Property Taxes II

Different counties and different States have different rules and procedures for the collection of property taxes.  Property taxes are generally assessed against the "estimated present assessed value of the property in question for the latest fiscal year", but that assessment can often be widely divergent depending upon a multitude of factors.  Additionally to this unfortunate fact, not every piece of property pays its "fair" share or even any share of their property tax obligation.  For instance, it is routine for non-profit property owners not to pay taxes, as it is for churches, governmental buildings, and educational buildings, amongst various other entities.  There are also exemptions or special tax set asides for certain for-profit corporations that as part of their agreement for locating a building within a certain county, make this a negotiated condition of their doing so.  Then there are certain people that earn exemptions or elimination of property taxes because they are veterans, or of a certain age group such as senior citizens, or clergymen, or the like.  The only possible conclusion upon reading the foregoing and recognizing the value of this information, is that the property tax field, like so many taxes in the United States, is a very unlevel playing field, with uneven rules, and uneven application.  The upshot of this is that the burden for making up for those that do not pay property taxes for whatever reason is stuck upon the shoulders of those that do not have those same privileges or exemptions.  Making matters worse, is that property taxes is the foundation upon which local counties depends upon in order to make their budget, so that the powers to be within counties have a vested interest in extracting and collecting as much property tax as they can wrest away from their residents without accidently inciting and igniting a powerful fire of protest. 

The thing about property taxes is that upon the buying of, for example, residential property, there is an absolute known price of what that property is worth at the time and specific date of that sale, because both parties to a sale, have a vested interest in seeing that the deal is acceptable to both.  However, once that sale is made, it is a process of guesswork, some educated and some not, to determine the real present value of that property, to which tax assessors, rely heavily on factual information in regards to the property, such as the square footage, construction type, the age of the dwelling, the amount of stories, garage, acreage, and so forth.  They will also periodically come out to the property, describing themselves as a "data collector" to snap pictures of the outside of your structure.  From all of the foregoing, along with recent comparable sales within your neighborhood area, if applicable, the property tax assessor comes up with an assessment for your property.  There are, however, fundamental flaws within this system.  The first and most obvious flaw is that you really don't know how much a given property will sell for until it is actually sold; we know this because products all over America in every conceivable form are sold for a "discounted" price each and every day.  The second basic flaw is that you should not judge a property from a cursory glance of its outside features, this is common sense, as the amount of people that purchase a home without doing a real home inspection of their interior, its condition, and its infrastructure, is few and far between. 

When a purchase is made of a residential home, banks are often willing to extend to that qualified person, a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, which means that the buyer will know his payments for a certainty over the next 30 years to that mortgage company.  Under the present system, in many counties and States within America, you will not know your future obligations for that home for property taxes, a tax which is compulsory, unless you are so fortunate as to have an exemption, and this property tax amount will be primarily controlled by government bureaucrats.    In essence, this type of tax system is rife for corruption, unfairness, and unequal treatment to which it is always the "unconnected", the uninformed, and the passive believers, that are stuck paying more than their fair share in taxes to the taxman.

Mary Magdalene - the True Rock of our Faith

When it comes to name of Mary in the New Testament, it can become confusing as to which Mary the gospel is referring to in regards to certain passages, since we have so many, of which all of them are important.  We have Mary -- the mother of Jesus, Mary -- the mother of James, the other Mary, Mary of Clopas, Mary -- the sister of Martha, Mary -- mother of Joses, and Mary Magdalene.  Mary Magdalene is referred to in all four gospels in the New Testament, as well as having her own Gnostic book, known as the Gospel of Mary.  At Christ's crucifixion, Mary Magdalene was present, as she was also present during his burial, and later it was that Mary Magdalene was first to discover that the tomb to which Jesus had been laid to rest was empty, and it was also Mary Magdalene that first encountered and recognized the risen Christ, and was spoken to by Him and spoke to Him who had risen.    This makes Mary Magdalene a unique persona in the gospel of Christ, yet, her vital importance is tinged with the mistaken correlation that it was Mary Magdalene that had been a former prostitute, although there is nothing in the gospel that actually reflects this, in fact, In Luke 8:2, we read that Christ cast out "seven demons" from her, and that was that; still there are many that believe that she is also the person that anointed the Master's feet and was considered a sinner, although this person is clearly not Mary Magdalene.

It is quite unfortunate, that history has mistakenly painted Mary Magdalene as a former prostitute, because this supposed fact is simply not supported by the gospels, or by the apocryphal texts, or by anything of real substance.  Because of Mary Magdalene's tainted reputation, her importance and her devotion, as well as the clear love and respect that Christ had for her, is lost, which is quite unfortunate, because unlike any of the chosen, it is Mary Magdalene that understands and truly comprehends the Master unlike any other.  It is also Mary Magdalene that never once forsakes or turns away from Jesus, unlike Peter, who denies our Lord, not once, but thrice within the span of a few hours, to save his own skin, despite Peter having given his word to our Lord, that he would never forsake Him.

It is of utmost importance to recognize that it was Mary Magdalene, and no other, that was there both at Christ's physical death, as well as it was Mary Magdalene that first acknowledged the risen and glorified Christ and was instructed by the risen Christ to "…Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them…" (John 20:17).  Further to this point, in the apocryphal Book of Mary, we read that: "Peter said to Mary, Sister we know that the Savior loved you more than the rest of woman. Tell us the words of the Savior which you remember which you know, but we do not, nor have we heard them. Mary answered and said, what is hidden from you I will proclaim to you." (Mary 5:5-7).

Mary Magdalene's actions  and obedience while Christ was alive, and during the crucifixion of our Lord, as well as the glorious day of his resurrection, demonstrate that it was Mary Magdalene that best understood and was able to testify to the true meaning of the risen Christ; that true knowledge comes from Light and that this knowledge can never be destroyed, that it is our duty to proclaim the truth and the light, and further that there should never be fear of those that can kill the body, because we are not our body, we are the immortal soul, co-heirs to God almighty himself.

Google Glass and the Police State

Google's motto is "don't be evil", a motto that Google has never and will never live up to. Google's motto is at best, misdirection, and at worse, the exact opposite of what Google actually represents.  Take for instance, the development of Google Glass, a device that is wearable as an integral component attached to a person's eyeglass frame that records everything within its field of vision, to which this recording is capable of being transmitted in "real -time" to a designated receiving station so as to allow those people stationed remotely to analyze that video for their own purposes, including but not limited to correlating that video with a comprehensive facial recognition database that will identify persons within the viewfinder.  This, my friend, is the type of device that police stations and authoritarian regimes salivate to get their hands upon, a device that will allow them to track, correlate, and to apprehend peoples that the State desires to harass, to intimidate, arrest, or to do deliberate harm to. 

Although Google glass was ostensibly created for certain privileged people by Google, it is also a product that because of its inherent intrusiveness but relatively benign appearance is easily translatable to police departments.  Google glass, far from being a device that is a servant to the people, is essentially a device that was created as a "stalking horse" for police agencies, to which the true objective of implementing Google glass is to generate both publicity as well as favorable feedback through the media and social media, before its intended purpose, is released, which is to make normal the usage of this dangerous device into the hands of police agencies throughout America. 

While it is true that police departments often using recording devices, those devices to date, have not been "smart" devices, that is to say, that they simply record, while Google Glass on the other hand, is a smart device, that has a user-actuated touchpad that can launch specific apps, and those apps can be directed to disseminate specific information about people, using facial recognition, or information via a person's driver's license to ascertain in real-time as to whether that person has an outstanding warrant or other applicable actionable data, or an automobile's license plate number to determine whether that vehicle has any violations associated with it, and so forth.

To make matters even worse, for citizens of America, it is not a bridge too far to take today's passive recording devices that are located at key intersections and the like, and to strategically replace these with devices akin to Google's glass, that enable operators behind the scenes to thereby train these devices upon citizens and their artifacts in such a manner, as to obtain actionable information against citizens, and thereby to act upon them. 

The problem with Google glass in a private citizen's hand, especially those of a somewhat "nerdy" or scientific type, may not be that much of a problem, as long as they are both easily identifiable and it is also clearly established when they are actually recording, because they may very well not desire to be or to do evil, and hopefully, when confronted or questioned, they will, as matter of courtesy and common humanity, turn the device off when requested to do so.  The police, on the other hand, and their affiliates, will turn off, edit, erase, manipulate, and destroy recordings only when it impugns them and their viewpoint, and will never be satiated in their lust to record all and to process all, because to them, we are all the enemy.

Eugenics and Sperm Donation

Eugenics began its rise in the United States in the early 20th century, to which, many States manufactured laws that enabled compulsory sterilization of certain groups within their population such as Native American Indians, or people originating from certain Eastern European nations that were considered to be of "inferior stock" and so forth.  The pushback against Eugenics, began in the 1930s led by respected doctors and other professionals that recognized that Eugenics had more similarity with "pseudoscience" than actual science, and further that the proponents of Eugenics were utilizing the guise of "improving the human race" as the cover for their true desire, which was to reduce the population of certain groups of people through massive sterilizations that didn't fit into their mindset, so as to achieve their progressive social agenda, of reducing "misfits, delinquents, and the criminally inclined" which, in theory, would make for a more coherent, and successful American human race.  Later, Nazi Germany, demonstrated the insanity and the horrors of what Eugenics truly meant by their  mass sterilizations along with their mass exterminations of undesirables to obtain, what they thought would be a "master race",  shining light on the ugly lie of Eugenics and its true diabolical meaning.

Today, unfortunately, Eugenics is very much alive, but in a different guise and with a different shade of lipstick.  Eugenics is alive in America in two aspects, one is through legal abortion, to which, the poor and downtrodden are encouraged to kill their unborn children, essentially replicating the same effectiveness of sterilization, with the difference being rather than being compelled by law to do so, these impoverished people are encouraged to do so, for various economic as well as self-serving ones, convincing them that it is the right and the fair thing to do.  The second part of the equation, are the sperm banks that have been created within America, to which, the sperm donors, are classified and marketed as being, for instance, of a certain height, of a certain IQ, of a certain health, of a certain family background, of a certain psychological makeup, of a certain race, and a college graduate, to name the most prominent of the factors that make up mainstream sperm donation banks.

In essence, this is a form of selective breeding, as if humans should be bred amongst the lines that great breeds of cattle or horses are done, strictly through genetics, so as to obtain the best marbling, or the best runner, and so forth.  This type of sperm donation "science", is in essence, just another flavor of Eugenics, to which it is believed that certain characteristics of human beings can simply be bred from one person to another, if carefully screened for.  This is very bad science, and a very dangerous game, because it signifies in essence, that there is such a thing as desirable genes, and that there is such a thing as undesirable genes, and that, by definition, the State, or those acting under the aegis of the State, are the determinants of what those desirable genes are.  This means, that those that have desirable genes will be treated in a more favorable manner by State agencies than those that do not, which is inherently unequal and unfair, and the very opposite of what this country is purporting to represent. 

Earnings Surprises and Wall Street

There is plenty of empirical evidence that earnings surprises on Wall Street have a material effect upon the stock price of the stock in question, which has been documented by many institutions as well as brokerage firms.  That is to say, when a given company exceeds or misses their quarterly earnings consensus number and/or their quarterly sales goals, there will be a material impact in the price of that stock that will be reflected in their updated stock price.  Not too surprisingly, it is when earnings and/or sales disappoint, that one will see the biggest percentage impact on the stock price, because nobody wants to be that stupid sucker holding the wrong stock; so as earnings surprises go, one would prefer pre-knowledge of negative news because it is far more profitable.

Obviously, those that are in the highest levels of management, finance, and authority within a given company, have a very clear idea as to whether quarterly earnings are going to be pleasantly received by Wall Street or not.  Because the stock exchanges wants to at least appear to be fair to the common investor, "quiet" periods have been instituted for publically traded companies which in theory, helps to level the investing field, by essentially eliminating any direct information being disseminated by said company to security analysts and the like in regards to definitive information on earnings.

Of course, when it comes to money and especially to the making of money that directly pertains to you, this so-called "quiet" period is violated either directly or indirectly time and time again.  There have been numerous cases of insider trading to which prison sentences and/or monetary fines have been imposed, and no doubt, there will continue to be criminal cases like this far into the foreseeable future, mainly because getting advanced information about specific companies is highly correlated to impressive overall stock trading success and also monetary rewards for those disseminating such.

The way that Wall Street works is that advanced information is king, and those that are privy to this information have an inherent and unfair advantage over those that do not.  For instance, in today's hi-technology world, to which stock buys and sells are executed within fractions of a second, just having knowledge that is a minute or two ahead of the actual earnings surprise, will, in a short period of time, make you a very successful and profitable trader.  To take this to the next level, recognize that Wall Street is filled with ambitious, competitive, cutthroat, and motivated people that are hungry to make money, and further to the point that most highly visible public companies do not want to get on the bad side of brokerages, or stock analysts, or media, and there is a basic symbiotic reason why at a minimum some sort of implied notice of privileged information is leaked one to another.

For the common investor, you are always at an inherent and material disadvantage when it comes to your equity investments, especially over the short term and consequently there isn't much that you can do about that, because by the time the news gets to you, the easy money has already been made.   At publically traded companies, earnings surprises are a fact of life, and this information is ready-made for insiders and their associates to profit from, and it's no real surprise that it's done, because many people desire that little "extra" just because.

Being Good and Doing Good

Although being good and doing good, sounds as if they are pretty similar, that's mainly because they both use the word good, but they certainly are not the same thing, as there are fundamental differences between the two.  To be good is often based around having attributes that are similar to kindness, courtesy, and obedience.  All these things are well and good but while simply being good has its merits if that is all that you are, you will fall woefully short of fulfilling your obligation to others, which is quite simply to do good onto others.  To do good for others may in fact, occasionally mean taking action in places and doing things for others that those who profess to know better, won't themselves do. For instance,  look at the story of the good Samaritan, the good Samaritan is the man of action, who does not ignore a fellow man in need, and goes above and beyond in providing this robbed and hurt man, the attention and respect of dressing his wounds, of placing this stranger on his animal as to not tax him physically any further, takes this fallen man to an inn, requesting that he being taken good care of, and the Samaritan pays the innkeeper with his own money for doing so, while also making a commitment to pay more, if needed, for the injured man's care.  All this is done by the Good Samaritan, out of his concern and compassion for this injured man, this is doing good at its finest level.  The other two men, one a Priest, the other one a Levite, were apparently people that in their submission to the Law were being good, but in their lack of action as well as their lack of compassion, did not do good.

There are those that like that Priest, as well as that Levite, believe that simply by doing good, for instance, by not blaspheming, or by not indulging in certain fleshly lusts, or by regular attendance at places of worship and by prayer, that they have done all of the Law, or in humbler moments believe that they have done most everything of the Law, that this therefore should automatically provide them with admission into Heaven, will find out in the end to their dismay that this is not the truth.   God is not deceived by appearances or by the outward display of what looks to be goodness, while God certainly appreciates all our good behavior that is not the only attribute that God knows us by.  God judges us by our heart, who we really are and what we are really about, he sees the real us, and not the surface person that we try to represent to others.  Listen to these true words spoken in Galatians 6:7: "Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."  We soweth in our actions towards others, the wisdom, help, and advice that we provide towards our fellow human beings, and our reactions to the tests that everyday life presents to us.

By all means be good, as that is an excellent foundation to begin from, but within that being good, recognize that you must also do good for the hungry, for the thirsty, for the stranger, for the naked, for the prisoner, and thereby ministered unto them, because by doing this unto the least, you do it also unto thy Lord himself.

Appeal your Property Tax

Taxes are part of the American milieu, but so also is the annual game of trying to circumvent or to reduce one's taxes that are owed.  Depending upon the county or State that you live in, as well as the valuation of your property, property taxes may be something that you will have to do battle with or might consider doing battle with, at least, occasionally. For instance, in the county that I live in, my property taxes recently jumped 23% in one year, and while it is true that property taxes can be lowered in my county as well as being increased, when it came time to lower my taxes in the maelstrom of 2008 banking and housing crisis, the better part of valor was for me to submit an appeal for lower taxes first, rather than wait for the property tax authorities, if ever, to get around to reducing my taxes at all.

In my county, they start the property tax process off by mailing you a one-page form called the "Annual Notice of Assessment" which simply states that although this is not the actual Property Tax bill, your property value is changing to such and such value.  What this means to the property taxpayer is that the valuation of your property has been determined and contained within this form they will state the last date that you have to file an appeal of this valuation.  While different counties allow appeals to be done in different ways, such as via email, or via FAX, in my county, your appeal must be done in writing and you must also utilize the appropriate government appeal form.  If, for some reason, you don't fill out your appeal form correctly or if you appeal later than the appropriate cutoff date, you will, by definition, lose.  When formulating your appeal, to be taken seriously, you must demonstrate through some proof as to why the proposed value for your home is incorrect. The best way to do so is to obtain documentation of comparables in the correct fiscal year that are applicable to your property valuation.  For instance, while taxes are due no later than October 15th in my county, the valuation is of your home as of December 31st of the previous year.  If you fail to understand this, or if you fail to understand how to best do comparables in your community, your chances of success are substantially reduced.  Once your appeal is received, you will get notice, typically within six weeks, to which your appeal will either win, or lose, or be rejected because of some error in filling out the form or whatnot.  If you win, that appeal amount will be the amount that your property will be assessed for on your Property Tax bill.  If you lose, you will receive a notice that states: "…its decision was to not make any change in the valuation."

If you lose, that decision does not mean that the game is over, because in my county, you can appeal to the Board of Equalization.  The Board of Equalization, is made up of three members, all of whom live in the same county as you do, to which, you will appear and face these three members of the Board, as well as a representative from the Tax Assessors' office.  There are, however, some very important features of this hearing which are extremely prejudicial to the appealer.  The first is that the Tax Assessor already has your appeal basis documentation, but you, on the other hand, do not have the Tax Assessors' documentation as to how they determined your property value, and won't receive this information until the actual hearing.  Additionally, there are two more problems, when you first walk into the room, the Tax Assessor representative will already be in the room ahead of you and in the company of the Board of Equalization, and further troubling is the fact that only the representative from the Tax Assessors' office controls the audio/visual display of your property as well as comparable properties on the screen that is primarily for the viewing pleasure of the Board of Equalization.   Although each party gets a chance to state their case, it is a huge inherent advantage for the Tax Assessors' office to have the pertinent information that you have not previously been privileged to have access to.  In any event, each side has its say, and each can cross-examine the other, to which the whole affair only lasts some twenty minutes or so.  The board will then render their decision, majority rules, and in my case it was unharmonious against me.

But, once again, that does not mean that the appeal is over.  As a taxpayer, you are allowed to appeal this decision to Superior Court, to which I filled out the form to do so.  In the process of filling this appeal, I was told that I didn't need to pay anything or to proceed any further, because first they would try to mediate things between myself and the Tax Assessors' office via phone.  I was told that often a compromised price could be arranged.  I was intrigued by this information, because Superior Court, was that proverbial lose/lose situation.  I would lose, first by virtue of having to put up $200 odd dollars or so to make the appeal, and the county would surely lose by having to set aside a court room, jurors, judge, bailiff and the like, and all of this before any decision would be reached.  In due time, I was able to talk with my Tax Assessor, a reasonable person, and come to a successful conclusion of my appeal, to which I got  an 83% reduction of their proposed assessment increase, meaning that I got most of what I wanted.

So to sum up, they raised my property taxes; I appealed by mail and lost.  I then appealed to the Board of Equalization and lost.  Lastly, I was willing to take my final appeal to Superior Court, whereupon through phone mediation, and after further review, they saw the merit behind my appeal, and gave me most everything that I had desired in the first place.  How many taxpayers would be willing to do what I did?  I don't know, but to make change, you must be willing to agitate, and to do your homework, and to not give up.

The New Feudal System

The home ownership rate in America peaked at 69.4% in 2004, as of the 4th quarter of 2014, according to cnbc.com the seasonal adjusted rate of home ownership had plummeted to just 63.9%.  This is a stunning reversal of the home ownership rate within America, to which, as always, it is the poorest and less fortunate amongst us that have suffered the most during this interim of massive amounts of foreclosures and transfer of home ownership from one segment of the population to another.  During the time of this steep dive in home ownership, the percentage of homes being bought through all cash transactions has soared, to which according to smartasset.com, Goldman Sachs estimates that as high as 57% of all home sales are in fact, by cash.  This statistic seems perplexing, especially in an age of unparalleled mortgage rates which have dropped to historic lows.  While there are many possible explanations as to why cash sales have soared, the most likely reason for this occurring is that the new home owner class are investors, buyingphysical assets "low", with the belief that they are getting the best of it, and also buying not for the purpose of occupying the homes themselves, but specifically to rent the homes out and to reap the tax benefits of property depreciation and rental ownership, while also having an excellent chance to achieve capital appreciation over the long term.

While there are certain advantages of not owning a home, such as the fact that your flexibility of movement is far more easily attained, there are a multitude of good reasons, why owning a home is to your benefit, such as the fact that your home represents the place that you live, for you and your family, so it provides you shelter, comfort, and memories.  It also is an item that with appropriate credit that you can purchase over an extended period of time, to which, normally, or historically, you will see an appreciation in its value over that time.  There are also many tax benefits for being a home owner, as well as giving you skin in the game and in your community.  In a country in which too often, our Constitutional rights are under assault, or being challenged, owning your own home, gives you, in most cases, a "castle" that you can call your own, to which you are your own master, decider as to who or what is allowed entrance into your domain.  It is your private property to do with as you desire, subject to the general norms of society, and your home too can represent a legacy to pass on to your heirs, as your home for most people of modest wealth, is in fact, their largest asset of all.

When you no longer own your own home, or never have own your own home, this means that you have no living quarters that are your own by legal right.  In feudal times, the common people lived on a manor, an estate that they didn't own, but only were granted the right to work the land, providing the proceeds of their labor to the feudal hierarchy, in exchange for permission to live there and for protection from outside alien forces.  The feudal life was a harsh life for the serfs, a life with no future, and little hope of opportunity or escape from it, but American today is slipping towards a new feudalism itself.  A feudalism that may be richer in material wealth for the peasants, but a feudalism that precludes too many Americans from ever owning their own housing property, with often little or no opportunity to make living wages, with only substandard educational institutions available for their offspring, to which, the upshot is that generation after generation will be stuck in a life that in representation makes them nothing more than glorified wards of the State.

The Freedom to be about Your Business

America is a country founded on the principle, that each of us are born with inalienable rights, and further that the only legitimate government to answer to is one that is of the people, by the people, and for the people.  Those above sentiments are America at its finest, however in our modern culture and often in our big city life, the State has either inadvertently or deliberately loss sight of the purpose of their being, to wit, that the police force within cities is too often used as a cudgel to keep the people down, or to keep certain undesirable people down, or to intimidate certain people in particular, or to simply "bully" certain members of society.

The fact of the matter is that the average citizen in the course of his business is not particularly interested in interacting with any police force representative during his day-to-day activities, often not so much because he dislikes the police, in particular, but specifically because the police represent too often the frontlines of the State and how they can arbitrarily change everything, and I mean everything in regards to you as an individual, without really a moment's notice.  That is to say, you can be walking down the street, minding your own business, and be basically forced to compel with a police officer's demand to provide identification, explain your reason or purpose for being in that place at that time, and so on.  This can be a highly disturbing interaction for the citizen, no matter who they are, because the fundamental difference between a police officer and just another random person who while walking down the street asks you to stop or perhaps asks you a question about your identity, is that you can simply ignore basically anyone else, with the exception of the police officer.  If you ignore the police officer, or prove to be a difficult subject for the police officer, you will find that often, very quickly, that it is seldom wise to assert your Constitutional rights to be "secure in your own person", instead it is wiser to know that the better side of valor is to cooperate with the officer of the law.  The fundamental reason why you wish to cooperate with a police officer has often little or nothing to do with the law, and much to do with the fact that the police officer who is engaging with you has often the following with him: a handgun, a TASER, a baton, handcuffs, chemical spray, radio for backup, and a lot of discretion to use any or all of these items against you.  This means that anytime that you interact with a police officer, your life, as you know it, could change dramatically.

If, the above information is correct, and I do submit that it is, this means that for all practical purposes, that you as a citizen are not able to simply go about your business, certainly not in public, that, in fact, at any time, for any reason, you could be subject to being stopped by an agent of the State apparatus, and essentially have to identify yourself and your purpose, without question.  This signifies for all practical purpose that our freedom of movement is restricted by the State, especially and particularly for those who are not fortunate enough to fit within a certain choice demographic, so, in essence, freedom is not equally applied to all within America, and it never has been.

The Elite Control the Many

To the average American in the street, if you were to ask them whether in America the "Majority Rules", then would almost, without exception, nod their head in affirmation.  After all, isn't that how all our elections are held, that the majority wins by virtue of having received greater than 50% of the votes or a plurality of the votes cast?  What the average American is missing though, is just because a certain person or a particular ballot proposition passed by a majority or a plurality of registered voters this has very little to do as to whether the majority rules, as this is simply the most superficial view of American democracy.  In actuality, when someone wins an election, or a ballot proposition is passed, one must look behind the curtain to see as to who actually gained and who actually lost, and in many instances, the answer will point to those that are in true control of our liberties.

It is imperative to understand that in virtually any country, in virtually any company, in virtually any organization, that none of these institutions are truly democratic, to wit, not all are treated equally, not all are given an equal voice, and not all have an equal influence.  While some of this is purely the natural course of events, it is important also to recognize that in actuality no matter the motto or principles of said institution, none of these organizations are truly setup to provide an equal opportunity to all, they are all in their way, managed, so that a few will lord it over the many, perhaps, in a few exceptional cases, unwittingly.

Within the American psyche there are very few people that having gained ground, material wealth, property, power, and such, fairly or not, would willingly wish to relinquish it to some other entity or other person.  In fact, power and influence once obtained, are attributes that few are completely satiated with, and many would do much to oppose those that would try to take these very things away from them.  One must comprehend that although America has, for instance, two great political parties that appear to be at loggerheads to each other, as well as major multi-national corporations such as Microsoft and Apple, that appear to compete against each other, that in many instances, almost all instances, that "there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the two," that they are all, in fact, in the same boat, that the elites within each major political party, as well as the powerful corporate executives within each gargantuan multi-national corporation, have more in common to each other than they do to the common people, which means that at the end of day, whether one party wins the election or one corporation takes more market share from the other, in aggregate, they always win, because as time goes on they achieve more power, more money, more influence, and more domination over the common man who often times is oblivious to it all.

Commerce, media, and justice, are controlled, or at worse, heavily influenced by those that have the appropriate power apparatus already in place, the deep pockets of monetary wealth, and the fear factor to make good on their situational leverage.   In today's modern world, you cannot hope to rise in power or into meaningful authority, without the support of money, connections, and media play.  Those that can make you, will only let you in, with the implicit understanding that you have to "play ball" to do so.  The choices and the change that so many Americans believe are possible are, for the most part, a complete charade.

Tax Shelter Unfairness

There are probably not a lot of Americans that like paying taxes, although there are a lot of Americans that understand the necessity of taxes having to be paid to our Government.  When it comes to America's tax code, there is a massive and unfair line drawn that separates the "unconnected" and "unenlightened" taxpayers from those "special" taxpayers that have either the means to hire or to utilize the output of the best and brightest tax attorneys and accountants, or lobbyists, or possibly having the ear of important members of Government agencies, such as members of Congress, and the like.  The bottom line when it comes to paying taxes is that the more simple and the more straightforward that our tax code is, the better that we can be assured that it is indeed being equally applied to all.  However, we know for a certainty, that this is not the case in America, as according to the taxfoundation.org our tax code is 70,000 pages, although it is claimed by: "Andrew Grossman, the legislation counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation that helps write tax laws … it’s “only” 2,600 pages."

Few of the truly rich and powerful in America have any interest whatsoever in paying their "fair" share of taxes.  While they can justify their attitude on a lot of different levels, and some of that justification is absolutely correct, the most basic reason why the rich don't want to pay more than then have to in taxes, is all about the basic principle that the more money that you have or the more money that you control, the more stuff that you can therefore use money for, for example, to better yourself, or your family, or your compatriots, and basically to maintain control or undue influence over the thingsthat you consider most important to you.  For an absolute certainty, whether the money that a man has obtained or earned has come through legitimate means or through somewhat questionable ones, most rich people, considers that money to be theirs, only theirs, and have little interest in departing with any of it, unless it is on their terms.

Not too surprisingly, with that sort of attitude in mind, and with the staggering aggregate numbers that are being bantered about being in the billions upon billions of dollars, there is going to be plenty of motivated people, that will work very hard, to provide and to recommend various tax shelters so that certain people, can say, and possibly mean it, that they pay all of their taxes due that are required by law.  Whether that is a literal truth or not, is best left to the tax gods to sort out, but in essence, what it really means, is that their tax shelters work effectively and they're therefore pleased by that.

The crux of the problem, however, is that the tax shelters that are utilized are both an inherent and unfair advantage that the rich have over the rest of us, whether the wealthy are using and misusing charitable trusts, or grantor retained annuity trusts, or tax-deferred retirement plans, or step-up in basis for assets transfers, or the parking of money in offshore accounts, or anything that is able to take current income and reduce it substantially through the "tricks of the trade" will suffice. 

The bottom line is that when the rich truly do not pay their fair share of their tax obligation, and they often do not, it becomes demonstrative proof that the game is rigged, that the sucker is all those that do pay their fair share, grudgingly or not, and our country and its posterity are far the worse for it.

Our Greatest Obligation to God is to do Good to Others

John Wesley said it best that our greatest duty is to: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.”  If all were living to this creed, this world, and the people that reside in it, would be a glorious place indeed.  However, even if our fellow man as well as we falls short in this noble goal, these words of wisdom, if lived by those of true faith, will do more than anything else to make this world a better place.  The change that we so often clamor for, must first start within ourselves, and to demonstrate that we are sincere, we prove that sincerity in our actions towards our fellow man and the respect that we show towards our Creator.

God does not need our prayer, nor even does God necessarily need our love, neither does God need or demand animal sacrifices, or other rituals of long standing tradition.  God does not ask of anything of those he has created, for he has given us free will to do as we like, subject to man's law, but God is pleased when we do good to others, when we treat others with the same respect as we wish ourselves to be respected, when we help those that need help, aid those who need aid, mentor does that need mentoring, guide those that need guiding, because in the end when we leave this world, the riches that have been accounted for us, come from our good advice, our actions that have been activated and implemented by others, and our example, lived by others in their words and their deeds.

None of us live onto just ourselves, as each of us, no matter our status, no matter our intelligence, no matter our circumstances; interacts with other people, for better or for worse, each and every day.  Each day we are each given the opportunity to do good, to be good, and to accomplish good, should we so be inclined.  This doesn't mean that we shouldn't care about ourselves and our personal circumstances, we too have the same obligation to do well to ourselves, but we must also recognize that self-justification is the easiest lie that we can say to ourselves. 

Each and every day, we decide who that is that we will serve, and who that it is that we will glorify.  If we decide that we will endeavor to serve and to glorify God, we will find that our decisions and our actions will be different, probably diametrically different than if we decide to serve and to glorify ourselves, mammon, and our material aspirations.  The decisions that we make and the actions that we take are our own, but he is a foolish man, that believes it is wiser to feed at the trough of temporal glory, because that treasure will be left behind upon their material demise, while the eternal treasure that could have been theirs, will be far from their grasp.

Only a Fool Never Changes His Mind

Unless you are Perfection itself, you will over the course of your lifetime, many times, change your mind about something important, for many possible reasons, some valid and some less so.  While it might be embarrassing, even humbling, to go back upon one's word, or to contradict the very things that you have previously represented, when one is in a situation to which he is presented with evidence or wisdom which obviously points out that one is in error, changing one's mind about something, is the prudent as well as the right thing to do.  One must remember, that nowhere is it written, that we are all born with perfect wisdom or impeccable vision, consequently, it is normal within the course of events, to change one's mind.  This means that there is virtue in having a mind that is open and receptive to receiving knowledge, which may sometimes contradict things that we have previously learned, and that by listening as well as learning and discerning, we can increase our knowledge to our own as well as to other's benefit.

While there is something to be said about being decisive and sure of one's actions, there are also times that one is far better served by reflection, wisdom seeking, and quiet contemplation.  A fool, on the other hand, has great difficulty in seeing things other than the way that they wish to see them, without taking into consideration other possibilities or errors in judgment.  A fool, often gains no additional knowledge because a fool will repeat the same error in thinking, the same error in action, without ever comprehending that the error lies within him, and not in the vicissitudes of life itself.  Part of a fool's problem, is that pride will often get in the way of a fool making the correct decision, as a fool, for whatever reason, often feels unable to change his mind or his ways, because to do so, would signify an implicit admission that they had been in the wrong, something that would wound their pride.  Consequently, fools will do everything within their mindset, to convince themselves that their thinking is still correct, even when they know that it is not. 

It takes a wise man to change his mind, especially on things of real importance; it also takes a big man to admit his errors, especially in front of peers that he respects.  For a fool, however, this type of self-analysis is foreign to his constitution, and so he blithely ignores it, day after day, situation after situation, thinking that within this willful ignorance, that he somehow has escaped his rightful fate.  The difference between a trickster and a fool is the con-man will beguile you by pulling the wool over your eyes, whereas the fool will voluntarily pull the wool over his own eyes.

In Proverbs 10:14 we read: "Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction."   The proper receiving of wisdom is a process of maturity, that all must go through, sooner or later, as none can expect to know all.  The gaining of true knowledge comes from an active interest in learning, listening, receptivity, feedback, and discernment.  The pathway to wisdom involves effort as well as the overcoming of obstacles, whereas a fool will divert off the true pathway of knowledge, in the mistaken delusion that he knows and sees all.

New York City: Financial Capital

NYC is second to none in America, as it has not only the greatest population of all our cities at approximately 8.40 million peoples, but also the greatest GDP of all our cities at around $1.375 trillion, which means that if NYC was its own nation, its economy would be around the 13th largest in the world, just above countries such as Mexico, Spain, and South Korea.  To give this further perspective, the 2nd largest city by GDP in America is Los Angeles, but it is not even 60% of the GDP of NYC, so NYC most definitely stands head and shoulders above the rest.

NYC is the financial capital of America and it is this industry that is the most powerful industry within NYC, although NYC is also extremely proficient and strong in the fields of advertising, port traffic, major corporation headquarters, all media fields, insurance, arts, tourism, as well as healthcare.  NYC too is the headquarters for both the New York Stock Exchange as well as the NASDAQ, will all major brokerages along with many major banking facilities having a significant presence within the city.  While it is true in virtually any city that money and the proper access to money makes the economic engine of that city run smoothly, there is no city where this truism is more apt than NYC.

According to businessweek.com in regards to Wall Street: "In fiscal 2013, taxes on the securities industry and its workers delivered $10.3 billion to state coffers, or almost 16 percent of all revenue."   Also, billmoyers.com reports that: "According to the New York State Comptroller’s office, Wall Street firms handed out $26.7 billion in bonuses to their 165,200 employees last year."  Those numbers demonstrate the importance of finance to NYC, but also hidden beneath those numbers is also the danger of being too beholden to one special interest within NYC to the exclusion of all else.  That is to say, what is good for Wall Street is not necessarily good for America, or perhaps even for NYC.

The fact of the matter is, that an over-concentration to one industry, above all else, means that this industry will have undue influence in virtually all affairs of that city, in particular, the judicial, the legislative, real estate, taxation, as well as lobbying or political clout.  For instance, while most people can barely remember who the mayor is of their own city of residence, virtually everyone knows that Michael Bloomberg was mayor of NYC for three terms, this the man who made his fortune in the finance business, most notably with the "Bloomberg terminal", is also ranked by Forbes magazine as the 10th richest American at a wealth of $35.7 billion, and most notably was able to "persuade" the City Council to amend term limits as mayor, so he go on to run and then win his third consecutive terms in office as mayor of NYC.

NYC has been the leader in America in so many ways for a very lengthy period of time, but one too must recognize that some industries, perhaps most industries, have two sides to their success, while the finance maestros usually do a wonderful job of making money by lending out money at a higher interest rate than it costs them, and by adding leverage, along with trading and fees, often recognize immense profits, not every move is successful, as witnessed by the 2008 financial crisis, to which it was middle America that had to essentially bail out the "fat-cats" of NYC, so that their mistakes and greed were covered by the taxpayers of America.  That isn't fair, and that wasn't right, Americans should not be responsible for feeding Wall Street in both the good as well as the lean years.  If NYC wants to rest their foundation upon the skills of being the preeminent "money changers", so be it, but there may come a time when the people will rise up as one and overthrow those tables.

Lincoln and the Declaration of Independence

We know that Abraham Lincoln believed that the Declaration of Independence was the most important, the most enlightening, and the most meaningful of all documents, ever created for these United States of America.  We know this because in his Gettysburg address Lincoln stated that: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."  This founding principle was of immense importance to Lincoln, because he believed in an America that was truly a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and consequently this was not a country of a certain, select elite of people, not was this a country by those same people, nor was it a country that had laws and justice unequal for all people.  This was the abiding purpose of Lincoln that all Americans were entitled to, by Declaration of Law, to equal justice, to equal law, and to equal liberty within that country blessed by the hand of God.

Lincoln understood well that it was the Declaration of Independence, that would be forever the foundational document of America, that this Declaration was the bulwark against all those that would usurp our God-given inalienable rights, and that therefore as long as we honored the purpose and principles of this Declaration that all true Americans would by natural inclination oppose all tyranny, chicanery, or despots that would attempt to wrest through subterfuge from Americans the very bread created by their own hands.  Thomas Jefferson and the signatories to this Declaration by all thirteen colonies confirmed that for all time, and for all those who upheld its divine principles that they would forever pledge their lives and their honor to it, Lincoln believed this no less, and paid for this belief with his martyred life.

During the time of our revolutionary war it was George Washington that led this new nation into the freedom that our Declaration promised for all men, in this, Washington was successful, in establishing these thirteen colonies into the United States of America.  However, the great question of slavery that seemed answered by the abolition of the slave trade in 1808, had instead continued to flourish in this land of freedom, whereupon losing the ballot of 1860, the South decided to take the law into its own hands and to challenge not only the authority of our National government, but the very principles upon which this country was founded upon.  It was upon Lincoln, in this terrible time of trouble, that this country would decide, whether it would be a house divided, permanently half slave and half free, or it would be all of one or all of the other.   

Lincoln would make the stand that those that lose by the ballot, do not, and never should have recourse to the sword to take from their legitimate government that which was not theirs to being with, nor was it legitimate to submit a new government, under the mistaken ideal that one set of men were forever to be rulers over another set of men, who were for reasons of exploitation, considered judicially to not even be men.  It was Lincoln that made it his purpose, to defend, to protect, and to enact those true words of our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, and thereby to finish the work that had been initiated by our Founding Fathers and blessed by the hand of our Creator.

Concentration Camp Profits

While the desire for profit can be a virtue in the running and the establishment of a legitimate business, profit, or the lust for lucre, can be an extremely destructive human iniquity as witnessed by the Nazi treatment of prisoners and civilians specifically rounded up into concentration camps who were Jewish, gypsies, homosexual, habitual criminals, or others that were considered to be enemies of the State.  Initially, as a matter of camp policy, inmates were utilized primarily as slave labor, to which their enforced labor would help to construct the very camps that imprisoned them as well as the manufacture of materials needed for the war effort.  The German Schutzstaffel (SS), military agencies, and private contractors worked together to create contracts that would enforce and to implement the processes that would best exploit these resources for the Nazi State.

As you might imagine, any large grouping of peoples within a confined space, necessitates food, water, sanitation, shelter, security, and other measures to maintain the camp safely.  All of the above also necessitates personnel, materials, labor, logistics, and money in order to efficiently operate and to successfully control a given concentration camp.  Even within conditions to which the enforced labor is stolen and hence free of charge, does not mean necessarily that the camp itself will be able to turn a profit.  In addition, people in authority have their own vices and their own greed to deal with which often may be at cross purposes to the desires of the State, to wit, it is quite easy for the thinking to change within a camp, so that the thinking transmutes into providing the very minimal services of nutrition and medical attention to the prisoners, as money not spent on them, can be converted to others in authority that wish to directly profit from it.  Also, of course, if you have demonized the prisoners as being sub-human, not part of the master race, and in substance not worthy of your respect or civility, it is an easy step to treat them cruelly and inhumanly. Taking these things together it is not hard for those in power to think and to believe that if these prisoners have no future within the German State, and further if these prisoners are unable to profit the State alive, then perhaps there can be profit in their death.

When the prisoners first enter into camp they have clothes, jewelry, money, purses, wallets, luggage, coats, hair on their head, and sometimes gold in their teeth.  All of these items have utility, and consequently in this very macabre way, there is profit to be made in the killing of prisoners in concentration camps, and that is why that once the decision had been made to exterminate prisoners, that it was done with real purpose and authority by the Nazis as the combination of seeing the victims as less than human, combined with the lure of money, convinced many that the business of killing was a good business indeed.

If, as part of your ethnic cleansing, you confiscate all property from one group of peoples, those that will benefit from that seizure will support it strongly, because they will profit from it, and further if by disposing of these people you can profit some more, it will be done, especially if all of this is accomplished as an implicit or explicit desire of the State.  In short, unbounded profit as well as unbounded greed, exploits, maims, or kills people.

Cloud Computer Storage and Compromised Data

More and more individuals as well as corporations are utilizing the convenience, cheap expense, and overall usefulness of cloud storage for their data and/or computer productivity tools. In some circumstances, there isn't much choice in choosing to store your data information onto a third party hosting company (cloud storage) because your laptop or mobile device doesn't have the physical storage space to perform this necessary action in the first place.  Additionally, for corporations they often find it much cheaper and efficient to use cloud storage so as to access and coordinate information more readily over multiple time zones and locations, as well as having powerful computer programs such as Microsoft's Office 365 available for all applicable users, all of the time.  On the surface, cloud storage appears to be a win/win scenario, with the users of this service as well as the providers of the storage both benefiting from this utility.  However, in virtually all circumstances, some of the data being stored or accessed throughout the cloudis by definition, either sensitive, confidential, private, or similar and should this data be compromised, would wreak havoc to those having such data breached.

Data breaches within corporation storage is an oft-recurring event (e.g. credit cards) for a lot of reasons, with the most prevalent reason probably being that by so doing, there is money to be made from exploiting and/or accessing this information.  This means, that it is a given, that even if you and your company follow the most strict and restricted protocol to store and to access your information on the cloud, one cannot state with an absolute certainty that the data stored on the cloud is both safe and secure.  While the cloud providers will take exception to this statement and go out of their way to assure you that your data is always safe and secure with them, that certainty is misapplied, as it cannot be 100% failsafe.  This means that it behooves all cloud storage providers to do everything within their power to provide to their customer base that expectation that all data stored within their cloud is, in fact, stored in the most secured manner possible, and in conjunction with this have plans in place, that should data appeared to have been breached, that the appropriate response to mitigate this breach be conducted at the utmost urgency. 

The other problem within cloud storage is the very basic question as to who is the "true" owner of the data to begin with.  One would think that the answer would be the person or entity that provided and accesses the data initially, or in the case of corporations, the corporation itself, but it isn't as clear as night and day as this when it comes to cloud storage.  Although, each cloud storage provider appears to grant you the sole ownership of the content that you place with them for storage, none of them, to the best of my knowledge, makes an iron-clad agreement to the effect, that your stuff is your business above all else, and that under no circumstances will they, the cloud provider, allow implicitly or explicitly access to your data to government agencies (e.g. NSA).     This means that the cloud providers as a matter of principle, should encrypt the storage data in such a manner, that even if they were given a warrant to provide certain information to government agencies, that they could honestly reply that they have no way of knowing whether that data existed or if so, where it existed, throughout their entire network, because of that encryption.  That would mean truly that the foxes weren't actually guarding the henhouse.

The United States of Plutocracy

The most basic reason as to why more people don't complain about being ruled by the rich and the politically connected in America is the fact that America is by far the richest country in the world as demonstrated by its ranking as #1 in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to which China a country that is approximately the same size as the United States in land area, but has four times the amount of peoples, has in whole utilizing nominal GDP as the measure not even 60% of America's GDP.  This means, therefore, that in essence, virtually everyone in America that doesn't live in some forlorn town that is well off the beaten track, has seen or felt in person the wealth of America in its buildings, its infrastructure, its stores, its clothes, its vehicles, its hi-technology electronics, and the like.  In America,   you don't have to be rich in order to appreciate how rich that America is and at least have some of that wealth trickle down to you.  However, in America, you do have to be rich in order to appreciate what money can really do for you, as the people that run this country in all of its many aspects, are either super-rich or powerfully connected or both.

The fact of the matter is, money and power are addictive, to wit, there are very few that once obtaining these things, have a willingness to let any of it go.  What you find in actuality, is that those that have the wealth and the political influence, want more of it, and will make it their mission to keep it this way.  This means, by definition, since there are so few that are so wealthy, and so many that are not, that the elite few, make it their policy to join together, in the overriding vision, that money and the lust for money trump over all else.  Therefore, the plutocrats of America have an abiding interest in seeing that their offspring go to the same schools as other super-rich children so that they can intermarry, and further that they will later take interchangeable directorship positions in their respective corporations, and as always, make sure that they as the elite have special rights and privileges unknown to the likes of the common man.

The playing field in America has never been equal, and never will be.  While this is a country of laws, it is also a truism that in America, you get all the justice that you can pay for.  When it comes to taxation, the rich are adept at working every conceivable angle, utilizing too the most influential lobbyists, to beat back anything that would take from them, their almighty fortune.  Our tax codes and laws are reams upon reams of incomprehensible laws, navigational only by those in the know, and always in the end, providing a convenient escape hatch for those that are connected.

The Federal Reserve, despite its name, is a private banking consortium, it certainly doesn't answer to the people, as its true master is the rich and powerful.  As President Garfield stated, "He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation."   I do submit, I can't think of any position within America, that has within its hands more primal power, than those that print and distribute the Federal Reserve notes, that we use day-to-day to conduct business, pay bills, buy goods, and the like.  Money and the timely access to money, exerts terrible power and influence of one man over another, the power to buy a favor, to corrupt an official, to destroy an individual, and in conjunction with others of like principles, to rule America.

The Truth Shall Make You Free

In John 8:31-32 we read: "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  Within this proclamation from the Christ, holds the answer to life's most important lesson, to wit, if you do not know the truth, if you do not know your purpose, if you do not know who you really are, if you are ignorant of where you came from and where you will go, you cannot hope to be able to impart knowledge, guidance, and wisdom to those that you come in contact with, at the highest possible level, nor will you be able to truly testify to Truth, itself.  This means, that for all of us, there is no more noble objective than to seek and to find Truth, and that by so doing, the scales of deception which clouds our very eyes, will fall off, and we will see the world, life, and meaning, as it really is.

If you are a student, a teacher, a businessman, a laborer, housewife, or whatever that it is that is your lot at this stage in life, you cannot hope to be master of it, unless you know the truth that is the foundation of it.  This means that for all of us, it behooves us, to first have the thirst to seek truth, and then to have the wisdom to accept it, and most importantly of all to then implement this knowledge.    This means that it isn't good enough to simply know truth, as John 8:32 does not state that knowing truth "will" make you free, but that knowing truth "shall" make you free, as long as you continue along the path of being in the word of Christ; which in essence means that you must do your part and remain on the right path, or you and truth will inevitably part ways.

Truth is not and cannot be relative.  Relatively lies in the field of physics and does not and never will apply to moral law.  There can only be one truth, and it is to that truth, that you shall be made free.  People that prefer to play word games in regards to how they claim to believe that truth is relative, depending upon, for instance, one's point of view, or your position perhaps at some point in time, only demonstrate their own ignorance of truth, as any time that truth appears to be contradicted, it basically means that you have not dug deep enough in finding the golden ring of absolute truth.

To be in the light of Truth, takes concentrated and committed effort, the guidance of those wiser than ourselves, and contemplative meditation.  God wants us to by our free volition to seek after Him, and as we do so, we will be drawn into a world beyond this material world, beyond time, beyond space, and beyond our physical being.  While the Truth has many aspects depending upon the face of the mountain that you climb, one thing you will instantly recognize upon seeing Truth itself, is that we are all spiritual beings encased into physical housing, further that the real you is the Spirit, not the physical, and when you truly recognize the importance of this discovery, it will be as if you are beginning to see things as they really are for the very first time.  "…One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." (John 9:25)

The Importance of Population

At the time of America's Declaration of Independence, America had approximately 2.5 million peoples, not of all of whom were revolutionaries or sympathetic even to the revolutionary cause.  England, on the other hand, had around 6.5 million peoples, was far wealthier, and during our revolutionary war was able to hire conscripted Hessians to help them in the prosecution of war against the Americans.  Additionally, Great Britain, was the preeminent naval empire in the world of that age, experienced, and with the monies to replace and to upgrade their naval fleet which had been severely weakened during the "Seven Years' War", whereas America's navy was virtually non-existent, and consequently America primarily relied upon its land forces to hold back and to eventually defeat Great Britain, with the help of the French naval fleet which bombarded and pinned Cornwallis' troops at Yorktown.

While the loss to Great Britain of America was a blow to their budding empire, Britain, knew that they could make up for the loss of America, by concentrating on their trade instead with India, which was a country of nearly 200 million peoples, a land rich in textiles and spices, which became a valuable aid to the British empire, and easily more than made up for their defeat in America, as India, and its valuable trading wealth, was the reason behind Columbus' travel that discovered America in the first place. 

In the late 18th century, the major powers in Europe were France and England, with France having a population estimated at 25 million peoples.  Yet, if we fast forward to Europe and its population at the present day, neither France nor England have populations which are even at 100 million peoples, with Germany as a united nation, having the largest population of any European country, and that population is about 82 million, whereas America alone is over 300 million, and India is over 1 billion peoples.  While Europe still has influence and significance throughout the world, their collective power has significantly waned over the last sixty years, and has been eclipsed by United States, as well as essentially too by China, Japan, and Russia, with Brazil and India, noted as rising powers.

While there is something to be said about the size of the land that your country occupies, there is far more to be said of the size of your country's population, and while natural resources and their wise exploitation also play their part in countries' status, wealth, and power; the bottom line is that countries that have little or no natural resources can still be economically powerful, with notable examples of Japan as well as South Korea, demonstrating that intellectual wealth properly applied will translate into prosperity. 

All of the aforementioned means that the decline of European powers can mainly be attributed to their overall decline in numbers relative to the other countries of the world.  This is also one of the reasons why the European Union was formed, so as to help to bolster the economic effect and the influence of Europeans on a global basis.  The fact of the matter is, though, had France, England, Germany, Italy, and Spain increased their populations and subsequently their overall density of their lands, they would, properly governed and with wise use of their attributes, would have today much more material and economic impact upon the world, rather than instead having suffered a precipitous decline in their dominance.  You cannot hope to be a worldwide power, or to have worldwide influence, without the numbers and the knowhow to back it all up, people, are often in the end, your most important asset and ultimately your legacy for the future, without such, your light will surely dim.