 118 pyramids.  Additionally, this is not the only civilization to have built pyramids, as pyramids were built in China, Mexico, and Central America.  How did so many civilizations have this great talent that appears to have vanished completely from time?  The most sensible answer is that these civilizations were quite advanced and had the knowledge somehow to suspend gravity and thereby to levitate large objects.  Remember, for every action there is a reaction.  Gravity can be overcome and has been overcome, you can do it yourself, let drop from your hand a small metal object and gravity will take it to the floor, but produce from your pocket a magnet and this small metal object will defy gravity. As Sherlock Holmes says: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" 

Gift Card Reselling

In America, gift cards are the most popular gift for Christmas and other special events throughout the year, probably because of their ubiquity, their flexibility, their availability, their ease-of-use, their ease of delivery, and the fact that with the exception of the gift card store that has been selected, the recipient of said card can use it to pick out whatever merchandise that they desire.  In recent times, though, another choice has been presented to the recipient which is the ability to sell the gift card for cash.   With the amount of gift cards sold in the USA at over 100 billion dollars each year, this has created a marketplace of resellers in which http://www.giftcardgranny.com/ is the leading marketplace consolidator for people that either want to buy or sell their gift cards.  While you can also buy and sell gift cards through sites such as craigslist or eBay, your risk for doing so is increased considerably anytime you are dealing individual-to-individual as opposed to dealing with a company that makes it their business to buy and sell gift cards and has put into place conditions and protections for its consumers and sellers.

Buyers of gift cards will receive discounts that range from as small as 2% to upwards of 30% based on the popularity of a particular gift card.  For instance, a Wal-Mart gift card sells for a small discount, whereas Frederick's of Hollywood sells for a large discount.  The converse is true when it comes to selling a gift card, in which the seller of a Wal-Mart gift card may get about 93% of its value, whereas the seller of Frederick's of Hollywood would be fortunate to get 70% of the value of the card.  When you sell your gift card to a consolidator you will typically receive your payment through either PayPal, Amazon gift card, check, or direct deposit, with the receipt of that payment being accomplished shortly after verification of the balance of the gift card.  Buyers of gift cards typically will pay via credit card, debit card, or through PayPal and unless the card is an electronic card (i.e. non-physical), you will receive your bought gift card within a few days through the mail.

There is, however, a fundamental flaw of this gift card exchange program and that is the seller "holds over" the buyer.  That is to say, the seller has all the information on the card in regards to the gift card number and the gift card pin, andcan "double-dip" by selling the card, and then after receiving their money, using the card themselves online.  Of course, this isn't legal, but it's done, and that is why the spread between the buy price and sell price is often around 8-10%, whereas if there wasn't any double-dealing going on, that spread would be considerably tighter.

Another question to ask is where do all these various gift cards come from?  The quick answer is that the cards come from consumers like me and you, that simply want to exchange a gift card that doesn't suit them for cash to pay bills or to buy something else that is more desirable, or even another gift card.  That's the short answer but I believe there is another answer.  Employee theft within retail stores is a serious problem and previously if an employee stole product from your store he would have to sell it at a significant discount on the street, or online, or at a swap meet, in which all of these things bring their own risk and also a delay in receiving monetary compensation.  Today's ability to buy and sell gift cards online has changed this dynamic considerably.  Now, an employee can steal from the company that employs him, typically then find someone else to exchange the merchandise for him at a different store or even the same store, and that person will receive store credit in return for that merchandise with no need of a receipt.  After receiving that store credit in the form of a gift card ormerchandise credit it can then be sold online for a very high value (e.g. 85-90%) as compared to its full worth and the criminal will receive cash for his troubles, all in a very short period of time and with no real questions asked.

Retailers aren't stupid and they probably are aware of this new phenomenon, in which they don't want to alienate their legitimate customer base but they do want to stop and/or better track shrinkage within their companies, but they will have to make some adjustments in order to do so, because the upside for employee thefts has never been better.

Birth Control and the Sexual Revolution

The Birth control pill was approved for contraceptive use in 1960.  However, the original intention for the pill given the mores of the day was for it to be prescribed for only married couples or for those couples that were engaged to become married and therefore not to be available for prescription for single college-age women nor for recreational sex.  But over time and through various court cases, the rights of women to control their own bodies superseded the original intent of the pill and consequently the pill availability became widespread.   This widespread availability of the pill was the significant reason for the sexual revolution in our country but with that came some unintended consequences.

For instance, as late as 1968 in America, according to johnstonsarchive.net there were less than two abortions per one thousand live births.  By 1971, as reported by Wikipedia.org, there were137 abortions per one thousand live births in America, with nearly 500,000 abortions in total.  The year 1984 was the peak of the abortion ratio at 364 abortions per one thousand live births, and the total abortions exceeded 1.3 million.  Since that time the trend and the ratio for abortions has been down but the ratio and the amount of abortions in America today are still at levels which simply didn't exist before the advent of the birth control pill and its universal availability to females.

Another consequence of birth control is that the playing of the "blame game" has changed.  Whereas, for instance in the 1950s and the 1960s, a woman who got pregnant and had the intention or little choice but of bringing her baby to term,  she would frequently be able to convince her partner, one way or another, to marry her in a "shotgun wedding" or similar.  Since the dual advent of birth control pills and abortion on demand, shotgun weddings have faded from sight.  The attitude of the man directly involved in a woman's pregnancy has changed from one of possibly "doing the right thing,", to an attitude that it was the woman's responsibility to assure that she wouldn't get pregnant because after all it's her body and she had all the necessary tools to take control of it!

That is why in an age when all sorts of birth control methods are readily available, such as condoms, pills, IUDs, patches, shots, sponges, and the morning-after-pill, abortions and the ratio of abortions to live births in America are still at an incredibly high and elevated numbers.  Additionally, whereas in 1968 approximately 6.2% of children lived in households with a never-married mother, today that percentage has climbed to 45.8%.  The mores and the traditions of the American nuclear family have changed over the past 40-odd years since the coming of age of the birth control pill and the sexual revolution, but not in the way that was intended nor expected.

The intent of the access to birth control pills was so that families could "plan" their pregnancies and to subsequently control the amount of children created in their household.  While that may be true somewhat, for the most part what has happened instead is a wide-open playing field in which anything goes with anyone at anytime in which no party takes full responsibility, but it is the female and her children that mainly suffers the consequences of these choices. 

The birth control pill in conjunction with legal abortion has empowered females to take control of their bodies, but unfortunately, it has also led to a massive increase in recreational sex and a wholesale decrease in our moral values, our family values, and our sensibilities.  The freedom to say yes is also the freedom to say no.

The Military in a Domestic Emergency Situation

Most of us go about our day blithely unaware that at any point, we as civilians, could be put under military control as given by the Code of Federal Regulations, Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) [ 32 CFR 185 ] Act which states in part:

"§185.3   Definitions.

Emergency Authority. A Federal military commander's authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances…"

The above essentially creates a military-police state within the United States, ostensibly for our benefit to "quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances", in which those "disturbances" could, in fact, be created by agents within or working with the military itself so that the military could declare essentially martial law within our country.  A law that once enacted may effectively end the reign of the United States as that "last best hope for mankind".

For those that think that the above scenario is somewhat far-fetched, recognize that in the following passage in regards to Policy, the use of Federal military forces is authorized when necessary to protect Federal property or functions, in which it's hard to find in America a major city block that doesn't contain some sort of "Federal property or functions."  The Code of Federal Regulations, Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) [ 32 CFR 185 ] Act further states in part:

"§185.4   Policy.

…(2) When duly constituted Federal, State, or local authorities are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for Federal property or Federal governmental functions. Federal action, including the use of Federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the Federal property or functions."

The United States has over two million military personnel that are well-trained, well-armed, with state-of-the-art communications and abilities that are well regarded as the most fearsome military force known in the history of mankind.  For those that believe that this military would never turn its guns on to its own civilian population, history is rife with example after example of armed forces that have done this exact same terrible thing and this continues until the present day.  Take for instance countries such as: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda, Cambodia, Nazi Germany, Russia, and Turkey, in which each of these countries have deliberately committed genocide against certain segments of their population in recent times for various reasons.

Military personnel are trained to kill people by first dehumanizing them and designating them instead as "targets, sub-humans, animals, infidels" or assorted racist terms.  Military personnel are not trained to see their enemies as children of God or as equal to themselves.  When you intentionally and deliberately kill another human being with a bullet, a bomb, or a weapon of some sort, you have essentially crossed the Rubicon and deliberately killing your own country's civilians is a task relatively easily accomplished if guided and commanded to do so by your superior officers.  If you find this difficult to swallow, ask yourself this question,  when Christ was scourged, beaten, and crucified, how many Roman soldiers walked away or refused to participate?

Be very afraid, it is coming.

Pedophile's Delight

When I write of "pedophile's delight" I am not referring to the act itself, which is disgraceful, abusive, harmful, and wrong on every level, nor am I referring to the severity of the punishment for those convicted sex offenders, instead what I am referring to is that in today's society with its ubiquitous online social media it is truly a time in which the fox is guarding the henhouse.  Consumer Reports stated on 5/10/2011 that: "of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook in the past year, 7.5 million of them were younger than 13, according to projections from Consumer Reports’ latest State of the Net survey.  Facebook’s terms of service require users to be at least 13 years old. Also among this group of minors using Facebook, more than 5 million were 10 and under." The WSJ followed this up with their 2011 survey of 1,007 parents in which 19% of children age 10 had a Facebook account, 32% at age 11, 55% at age 12, 69% at age 13, and 78% at age 14. 

Pedophiles' already have access to children through all of the usual methods, what has changed during the Facebook era of the last decade is their ability to exploit children and teenagers using that same social media.  As easy as it is for a child to pretend to be an age that they are not, it is just as easy for a predator to do the exact same thing in reverse.  Just as a child can post age information and data that are inaccurate, so can a pedophile do the same thing with pictures stolen or taken from other accounts or other media and create a fake profile that allows them to represent themselves as nearly the same age as their intended victim.  Because the adult has the intelligence, the deviousness, the physical strength, and the experience, it is hardly a fair contest for that same adult to successfully assault and/or exploit the child.  Social media sites such as Facebook create both the roadway and the necessary pathway for pedophiles to successfully ply their trade.

Through it all, the parents of the child are oblivious that their child is even in danger of molestation and exploitation for an adult's deviant pleasure through sites such as Facebook.  Instead we have the illusion of safety that Facebook sells to its users, when in fact, you can make a very strong argument that Facebook has an absolute duty to restrict, protect, and to assist their underage users in knowing the dangers that social media can present.  As a parent you warn your child not to talk to strangers outside of your presence, to never get into a car with a stranger, that there is strength in numbers and therefore not to walk alone, and that when in doubt to not take a chance but to return to your safe zones.  The online pedophile can take advantage of these defense mechanisms, because he knows your name, where you live, where you go to school at, what your habits and likes are, and he can pretend to be something that he is not such as a security officer, or teacher, or anything that makes him look respectable and upstanding to you.

Pedophiles have never had it any better, they can search for their potential victims, systematically, diligently and at any hour (for instance, does it make sense for a "thirteen year old" to be online at 3 AM on a school day and shouldn't this be red- flagged).  Pedophiles can afford to look and look again since the cost of their attempts merely comes down to the value of their own time and they won't stop until they find their victim.  It is for them, the best of times.

Being Nickel and Dimed

Being nickel and dimed refers mainly to being squeezed out of extra money through unnecessary costs or hidden fees or deceptive charges by companies.  It is akin to squeezing out just a little extra money from you, with the expectation that you'll just accept it as the cost of doing business.  There are plenty of examples of being nickel and dimed which I will elaborate on.

T-Mobile prepaid advertise their prepaid plans as monthly such as their unlimited phone, text, and data plan for as low as $50/month but that price isn't accurate, nor is it completely true.  You could make a strong argument that it's false advertising, since the program itself is not based on a true monthly fee but on a thirty-day preplan fee, so that given that there are 365.25 days in a year but only 360 days (12 x 30) for 30-day periods, you as a consumer will end up paying for an extra month, around 70 months into your prepaid plan when your yearly shortfall of 5.25 days will equal another payment of $50.  Consequently, whereas the plan states it's $50/monthly if you were to actually convert the 30-day plan into a monthly plan it would be about $.714 more per month; so their monthly plan is really not $50 but is $50.714 on a monthly basis which is an increase of 1.43% which is pretty much pure profit to their bottom line, unless consumers as a whole were to take offense by it, and switch to another carrier.

Credit card companies have all sorts of charges that they can nickel and dime you with, and these charges can quite easily get beyond the mere nickel and dimes.  If you are even one-day late they can hit you with a $35 late fee or possibly more, a variable interest switchover in which instead of paying a fixed interest rate because on your late payment you will thereby pay a variable "penalty" rate as much as 29.99% or possibly more.  All of this for being one-day late in which your balance may be trivial, your past payment history may be excellent, and there may be legitimate extenuating circumstances or possibly a mistake on the credit card issuers side.  However, in fairness to the credit card companies, they are often willing to work with you on these penalties if you contact them, but if you do not, you will default to these penalties.    In addition, the one truly unnecessary nickel and dime charge by credit card companies is the "minimum" credit card interest fee, as for some reason some credit card companies claim or have no desire to charge you the correct interest on low balances but instead round you up to their minimum interest charge of $1.50, or possibly more.  There isn't a single valid reason for this to be done, except to nickel and dime you.

Utility companies have late fees, service restoration fees, deposit requirements, and processing fees, and if you somehow fall behind or fail to make timely payments, they are in principle really piling on the misery for a consumer that clearly is having trouble making just the normal payment.  Since most utility companies are publicly monitored, it is both unnecessary and mean-spirited to charge any additional fees which are above and beyond the real cost of doing business in order to spite and needlessly penalize the consumer.  Water, electricity, and gas are absolutely vital for modern-day consumers to make their home, habitable; therefore the termination of these vital functions should not be done lightly or without due consideration.

There are plenty of nickel and dime fees that consumers deal with on a daily or monthly basis.  These fees can often be overcome by asserting your consumer rights but that takes diligence, effort, and savvy on your part.  Not everyone has those same capabilities or knowledge, and is these people that suffer most from being nickel and dimed.

The "New" Bread and Circuses

There are a lot of ways to keep your population and especially your large underclass under control and relatively docile.  Some of these methods are quite effective and some are not.  When the Government bares its teeth and uses force to keep its population down, this is usually the sign of overall weakness in the Government's effort to placate the population and an additional sign that the whole edifice may soon come tumbling down.  Far better it is to sell the illusion that all is well, and to follow that illusion up with the items that mean most to the people which are food and entertainment, also known as "bread and circuses".

The United States has a massive welfare class in which according to townhall.com, "a new report from the Census Bureau showed a total of 108,592,000 people were on some sort of means-tested government benefits program in the fourth quarter of 2011, yet only 101,716,000 people were employed full-time for the entire year."  It is fortunate that the United States is known as the breadbasket of the world so that food here is not only just plentiful, it's relatively cheap, widely available and competently distributed, and access to this cheap food is readily given to all Americans as almost a given right.  Fortunately too, America is known as the preeminent entertainment center of the world, in which its products are easily available, at a price-point that is either quite affordable or basically free, and that these diversions can also be up-scaled for consumers with a little bit of extra cash on them.

The formula for America works so well that even when there are protests against the Wall Street and the money-elite such as "Occupy Wall Street", the protestors are only able to gain traction for a very short period of time, despite the fact that this country is clearly divided between an absolute money-elite, a middle-class that is being squeezed and marginalized, and an underclass that is big and growing.  The reason that the poor and underprivileged are still satisfied within America is because they are very well fed, so well in fact that obesity is nearly an epidemic in America, and they too have ready access to all sorts of entertainment and games through their TVs, their cell-phones, and other electronic items that connect to the internet.

Countries like Egypt and Greece get it so wrong, because when you don't properly feed your population or keep the price of food within reason you will get unease, grumbling, and riots.  Additionally, when you create a welfare state but over-promise your population and under-achieve with them, such as in Greece, you will get blowback of the highest order in return.  Whether the United States will disintegrate into these types of conditions remains to be seen, but should it come to that it will get very, very ugly.

Rome, once the greatest empire ever known, eventually succumbed to its enemies because its' love of bread and circuses, sapped the virtue and desire of its citizens to apply themselves, and instead replaced this with indolence, hoarding, corruption, and trade deficits.  Our future is both uncertain and hardly secure, for when those that have their hands out are greater in number than those that through their efforts and diligence are able to create the handouts, you have a problem of increasing significance, and our edifice of bread and circuses will begin to crack, crumble, and eventually to fall.