Revised Version of "If I were the President"

If I were the president

If I were the president of these United States of Political and Economic malfeasance, I could not only offer you the promise of a better tomorrow for the U.S.A. but, in my efforts, a possibility of a better tomorrow for the world. I cannot do this without the support of everyone possible. I know there are more than a fair share of you out there who will disagree with me at first. However, I endeavor to show you my point of view and how, with your help, we can change this country and this world. The answer is not big government and taxes incurred upon the rich. The answer is to bring production back into this country, to make us a competitive force in the world market. We need to give incentives to companies to help others, to develop new technology that will increase our productivity. If we can achieve these goals, we will be on our way to a better tomorrow.

A major problem that we face today is the lack of a real market for productive labor. We have such powerful labor unions that our producers cannot afford to become competitive. When labor costs are more than the equilibrium price, which is the price at which the market demands this labor, the producer ends up packing a hundred dollar bill or so into each product. Take our auto industry in Detroit for example. Before the institution of the United Auto Workers Union, Detroit represented most of the world market for auto production. Now, because Japanese and German car producers have opened factories in non unionized states such as Alabama, Kentucky and Louisiana, the Big Three Automakers, who at present are begging for 25 billion of our tax dollars to support their unions, are nearing the point of needing to file for chapter 11 Bankruptcy until their union contracts expire and can be renegotiated. Today, according to the Center for research on globalization, if you combine the salaries as well of all of the benefits for each individual worker, it adds up to 75 per hour. This all sounds great except for the fact that these people are being paid more to produce less and a lesser quality at that. Production must be cut unfortunately. We are finding ourselves unfortunately inefficient these days because labor unions are spending their time manipulating big businesses, leaving these large businesses with less money to devote to Research and Development to find more efficient, cheap ways to produce their goods. This would leave them with more money to create jobs that pay more and still make more profit. Now, if our government spent less time taxing big corporations and instituting socialist programs that, in essence benefit no one in the long run, we would have more money to offer in the forms of grants for R&D for technologies to improve our capabilities when it comes to production of goods.

The first step to benefiting the people of this country is to drop unnecessary taxes on corporations and businesses. I do not want you to think that I am fighting for big business, because at the base of my sentiments, I am not. What many people fail to realize is that taxes come in many forms. They come in the form of income tax, sales tax, property tax, pollution taxes and tariffs. The list is exhaustive and is not worth mentioning all of it. When you get your paychecks every other week, you see that a portion has gone out to state, local and federal taxes, Medicaid and Social Security. What you have left after that is known in the world of economics as your disposable income, meaning that you can either save or spend this money, nobody else gets to tell you what to do with it. However, when you go to the grocery store, the toy store for your child or anywhere where you might procure a good or service, you must pay the price of the item plus, generally speaking, a sales tax. What you don’t realize is that, at the same time, you are also paying the taxes of the corporations or companies that have produced this good or service. People tend not to realize that a tax levied upon a corporation is a tax levied upon the citizens of the U.S. Companies do not make money and stay in business by eating the taxes placed on them by the government. So next time a politician tells you that the big companies must be taxed, realize that they are taxing you and do not allow it. This is a country based on the voice of the people. We, as a country, were created so that people who were living in places where oppression reigned could come and enjoy a life of free choice and power of the people.

If we want our government to increase its tax revenue so as to pay off the massive debt that it has incurred, we must lower the taxes on everyone in this society. This may not make sense to you at first look, but don’t worry, I will explain. There is an economic theory called supply side economics. The particular aspect of this economic theory that I will discuss here is the issue of taxes, focusing on the Laffer curve. Arthur Laffer was a supply side economist who became well known during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. He put together a graph of the effects of a rising tax on government revenue. This curve shows that as taxes increase, government revenue first increases and then decreases drastically, forming and upside down U. This also may not make sense on the surface, so let me explain. Just so that we are all on the same page, I would like to break down the percentages of the tax burden in this country and who carries them. According to the Internal Revenue Service’s 2006 report, the top 10% of wage earners pay 70% of the tax burden. The top 25% pay 86%. The bottom 50% pay 2.9%. The remaining 25% pay the remaining 11%. If you look at this graph, I will show you how the Laffer curve works. Now, when taxes are drastically low, obviously government revenue will be low. As the tax rate increases, so then does government revenue. However there comes a tipping point where that top ten percent who are already wealthy say, “Hey, after this point, I’m leaving the market and taking my money with me.” And as I have said before, corporations themselves pay 0% of the tax burden, so with this top 10% gone from the picture because of exorbitantly high tax rates, we find our government revenue plummeting. There have been many people who have said that supply side economics does not exist and it is just a theory. Ronald Reagan’s Administration and the subsequent economic brilliance that followed his presidency are proof otherwise.

When Reagan took office, the top wage earners in this country paid 70% of their wages in taxes. As soon as he took office, Reagan dropped taxes on the top earners to 28%. The following years were the best that the U.S. has ever seen, with low inflation and the lowest unemployment ever. If I were president I would take a page out of Mr. Reagan’s book and drop taxes immediately. This would increase our government’s revenue drastically. I would also attempt to do away with many government programs that wastefully spend our money. If I were to do away with these programs, the government would have a surplus of funds, the surplus necessary to pay back the countries to whom we are indebted.

If I were president, I would remove all taxes from businesses, with the caveat that any company that causes a negative externality on the environment around it such as greenhouse emissions would have to pay an environmental tax. This would both deplete the costs of production for companies and lower the prices of goods and services. Imagine an economy where prices could drop without the drawback of a shrinking economy. If we stop taxing companies, our economy will be allowed to grow and allow prices to decrease. The power of the dollar would go through the roof. It would easily surpass both the Euro and the GBP.

Next, we must offer the proper incentives to create the technology necessary so that we might actually have a comparative advantage over other countries on several goods or services. If we can do this, jobs in the production industry could actually be lucrative enough for people to be incentivized to work in these industries. Let me explain this a bit. If we drop taxes and have technology that enables each individual worker to produce more, then we could afford to pay each worker more. With this new efficiency, we would then see more businesses popping up everywhere offering employment to those who would otherwise be unemployed as well as a magnificent array of goods and services which will make the market even more competitive, effectively driving the prices even further down. If we can do this, we can reestablish ourselves as a competitive force in the world market. If we do that, our economy will see a boom and efficiency like it has never before seen in the history of the U.S.

Through this sort of policy we can not only help ourselves, but also possibly help those emerging nations around the world who are struggling to get a leg up. I am not one to support the big brotherhood of our current government, who sweeps in, attempts to build a political infrastructure, drops some food on the starving and flies back out. Instead, I would offer institutes and companies and individual investors tax abatements in return for their donations to institutes such as the J-PAL of MIT or similar institutions or programs, whose primary goal is the installation of mental and physical cabilities in the people of third world countries to produce for themselves. Instead of handing starving people food, teach them how to grow food in an efficient way, teach them how to make a profitable trade out of something that they can do well in the region they come from. If the growing of food is not a feasible option, teach them how to utilize the resources they have to create a comparative advantage that they can manipulate on the world market. If you do this, you have helped a nation to begin the journey to greatness. Once these nations have started to establish themselves, we can help them produce food for themselves through BioEngineering. There is now a “Golden Rice” that has been created by several scientists from the International Rice Research Institute, with great contributions from one of our own here at Penn State, Dr. Sairam, a professor in the school of science, engineering and technology. This rice has been genetically altered to provide all of the vital vitamins and nutrients necessary in a healthy meal. These foods are unfortunately unavailable to the starving, malnourished people of the world because of European governmental restrictions on genetic engineering. We need to change this. If we can show people the benefits of this rice and how every possible precaution has been taken in the development of this rice, we can make a difference in the starving nations of the world.

Moving on to my next point of poverty and its effect on violence here and around the world. Speaking in generalities, when people are prosperous, people are not violent. If we help nations who do not have the proper resources to teach themselves how to become prosperous, we can effectively eliminate most violence among these countries. If we can achieve these goals, we can have a world that trades among itself efficiently. We can have the highest quality goods and services for the least amount of money. Imagine living as a United World and not Just the United States. In the future, if this is achieved, everyone will have the opportunity and the cause to be prosperous and will not have to worry about their safety or whether or not they will be able to make their payments. If we have a world in which everyone can be prosperous, a true capitalist efficient system, there is no need for violence, for crime, for poverty. We can change the U.S. and we can change the world.

According to an article found on the Heritage Foundation’s website, called “How Poor Are America’s Poor” by Robert Rector, there are 37 million “poor” in this country. Of these 37 million, roughly 90% are on Welfare in some form or another according to the Dept. of Health and Human Services. Of these roughly 30 million, 9 million are capable and able bodied adults, who on average work 800 hours per week, which breaks down to 16 hrs per week according to the Heritage Foundation. Of these poor most own their homes, more than one color television, one or more cars and a computer, with the average living space per person of poor families adding up to 476 square feet. To further my policy, I vow to slowly but surely eliminate welfare except for those incapable of working. Also I will do away with Social Security before it dries up and leaves those of us about to retire and those of us who will retire in the future penniless. Instead I will support and promote the privatization of retirement benefits. Instead of paying for the retirements of our grandparents, the portion of our checks, which will be determined by us, will go into our own retirement. This, combined with the elimination of government-subsidized welfare, which in essence is tax payer subsidized, will push those who rely on government spending for their livelihood into the workforce. This will have multiple effects. First, it will make it necessary for everyone capable of working to be employed. The jobs will have made themselves apparent once we have eliminated the taxes on businesses. With an additional 9 million people in the U.S. workforce, the economy has nowhere to go but up. When all those who are reliant on welfare are put in to the workforce, we will be able to do away with subsidized housing and replace the eyesores of what would otherwise be beautiful cities with co-ops and privately owned buildings where the tenants and owners will actually have a sense of propriety and will keep up with the maintenance of their homes. If the government stops handing out money to those who ask, those who ask will turn to another source of money. With my proposed decrease on all taxes, the working market will be a lot more tempting for people, knowing that their hard work and labor will actually yield a livable gain. Again relating back to government revenue, if we rid ourselves of welfare and lower taxes, we will have far more people in the workforce contributing to the tax revenue, as opposed to 30 million depleting it, thus making it even more possible for us to eliminate the taxes I have stated.
As for our overly large central government, ghe state governments should be the governments that make the true decisions concerning what is good for the people of their constituency. This country was set up as a republic, consisting of many states, ruled by their local governments, united under a simple central government that provided protection for the people and helped make decisions between states that could not agree upon something. We were not set out to be a country where every aspect of our lives were dictated to us by the central government. This is not why people came to this country and this is not why people continue to come to this country. People come here for the offer of freedom of choice, of religion and the ability to pursue that which their heart desires.

If I were the president, I would not spend my time attacking issues of morality and the freedoms of our people. These are not the United States of What the president thinks. That is not my job as president. Decisions of that nature are up to our legal system and the people of this country and until they are deemed illegal or unconstitutional, there is nothing I, nor any other politician or single person can do to change this. This is not an issue I will debate on. I have my feelings, everyone else has their own. That is the foundation of this country, to allow people their own feelings and rights.

In terms of Foreign policy, I believe that there must be an economic cohesion between the countries of this world. We must all come together to make our world a better place, a place in which car bombs and protests are not necessary. A world where people are allowed to compete freely and utilize their advantages to help themselves and those around them. Violence is never the answer. Violence stems from ignorance and poverty and does nothing but breed more of the same. If we share with each other what we know in our respective areas, we can help failing nations succeed, we can bring prosperity to those places where poverty reigns. If we stop using boundaries as a means of propriety, we could have American Oil fields in the UAE, and the UAE could have sky scrapers in Tokyo and Bangladesh and so on and so forth. We harbor our greed to stay within the limits of our countries. If we expand our businesses beyond our boundaries, we can have a world of interwoven societies, in which every race and culture holds its own and is equally recognized as a power unto itself. If we want to, we as people, not as Americans, Asians, Africans, Europeans, Australians and whoever else we may be, but as humans living here on this planet, we can achieve a beautiful world where all can be prosperous without waste. We need to stop worrying about where we are from because when it comes down to it we are all the same and came to be in the same way and will cease to exist in the same way. Stop making wars based on religion. If you want to see what people truly believe, listen to them pray. Listen to the meanings of these prayers and then tell me how different we are, you and I. Change is up to you, and I believe I can help us move in that direction.

Bio Fuels and Genetic Engineering

I have spent a good portion of this semester looking at different Bio Fuels and the affects and processes of Genetic Engineering for my Biology class.  My professor, Dr. Sairam Rudrabhatla is one of the foremost Bio Engineers in the world.  His research at the moment is focused on Jatropha and Golden Rice.  

Jatropha is a plant whose seeds are comprised primarily of oil.  This oil, when yielded from the seeds, can be placed directly into your gas tank and will fuel your car.  As I sit here looking at this small brown seed I wonder how we are not growing these as a major crop in places where nothing would otherwise be grown.  Jatropha is capable of being grown almost anywhere.  In places where there is barren wasteland and desert, Jatropha can be grown.  From a single hectare of Jatropha crop, nearly 1900 liters of oil can be yielded for roughly 8 cents per gallon.  

There are many fears that because of the weed like nature of Jatropha, if not properly cared for, the plants could pose a threat to food staples.  This is where the work of Bio Engineers and Genetic Engineers comes into play.  The practice of genetic engineering is nothing more than plant breeding done in a more precise way with better, faster results.  There is so much debate on this topic and it baffles me.  With the help of genetic engineering, we are able to create foods that last longer, can be grown in conditions they would otherwise be incapable of growing in, can contain all of the necessary vitamins of a healthy diet in a single grain of rice.  Why would we shy away from this.  The only unnatural aspect of this practice is the speeding up of natural processes.  If there was less hype around this subject, we could be working on feeding the starving people of this world, but instead after 10 years of research and development, we have a super rice which could help effectively feed the starving nations of the world, in which 20 million dollars have already been invested and this rice sits and waits to be given to the people who are in such dire need of it all because Europe does not believe in genetic engineering.  

These genetic engineers have made it so that Jatropha can be safely grown anywhere without risk of the endangerment of other crops, and yet here we sit, being raped on a daily basis by the oil giants of the world because of our alphabet soup of regulatory commissions here in the U.S. and in Europe.  

We are to blame for our own stagnation and despair, and it is our responsibility to change these wrongs we have done ourselves.

Does Life Ever Make Sense

I ask myself this every day.  Why am I doing the things I am doing?  Why do I think the way I do?  Is what I think right or wrong?  Does it matter? 

I have a younger brother who is the beginnings of suave and debonair with a slight sense of dweeb and loser.  I say these latter parts not as an insult, but as a way in which he is sometime perceived by others.  Why are some people mean to him and others nice?  At the end of the day, this young man of 15 years old is one of the sweetest, obtuse, loving, vengeful, adorable, pimple faced shit to have ever graced this earth.  He'll kiss your puppy and take care of your kids as soon as he would strike you down with his ham-hock arms for insulting his family.  The child may be strange, beautiful, ugly, kind, mean and normal, but he is honorable, believes in chaste, will keep Chivalry alive until the day he dies.  And yet, he has no girlfriend and few friends.  But those who keep him, keep him in close company and cherish all that he has to offer.

I have an older brother, who at many times is like my kid brother who I have taught to grow.  To this day, there is an everlasting gripe between he and I, however small it may be.  Whenever we meet new people, whether it be because of our social interaction or my looks of maturity, I am always perceived as the older brother.  This has never really been a problem for us behind closed doors because as I have found with many people in my life, I can always be sought out in times of need or distress.  I can soothe those who may need it and rile those who are complacent. This is both a blessing and a curse.  I have found myself, many times, in situations that should have been well beyond my realm of maturity, but due to many mitigating circumstances, I fight my way out of them, bringing with me those that desire it.  In our childhood together, my older brother and I have found ourselves in many situations where my arrogance, combined with his insecurities have led me to act as the older sibling.  Whether it be teaching him to dance, to fight, to manipulate, to date, to hide or to reveal, I have always been there for him and in turn, he for me.  

I am really writing this post to give thanks at the beginning of this holiday season for my family.  My parents, without whom I would not be here, would not have screwed up, would not have succeeded, would not have tried and would not have sat lazily around when I could have been trying.  For my brothers, who have acted as my support and my pupils all at the same time.  To my father, who can wax poetic and roar like a wounded bear all in the span of a day, an hour a minute.  To my mother, who can be my greatest friend and my worst enemy in the blink of an eye.  

I could go on to my extended family who include my father's sister, one of my best friends in the world, but alas, classes call and if i want to persevere and survive, I must yield to her beckon.  

The Vestigial Mind

In an age in which more information has been available to more people than ever before inhuman history, should we not be embarrassed at how little we know about the decisions we makeand the values that we hold? This abundance of knowledge has cost us something veryimportant: intellectual humility. Why should any of us ever again admit to ignorance when ananswer (regardless of whose) is only a top of the iphone away. We have become increasinglyreliant on third hand information that comes from god-only-knows where, authored by god-only-knows who, bearing god-only-knows what prejudices. My point here is not to say that there isn’ta wealth of good and legitimate knowledge, only a few clicks of the mouse away; but rather, thatwith this enormous cache of facts, theories, opinions and criticisms (mine among them), we, asindividuals are slowly becoming little more than animate mouthpieces, through which theopinions and beliefs of others are allowed to speak.With the distractions of daily life as proliferous as they are, it’s very easy to leap from thebed to the shower to the Today show whit breakfast to talk radio on the way to work to your jobback to your home onto the couch watching TV into bed (also with TV) and back to sleepwithout ever having taken a moment to pause and really think about something (anything!). Atthis juncture, we’re now ready to take anyone’s idea and label it as an unimpeachable truism onwhich hangs the very fabric of the cosmos! How could it be any other way? We fill out headswith the views of the liberal media or the conservative media without pausing for a moment toexplore the consequences of the basis of these beliefs. Because of the unbelievable availabilityof both conservative and liberal ideologies (as can be found in the news, radio, comedicnews...for our entertainment, of course), we can effectively convince ourselves that there is noother proper ideology before our own. Our political ideals have become something bordering ona belief system; and of course, believing in something means that you don’t have to give it muchindependent thought. Like our religion, our political beliefs are something beyond reproach,discussion, and above all: alteration.If we could please take a more active and thinking role in our decision making process; ifwe could be willing to question, not only the beliefs and ideas of others, but those of our own;perhaps we can take the first small steps towards the recovery of our own individual reason andthe legitimacy with which it was originally vested.

~Authored by My dearest like minded older brother, Frank Zilinyi

I would like to add a small amount of my own thoughts to this beautiful analysis of the great american ignorance. What seems to be an issue ailing the political minds of many of the inhabitants of this country. We seem to find ourselves, these days, seeing our political system, at least from a laymen's point of view, as somewhat of a religion. We follow blindly and have faith in a system most of us have no idea of how it works. Let me give you all a little definition of faith, especially concerning religion. Faith means the belief in something that logically cannot be true. this is fine when it concerns things such as religion because religions are not tangible objects that we can truly manipulate or change through our ignorance. Faith is in fact a practice in ignorance. Do not get me wrong here, I am a practicing catholic, but I am a realist and if I follow something blindly, I want to at least understand why. It is fine to believe in such illogical things as God or whatever you may call him and whatever he may mean to you. The whole idea of God is that he is omnipotent, meaning all powerful. In order to have such powers, God must be able to do anything, including the going against the laws of logic. God can make 4 equal 5, he can draw a square circle, set a fire he cannot put out and then put it out and these are all things that we will never be able to see or understand. If we accept God in this sense, it is O.K. to believe, there is nothing that we will ever see to make us understand otherwise and we only have faith to go on. When it comes to a government, we cannot follow blindly. We must think for ourselves and make our decisions based on real information that we have looked into and considered carefully on our own. Voting is your civic duty, but please don't if you're not thinking beforehand. That's all for now, my brain is ready for sleep and I must oblige.

~Rob

the new socialism

not to be wasteful here, but i am tired and wanted to remind myself to write about this idea... more to come tomorrow maybe.

Supply Side Economics

Here I go again with my everlasting diatribe on the ignorance of the masses.  I want to now explain to all of you out there who may not truly understand the way in which taxes and the economy work today.  Their is an economic practice known as supply side economics.  In this practice, we see what the effect of taxes is on both consumers and producers as well as on international trade as it pertains to tariffs.  

I would like to explain to you who the "bad guy" in this nation is.  It is not big business.  It is the big government.  In the words of Ronald Reagan, "the government is not the solution to the problem, the government is the problem."  If we want to rely on the government as our source of guidance and strength as opposed to our own merit and achievement, that is fine.  However, you are in the wrong country if that is your idea of government.  

I digress, the point here is how taxes on the rich and on big businesses affects us and not them.  When we look at rich people, you have to take into account the fact that these rich people, with exceptions, were not born rich.  Note: those who were born rich, their parents before them probably were not.  The point being, they had to get rich somehow.  The government did not say, "o.k. you you and you are now rich and poof, they're rich"  They had to go to school, learn a particular trade, utilize that trade and then manipulate it to a point where they had the money together to start their own business.  From there on, they had to work harder than most of us will ever work in our lives to ensure that their business survived.  After working hard for many many years, they have finally gotten to a point where they can enjoy the fruits of their labor.  Along the way, unless they are some sort of super hero unknown to mankind, they had to expand their company and employ other people.  In this day and age, unless we own our own company we, generally speaking, work for someone else.  Whether this company be large or small, they are a company that employs people and chances are, whoever is at the top of that chain is rather well off, with quite a few success stories along the way.  You have to think when a politician tells you that the rich are keeping the poor poor and that we must take away their money because it is unfair.  This is propaganda at best.  The way that the poor are kept poor is by taxing the rich.  The key word here is rich.  If an individual is already independently wealthy, they do not really need any more money.  The people that the president elect talks about taxing are those who are most assuredly wealthy enough to retire and live for several lifetimes.  It is also a proven theory that when tax rates become confiscatory, government revenue decreases.  We can see this in the principles i have just explained.  If you are a rich person and you already pay more than 50% of your income in combined taxes, are you going to be more willing to create jobs when your taxes go up.  Those people who are wealthy enough to create jobs for others are far more willing to make an investment into more capital when they have more money to invest.  The idea that rich people will merely squander away the additional money they would have if the tax rates were lowered is not only ludicrous, but has been proven to be wrong.

Rich people don't need the extra money as i have said before.  If they have it and could do something philanthropical and get a tax break, or if they were incentivized by a government tax abatement to create more jobs, they will of course put their money their, because then they end up with more money and the economy ends up with more jobs.  

This is the whole idea of trickle down economics.  When the tide rises, so then do all the boats in the water, not just the yachts but the rowboats and the tug boats and the sail boats and the barges.  More money at the disposal of the rich equals a better and more prosperous economy for all.  

boredom reigns

Boredom reigns over the skulking, dark skies of these desolate plains. 

nowhere to go, nothing to do.  It scratches at the door to my brain, teeming with temptations of nothing.  The people here are pink and round, their children have no manners.  All they want is another burger, a milkshake perhaps.  What is this life that these people live?  It's a wonder to me that suicide isn't more prevalent round these parts here.  I hate it and yet I love it.  I love it for the mere fact that it makes me realize how wrong I was to leave you behind, oh city of mine.  Where would I be without the city that never sleeps.  Middletown, Pennsylvania is where.  That beautiful city where, any time day or night, you can find something to do.  I think we should install more cities into this country.  This kind of laziness and sense of nothingness are what breed idiocy in this country.  Build a real city in every state, i say.  That way these people have some chance of achieving something.  Situations such as these do not engender the people of the area to come up with new and brilliant ways to achieve things.  It is areas like these that keep a good portion of our nation lazy and poor.  if every rural bum fuck town like this was located near a major city, there would be constant trade of labor and ingenuity between the city and the suburbs that would benefit both.  Back and forth the cycle could go, increasing the local economies as so many people strive to do.  If there were a major metropolis in every state, we could decrease the overcrowding of the already established cities and have more cities which would have room for more people.  More people equals a bigger workforce, and more human capital equals higher productivity and better local economies and a better aggregate economy as well.  Changes must be made.  Mouthpiece signing off comrades.

The America that should be

The Founding Fathers

I’m here to tell you a story. It’s probably a story you know well. This is the story of the creation of this country. I’ll give you a quick quotes version of this story to save time and space. We became an independent nation based for the most part on wanting to be a free republic in which people made their own decisions and did not have large portions of their lives dictated to them by a large figurehead such as a king or an overbearing government. We also separated from the crown of England because of the taxes being levied on us by the King. At the time, the average citizen of the colonies paid less than 5% of their earnings in taxes overall. We became the United States of America because we did not want our income taxed and because we did not want a big government. This is what was agreed upon by our founding fathers, who, in the true spirit of democracy, came together to discuss what the people of their constituencies wanted. If you look at the name of our country, you will see what we stood for at our inception. We were a collection of self governed states, united under one small central government which was responsible for the protection of it’s people from both outside attack, internal crime and the dangers of everyday life. At the inception of our country in 1789, 4% of U.S. citizens relied on government spending, none of which was a government subsidy. To fast forward a bit, we will take ourselves forward 124 years, a period in which our country prospered and continued to grow, to the year 1913. If you do not already know, this was the year that the income tax was incurred upon the citizens of the United States. A note, there was an income tax in 1861 to help pay for war expenses, however as this was one of the intended functions of the government set out in our constitution, I do not count this, especially because it was repealed directly after the war was over. Up until this point in the economic history of the U.S. there were not economic difficulties, because the government did not do more than it was set out to do. America had also been set upon the ideal that it would not interfere in the affairs and wars of other countries unless it was necessary to the safety of its people. After the enactment of the sixteenth amendment in 1913 of the federal income tax, we have seen the worst economic downturns since the beginning of economic civilizations. These economic downturns have come following periods of exorbitantly high rates of taxation on the upper class. When this issue of taxing the upper class more is taken at face value, it may seem logical to some and possibly even a good idea. Logic would follow that because the rich have more money, they should pay a higher tax rate, right? Wrong! The democrats responsible for the graduated, confiscatory tax rates are all about equity or the equal redistribution of wealth to help the greatest amount of people. This sounds like a fair system. It is not, but I will get to that later. For now, I want to touch on this subject as it pertains to the tax system. If we want a fair system, why is it that those who make more money should have to pay a higher percentage of more money to the government? Wouldn’t it make sense that they pay the same amount as everyone else? Even at that, they would still be paying more than everyone else, but it might be a bit fairer.
And before you even think it, I will move on to my next subject. I know what you will say next, “If we tax the rich less, the rich will stay rich and the poor will stay poor”. Again this is not true. If it is possible, I ask you to look at this from an objective, unbiased standpoint. For the sake of my point, we will look at an economy known as “Not America”. Not America is exactly like America in every way, except that it is not America. That being said, we have your bottom 50% of wage earners who pay 2.9% of the tax burden in Not America. Now, we have your top 10% of wage earners who pay 73% of the tax burden in this country. The remaining 40% in between pay the remaining 25% of the tax burden. Looking at the numbers objectively of Not America, you might see that the distribution of the burden is rather unfair. Now you might say that because the top 10% make more money, they have more to give in taxes. I have several questions as pertaining to this idea. The first being, who provides you with your job? How much does this person make? Is this person willing to make more jobs for those of us unemployed? Would this person be willing to make more jobs for us if we take away an additional 25% of his or her money? If you think so, you are wrong. Trickle down economics can and has worked before.
Getting back to real America, where we are faced with the daunting reality that this is how our economy is split and the fact that our new president elect has just these plans in mind and that this is how he won this election. I say to you readers now, who do not understand the dangers this entails, WAKE UP! If you want to see a prime example of why this does not work, look around you now at your failing markets. Blame big business if you want. I cannot say that greed is not a factor in this, but the root of this disaster lies in the Clinton administration, wherein president Clinton and Barney Frank pushed through the sub-prime lending, which is the cause of our present economic malaise. Bill Clinton walked into a dream in terms of an economic standing. After the economic messiah, Ronald Reagan had left his touch on the economy, we saw the best years in the history of our great nation. During the mid nineties, we had low unemployment and low inflation. Those of you who attribute this to Bill Clinton, please don’t embarrass yourself publicly, go back to school and take a course in econ. When Reagan came into office, he had one inch short of a disaster to deal with, the aftermath of Jimmy Carter, a man who thought it wise to raise the income tax to 70%. Economics works in a very interesting way, when certain decisions are made such as tax policy, we can see a result very quickly but the true effect usually takes between 5 and 10 years to hit. Our good friend Jimmy Carter left the U.S. economy in tatters. Those of you who lived through the late 70’s know exactly what I am talking about. Those of you who didn’t, to give you an idea, you could only buy gas on certain days of the week based on the last number on your license plate. If today wasn’t your day, you weren’t going anywhere. This in turn all but destroyed our economy. The Carter administration thought that if they taxed the upper class more, there would be more money for the economy to thrive. Needless to say this did not work. Within months of taking the oval office, Reagan dropped the tax rate on the upper class down to 28%. The following speculatory boom brought great confidence to the American people. The bust in the market in the late 80’s was to be expected so that the economy could correct itself. The years following, up until 2003 were the best economically that this country has ever seen. So good in fact that when George W. Bush came into office, he actually came in to a surplus in the budget. Now imagine that, nearly 22 years of economic splendor due to lower taxes on the upper class. What politicians fail to inform you of is that, when they raise taxes on the upper class, they firstly drop the standard for what makes you upper class; they also fail to report the loss in capital that follows this increase. If this doesn’t make sense to you, again think about the rich, who already have money, having more money taken from them. In this situation would you, A. Invest in more jobs? Or B. liquidate your assets and enjoy your money without paying any of it to the government. Chances are, you picked B. Taxes are not the solution to the problem, nor is the government. These are the problem. If we were to let the free market reign, there would be less unemployment, there would be less inflation, we would have fewer wars, and we would not spend our time and money sticking our noses into the affairs of other countries.
Who made us the big brother to every other nation in the world? All of these nations that we have supposedly helped, when asked, do not much care for Americans. We are thought of as arrogant. Because of our high tariffs on foreign goods, we are no longer a competitive force in the world market for goods. If we accrued more of our human capital to production of goods instead of being a service dominated economy, we would have more jobs for people. With the help of the ingenuity of any of our countless engineers in this country, we could actually find a way to make the production aspect easier and more efficient and be able to sell it to the world market at a world price, which would allow trade with many countries that hitherto had been unable to trade with us. This in turn could turn our trade deficit into a trade surplus, which would increase our GDP greatly. When our GDP increases, so does the economic well-being of those who live in that country. If we are producing goods in such an efficient way that we could sell them to emerging nations, we could not only increase our trade benefit, but actually help others at the same time without hand them everything on a platter.
The issue with just sweeping in and handing out support is that once we leave we have not given them an infrastructure to rely on. It is the same issue we face with welfare here in America. If we are able to offer a way for third world countries to make themselves an active force in the world market, we have given them more good than any handout could have done. As the old adage goes, “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” If emerging countries are shown how to and allowed to make themselves a considerable force in the world market, it inspires education and economic growth. Tourism increases, and if the free market is left to its own devices, we now have another educated, cultured, active country that can fend for itself and in all likelihood will no longer be a destructive, war torn countries that offer safe haven to those intent on harming others. If you look at the way we are now, the super powers of the world, France, England, The U.S. Japan, we do not war with each other. However less than a hundred years ago, when none of us had that much to offer, we were constantly at each other’s throats. What has changed is that we have been allowed to trade with each other, to build up our economies and to unite friendships amongst ourselves based on the ideal that we all want to do well.
That being said, I will bring this back to our shores where the same principle applies to the “temporary relief” of the U.S. welfare system enacted in 1964 as a temporary policy. We are ailed under the weight of roughly 85 million people who rely on government subsidy for no other reason than they can. When I go to work, I do not go there to get a portion of my paycheck taken out to pay for someone else’s life. Many people would say that if the idea were proposed to drop the maximum income tax to 20% and to rid the world of welfare that many people would die. I would say, and there are many people who would agree with me that if we did this a lot more people would have jobs. Imagine if you would for one second, that these 85 million people were not part of the workforce. Imagine that these people were working everyday to make a living like everyone else to pay their bills and to have shelter and food. Imagine how the productivity of this country would go through the roof if we had 85 million more people working with the same efficiency of those who are already working. We would live in a Utopia of economic prosperity, one that would be almost completely free of crime. Imagine that a decent portion of those 85 million people became teachers. We would have more teachers and a better-educated public. From education stems success, aspiration and ingenuity. The root of violence and ignorance in this country is the subsidizing of 85 million peoples lives. If you make above a certain amount of money, you don’t get welfare anymore, so these people who rely on welfare are incentivized to turn to underground markets. People respond to incentives. When faced with the idea that they can make thousands of dollars partaking in illegal activities tax free and continue to collect their government checks every month because the government doesn’t know what they are making on the side. This is the root of crime in this country at present. When people are handed everything without having to put in an honest days work for it, there is no sense of propriety. They have not had to take the sweat from their brow and put it into paying their rent or to buying their groceries or to pay maintenance in their buildings. When nobody own it, nobody cares for it and this is the reason why our subsidized housing projects in this country are a festering sore on the façade of otherwise beautiful cities. But instead of addressing this issue, we just blame it on the rich. For some reason when one person fails at something, it automatically has to be someone else’s fault and they had better pay for it. The evil rich people who employ everyone in this country are definitely responsible for the poverty in this country. If anything, the wealthy are the light at the end of a distant tunnel for those with enough ambition to achieve. Anyone and everyone can make it in life if they try, regardless of their background. If your parents didn’t do well in life, this is all the more reason for you to step up and make a difference for you, for your family and for those who will come after you. Stop blaming everything on race and religion and sex. We’ve had women candidates for the presidency, and although the reason I am writing this is because of my strong anti Obama views, we now have a black president. If a black man can make it to the most powerful position of power in the world, I don’t ever want to hear again that, “I can’t make it because I’m black”. Get up and do what you need to do and make a life for yourself and your family, stop relying on others and you will feel good.
Now that I’ve had my sentimental motivational part of my manifesto, I need to move on to this issue of socializing everything, especially the attempt of our new president elect to socialize the healthcare system in this country.

Our Founding Fathers

The mouthpiece, Pt. 1

If you don't know this about me already, I'm a republican. If you don't like what I have to say it's probably because you agree but want to continue in your lock step ways. I normally am not one to be a mouthpiece for any political affiliation because frankly big government is the worst issue ailing our country. For all of you who only know what your t.v. set tells you about the government, open your eyes, the media is almost as much of a problem as the government is. Do not confuse yourselves though, I am not an Anarchist. I believe in the institution of government, but i believe in it in the form that it was envisioned by our founding fathers, if slightly altered for the ages. When this republic was formed in 1789, 4% of U.S. citizens were reliant on government spending, none of these were subsidized earnings. At present 43% of U.S. citizens rely on government spending, of these 43% only 18% of employed persons are employed by the government. can't do the math? I'll do it for you, that means that out of 300,000,000 people in this country 30 million of them work for the government and rely on our tax dollars. this is from taking the actual size of the u.s. workforce and and finding 18 percent of that. Now, of the entire population of America, 129,000,000 are reliant on government spending. that means ladies and gentlemen that 100 million people live on your tax dollars while contributing $0 to the governments revenue. Senator Obama wants to come into office and decrease taxes he says. let's go with this first, what he fails to say is that he wants to decrease taxes for 95% of the working population. A few statistics before i go on, the bottom 40% of wage earners pay 0% of the taxes in this country, the bottom 50% pay 2.9%. the top 1% pay 46%, the top 5% pay 61%. does this seem like a fair breakdown to anyone? if it does, then i ask you, are you employed? if so, who employs you, who signs your checks? Would you say that this person is rich or poor? Please tell me the last time you got a job from a poor person. I didn't think so. In addition to Obama's not saying things, it has been the same promise from every democratic candidate, "I will lower the taxes on the middle class". Somehow it just never seems to go that way. If you look at president Clinton's term, I believe and correct me if i'm wrong (I'm not), president Clinton went into office offering very similar promises regarding taxation as my good friend, Mr. Obama. I think it was 6 days into his first term as president, he came before the American people and had to grudgingly inform them that he would be raising their taxes. Well done Bubba! Whereas if you want to look into republican history and please do not count George W. Bush as History because he's still in office and right now we are actually reaping the benefits of our good friend Bubba Cliton's terms in office. Let's look at Reagan, possibly the finest economic presidency of all time. When he came into office, the top earners in this country were paying a 70% income tax. I want you all to imagine for a second that you have spent your life working your ass off, taking an entrepeneurial risk to start your own business and to actually take it somewhere. Now imagine that, for all your hard work, you get to take home 30 cents on every dollar earned. Doesn't sound fair now does it. If this were you, would you smilingly commit more of your money to making more jobs for those people who have voted into office the officials who have made your strife worthless, or would you pack up your money, of which you have plenty and go play golf, lie on a beach drinking beers. Within months of taking office, Ronald Reagan dropped the income tax on the highest earners to 28%. My oh my, that's roughly what the middle class pays now. imagine if we had someone who might do that for us again. but instead of thinking about how we might fix our economy, we all have our own agenda such as the woman's right to kill babies, which by the way will never be revoked, and socialist healthcare and planned economies and increased government subsidies. What people fail to realize is that these things all weigh in heavily when we look at our economic malaise. Ronald Reagan managed somehow to not spend trillions of dollars on big government and look at the result, not only did the economy boom while he was in office against the past patterns of economics as pertaining to the present occupant of the oval office, but that economic splendor, in the words of mr. Obama, transcended through the nineties giving us what has never been seen before in the history of economics, low unemployment and low inflation. Now with the daunting probability that Obama will win, i hope all of you nubile voters fresh out of your liberal arts colleges can deal with the fact that your vote today is ensuring that you will not see an economy like that of the mid-nineties for the better part of your working careers. If you think that an additional trillion dollars of wasteful pork will help, please don't complain when our economy realy and truly crashes. i would like to take a second now to have you all look at the recent malaise of iceland, a COUNTRY that is now bankrupt. let's take a look at why this is. could it be due to massive government spending beyond a country's means? No way, government spending could never hurt anyone because it is so helpful to the poor? yes it is helpful to keeping the poor poor. Could it be that due to protective taxes for it's local goods that it relied entirely on it's government to tell it what to buy and at what price. could it be that the average tax rate was 80%? could it possibly be that it was another one of these advanced socialist nations that we so want to be like? Could be, who knows? On the topic of Socialism i will turn my rant over to this wonderful idea of socialist healthcare. I mean who wouldn't want healthcare for everyone for free? Doctors for one. People who enjoy the healthcare they get now which will no longer be available to them. Yet again, you rich people who enjoy making all that money for the hard work you put in, BAD BOY. How dare you work hard. You know what we're gonna do, we're going to punish you. I have an uncle who owns the single largest pediatric practice in the state of New York. I'm pretty sure that this might pay the mortgage on his house, with his 50 foot pool in the backyard, the backyard with the beautiful landscaping. I'd like to tell a little story about this uncle of mine, for those of you who know him. He came from a family, a regular american family. Dad was a minister, mom was a school teacher. needless to say, not much money there. He managed to make it through school at Einstein medical school based on his hard work, not on handouts from the government. He at that point had to do his residency, again not a lot of money, while living i believe in co-op city, which is really a lovely neighborhood, just not at night, or during the day, or really any time for that matter. After all of this hard work, he is now one of the most recongnized and well aclaimed doctors in his area and probably New York. After all of these years at the age of 56 i believe, i really think that we should socialize healthcare, so that he can be forced by government edict to work for a government wage, a wage which will not support his lifestyle. It really is unfair that all of these hard working people have these nice homes and nice lives, cars and families. We clearly need to take all of this away, after all who wouldn't want their country to look like the USSR in the mid 80's. God bless America, home of the fucking Cattle.

beginning to a story

It started the same way that it always did, mystery, thrill, excitement.  Who would it be this month? Who would be his next prey.  As with all those before this one, would they know they were next, or would they spend the next three weeks living in the ignorant bliss that is more commonly known as American life?  He was in Portland, Oregon this week and had already made his decision.  He had seen her walk out of old town music on the corner of W Burnside and W 3rd just this morning.  With a little help, he found out that her name is Susan Delco, a 33 year old single mother of two, working 2 jobs full time just to make ends meet.  Poor Susan, even with all of her efforts, her house was just weeks from foreclosure.  He would help her though.  If Susan is dead, her little cherubs can go back to their abusive father, who gets the proceeds from her life insurance.  Due to the nature of his work, he could be anywhere in the U.S. he wanted whenever he wanted.  He made his own Schedule, he dictated where he went and when and answered to no one.  Little Susan Delco would have to wait though, he never made the mistake of going too far on a first date.  He had spent far too much of his free time watching those stupid fucking t.v. shows about cops and forensic pricks to know that he must not leave a pattern or trail.  No, he has to go back home to his wife and children, but time won't be lost.  The next three weeks will be devoted to researching his new girl and ensuring the timing of the lunar cycle will match up with his plan, because after all, even the best have to have a little pattern.  After securing a small magnetic device to the underside of her car as well as taking impressions of her keys which she unwittingly left in her car in front of the now packed parking lot of the nearby whole foods.  Bye bye for now susan.  He jumped on the red line at MAX station and headed over to Portland international.  wouldn't want to miss his flight now would he?

more to come...