Property Taxes

If you own your own home, you have to pay property taxes, and those taxes are not only mandatory but they typically are not cheap and are often correlated with the "fair market value" of your home.  The penalty for not paying your property taxes can lead to you forfeiting your home, so property taxes have legal as well as monetary consequences.

Property taxes are most often collected at the county level in which in my community, the amount of money collected from said property taxes makes up almost 60% of the general fund of the county budget so those property taxes are of immense importance to the county at large.  This means that even though the county tax assessor is in theory suppose to tax your property at the fair market value within your community, there are most definitely strings pulling him to be" fairer" to the county and its budgetary concerns at large as opposed to you as a taxpayer. 

In 2010 I was successful in appealing my property tax bill on both properties that I own to properly reflect the collapse of real estate prices falling after the 2008 meltdown.  Recently, however, I received notice that on one of my properties the most current property tax bill would be increasing nearly 23% from the previous year, and while I will admit that there are some areas within the United States that have come back strongly in housing strength and pricing, my community is definitely not one of them.  Additionally, there isn't any transparency as to how the county tax assessor came up with the new value for my home.  However, there is a 45-day window to appeal, which I will do, after I have correlated and processed my rebuttal, but even a cursory glance at zillow.com and with my general knowledge of my neighborhood, clearly demonstrates that the appraiser has it wrong.

In my community there are different ways to appeal, in which I have been successful with responding with a value that I back up with comparables in my neighborhood and I subsequently submit this pertinent information with my standard appeal form for the county assessor to review.  For all I know, the county assessor may generally be quite accommodating to those that do appeal, recognizing that the vast majority of people don't ever get around to appealing, so that in aggregate he has been successful in increasing revenue while not upsetting the constituents that do petition him.

That being said, there are more than ten states that have passed various propositions or laws that limits the amount that a given property can be increased to a rate of 1-2% on an annual basis.  In an era of both low inflation and housing malaise, these propositions serve the dual purpose of protecting the home owner from egregious property tax increases and reigning in county budgets from expanding at an unsustainable growth rate.

Ideally, property taxes should be correlated with the price of the home at the time it was purchased, with strict limits on annual increases thereafter, without these limits, county governments will be tempted time and time again to take just a little bit extra or even more from property owners.

No man is poor who has a Godly mother

Abraham Lincoln famously stated that: "I regard no man as poor who has a godly mother."  This pithy quotation coming from a man who was renowned for his common sense and wisdom deserves our contemplation and thought.  In Lincoln's time, a hard-scrabbled existence was part and parcel of the American experience, in which the majority of Americans earned their subsistence and existence off of the land.  This life may not have been an easy life, but it was a life that held for many Americans, opportunity, if they were willing to apply themselves diligently.

Lincoln understood that it was never the money that made the man, but the character of the man that defined him.  But where do we find that character?  I submit that we often find that character developed from the nurturing, care, and love of our mother.  All life begins with our mother, and it is from our mother that we first take in this world.  If our mother is damaged, neglectful, uncaring, immoral, incompetent, or worse, this does not necessarily mean that we will turn out poorly, but it definitely means that we will have additional struggles to overcome in this world.

A godly mother is a mother that has built a solid foundation, based on providing service, works, and devotion to Him who is eternal, omnipotent, and omniscience.  A mother that recognizes that there is something worth seeking that is beyond this material world that can provide us with emotional and spiritual sustenance, moral guidance, and love, is a mother that cares deeply for us.  This world offers enough challenges that it is pure foolishness not to lean on He who can provide all answers and an ever-present helping hand.

There may be times when we are hurting, or in trouble, or things are going against us, in which we desire our mother to be there to comfort us, but circumstances may not allow for this possibility, it is then that our seeking for our godly mother's aid, becomes a seeking for the One that gives all aid, in which His grace and love will never extinguish and will never leave us.

You are never a poor man if you have a godly mother because the wrong scorecard to look at is the card that keeps track of the amount of money in one's bank account, instead we should concern ourselves with the scorecard that keeps track of the amount of grace created in one's blessing's account.  

Good times come and good times go.  You may be born into wonderful circumstances, or you may not be, tough times may or may not often trouble you, but along any path there will be challenges, and there will be decisions that must be made.  A man, any man, must face those challenges and those decisions that define him, and a man that has the upbringing from a godly mother will often find that the decision that he need make is the correct one, because he will not turn away from doing the right thing and for this, he will be a wise man.

Martyrs of the Early Church

You can learn a lot about a man, about a religion, about a movement, by what his followers accomplish, overcome, and perform after his death.  Upon Christ's death, he was resurrected, in which he then passed on to his closest followers his wisdom, his love, and the great commission to preach the good news, before He ascended to heaven to be one with his Father.  The story, however, does not end there, that is but the beginning of a new testament which we live to today.

The faithfulness and belief of Stephen permitted him to perform many great wonders and signs for the people of Jerusalem, but this upset certain powerful religious leaders of the day who rose up and argued against Stephen, but were unable to refute or to overcome the wisdom of Stephen.  This, however, did not stop them by convincing others to falsely contend that Stephen had blasphemed against Moses and God, in a time in which such blasphemy could result in capital punishment.  This ultimately led to a fatal confrontation, in which the crowd stoned Stephen to death, a death in which Stephen proclaimed: "…Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."  In which the unjustified martyrdom of Stephen echoed the martyrdom of Christ.

James believed in Christ's divinity only after His resurrection and later became a pillar of the church that was created, because he was a man that lived his faith in the actions and the accomplishments that he made.  James was quite clear that true faith produces true deeds, that you cannot talk out of both sides of your mouth, that you will ultimately be all of one thing or all of another thing, but not both at the same time.  James was clear that we are to be doers of the word that merely hearing the words and agreeing with them was not good enough.  For his belief, James, suffered martyrdom, "… he killed James the brother of John with the sword."

"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs." (John 21:15). "And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church…"

(Matthew 16:18).  The Holy Roman Catholic Church holds forth Peter, the rock of our faith, to have been their first pope.  Peter who denied our Lord, three times, who disappointed our Lord on so many occasions was also a man that was after our Lord's heart.  Peter wore his faith on his sleeve, and was always willing to face the truth and the consequences of the truth, so that he left his former way of being a doubter and denier, to become a true rock of a believer who feared no man on this earth and would demonstrate his faith by performing works and miracles on behalf of Christ.  He too suffered martyrdom, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. 19 This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God…"

Paul, formerly known as Saul, was a great persecutor of the Christian faith until on the road of Damascus he saw and felt the truth of Christ himself.  Paul, thereby, by the grace of God transformed himself into a new man, a man of zeal for the true faith, of determination, of works, of persistence, of wisdom, of miracles, of unjustified imprisonment and bodily harm, in which nothing short of death itself would stop him.  It was Paul that authored thirteen of the New Testament epistles and Paul too suffered martyrdom. "Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;  in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;  in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."

Each of these great men suffered for their faith, suffered onto death, onto execution.  In Christianity, there are no shortcuts; we live, however, in what is considered to be a more enlightened age, in which Christians are often respected and treated well, but not in every country, nor in every circumstance.  The true measure of a man's faith rests in his willingness to testify to the truth, to suffer deprivations for that truth, and to recognize that one's physical life is no match for our eternal life.

Japan and the USA

Japan was utterly annihilated by their defeat in World War II in which two cities were subjected to devastating atomic bombs, and an additional 66 cities were firebombed in which a huge percentage of their infrastructure was wiped out.  Japan had numerous civilian casualties as well as military casualties as they laid ruined at the hands of the Allied forces in World War II.  Yet, one must give a lot of credit to Japan for their intelligence, their dedication; as well as their  fortitude in taking this defeated  and devastated island nation and its peoples, from the depths of despair so that by 1968, this small nation, about the size of California, had become the second biggest economy in the world.

The Japanese economic success can be attributed to many reasons, such as: governmental reforms which limited the Emperor's powers and created a more balanced and nuanced political structure, land reforms, the elimination of a standing army, and the money, capital, low tariffs, export markets, and advice provided primarily by the USA that aided and abetted the Japanese rise.  Japan became so successful as a nation that there was even a thought that one day their economic engine would even surpass the United States, but alas their stock market peaked in 1989 when the Nikkei 225 closed at 38,915 and hasn't recovered since, in which today's closing of May 21, 2014, the Nikkei 225 was at 14,042, an astonishing 64% below its all-time high which was set 25 years ago!

Japan's demographics have significantly changed over the last 25 years, in which their population has grown in total only about a mere 10%, while during that same time its composition of senior citizens aged 65 or older has doubled.  In short, the Japanese percentage of children is at historic lows while its percentage of adults that make-up their labor force is shrinking.  This means that the labor force, corporations, and the government are being squeezed by greater expenditures for pension benefits and health care for retired citizens, which often translates to higher taxes onto the workforce as a whole. Because of this demographic shift in Japan, there are less able-body workers that have to carry greater and greater economic and legacy loads in which because of the Japanese low birth rates and its low immigration rates, there is no hope that tomorrow will alleviate these problems and consequently the Japanese economic miracle is effectively over. 

The USA also has its fair share of problems that are similar in many ways to Japan and dissimilar in others.  The USA is aging but at a far slower rate and percentage as compared to Japan, nevertheless it is projected that by 2050 over 20% of our population will be 65 or older.  Defense spending in America is reportedly approximately 4.8% of GDP, whereas in Japan it is approximately just 1% of GDP.  The US dollar is the world's reserve currency which is of enormous benefit to Americans because virtually all commodities/goods are priced in our currency and because we have the printing press to make more dollars, it's almost like a perpetual hand in the cookie jar, however, if and when the US dollar loses its reserve status, our money will be discounted by other banks and countries, meaning that the cost of goods for Americans will substantially rise in real-money terms.

We should keep our eyes on Japan and recognize that despite their hard work rate, their great intelligence, and their wonderful innovations that you cannot safely rest of your laurels and so truly do not ask for whom the bell tolls, for it tolls for thee.

Email is not private

Most people consider email to be a modern version of our postal system in which you can correspond with love ones, friends, associates, and so forth through your computer email provider as compared to going to the trouble of mailing a letter and purchasing a postal stamp to mail it.  Email is absolutely wonderful because it will get to your recipient's email inbox typically in less than thirty seconds from the time that you hit "send".

I have been using email for many years and consider email to be another way of communicating in confidence with others, but sadly this is not true.  Essentially, if you are using any of the "big boy" email providers such as Gmail, outlook, or yahoo, each and every one of your emails is subject to their perusal and data mining.  This isn’t a situation that you can opt-out of, this is business as usual with these companies which is a moral outrage and should be illegal.  I can't emphasize it enough, all of your emails are read, they may say that they are not being read by a physical human being, but they are being assimilated and scanned by sophisticated tools with algorithms and consequently compromising your privacy.

This questionable legality which undermines all of your emails is allowed based on a court decision that statesthat you lose your right to privacy when you hand over documents to a third party.   Even if this somewhat dubious ruling is the law of the land, there isn't any truly valid reason that necessitates our email providers having the ability or the need to poke and sniff through our emails.  The email providers claim that what they do is for the purpose of targeting ads that meet our needs or to reduce spam or to provide proper email indexing, but if their purposes were so above-board then they would readily allow you to opt-out of their snooping once and for all.

What is a consumer to do to overcome this compromise of our communication privacy?  One could use some encryption software to send and receive messages but I doubt that any encryption that I would utilize, would not within days, or not within minutes, be revealed by sophisticated algorithms that specialize in these sorts of things.  One could also use a different email provider, one that isn't resident within the USA and that has security measures in place to protect the privacy of your communications.  Obviously, the more people that do make this change, the more pressure is put on email providers such as Gmail to take a long and hard look at their policies if people vote with their feet and utilize their service substantially less.

You can absolutely forget about the US government helping to protect your privacy in any way in regards to the internet or email, it loves the current policies of these large multi-national corporations and whether these conglomerates want to own up to the reality of the situation, the government and the email providers essentially work hand-in-hand with each other.  When the government wants something from Gmail, Google protests that they are doing everything that they can to protect their client's privacy and data, but I suspect that they protest too much, methinks.

Customer Service Call Recording

Who hasn't called customer service and listened to an automated recording which stated something like: "This call/session may be monitored and recorded for record-keeping, training and quality-assurance purposes.”  I suspect the first time I heard this message that I was appalled that some company had the desire to record our conversation, but after hearing this message time and time again, I've gotten use to it and also complacent with it.  For the most part, the burden and the pressure is on the call center employee since it's their job and their reputation that is on the line, but still, having a third party listen in on your conversation feels a little creepy or worse.

In my mind, I did have a quaint notion that my customer service call that was being monitored was just one of many calls that the customer service Manager was listening in on, in which that manager was jumping from phone call to phone call to which they might only pick up bits and pieces of our conversation.  I've since learned that this viewpoint isn't correct so when a customer service center tells you that your phone call is being monitored and recorded, they really do mean that it is definitely being recorded and that phone recording will definitely be listened to and ultimately analyzed.

The fact of the matter is that millions upon millions of phone calls are made to customer service departments of major businesses each year and those companies are undoubtedly interested in seeing that their customers are satisfied with their service, especially since the cost of replacing a customer far exceeds the cost of retaining said customer.     The customer service representative for all intents and purposes really does represent the company, so it is important that the service and professionalism being provided is consistent with the company's objectives.  Furthermore, handling customer calls is a special skill set, because customers come in all sorts of flavors, in all sorts of attitudes, from irate to outrage to upset to disappointment to resignation.

However, while there are service center which are strictly hands on with their monitoring and their concurrent actions to improve their customer service base, there are also customer service centers that record all their phone calls and place them into a massive database which uses algorithms to analyze and to sort through the conversations so as to ascertain what things can be done to help improve the customer satisfaction going forward or even possibly on that present phone call.  The analysis of these conversations by algorithms are often good enough to subdivide people into categories such as "emotions-driven" or "reactions-based" personalities based on how the words spoken are used, ordered, and utilized.  Additionally, algorithms have been written that can detect the stress and anxiety of a person's voice so that customer service representatives can adjust their responses given this valuable input. 

Present day customer service call recordings are primarily about providing an improved customer experience that is a "win-win" for consumers as well as for businesses.  The tools that businesses have to make this happen have never been more sophisticated than they are today, in which "a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." (Proverbs 25:11)

Big Government/Big Business wants gun control

Gun control, or the lack of gun control, consistently makes newscasts and mass media outlets day after day, week after week, in which the proponents of gun control won't let this issue go, and probably never will, until their overriding agenda of gun controlled is fulfilled in one form or another.  While the supporters of gun control cross all lines, from rich to poor, from liberal to conservative, across all color lines and most religions, they core make-up of gun control advocates are made up of the following:

·         Police/Military

·         Government (local, state, federal)

·         Liberals

·         Conscientious objectors

·         Mass media liberal press

·         Big money corporations

·         The superrich

The obvious reason why police forces support gun control is so that they, the police, can have control of the resident population.  If all the guns, weapons, tactical skills, and infrastructure are held by the police, the population will have no choice but to submit since any other decision would mean imprisonment, injury, or death.  Government agencies on all levels support gun control legislation so that they as our elected or selected bureaucrats can decide what is best for the population at large.  As always, liberals are essentially socialists in whom they willingly sacrifice personal liberties to the state, because the state provides them material benefits and security.  Conscientious objectors believe in gun control not just for the individual but also for the state itself, in which their belief is that there is no moral right to kill.

Behind the mass media liberal press are the big corporations that control their editorial output, and behind those corporations are the superrich owners who do their best to control their domain and to subdue the population.  Why would so many of the superrich and huge conglomerates be so strongly in favor of gun control?  The answer is straightforward: the police, the military, and the government work hand-in-hand with the superrich and their conglomerates because each is dependent upon the other in a symbiotic relationship.  The superrich are persuasive proponents of gun control , as opposed to owning their own personal arsenal, because they know that they will always be protected by the police and government agencies. 

The superrich fear the general population and therefore desire for the police to keep the dogs at bay.  The police answer to their puppet masters and desire that the population be disarmed or unarmed.  The liberal mass media press makes sure to stoke the fires with stories of accidental deaths by children using unattended firearms, or shoot-outs at schools, in which their cry is always "we have to do something about it".  The liberals don't like guns because nice people don't use them against each other and we should all be nice to one another.  The government wants the population unarmed so that they can more easily control massive populations without fear or revolt, retribution, or retaliation.

Essentially, big government and big business want gun control because when you tear off the cover it is still the law of the jungle out there and they want the guns in their hands--not private hands.  America gained its independence from Great Britain, not by words, not by abandonment, but by the force of arms.  He, who has the arms, has the power, and he who has the power, makes the rules and enforces its law.

Top Secret

Everybody hates how a good friend will keep a secret from us, so it isn't surprising that when our government does the same thing to us, in which a select elite knows privileged information, while most of the general public knows little or nothing about it, this doesn't seem to be fair or equable to a country which is a representative democracy,   After all, it is difficult to make any assessment, especially an assessment of a prudent nature, if the pertinent facts are not fully disclosed for peer review.  Our government makes a fundamental error when it errs on the side of a "need to know" disclosure routine, in which they, the government decides what will or will not be divulged to its own citizens.

When any government, runs on two separate paths, in which one path is one of transparency, knowledge, and openness; whereas the other path is one of deceit, secrecy, and double-speak, you are running a schizophrenic government.  Rather than our government creating more and more secrets each and every day, we should be instead taking steps in the direction of full disclosure and our government should welcome feedback and input from our general population.  It is far too easy and disingenuous to take the untenable position, that these secrets are being withheld from us for our own good, or the catch-all phrase that these secrets are mandated because divulgence of said information would compromise or embarrass us outside of this country. 

Perhaps we wouldn't have the need for so many secrets if our government wasn't involved in so many underhanded transactions of a questionable nature which do a grand disservice to our nation and its heritage.  Our people have a right to know about actions in which there could be a real potential of blowback which may not be seen instantly but in fact, could impact future generation of Americans; Americans that were never informed of these secret agendas, Americans that wouldn't have countenanced these secret double-dealings, and Americans that are forced to deal with the aftereffect of decisions made by an elite or secretive group that does not answer to the general public.

I, for one, want to know what our government is doing behind the scenes and believe that the best policy is one that relies far less on secrecy and far more on disclosure and fully formed vetting.   When any government has to constantly and consistently hide behind walls of secrecy, this threatens to tear down the very fabric of our representative democracy, and instead turn this country into a mockery and a sham of what it is suppose to be, which is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

There are exigencies that necessitate state secrecy, that part is understood, but too often secrecy and lack of access to information is merely a smokescreen for actions taken or contemplated in which those that govern believe that they will not be able to make their case to the public, and thereby shut the door on the public being able to have their valuable say.   The default in all government actions should always be not on a "need to know" basis, but the very opposite which would be a "need to disclose".  A government that treats its citizens as a mandated part of governmental decisions and that is consequently well-informed and respected, will help to be that check and balance needed to minimize ill-reasoned government machinations.

The Superrich

Our modern world has an incredible amount of wealth, but it also sadly has an incredible amount of poverty in which nearly half of our human population are extremely impoverished, in which their daily needs of food, clean water, sanitation, electricity, and shelter are severely diminished.  Some sort of poverty exists in every country of our world, and poverty is especially prevalent on the continent of Africa.  However, poverty in general, is a problem our modern world with its resources, logistics, experience, richness, intelligence, and compassion should be able to alleviate to a substantial extent, instead the disparity between those that have and those that have not continues to widen, which is a disgrace.

While one can admire the success of any individual or enterprise, there is also at a minimum an implied obligationfor those that are successful to take care and to provide a helping hand in one form of another, to those that are less fortunate, less able, and those lacking in opportunity.  It is our Christian obligation to treat others as we would like to be treated in return.  Our world is no longer insular and hasn't been that way for a considerable amount of time.   Injustice and poverty anywhere, is a threat to justice and prosperity everywhere.  Those of us who have been fortunate enough to have been born under favorable circumstances, or favorable situations, or favorable families, or blessed in general, have an even greater obligation to provide assistance, in one form or another, to those who are far less fortunate.  When the playing field of life is so grossly uneven, it is up to us, to take positive steps to see that our world is more balanced for our having been here, than for it to have gotten worse.

Oxfam International, a confederation of organizations working to resolving poverty worldwide, did some extensive research with statistics and calculations on the distribution of wealth in the world through the resources of Forbes, Credit Suisse, and the 2013 Global Wealth Report and Databook.  Their published conclusion was that the richest 85 people in the world had the equivalent wealth of the poorest 3.5 billion people.  Additionally, recently Oxfam updated this fact to state that "…using the 2014 Billionaires List, the number has now dropped to 67 individuals = 3.5 billion poorest."

That sort of massive concentration of wealth in the hands of so few individuals as compared to the overall impoverished state of so many other fellow human beings is staggering as well as disturbing.  This massive amount of wealth is an effective plutocracy in which this money elite, these superrich, work hand-in-hand with government, legal, military, and corporate agencies on a worldwide and global basis so that they remain in power, they remain in control, and so that they are able to manage affairs in such a way as to continue to augment their riches.

The biggest difference today between the superrich and the dynasties of regimes from history, is the truly global scale of these riches presently.  The mega-richest people in the world in one form of another have set up dynastic alignments in which their interests are essentially aligned with each other so that their power and their wealth will not be questioned or assaulted and will, in fact, be strengthened.  

The end result of this concentration of wealth, in which the world has never been richer, is seen in the impoverishment, injustice, poor health, and lack of opportunity for so many.

Robotics and War

The United States has been at a "war on terror" since 2001, in which this war continues until the present day with renewed promises to exit our war in Afghanistan, but since this is a "war on terror", the countries, the objectives, and the tasks can be re-defined to suit the present or future administrations for their wars.  Especially disappointing is that during the Republican Bush administration there was plenty of anti-war protests, but during the Democratic Obama administration these protests have either disappeared or become severely muted.  Importantly, the military has changed since the Vietnam war, in which at that time, conscription was mandated by law, while this did not necessarily mean that you would be drafted to fight in a war, as there were opportunities for deferments and exemptions for males subject to the Selective Service System, it did mean that you could be compelled to be drafted, and that most definitely there were draftees that served in Vietnam that were either killed or wounded.  Our military forces are now all-volunteer and the state-of-the-art sophistication of their equipment, their logistics, and their weapons, have reduced fatalities of our soldiers to surprisingly low rates.  Because of this fact and despite being at war overseas for a considerable number of years, the American public can apparently accept these engagements if our men and women suffer relatively few in casualties, consequently it is an important objective of the military-industrial complex to continue to work in ways in which our fatalities and injuries will be minimized going forward.

Robotics appears to be the perfect solution for our military adventures in which rather than putting soldiers into harm's way, we can instead use robotic surveillance, robotic equipment, and robotic weapons to augment or to replace boots on the ground.  Like most ideas, there are some very good reasons to want to use robotic equipment, such as sending in a robot into what appears to be an abandoned warehouse to verify that there are no humans inside or to confirm that a particular object within said warehouse is not a mine or explosive device.  However, robotics and their increasing sophistication carries with it some heavy moral costs, as there is an impressionable difference between pulling the actual trigger of a weapon, yourself, as opposed to pressing a key on your keyboard.  The taking of any human life, should never be lightly regarded, and the taking of any human life in which the human mind has been taken out of the equation, such as programming a weapon to automatically fire at what appears to be humans who have violated a certain defense space is unacceptable.

Atomic weapons have not been utilized since World War II, and biological and chemical weapons have been banned from warfare.  It is imperative that we get ahead of the curve in regards to robotic weapons and set the standards for their usage in warfare.  It is terrible thing when one man kills another man in the combat of war, it is an even worse thing when a machine under the instructions or the input of a man does the same killing, and it is the end of civilization as we know it, if machines are purposely programmed to kill humans in which the machines appetite for destruction will never be satiated or satisfied.

Paying interest on the national debt to the Federal Reserve

For fiscal year 2013, which ended on September 30, our national government made a total payment of $227.75 billion on net interest payments on our debt of nearly 17 trillion dollars, as reported by pewresearch.org.   Our nation's debt is held by various entities, including Social Security, the Federal Reserve, Japan, China, other federal government agencies, other foreign nations, state and local governments, mutual funds, and various other government and private entities.  Of the 17 trillion dollars of our national debt, about $2.1 trillion is owed to the Federal Reserve System.  However, despite it being called the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Reserve is not federally or governmentally own, it is, in fact, privately owned and acts as the United States central bank.

The ostensible purpose of the Federal Reserve is to help stabilize the currency and to provide liquidity to the financial system, by becoming a monetary lender to the United States government.  Yet, you would think that the United States is more than capable of financing itself through bond offerings to the general public, bond offerings to multi-national corporations, bond offerings through foreign nations, asset sales, and the like.  There doesn't seem to be a compelling reason why the USA would need to fund its government through the non-government member banks of the Federal Reserve System.    That is to say, the credit worthiness of the USA should not necessitate our government ever needing to go hat-in-hand to privately held banks to borrow money. 

The question then becomes when dealing with our national debt to the Federal Reserve, to who does this really benefit?  It would seem to substantially benefit the lender, since the credit worthiness of the United States is not seriously questioned; consequently making that money from our government, must on the face of it, is the surest way to become rich or richer for those Federal Reserve bank members.  Additionally the Fed is able to easily protect its money that has been borrowed by our government by controlling the interest rates of that money, in which they know ahead of time, in which direction interest rates will or won't go.

The cost of borrowing money is a huge component in business decisions, private investing, public investing, debt related deals, and also equity related buys and sells.  If you, and your member banks, know those decisions ahead of time, this essentially gives you the opportunity to trade "ahead of the tape" which gives you a massive advantage over those that lack that inside information.  The Federal Reserve System member's banks are privately held, non-governmental banks that are massive conglomerates and corporations.  Their membership in the Federal Reserve, in and of itself, gives them an unfair advantage over similar corporations in the same or similar business.  Additionally, the fact that the Feds make easy money interest on essentially the backs of the American taxpayers to the tune of servicing the debt of $2.1 trillion dollars, year after year, is a very nice business in and of itself.

Proverbs 22 states: "the rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender."  

Mary and Martha

When I first read the passage of Luke 19:38-42: " Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her," my sympathies were with Martha, as her request to me, seems quite reasonable, and I actually expected Jesus to gently rebuke Mary for not helping Martha, in which, perhaps later, they could both sit at the feet of Jesus.

Additionally, this passage of Luke contains an important clue which is Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, in which previously in the reading of Luke 7:36-50, we are told the story of a sinful woman who brought in an alabaster jar of perfume, wetted Jesus' feet with her tears, then proceeded to wipe Jesus' feet with her hair, then kissed his feet and poured perfume on them, in which Jesus proceeds to then tell a parable and to forgive this woman of her sins.  We are not told in Luke 7, of the woman's name, but in a later passage in John 11:2, we read: "It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick."  Knowing this vital information, we now know that Mary was that sinner, forgiven by Jesus, who had wetted Jesus feet with her tears and later poured perfume on them, in which Jesus went to visit their home with her sister, Martha, and her brother, Lazarus, in whom He would later raise from the dead.

Now we have a better perspective because the story is more complete, Mary is at Jesus' feet, this time at their home, because she recognizes him as the Master, who previously forgave her of her sins.  Her devotion of love of the Christ is sincere, focused, attentive, and dedicated.  For Mary, it isn't so much that she doesn't realize that her sister Martha may need her assistance in the kitchen, it is instead the realization that Christ is that needful thing, that well in which the clear deep waters of forgiveness and love will never run dry and she wishes to drink deeply from it. 

As for Martha, it isn't so much that she doesn't recognize the Master with her eyes, but instead that she doesn't recognize the Master with her heart.  Martha is concerned about this material world, taking care of her friends and neighbors through the usual niceties that are appropriate in their place, but she fails to recognize that through all her troubles and cares she is in the presence of the One true path that is the true calling of our life.  The message for Martha is quite clear, that while we do need to be attentive to the letter of the law, it is far more important to be attentive to the Spirit of the law.  That for all of our running around, of all our responsibilities of home and hearth, that there is a meaning behind our existence and that meaning is our need for salvation, to find God, to be with Christ, to do the right thing.  We will never hear that still small voice within, if we do not shake loose from the shackles and blinders of a life both spent unexamined and a life also spent without examining or seeking for its eternal rewards.

Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Mandatory minimum sentences have fundamental flaws at a lot of levels, beginning with the federal government overreach.  For example, being charged with illegal drug usage or distribution in which no action crossed state lines should logically be handled by the state involved, but in fact, many drug charges are federal crimes because the perpetrator arrested was arrested by the Drug Enforcement Agency, or perhaps was arrested on federal property, such as a national park, or simply the fact that both federal and state governments have laws governing drug usage in which either entity can bring charges against the accused.

Mandatory minimum sentences especially for drug related crimes, are often far more draconian if the accused is charged under federal law, because of the "war on drugs" and federal government laws which are highly punitive and harsh, and seemingly do not take into account exigencies, practicalities, and sensibilities of each particular case.  The main reason that our federal and state governments have mandatory minimums in place for so many different crimes, is never to serve justice, never to be fair or to show true impartiality, but simply to take certain undesirables, certain oppressed peoples, and to crush them, to forget about them, and to remove them from open society.

While a significant portion of the population supports being harsh on crime, most people are completely ignorant of the mandatory minimum assigned to various crimes, and few understand or comprehend the costs to society, and to the individuals involved that are inflicted by our mandatory minimum sentences.  However, there are definite segments of our society that benefit from mandatory minimum sentences, which includes our court system, our police, and the prisons themselves, in which each of these components either receive more money by virtue of having more criminals or receive more services and infrastructure provided to them to support the incarceration of miscreants or all of these things.

There isn't any doubt that mandatory minimum sentences have very little to do with justice, or fairness, or in reforming of the criminals that are incarcerated for their crimes.  A policy in which we simply lock up people that don't conform to arbitrary rules and laws, or additionally are possibly an embarrassment or an inconvenience to society at large is a policy which is wholly misdirected. 

There are some criminals that are a menace to society, that are a danger to our citizens, and probably rightly should be incarcerated or restrained in their freedom of movement, such as murderers and rapists.  There are also a massive class of criminals that have committed no crime, because there isn't a real victim, such as drug users, or prostitution and small-time drug dealers that are essentially providing a product to a willing consumer. 

It has been said, that idle hands are the devil's tool, and this is a fact that has been played out in America time and time again, in which whole sections of certain communities have no viable income or opportunity, little education, and little hope.  People that turn to "crime" in these types of situations are often expressing their hopelessness in which their cry is for help, for comfort, and for good will.  Our response to these people is the true measure of our country, and of our justice, which is too often to lock them up and to lie to ourselves that they don't exist, that they are meaningless, that they are not us.

Labored In Vain

On any given day, we do a lot of different things, in which some days are spent doing things productively and others not so much.  It is, however, disappointing, when we're worked a hard day, and our boss comes over to our desk and instead of congratulating us on our efforts for that day, instead questions us in regards to whether we have accomplished a particular assignment that he was expecting from us.  It is always a difficult moment when we realize that we either misunderstood what we were supposed to be doing, or misinterpreted our assignment, or worse, in any event these are the times that we feel our face flushing and our embarrassment rising for having disappointed the boss.  Perhaps, you've also had a day in which you have worked hard outside gardening and done quite a bit of work weeding, hoeing, and planting, only to find our later from an expert and respected gardener that you're gone about it all wrong.  These are examples of where you have labored, labored hard, but you have labored in vain.

In Philippians 2:16, we read: "…that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain."   How many of us ask the real question; is what I'm working on right now, the thing that I should be doing?  Questioning yourself is a vital component in the quest of knowing yourself and your purpose in life.  While it is quite possible to blithely find ourselves on the correct path and to make correct decisions, knowing our purpose and knowing what we should be doing and accomplishing it is a far more secure and certain path.

Too many of us make the mistake of simply going with the flow, of doing things a certain way because that's the way it has always been done, but the people that are often the most accomplished, are the ones that "think outside the box", that swim against the tide, that ask and pursue the questions of how, why, and when.  Each of us needs to take the time to contemplate our lives, to take time for those necessary still, quiet, and calm moments, and to listen to our inner voice.  Activity has its place, work has its place, but there is also a time to withdraw from the hurly-burly of worldly activities.

It is imperative that we understand what we are doing, what we are attempting to accomplish, and where we are going.  You cannot find the destination that you seek if you do now know what it really is.  The temporal is not eternal, think of all the great men and women from the past, in which each of these outstanding people are physically dead.  Yet, Shakespeare lives today, because his plays and sonnets are still read, studied, and performed; as does Beethoven, as does Lincoln, because what they have created has eternal significance because the truth, beauty and profundity of their accomplishments still resonate and reverberate till the present day. It isn't fair nor reasonable to expect us to reach those heights, nor do we have to, but it is essential to remember that we what we leave here on this good earth for our family, our friends, our associates, is our example, our actions, our good deeds, our sound advice, and our labor.

Diploma Mills

The average unemployment rate follows a very straight line in correlation with the amount or lack of education that you have achieved.  That is to say, those without a high school diploma have the highest unemployment, followed by high school graduates, than those with some college but no degree, than associate's degree, bachelor's degree, master's degree, and finally a doctorate degree has the lowest unemployment of them all.  Consequently, the amount of education that you have achieved contributes to a significant and very meaningful degree as to whether you are employed, how much income you will make, and what opportunities that are available to you.

To a large extent, a degree from any accredited university will be treated about the same in regards to job applications and opportunities, with the recognition and caveat, that degrees from prestigious universities with long-standing reputations or particular valued specialties being a force all of their own.  The reason that there is such impartiality for say a Bachelors of Science from one college to another is that in general, the requirements to procure such a degree are relatively similar, so that a prospective employer will feel comfortable that you have achieved a certain fundamental knowledge in your collegiate experience and major.

The problem then becomes, not that there are now so many private colleges for profit, or online courses for convenience or a savings on expenses, or night classes, or any of the flexibilities that our modern internet connected age has created, but that never has it been so easy to create diplomas that might look nice and read nice but are essentially diplomas without real work, nor effort, nor stringent requirements, nor are they on the same playing field as a legitimate and accredited degree from a known and respected higher learning institution.

People aren't stupid and when it comes to finding employment, making money, and job opportunities, some will make those necessary adjustments to get their piece of the American pie, even if that means shortcuts, lies, deceits, and trickery.  The people getting and receiving degrees from colleges in which the work involved is minimal, or substandard, could be credibly falling for that siren song of what appears to them to be a legitimate degree from a legitimate organization, as if receiving some sort of gift from higher up.  Many, however, are pretty much well aware that what they have "earned" has, in fact, been purchased for the express purpose of having a credential which they have not merited through their schoolwork or studies.  However, whether they receive their tarnished degree through a form of blithe ignorance or knowing willfulness does not change the fact that their degree is wholly unfair to their prospective employer and fellow employees, in which their degree should reflect that certain standards have been achieved and earned.

While diploma mills aren't going to go away anytime soon, I do believe that higher degree diplomas should be properly vetted through either our U.S. Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation in a such a way so that each diploma for every individual is approved with an unique number, demonstrating that one of these aforementioned organizations, has reviewed and approved the diploma as being from a valid organization for a particular person.  Résumés would then also include as a matter of fact that unique number as part of their application for employment, and for recent graduates, a statement such as "certification pending" might be appended, in which, if that certificate ends up being invalidated, that person would be subject to dismissal. 

Compulsory National Service

In the United States today, there are no requirements for compulsory national or military service from our citizens.  We are fortunate to have enough volunteers to serve in our armed forces so that there isn't a need to compel citizens to sign up for either national or military service.  Some people would consider compulsory national service to be a form of involuntary servitude, but that certainly wasn't the viewpoint during the foundation of our country in which in colonial times, it was common for states to require compulsory militia service for all free males, so as to have sufficient forces and arms to repel invasions, insurrections, and to uphold the law as required.  Militias were necessary in order to protect one's home and homeland, and the responsibility to do so, was a basic requirement of free citizens within our country, everywhere.

You can make a strong argument in which there is a lot to be said for all citizens being compelled for a mandatory period of time to serve their country via the military or the national service, so as to understand that freedom is never free, that sacrifice and teamwork are part of our national character and part of being an American citizen; that citizenship in America isn't necessarily a birthright, but something that entails duties and responsibilities to our fellow citizens and our country. Instead, we have a country in which to a large extent, our armed services are made up of peoples that are from below average national median income areas, rural areas with few opportunities, and also those trying to escape from the our generally poor economy especially for those that are not higher education qualified people.

The United States acts as the world's policeman, in which, perhaps, if all citizens were compelled to serve their country in some capacity, there might be more of a protest over our foreign adventures.  It is always far easier to support armed intervention overseas, knowing that you or your loved ones, won't ever be in harm's way.  If you do not have skin in the game, it's difficult to empathize with someone that does, despite the fact that that the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I wish that we lived in a world in which we all got along, but the fact of the matter is that we don't.  In order to try to fulfill our dreams of a world in which we recognize that we are all in this thing together, all of us need to spend time engaged with other people, other countries, and other circumstances, so that we can better appreciate and not take for granted the greatness of our own country but also to know and to recognize that it is not so much that the people around the world are so different than us, but instead to acknowledge their similarities to us.

It is high time to acknowledge not only our responsibilities to ourselves, but also to our fellow citizens, and ultimately to the world.  The world is messed up, maybe because we are not involved in it as much as we should be.

Auto-Enrollment is Wrong

I receive monthly utility bills in which typically I don't even look at the bill, but just simply pay it automatically through my checking account.  To me, there aren't a lot of reasons to read your utility bill because it's a regulated utility company and what they charge is what you are going to have to pay.  However, I recently noticed that my bill was $58.00, a very round number, which raised suspicions within me, as the previous couple months were also round numbers, something that seemed highly unlikely when historically bills were for odd amounts that included pennies such as $56.31, $68.27 and so forth.  So I took a look at my bill and I discovered a new charge on my bill entitled "roundup", which "round-ups" your bill in which that extra small amount is apparently used with other customer's contributions to provide funds to community non-profit organizations.  On the surface, maybe that's a good idea, even a brilliant idea, because small numbers if they are multiplied by a large customer base can come up with a meaningful amount of dollars, in which the hit to the consumer pocketbook is marginal.  But there are a couple of issues that aren't clear to me,  such as: how efficient is the utility company with the donations; that is to say are they taking some sort of administration fee, where are the monies being allocated, and ultimately do I want any utility company to decide where I should donate my money.

Another thing that I found very annoying, even disturbing, was that I didn't opt-in to the enrollment with my utility company for round-up, as I certainly wasn't a new customer, so it was puzzling to me how this even occurred.  What they told me is that they sent out a notice in which I could have opted-out, but since I didn't respond, the default was for me to opt-in.   This is poor policy as it is wrong to change the terms and conditions of your relationship in which you as a consumer are being opted-in and consequently being billed more money, or losing your privacy, or the like.  The default for decisions in which you give up privacy or money should be for you, the consumer to consciously opt-in and never to be auto-enrolled.

When you purchase items over the web, the more responsible websites, allow you as a customer to determine whether you want your personal information distributed to other interested companies, such as advertisers, drug companies, or the like.  The more devious companies are ones that don't make it clear that they are allowing other companies to receive/buy personal information about you and/or to build a profile on you.   These said companies are further able to protect themselves from consumer lawsuits by then pointing out that it is part of their terms and conditions in which you by using their website,  or by not un-checking some particular box, have failed to recognize this fact.  Consequently, these companies have put the onus on you, that is your fault for not having done your diligence, and that they are merely asserting their rights per those conditions.

Auto-enrollment into areas that are of little benefit to the consumer but will definitely benefit the company that has established and/or changed this policy should not be permitted.  You as a consumer should have sovereignty over you, anything less, diminish us, and will increase the overreach of companies and websites that we interface with.

There Ought to be a Law

There are plenty of people, plenty of politicians, plenty of lawyers, and plenty of bureaucrats, that honestly believe that what this country needs is more laws and more regulations and then, or soon thereafter, everything will be alright.  It simply isn't so.  While laws and regulations are put into place for various reasons, certainly one of the most irritating and wrong reasons is to create a law or regulation simply because you believe that the behavior or action that is being performed is so noxious, so annoying, or so inconvenient, that a law or regulation must be enacted because this particular behavior isn't currently illegal.  Consequently, over time, more and more laws and regulations are created, but in return for these additional rules, instead of approaching or coming closer to nirvana, we are in actuality pushed further and further away from serenity because of the denseness and obtuseness of our laws.

The creation of additional laws and regulations merely criminalizes or subjects people to fines, often of everyday behavior that isn't anything that is out of the ordinary.  When virtually everything that you may say or do is subject to an interpretation that makes it a criminal or a civil offense, you have imprisoned your citizens inside a wall of oppression.  Statements such as "we should obey the law", doesn't make any logical sense, since in order to obey something we need first to understand it, it needs also to be uniformly applied, and the law itself should be both sensible and necessary.

Too often laws or regulations are created, because they can be created.  Someone encounters something that annoys or irritates them, and consequently they believe that a law will somehow end or significantly modify that behavior and make for a better world.  Really?  You would far better off teaching, believing, and enacting the golden rule of "doing unto others as you would have them do unto you," in which you, by definition, respect the other party and create a dialog, than to impose your will upon another. 

Too many rules and regulations are a prime example of government overreached, in which arbitrary and capricious laws criminalizes and alienates people that are guilty of nothing more than poor judgment or even less.  Too many laws allow the privileged people that regulate the law to control the people that do not.

Additionally, the interpretation of apparently even the most straightforward law is left to the courts to decide, in which far too often it is left to a single judge who with the stroke of a pen, can overturn previous case law, propositions passed by the people, or the judge can bend the law to come up with a new meaning of a particular law. 

If laws themselves are not stable, if laws themselves are not consistent, if laws themselves are not coherent, or sensible, or meaningful, or necessary, or equally applied, rather than being a nation of laws, that is under the law, we are instead a nation that has too many laws and rather than justice for all, it is a nation that has justice for none.

The work shift

You are generally considered to have worked a full week if you have put in five days of eight hour shifts in a given week for a total of 40 hours.  The fight for the 40-hour week as being set as the norm for working in the United States, started in the 19th Century and ultimately became industry standard in 1937 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set the maximum workweek at 40 hours with the payment of overtime for any hours worked above this amount, which is still applicable today.

However, there are many industries in which the normal working shift is significantly greater than the standard 8-hour shift which, such as the nursing profession in which 12-hour shifts are common, and the fireman profession, in which 24-hour shifts are common.  For nurses, their shifts are often set into three consecutive days of 12-hour shifts, with four consecutive days off, or even six consecutive days of 12-hour shifts, with eight consecutive days off.   For firemen, their shifts are setup as one 24-hour shift, followed by two days off, or even a 48-hour shift, with 96-hours off. 

When you first hear about a fireman working a 24-hour shift or the incredible 48-hour shift, you’re not quite sure that you are correctly processing this information as this doesn’t seem physically or mentally possible. However, what you learn is that during their downtime the fireman are allowed to rest and sleep, which makes logical sense, but begs the question as to what goes on when there is one of those days in which there is a significant or major emergency(s) involved.  That is the true acid test, how are these firefighters able to respond when they are fatigued, tired, and irritable, from lack of proper rest; as professional studies have demonstrated over and over again that fatigued people perform their tasks at a significantly less efficient rate.   With fire fighters having the responsibility of responding to fires which takes a combination of strength, strategic thinking, and teamwork, along with their first responder tasks with providing emergency medical services, the public has a right to expect their fireman to be at their best for these services.

The nursing profession is a challenging environment in which the nurse is responsible for working with a variety of patients all of whom may have significant differences in age, disease, and services required; in which the nurse is accountable for seeing that each of their patients are monitored correctly, have their appropriate medications, and are treated correctly.  Nursing is the type of job that entails doing multiple tasks well, having sound organization skills, and accomplishing most of this on the go and on your feet. 

Shortcuts are a trap that many people fall into.  While simple mathematics may dictate that working longer shifts will allow you more free time, less commute time, and also frees up time for family, friends, or other work commitments, the actual real total for taking these shortcuts has unseen ramifications that often are not properly accounted for, such as your own health (both physical and mental), your effectiveness, and your obligation to perform at a professional level.  

Are these extended working shifts fair to the employee or to the people that they serve, or are they a bridge too far?  For instance, airline pilots have a minimum amount of uninterrupted rest required and are also limited to the number of consecutive hours that they can fly.  Does knowing that this is true for airline pilots make you feel more comfortable about flying or would you prefer flying with a pilot at the end of a long and arduous 24-hour shift?

Socialism and Statists

Socialism on its surface is something that appears appealing and has a certain allure to certain people.  It certainly seems fair that in socialism since we are all in it together, that we should therefore equally share in the wealth of our nation, its productivity and its output, with no unnatural exploitation.  As for statists, their system of government is one that believes that the state should guide and monitor what should or shouldn't be accomplished within one's society, ostensibly for the benefit of that same society, all under the firm hand of the State.

While offhand, socialism and statists don't appear to be of the same design, they are to a remarkable extent, necessary for each other.  First off, picture yourself in a socialist society, in which in theory no one person is the owner and each of you collectively owns everything.  While initially that sounds like a really good deal, it isn't necessarily fair, because each of you collectively has the responsibility to create wealth and prosperity for society, in which some people are going to be much better at applying themselves and working more diligently to create better throughput and productivity. While in the natural course of events, harder, smarter, more efficient, and more effective workers should directly benefit from their efforts, ina socialist society, at the end of the day, everyone will share equally in this prosperity despite the fact that some have provided significantly more than others. 

Additionally, while this prosperity and wealth is being created in the socialist society in which all are benefiting equally, who is it that decides how the pie is actually going to be divvied up? Not only do you have that significant issue to deal with, you will also quickly determine that we don't all like the same things, or the same activities, or have the same priorities, or have the same families, or the same habits, or the same desires, or the same health, so there will be significant and meaningful differences between us.  We are in short, not the same people in make or model.

Still, in a socialist society in which all share from the same well, someone will have to be in charge.  While you might reason that nobody really wants that position, or that the position will rotate over given time periods, in actuality the position will gravitate to those that have the mindset to perform these duties.  In small and ancient societies, we called these people, our elders, our chiefs, our wise men, or our gods.  Today, in a modern society, we no longer use these terms, we instead owe our allegiance to our modern State.  The State will decide how our resources will be divvied up and by doing so they will create an ongoing and pernicious bureaucracy that will suck legitimate assets away from the people that produce these products in order to better the State, the agents of the State, and the people as the State sees fit.

When collectively you own everything, this means by definition that individually you own nothing.  When you own nothing you are at the mercy and the control of those who will decide your fate and your usefulness for society at large.  As a socialist, you are nothing, and consequently socialism is the perfect state for statists, in whom, if you are fortunate, they will apply their boot to your neck with a benign smile, and if you're not so fortunate, they will eviscerate you.