PERSPECTIVE -- FOR MEANINGFUL CHANGE WE MUST

From 1982 through today, February 26, 2018 -- 816 people have been killed in mass shootings. This averages out to 31 deaths per year over 26 years. [Mother Jones, data - link at bottom of page].  Of the 31 people who are killed, 10 of these 31 die in school shootings.

When these horrific events happen we are pummeled by media, we are hammered by activists, we are heartbroken for families & communities and we are outraged. We are inundated with images, arguments, public protests – we are made to feel as though this sort of the thing is THE NUMBER ONE DANGER IN AMERICA TODAY. Researchers at Northeastern University that found mass school shootings are extremely rare, that shootings involving students have been declining since the 1990s, and four times as many children were killed in schools in the early 1990s than today. The victims in these events are true and utter innocents so even if it is not the number one danger in American today – it should NEVER, EVER happen! It is at the hands of a madman that these lives are taken. 

But, and here is where we cannot lose sight of reality – these events are rare, regardless of how many times you see a headline. THEY ARE RARE; kids marching, people screaming and pundits "punditing" do not make them any less rare. The numbers of victims are a tiny subset of the nation’s population. It gets really hard when we are forced to convert lives, especially young, innocent ones, into numbers and statistics. But for policy to be made for a nation of 330M+, we must.

In 2015 alone in the United States, over 800 bicyclists died in cycling accidents I know to the very depth of my being that working on perspective when dealing with a horrific event is hard and feels heartless. But we have to do it. Since 1994 an average of 99 people die every single day in automobile accidents on America’s roads; that is over 35,000 per year. And again, based on published, non-political numbers roughly 31 people are killed each year in the United States in mass shootings. [all accident data is National Highway Transportation Safety Administration FARS data - link at bottom of page].

“There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” said James Alan Fox, the Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University. He said more children die each year from pool drownings or bicycle accidents.

So just comparing these two numbers for perspective, in the WHOLE 25 years 25% FEWER people were killed in mass shootings than people died in bicycle accidents in a SINGLE CALENDAR YEAR. There are around 55 million schoolchildren in the U.S., the Northwestern study said, and over the past 25 years, about 10 students, TEN STUDENTS, on average per year were killed by gunfire at school. Again, I do not minimize the trauma, the loss, the shock and the pain; I am not heartless.

Each DAY in America 4 children are killed by abuse or neglect. [childhelp.org - lower estimated numbers) (see link at bottom of page also footnote 3]. 

THAT IS FOUR CHILDREN A DAY OR 1,460 A YEAR.

Let’s go back:

816 people killed in mass shootings between 1982 and 2018 (26 years) – that is roughly 31 people per year and 10 of those die in school shootings. DURING THAT SAME TIME PERIOD APPROXIMATELY 36,500 CHILDREN DIED DUE TO ABUSE OR NEGLECT.

I wish no one died for any of these reasons. Here is a snap shot of this discussion in the raw, unemotional numbers.

AVERAGE ANNUAL DEATHS & CAUSE

Mass Shootings: 31 people, 10 in school shootings

Child Abuse/Neglect: 1,460

Bicycle Accidents: 800+

Auto Accidents: 35,000+

We have GOT to have perspective on things like this. When we lose perspective we do two primary and huge disservices. First we make hasty, emotional decisions with knee-jerk reactions. We think we are going to change outcomes with these hasty decisions, rules and laws. We are dismayed and angry when we find that NONE of our changes positively affected anything. We cannot legislate for a nation when the reality of the issue does not warrant it.

The 2nd disservice we do is that we neglect addressing much more profound issues. Some of the above stats seem to be somewhat acceptable to us; tragic but tolerable. We accept auto and bicycle fatalities to some extent as part of the inherent dangers of engaging in the activities. But what about the child abuse and neglect numbers? They dwarf the mass shooting numbers – but they, because they happen one or two at a time, ALL the time, seem to be invisible.

I don’t proffer to have solutions here other than to be rational when every fiber of your being is to scream “NO”. I encourage people to work hard to use rational thought and to work toward perspective. Without it, meaningful changes are all but impossible.

Life is inherently a dangerous activity to engage in. But because we had no CHOICE on whether or not we were blessed with life at the time of our birth, we had nothing to do with it, we somehow think life should be safer since we didn’t willfully opt-in. Life is not a safe activity at all. Life is however FAR safer today than at any other time in history – no matter what anyone tells you.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/
2. https://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

3. American Society for the Positive Care for Children -SPCC has child abuse fatality numbers as high as 1,670 to 1740 deaths annually.
4. Northwestern University researchers  used data collected by USA Today, the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, Congressional Research Service, Gun Violence Archive, Stanford Geospatial Center and Stanford Libraries, Mother Jones, Everytown for Gun Safety, and a New York City Police Department report on active shooters

The Book of Genesis and Science

I have a theory, maybe not really a theory but an idea.  I have to reconcile things.  I just do.  It is the way my brain works.  I am a Christian -- by my own definition.  I know that there are certain Christians out there who would argue my self-definition because I don't think exactly like they do.  But I feel quite comfortable with my definition and so does God.

I am also a lover of science.  It would be a stretch to call myself a scientist -- although I love the idea! I have yearned since I was young to understand things.  Why things are. How things work and how they came to be that way. I devoured biology, struggled a bit but LOVED physics and while math is still sometimes a foreign language it thrills me!  Everything in the universe is math!  From music to light!

Wicked cool.

The reason this is not a "theory" in a real sense is that it can't be tested and it can't be proved but at the same time it cannot be disproved!  To be a theory one must be able to apply the scientific method to it -- for this, that is impossible.  I will then refer to it as my personal "explanation".

I have explored the dilemma of Genesis vs. evolution.  How can they both be true?  I firmly believe in science.  I believe that God gave us brains to understand our world. He gave us free will and inquiring minds.  He created a challenging creature when we were "born".  But what about Adam and Eve?  Is that story literal? It is true?  Is the universe only 6000 years old?  If I believe that when applying today's literal definition of time must I close my mind to prehistoric discovery? What about the dinosaurs, what about quantum physics and what about carbon dating? That is just too much for me to give up.

Can both stories be true?  In my mind, definitively, YES.

The evolution of man did happen.  The human species did have ancestors that were "non human". Keep in mind it is we who have defined the word "human".  We evolved and learned and as progress was made, the smartest survived and reproduced making smarter ones and so on and so on.  That happened over the course of millions of years.  Remember, God it timeless and ageless.  It was God who created the ingredients all the way back to the Big Bang. It was He who set up the dominoes. There is no better explanation. He is energy.

So from the Big Bang forward, God sat back and watched His creation grow and change.  At some point He introduced the ingredients that were to become us.  He watched His children learn and evolve just as one would watch an embryo become a fetus that becomes a baby that becomes a child that becomes an adult.  So He has always been there. Six times throughout the process of creating, God stopped, sat back and examined his work and saw that it was "good" and herein is our evolution story. On final inspection of all that he had made, God regarded it as "very good."

He watched us begin to wonder about the world around us.  Prior to that, survival had been the ONLY motive.  He began to see us trying to understand things and to create explanations for why things are the way they are.  He knew we are almost ready. Then one day He decides we ARE ready and He introduces Himself to us.  Until that day and until we had grown and learned enough we would not have been able to comprehend Him anyway nor was our consciousness ready for "faith".

In the Bible there is no definition of what a day is or a night is.  A day can be a millennium or an epoch.  It is easy to imagine that God did create the earth and the heavens in seven days.  Seven of His days.  Today's modern calendar is an invention of man.

I have decided that "Adam" was the first human ancestor to meet God.  His brain, say like Steven Hawking's today, was so far removed from those around him that he walked away and truly became the first Man.  There had to be that first ONE. He may have even been outcast because of his differences. As God watched Adam walk away he followed him.  It was Adam who God introduced Himself to first; Adam was the first "man" when he met God.  Adam was created from mud -- from the primordial soup of the sea; then Eve walked away and met God. This was the beginning of our history as children of God with the awareness of Him as our Creator.

The elegant truth of the creation story is that God is the author of all creation from the beginning of time and before that. We are but a chapter in His story of Creation. As is the question: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Awareness is the key.

Our story began when we had evolved to the point where we could comprehend our story and comprehend our Creator. In Genesis 1 we are presented with the beginning of a divine drama that can only be accepted on the basis of faith.  So with this I accept both faith and science.

The End...or is it the Beginning?

A TALE OF TWO AMERICANS, ONE BORN TO IT AND THE OTHER PURSUED IT

Michael Moore was born in Flint, Michigan and raised in Davison, a suburb of Flint, by parents Helen Veronica a secretary, and Francis Richard "Frank" Moore, an automotive assembly-line worker.  At that time, the city of Flint was the prosperous home to many General Motors factories, where his parents and grandfather worked. His uncle LaVerne was one of the founders of the United Automobile Workers labor union and participated in the Flint Sit-Down Strike.

Moore dropped out of the University of Michigan–Flint following his first year (where he wrote for the student newspaper The Michigan Times). At 22 he founded the alternative weekly magazine The Flint Voice, which soon changed its name to The Michigan Voice as it expanded to cover the entire state. In 1986, when Moore became the editor of Mother Jones, a liberal political magazine, he moved to California and The Michigan Voice was shut down.

After four months at Mother Jones, Moore was fired.

Matt Labash of The Weekly Standard reported this was for refusing to print an article by Paul Berman that was critical of the Sandinista human rights record in Nicaragua. Moore refused to run the article, believing it to be inaccurate. "The article was flatly wrong and the worst kind of patronizing bullshit. You would scarcely know from it that the United States had been at war with Nicaragua for the last five years."  We don’t even have to wonder what the reaction would have been had Moore been the target of such censorship.  You don’t agree with my view so you refuse to publish me…

Hmmmm I see a pattern developing.

Yet Moore makes a living creating stories as “truths” based on his uneducated and skewed perspective on life in America of what built America.

Moore claims that Mother Jones fired him because of the publisher's refusal to allow him to cover a story on the GM plant closings in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. He responded by putting laid-off GM worker Ben Hamper (who was also writing for the same magazine at the time) on the magazine's cover, leading to his termination. Moore sued for wrongful dismissal, and settled out of court for $58,000, providing him with seed money for his first film, Roger & Me.

So he got started really buy suing someone for firing him for insubordination.

Following the Columbine High School massacre, Moore acquired a lifetime membership to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Moore said that he initially intended to become the NRA's president to dismantle the organization, but he soon dismissed the plan as too difficult. Gun rights supporters such as Dave Kopel claimed that there was no chance of that happening; David T. Hardy and Jason Clarke wrote that Moore failed to discover that the NRA selects a president not by membership vote but by a vote of the board of directors.

MICHAEL MOORE: Eh, no, it’s not about cursing. It’s about a profound question, which is, who are we? I mean, really, who are we, as a people, as Americans? You know, we are responsible at this point for so much death and destruction in certain places in this world that will be such a black mark on our soul for so many years to come, and we just want to try and not think about it, forget about it, stay away from it as far as possible. You know, there’s a lot of guilt.

This is Dinesh D’Souza’s resume.

Born in Mumbai, India, D’Souza came to the U.S. as an exchange student and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College in 1983.

Dinesh D’Souza has had a 25-year career as a writer, scholar, and public intellectual. A former policy analyst in the Reagan White House, D’Souza also served as John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He served as the president of The King’s College in New York City from 2010 to 2012.

D’Souza is a political commentator, filmmaker, and author. D'Souza is affiliated with a number of organizations and publications, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hoover Institution, and Policy Review. He also served as a policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and, during 2010–2012, as president of The King's College, a small Christian school in New York City.

In 2012, D'Souza released 2016: Obama's America, a film based on his 2010 book The Roots of Obama's Rage, both of which posit that Barack Obama's attitude toward America derives from his father's anti-colonialism and from a psychological desire to fulfill his father's dream of diminishing the power of Western imperial states. The film has been the highest grossing conservative documentary film produced in the United States.

In January 2014, D'Souza was indicted on charges of making illegal political contributions to a 2012 United States Senate campaign. On May 20, 2014, D'Souza pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to a charge of using "straw donors" to make illegal political campaign donations. The charge carries a sentence of 10 to 16 months according to the plea agreement reached between D'Souza and federal prosecutors. So indeed he isn’t sqeaky clean. 

From WND.com:

“Let’s assume Dinesh D’Souza is guilty, and I mean 100 percent guilty. What is he guilty of? Circumventing FEC dictates by directing [$15,000] to a Senate candidate of his choice. Big deal,” Bozell told WND.

“First, in a multi-million Senate campaign, this is a fraction of a fraction. It ‘buys’ a can of soda pop, and that’s about it. Second, and more importantly, compare this ‘crime’ with Bill Clinton, who raised millions of dollars from questionable at best, and illegal at worst sources, including felons and Chinese Communist generals. Compare it to Barack Obama, who raised millions upon millions from who-knows-who-or-where to this day. Nothing ever came of their fundraising abuses, abuses one thousandfold larger than anything attributed to D’Souza. And yet he was arrested and forced to post a $500,000 bond.

D'Souza demonstrates a willingness to give a full airing to his opponents makes a strong contrast to liberal filmmakers like Michael Moore. And when he does this, he doesn’t follow it up with a ridicule filled attack on the statements of his opponents.

D’Souza on Moore:

"Michael Moore is unfortunately going through a divorce and so his financials, and it shows he's fighting over nine homes and he's got tens of millions of dollars," says D'Souza. "In other words, anti-capitalism is a good racket. These people make money by denouncing capitalism within the capitalist system. And Michael Moore is not alone. You've got Obama railing about CEOs flying around in corporate jets. Well, Obama has the biggest corporate jet of all. And the difference is, the CEOs pay for their own jets, and we the taxpayers are paying for [his]."

In 2011 Moore was broadcasting from "Occupy Oakland."

"So, let's not use the old definition where we think -- when we say capitalism, we're talking about 2011. 2011 capitalism is an evil system set up to benefit the few at the expense of the many. That's what happened, and that's what people are tired of. Which is too bad for the capitalists because I think a lot of people, perhaps in this crowd, probably used to support the 'old-style' of capitalism," Moore said on CNN.

So by that rationale all the money that Michael Moore made PRIOR to 2011 through the evil capitalist system is okay?

From Forbes on Celebrity net worth in 2014:

How Michael Moore Made His Money – Filmmaker and Author

Estimated Net Worth: $52 Million

Moore is giving his estranged wife Kathleen millions of dollars in their divorce to buy her silence. An insider says he doesn’t want anyone to know that he is a 1-percenter himself. He reportedly has a staggering net worth of some $50 million, lives in a 10,000-square-foot waterfront mansion in Michigan with its own boat dock – and has another pricey home in Manhattan.

“Michael has denied he is in the top 1 percent of wealthiest Americans, but the truth is he is one of the very rich – the people he loves to hate,” said the source.

So anyway, I am just profiling two political film makers.  Why is it that Moore is taken seriously as an authority of any kind?  I mean he really has no basis for BEING an authority and he is a hypocrite of epic proportions.

What he does have is the right to his opinion and the American people have a right to buy tickets to his movies or not, hopefully much more “not”.  We have the right to reject the opinions of someone who so grossly lives “do what I say and not what I do.”  This is just one example of the left living high society lavish lifestyles based on the greatness of capitalism while denigrating “Wall Street” and people like the Koch brothers.  At least they don’t hide behind the curtain and pretend that they are anything that they are not. Here are a few more who denigrate capitalism and America.  How about them?

Here is a very short list of the liberal left celebrities who say they represent “equality” and “fair share” yet who have made their millions in the evil capitalist system of America.  How can anyone continue to listen to them as they talk out of both sides of their mouths? I don’t get it…

Matt Damon: $65 million

Oprah Winfrey: $2.9 Billion

Jane Fonda: $120 Million

Tom Cruise: $350 Million

George Clooney: $180 Million

During a recent interview with Diane Sawyer, Hillary Clinton claimed that Bill and her were “dead broke” when they left the White House.  And then Hillary told the Guardian that they are not “truly well off” despite having earned about a hundred million dollars since leaving the White House and owning a couple of luxury homes. Hillary Clinton net worth is about $21.5 Million.  How would be that dead broke sound to you?

It is sort of like when a person moves to a community and builds a new home, starts a business and then opposes all “new development”.  It was fine when they wanted to move it but after they got there they wanted the door to close behind them.

Marie Antoinette once said, “Let them eat cake.”  How does that cake taste?  A speaking of cake, let’s talk about pie.  Just because your neighbor has a larger piece of the pie than you do does NOT mean he has taken part of your piece.  The pie isn’t finite.  Everyone can have a large piece if they are willing to work for it.  Don’t let them tell you otherwise. It is a big fat lie and it doesn’t work that way.  In fact the irony is that MY piece of the pie and your piece of the pie is smaller because the left wants to continue to take chunks out of the piece of the pie you and I have worked for and give it to someone else who has NOT worked for it.

 

 

Mine Will Be A Good Death

The United States has seen birthrates decline.  The current birth rate is 13.68 babies per 1000 people.  In a country like Niger is is 50.06 per 1000, Afghanistan 39.3, Mexico 18.87, Iraq 28.19 and Ethiopia is 42.59.  The nation's population growth rate however is .9%.  If you look at the numbers since 2000 the birthrate has gone from 14.2/1000 people to 13.68/1000 or a drop of .52 per 1000 people.  The death rate has gone from 8.7/1000 people to 8.39/1000 people. It has dropped .31.  Our birthrate is dropping faster than our death rate.  4,293,434 babies are born each year yet only 2,633,180 people die each year. The way the US continues to construct its social welfare systems from social security to now Obamacare this equation will not work.  Both programs are entirely based on the young subsidizing the old generation after generation.  Did no one see this train wreck before they passed the law?

This is going to sound very harsh -- but we are prolonging life well beyond what we should. We are saving babies we should not.  Through humanitarian efforts we have reduced the death rate in a country like Niger from 23.17 deaths per 1000 people in 2000 to 13.76 per 1000 people in 2012 but we have done NOTHING to quell the birthrate of over 50 per 1000 people.  We cannot address one end of life while ignoring the other.

In developed countries, the necessary replacement rate is about 2.1. Since replacement cannot occur if a child does not grow to maturity and have their own offspring, the need for the extra .1 child (a 5% buffer) per woman is due to the potential for death and those who choose or are unable to have children. In less developed countries, the replacement rate is around 2.3 due to higher childhood and adult death rates.

With total fertility rates of 7.37 in Niger (as of mid-2007), the resultant growth in these countries' populations is expected to be phenomenal over the next few years, unless growth rates and total fertility rates drop. The total fertility rate in the US in 2010 was only 1.931. We are not replacing ourselves.  Our increase in population now (and this started in about 2002 when the birthrate dropped below replacement rate) is due to immigration. If we really do want to take care of ourselves immigration policy has got to change.

The number of immigrants (legal and illegal) in the country hit a new record of 40 million in 2010, a 28 percent increase over the total in 2000.  In 2010, 23% of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) lived in poverty, compared to 13.5% of natives and their children. Immigrants and their children accounted for one-fourth of all persons in poverty.  The children of immigrants account for one-third of all children in poverty.  In 2010, 36% of immigrant-headed households used at least one major welfare program (primarily food assistance and Medicaid) compared to 23 percent of native households.

Of adult immigrants (25 to 65), 28 percent have not completed high school, compared to 7 percent of natives.  The large share of immigrants with relatively little education is one of the primary reasons for their lower socioeconomic status, not their legal status or unwillingness to work. New immigration (legal and illegal) plus births to immigrants added 22.5 million residents to the country over the last decade, equal to 80 percent of total U.S. population growth.

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free;

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless,

Tempest-tossed to me!

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This was written by Emma Lazarus as a sonnet in 1883; its lines appear on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty placed there in 1903. It is a wonderful creed and it does describe the fabric of Early America. The welfare system in the United States didn't begin until in the 1930s during the Great Depression -- three decades after this sonnet was included as a part of our informal immigration philosophy. The start of the American welfare state found expression in the work-creation policies of the New Deal. Love the New Deal or hate it -- it was "work fare". It was at least molded in creating jobs and engaging people in WORK. It was believed then that character and self confidence was supported by feeling useful.  That part of the New Deal is hard to argue with. Today we reward sloth and we do little to encourage people to discover what they are capable of.  We give them no incentive.

Times have changed and so must we.  The United States has ceased to be a land of opportunity where one can achieve based on what an immigrant is willing to invest -- be it financial or sweat.  It is a land of hand outs.  We are allowing native born people to not only subsidize other native born people but to heavily subsidize immigrants.  If you come here you come to work.  If you can't afford to bring your family then you bring them when you can afford it. I would not expect it any other way were I the one immigrating.  When I lived in Mexico as a kid, I never dreamed to speak English to anyone. I was on their turf and I respected that. A bleeding heart will more often than not bleed out. Hard decisions are hard.

Malthusian economics is often called the "economics of death" and it gets a bad rap for being focused on pessimism; it is brutal in a "nature" sense.  The great Malthusian dread was that "indiscriminate charity" would lead to exponential growth in the population in poverty, increased charges to the public purse to support this growing army of the dependent, and, eventually, the catastrophe of national bankruptcy. Though Malthusianism has since come to be identified with the issue of general over-population, the original Malthusian concern was more specifically with the fear of over-population by the dependent poor! 

In the United States in 2010 the birthrate to women whose household income was under $10K was 98.30 babies per 1000 people.  The rate for household incomes over $75K was 54.80 per 1000, just at half the rate of those earning under $10K. As the income increases on the chart the birth rate declines in a unbroken trajectory.  So have we created a perfect Malthusian storm? I would argue, yes we have.  And the programs and the trajectory that the United States in on only projects worse.

We can't reward people for having babies they can't afford. I was in line one day at a store and the cashier and the lady at the register were bragging about how many babies their daughters each had and how much free stuff they were each getting because of it.  We shouldn't prolong life just to have our heartbeat a little longer; give me the right to end my life when I want to and I will! We can't bring aid to countries that refuse to change their behavior. If people could keep their own earnings and not allow the government to redistribute it -- yes, there would be a generation of suffering.  There would. But until something changes we are all going to fail and suffer in ways you have yet to imagine. The birthrate in poverty is growing and it is exponential.  It will kill all of us or reduce us to tribes and bands of survivalists.  I wish I had been born in the 40s.  Those of us who are now reaching middle age did enjoy a wonderful childhood; for that I am grateful. Our aging is going to get harder and harder. I am happy to take care of myself if my government will let me keep what is MINE and allow me to do that.

For those of you reaching your twilight years -- good for you!  You had a blessed generation rife with opportunity; you all had the chance to do very well for yourselves and even if you did not, you have some safety nets in place that will probably outlast you.  For you young people, I am sorry this has happened to you.  I am sorry that you will carry the burden of bad government decisions.  I am sorry that you will have only two outcomes: 1) you will live in what amounts to be a communist society where each of you pools everything and a centralized government will hand back to you an "equal" share regardless of how much you contributed or 2) you will live in warring tribes, fighting to keep what is yours from marauders and thieves. It is my hope that you will take pity on the elderly like I will be and allow me to fend for myself unattacked and unassaulted.  If you really NEED it, I will share and we can work together. I will teach you with my experience and you can help me with your youth.  If you demand to take it from me and insist on leaving me with nothing, I will gladly die trying to protect myself and my well-being and mine will be a "good death".

 

 

Car Buying in the Not-So-Distant Future

Imagine this…

You are going to buy new car.  You are on a budget and you only need a commuter car to get you to work and back -- the commute is 20 miles each way.  You live in southern California where the weather is glorious nearly all of the time.  You know pretty much what you want and what you need and you know very well what you can afford.

You go into your local used car dealership only to find it empty and closed down.  Confused you drive down to your local "New Car Mall" and are stunned at what you see... A sea of cars, all roughly the same color, all the same style and only subtle differences.  You go into to talk to someone and ask what the heck is going on.

There is a very long line that snakes around the building and you take your spot in line.  People are chatting as they wait and you try to pick up bits of information.  Some seem elated to be there!  One lady comes bouncing out of the dealership holding up a set of keys to her new car!  She is telling everyone that it was FREE!  She got a free car. You think "wow, she must have won some contest."

The line moves slowly. As people come out of the building a few more are happy but many seem very angry. Some are screaming that their cars were free; others that they only cost $100 and others are seething with anger and stay silent as they storm away.  It is quite a confusing spectacle.  You finally get up to the customer service person and say you need to talk to a salesman about getting a used commuter car. 

She tells you, "Oh you can't buy a used car anymore.  It is against the law." 

You think you are dreaming so you play along and say, "Okay show me a new one". A man comes out leads you over to three cars that are slightly different shades of white, about the same size and have only subtle differences.  One is a coupe, one is a hatchback and one is a four door -- all the same model.  These ones happen to be Fords.  You glance across the street at the Toyota dealership and see the SAME three cars in their lot and they are Toyotas over there.  Next door they are called Chevys…   

Definitely a dream. 

He asks you which one you want. 

You say, NONE of them!  You say, "I want a little red, 4-speed, hatchback for around $12,000, preferably used!" 

He shakes his head and tells you that is no longer available that used cars are now against the law, they just aren't safe enough.  These are the only three that are approved by the government and these are your three choices.  

You ask him, "How much do they cost?" 

He asks, "How much do you make?" 

You say, "What difference does that make?" 

He says before he can quote you a price you must provide your personal and financial information to their dealership.  He then tells you that if you leave WITHOUT a car you will have to pay them $100! Oh and for every year that you go without one of these cars you will have to pay more and more. 

This has GOT to be a dream, right? So you continue to play along. 

You provide him your details and he plugs them in to some computer kiosk thing and it spits out a number.  He shakes his head and tells you that you make too much money and that you will have to pay full price.

You are stunned.  You are a waitress and a student.  But the tips that are reported can be pretty good. You tell him though that you can barely pay your bills and you are amazed that what you make is considered "too much". He tells you that is what the computer said and what it says is SO!

You point out that a lady just left hollering that her car was free!  What gives? He says, well she has 12 kids and she is underemployed so her car has to be free.  You HAVE to pay full price to help offset the cost of giving that lady her free car.

It's a dream. It’s just a dream…

He begins to list all the options that come on the cars… Seatbelts, back up camera, GPS navigation, On-Star, 28 airbags, ergonomic, heated, power seats, built in child seat, heated mirrors, 4-wheel drive, studded snow tires, it has the new automatic braking system that can sense a slow down ahead to avoid a crash, it can parallel park itself, it is electric, it comes with a helmet too that you must wear while driving it and it does not come with a radio of any kind .

You tell him he is nuts. All you want is a very basic commuter car to get you to and from your work and school.  I don't need all of these options and you WANT a radio.

He looks at you as though you have two heads. He says, "Haven't you been paying attention? The government mandates that you have all of these safety options -- they want you to be safe!  It is for your own good.  Oh and the radio causes people to get distracted while driving so they are no longer allowed in cars.

You say, "Why the snow tires and 4-wheel drive?"

He says, "Well it is POSSIBLE it could snow. It has before in southern California and you have to be prepared for ANYTHING that is possible."

"Why the heated, power seats with all the ergonomics?"

"You might strain your back on long drives and this will help avoid that."

You tell him your commute is 20 miles. He tells you that doesn't matter.

You tell him that you don't have a kid and you are never going to have a child -- it isn't medically possible you say sadly.

He says well every must have a built in child seat no matter what -- just in case…you might adopt!

You then tell him that you don't WANT an electric car and there isn't a charging station at school or at home.  He says that they have taken care of that and your landlord will be fined until he installs one for you. Of course your rent is going to go up to cover the installation and the higher electricity bills and your tuition is going to have to go up too to cover those costs for the school.  He looks at his list of your information and says, "Lucky you!  There is a charging station right where you work! But of course you are going to get a cut in pay so your boss can afford to pay his electric bill."

No, not a dream. This is a freakin' nightmare!

In frustration you tell him to just show you the damned hatchback.  He opens the door and you slide in to the driver's seat.  You look around and it isn't bad to look at. You ask for the keys -- he gives them to you. As you reach for the ignition you notice a credit card swipe machine mounted in the dash. You ask him what the heck it is for.

"Oh that?" he says, "It is for when you start the car. You need to swipe you credit card until you have paid your deductible."

"What?"

"Yes" He says, "Until you have reached your deductible you have to swipe your card each time you start it."

"Deductible for what?" you stammer.

He goes on to explain that any time you use your car you must pay.  Although there are some trips that are free.  If you are going to the post office, if you are going to a volunteer job with a federally licensed organization, if you are dropping your child off at a public school or if you are going to a rally those trips are all free!

"But I don't have kids! Can I get another free trip instead?" you ask.

Nope that's all the car will allow.

"I pay all my bills online and I use FedEx. I never go to the post office."

He just looks at you blankly and says that these are the ONLY free trips and there aren't any substitutions. Period.

"How does the car know where I am going? You ask sarcastically.

He very seriously says, "Oh it KNOWS."

Wake up, wake up, wake up you think to yourself.

Well how much will it cost every year?  He looks as his tablet and swipes a few times and says, "For this car only $12,000."

You shriek, "TWELVE THOUSAND DOLLARS?" You only take home $3000 a month. That is one-third of your take home pay!

You ask him how it all works. He tells you that each time you make a trip the car totals up the mileage and then charges your card whatever the government rate is for mileage.  Right now that is 48.5 cents a mile. 

But wait he says, excitedly, "You get 80% of your miles paid for after you meet your deductible! Isn't that great?"

You tell him that you only drive about 10,000 miles a year - you would have to drive nearly 25,000 miles a year to meet your deductible. You will never reach your deductible. And what the heck does the 80% mean?

He goes on to explain that when you swipe your card it knows how many miles you have driven and once you have drive enough miles to pay off your deductible then you only pay 80% of the 48.5 cents or 10 cents!  Oh and you still get those FREE trips!

You stop, collect your thoughts and summarize to him all you have been told.

 

1. I can't buy a used car; I must buy a new one.

2. I only have three to choose from all slightly different shades of white.

3. They come with options I don't want or need.

4. It doesn’t come with options I DO want.

5. I have to pay full price for the car because I work hard and earn a living -- the price is non-negotiable yet other people who don't work hard are getting the same car for free. I have to pay more so they can pay less.

6. The car charges me 48.5 cents a mile each time I use it until I have driven 25K miles, even though I will never drive that much and then it only charges me 10 cents a mile after that.  

7. IF I had kids dropping them off at school would be free ONLY if they attended public school.

8. Even if I go across the street to the Toyota dealership my choices are pretty much the same.

9. My tuition is going up, my rent is going up and my wage is going to go down to offset the mandatory electric charging system that is being required to be provided for MY car.

10. AND you are going to charge me $100 if I leave her without a car.

He says, "YES, you got it! Welcome to the Affordable CAR Act!"

And you realize it isn't a dream…

 

 

 

 

The UN-Affordable Care Act or ObamaDoesn'tCare

In 2008, when George W. Bush was president, according to Gallup, 14.9 percent of adult residents of the United States lacked health insurance coverage. That increased to 16.2 percent in 2009, the year that Obama was inaugurated, and to 16.4 percent in 2010, the year that Obama signed his law requiring that all Americans have health insurance.

In the first half of 2011, according to data released by Gallup in 2001, the percentage of adults in the United States lacking health insurance ticked up to 16.8 percent - that is 55,440,000 people based on a population of 330 million.

That conclusion is based on Gallup’s interviews with 177,237 American adults from January through June of this year. The interviews were part of the ongoing Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey.

Today it is being estimated that an additional 37 MILLION people will be dropped by their insurance. Add the 55.5 mil to the 37 mil and we now have 92 million people uninsured or 28% of the population.  In addition 75% of all new job growth is part time and specifically does NOT offer benefits. 

Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

Before Obamacare, a lot more people had jobs; those jobs provided their insurance. Millions of people have LOST their insurance due to Obamacare. McDonalds hired 62,000 people AFTER getting a waiver from having to change their insurance coverage for their employees. They can't afford it and we won't pay $10 for a Big Mac.

Executives at several staffing firms told Reuters that the law, which requires employers with 50 or more full-time workers to provide healthcare coverage or incur penalties, was a frequently cited factor in requests for part-time workers. A decision to delay the mandate until 2015 has not made much of a difference in hiring decisions, they added.

"Us and other people are hiring part-time because we don't know what the costs are going to be to hire full-time," said Steven Raz, founder of Cornerstone Search Group, a staffing firm in Parsippany, New Jersey (he needs a grammar lesson). "We are being cautious."

Raz said his company started seeing a rise in part-time positions in late 2012 and the trend gathered steam early this year. He estimates his firm has seen an increase of between 10 percent and 15 percent compared with last year.

Other staffing firms have also noted a shift.

"They have put some of the full-time positions on hold and are hiring part-time employees so they won't have to pay out the benefits," said Client Staffing Solutions' Darin Hovendick. "There is so much uncertainty. It's really tough to design a budget when you don't know the final cost involved."

Part time jobs also don't show up on the unemployment numbers. Ironically, if enough businesses hire, say, two 20-hour workers instead of one 40-hour worker, there could be an apparent improvement in the unemployment figures. The unemployment data counts a person as “employed” if they worked at least ONE hour in the reporting period. By switching from full-time workers to a larger number of part-time workers, it would make it appear that unemployment dropped — even though the total amount paid to workers remained unchanged.

Citing from a New Jersey example the cheapest plan Horizon offers on the exchange that covers two 55-year-olds would cost $1,217 per month, a 63 percent increase from what the one New Jersey couple was paying. That plan, another New Jersey man, Mark Butler said, only offers 50 percent coinsurance and 50 percent prescription drug coverage, and has a $5,000 family deductible. They could also choose a plan with a $1,546 per month premium that offers a 20 percent coinsurance and $2,000 family deductible. None of this is affordable.  Take into consideration also that at this age, statistically speaking our income level has peaked.  It trends downward as we get older.

Butler goes on to say, "If my small business makes $100,000 in a given year — not a lot of money in Morris County — I will have to pay between 15 percent and 19 percent of my pretax income on health insurance," Butler said. "That is not affordable."

So in conclusion the "Affordable" Care Act is not affordable.  Fewer not more citizens are covered by health insurance.  The young, who are already saddled with paying of the national debt, are being gouged and are being forced to subsidize higher risk individuals in the pool.  In what universe does this make sense?

I don't often quote Bill Clinton but he gave us a pearl of wisdom where Barak Hussein Obama is concerned:

Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.” For once I agree with Bill!

 

 

Peace Through Strength

There is a sad irony going on in the world today…  America, once a great and powerful nation was both loved and feared.  We had one "equal" and that was the Soviet Union. When the USSR fell apart it left us…the U.S.  We only needed to rattle a saber and bad guys often just stopped whatever nefarious deeds they were doing and scattered.  Things were good.  Good not just for us but really for the rest of the world.  We, while we sure could have been, were not bullies.  Just because we COULD be if we chose -- we often got labeled as such.  We weren't. They were jealous.

This power brought peace…not just here but all over.  It isn't because you USE your might that brings about good behavior -- it is because you COULD.  The military was a fighting force -- not a humanitarian force.  But because it was so mighty it brought the world more humanity.  

As this nation creeps closer and closer to mediocrity and to being just one of many like us, our ability to feed the starving, to help the oppressed and to be the do-gooders that we have always been, is slipping away. In our power and benevolence we have fed more people, aided more nations and done more good than any nation on earth in our short 230+ year lifetime. We are mere children on the planet. There are nations that have existed for twice, three, four times our life that have done nary a fraction of what we have done. We were able to do all this good because we were powerful.

As our strength wanes we continue to TRY to be the leader and the feeder of the world…and in doing so we are neglecting our own.  We are sending billions of dollars in aid abroad and we can't pay our own bills. If a parent allows herself to starve to death by giving all of the food to her child, who will feed the child when she is dead?

There is no such thing as global peace through agreement -- stop even imagining it.  We are animals and we all have self interested motivations.  There will always, I mean ALWAYS be a nation or faction fighting to be on top -- the ONLY way to keep that in check is to be on top and to gently kick them off the ladder they are scrambling up.  We will never be able to call them down from the bottom by negotiating. 

Europe has been a negotiator for a good long time and Europe is weak.  They look good and it looks appealing that they all sort of get along -- but in a sense they have to.  They share borders; they are geographically vulnerable to one another.  We are not.  Even when Europe is lamenting that the US has too much power we need to let them vent and go about our business.  The only reason they have the freedom to lament is because we had the power to let them. It is because we were mighty that they are not all speaking German.  How quickly we forget.

The United States of America needs to get back to the basics of lifting weights, eating right and getting enough sleep.  We need to let the world have their skirmishes because they will.  We need to regain a single mindedness that we are #1!  Notre Dame doesn't go into a bowl game saying "we are number #1 but let's all just decide we can all be #1".  Being #1 allows us to be both the mighty force we must be and the benevolent care giver we want to be.

On this anniversary of the attacks on the United States let's all get together for a single cause.  Let's all decide that we want a strong coach, a powerful leader who puts our nation first.  Let's all step back and look at the formula that will produce the results we want.  Whether you are a global peace person or you simply like the idea that we can kick ass.  It is ONLY through power that we will get either… This is the only way that we can all get what we want… Think about it.