16. March 2009 by admin.

The Volcano effect

The older I get, the more I am like my father. It is a loaded statement in hundreds of ways. Today I am going to take a slice and expand. My father is 82, soon to be 83. He spends alot time in faxing his congressmen on what a sorry job they are doing. I agree. Like many of you I am beyond disgusted on the stimulus bill. Rather than go into the Socialism Enactment bill of 2009, I want to share with you why I think it is unnecessary. So do like my father and fax your congressman and tell them what lousy job they are doing. Here is some ammo to include.

So many people these days are quick to point the problem of the recession is the greed of Wall Street. Well folks, greed is not just wall street, it is me and you too. While power corrupts politicians, money corrupts everyone else. I agree executives are paid too much. Some corporations skirt the laws and regulations that try to make them play fair. But not all business are corrupt and unethical. But then life is not fair. If your parents did not teach you that lesson at some point then I question their parenting skills. Much like most foundational lessons, ‘Life is not fair’ is one our young ears and broken spirits have a tough time swallowing. But there is another half resolve to that lesson. “Be a better person and walk away. Bad people get their due. People will reap what they sow.” I promise this is not a Sunday School lesson, it’s really science…

Crooks always seem to find their way to jail one way or another. Unethical people will eventually find themselves having to answer for their actions. The biggest Wall Street crook, Madoff got away with 50 billion dollars but where is he now? CEOs who command big salaries have to perform or they are gone. Home Depot fired Bob Nardelli because he did not perform. Where is he now? Chrysler. And who is in trouble? Chrysler. Nardelli’s days as a CEO for anyone are numbered. Pure subjection on my part but when you run two good companies into the ground, who would be foolish enough to hire him.

But I did promise a science lesson. It’s called the Volcano effect. Every 5th grader knows that Volcanos explode with life killing Lava and ash. Without going into earth science lecture, after years and years of building up, gases shoot forth along with lava destroying everything in its path. Businesses rise and seemingly make a ton of money based upon bad practices and judgement and unless you have been living in a coma, the real estate market was such bubble. But this bubble had been blown up abnormally large due to a number of factors. Notice the key word here. Abnormally. The growth of the real estate market had catapulted ahead of all other industries in the last decade. Creating a freakish chart of investment growth. The toxic gases of bad loans and false property values could not be contained inside the bubble any more. BOOM! So loud the sound of the bubble bursting that banks around the world felt it. The volcano exploded, spewing the after effects of toxic bad loans, deals, investments all over the place. Thousands of people and families are impacted. This financial toxicity, like ash, covers everything for miles, destroying everything in its path.

So what happens? The US government allocates money for field mice that have become endangered? Sends a team for clearing the toxic waste? Yep. Does it work? Nope. We can pray all night long for months but that ash is not going away. Obama is not Jesus and he is not the annoited one. Life does not return to the site of death. Not until death is no longer seen or smelled. Life is not fair. It has casualties. So is that the end of life? Hardly.

Take a look at nearly every single island in the pacific ocean. What created those paradises? Volcanos. An amazing thing happens with Volcanic ash. It helps make the perfect soil conditioner and food for plant lifeforms in time. If left alone, years later all that ash helps creates huge immense tropical forests. Life may have been unfair but in the long run, life came back bigger and stronger than before….all without some “stimulus package.” Mother nature, if left alone can pull off the cycle of life but we as infinitely smarter beings can not. Our egos of power hungery human demigods seem to think we know more than Mother Nature and God the Father himself. But notice a key factor here…’left alone’. When mankind steps in to try to hasten mother nature, the cycle is messed up. The free market sector will take care of the losers. They find their due and get fired. Where businesses fail others take over making stronger better ones. The have learned from the mistakes of the others and hopefully smart enough to know not to repeat them. Numbers release last month indicate the housing market is not half as bad as it was at the beginning of 2008. Not the home building market but the available of inventory. An indicator that change is coming.

Homes are the largest single transaction a family will make. Sure board room deals are large but happen with far fewer frequency than those purchasing homes. Everyone got to have somewhere to live and work. Everyday hundreds and thousands of real estate deals are done. When this pipeline of large transactions stop or slow to a crawl it affects everyone. It’s going to take awhile before transactions return to normal. People are scared, I am scared. My house is worth alot less now due to the fact of foreclosures in my neighborhood. Tell me what neighborhood in America isn’t affected in a simular manner?

There is a reason Wall Street is tanking right now. It still smells death. There is no confidence in Obama’s spending. The bills aren’t trying to create jobs or investments. They are trying to clean up the ash. And if you been to Maui, Kona or Fiji, you know you can’t rush paradise.

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20. February 2009 by admin.

I have to admit it, I am racist.  After all, Al Sharpton says so, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, a Harvard Professor says so, so does CNN commentator, Roland Martin.  I am 48 year old card carrying  racist.  Because there were slaves in America therefore I am forever guilty of the sins of my genealogical tree.  Personally I don’t see it, but since they have the media power to declare it so, it must be true. 

Now I have never heard of Dr. Poussaint, but I have to take issue with his CNN.com commentary published the other day.  He apparently thinks that the black population of the USA voted for Obama on “content of his character” and not his color.   Well, needless to say, the vast majority of black republicans DID vote on “content of character”, just not Obama’s character.  Dr. Poussaint said we should honor Malcom X, Jesse Jackson, and others for what they did to fight for the black plight in America.  I am wondering what part of Malcom X’s character should we judge?  While I am sure there are good points to this man somewhere, most Americans believe Malcom X is the formost racist in our country.  Or better yet, what part of Jesse Jackson, the cheating husband, fathering children out of wedlock and all the while calling himself “Reverend” character, should we recgonize and celebrate?  I suppose the northern part of our country has different character trait standards.  In my part of the USA, Malcom would have been put on trial for hate speech and Jesse would have been kicked out the church, stripped of his title and shamed beyond belief. 

But really my comments for these men have nothing to do with their skin color but EVERYTHING to do with their character traits.  I was raised in a military - missionary family.  We traveled the world of which I am eternally grateful.  I had been to more countries by high school graduation than states.  Military life is the fondue pot of races.  And with us kids even more so.  You are forced together in school.  We mess up and get in trouble, the Principal calls the Base Commander and dad’s/mom’s boss come a calling telling them their kid is causing trouble at school.  Needless to say, when daddy’s or momma’s job is at stake, correction of kids behavior occur in an efficient manner PRONTO!!! 

All that to say, racism did not really exist for me in the 60’s and 70’s.  There was no opportunity for it to be recgonized or acted out.  We were just kids.  We had to get along.  Fights were over girls and egos, not over skin color.  I am sure my Dad saw some.  But in all honesty, the “N word” was not heard or spoken in my life until the night I landed in July, 1978 at the Charleston, SC. airport from Germany.  The airline steward called the baggage handler the “N word.”  Then it hit me.  There are people who actually talk and feel that way.  My parents were embarrassed and told me some people still judge people by the color of their skin and not their character.  I was 17. 

We did not have a whole lot of possessions per se but never suffered.  My parents gave me a 10 speed bicycle on my graduation from high school.  While most kids got cars or trucks, I got a bike.   They were not rich, but they loved me.  THIS is what made the difference in my life.  Love. Parents who loved me enough to help me define character thru making the right choices when circumstances may seemingly give the you “right” to do something else.  My father, who loved his wife, did his best for his family regardless of his situation in life.  Flash forward to present day (yes, LOST is my favorite TV show).

Racism will be over when America decides that skin color is no longer relevant, no longer a defining difference of people.  I am fully aware of what Hitler did in Germany.  His neo white supremacy doctrine was lunacy, much like Malcom X’s in reverse.  I have been to Dachau, Germany to see painted on the wall as you walk in to the Nazi Concentration camp of WWII, “Those that ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”  I agree with that statement with all my heart.  Germany has done a disservice to its young by removing the embarrassing WWI and WWII periods from school books.  This could be why now socialism is such a prevalant thought amoung Germans today and it took a mere 2 generations to do it. 

There has to be a way to teach history without drawing attention to what divides us on skin color and making it a defining characteristic.  Black History month is such a deal.  My kids learned what racism was in school on MLK day.  They did not learn it at home, on the bus, in church, at birthday parties, nor did they learn it on the playground.  Until the 2nd grade neither of my children knew skin color was a defining difference in people.  My daughter who is now in the 6th grade has friends of all colors.  However, even she sees those who have no parental role models of good character are those who have failing grades and are in trouble socially.  Does she arrive at people judgement thru skin color or thru content of character?  

I suggest all the things we teach in black history month we incorporate into every month, make no distinction of skin color of accomplishments of the individual. After all, did we make a big deal out of Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon because he was white?  And furthermore what was the famous words he said?  “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind!”  What human being was not proud on that monumental day in July, 1969?  And do my kids care the color of skin of George Washington Carver, the one who invented the yummy content of their sandwiches they eat every day?  A resounding no.  Without Carver the peanut would be another plant.  His inventions with the peanut plant ushered in an entire industry! If you think I am being racist, you are dead wrong. I am not saying we should ignore black history, I am saying celebrate the accomplishments of mankind by their character not their skin color.

If we can keep Al, Jesse and Malcom’s mouths shut for a generation, racism will find itself in the trash with that moldy ham sandwich in the fridge and junk mail.  As long as we keep racism alive by making it an issue it will never go away.  Little kids are perfect, they know how to peel the layers back and get to heart of the issue.  For them, it is a yes or no world, not a black and white world. If they don’t see skin color why do we have to?  When parents can get over the past and start focusing on their legacy of their character, children will do the right thing.

Dr. Poussaint, I am a racist….. a food racist.  I don’t like chinese food and I never mix cultures on my plate.   It’s a pallete thing.

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17. February 2009 by admin.

Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have …. The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
~ Thomas Jefferson

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions… Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.
~ Friedrich von Hayek

There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth losing a job for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather be a free pauper than a rich slave. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with the lack of self respect.
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The last one is interesting for a culture that reveres him more than Jesus but yet to read his words….

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10. February 2009 by admin.

Apparently, a vast majority of Americans have drank the KoolAid (Nancy Pelosi is drinking something else altogether).  Obama hired Microsoft’s marketing firm.  He must have. After all, who else could get tens of millions of people to buy hook, line and sinker, a catch marketing slogan that won’t work and immediately work on getting you to buy it again in 4 years? 

Dad said actions speak louder than words.  Guess that is why he speaks very little!  Men of character stand by their principals and decisions.  They never waver.  I wonder what would have happened if General Patton sought after a focus group?  Hum, you think WWII would have turned out differently?   I met a guy the other day on a video forum discussing politics.  He stated republicans and the religious-right-wingers made everything black and white but life is really full of grays.   “Real life is complicated.” He Said. Yep, it sure is. Way too complicated. But isn’t it absolutely amazing how everything comes down to two choices? I wish I could have used that excuse on a few tests in college.  Or give that excuse to my boss when I don’t deliver that report he demands by EOB friday.  And I wonder if ARod could muster that one up when he was caught doing steroids and cheating on his gorgeous wife.  Some people are just stupid no matter how quickly he thought to swing the bat or throw the ball.  But that is another blog entry for another day…

I present the case, these people spent their entire high school and college careers in literature classes.  I reckon they never took any math or science classes (though they seem to know the origin of life, when life begins, and when it should end).  Come on people, be smarter than a 11th grader!  To get at the heart of what exists you got to peel back all the layers to get to the core absolutes.  As my 10th grade chemistry teacher said “how do we deal with chemicals?  Well, how do two porcupines mate?  Very simply, very carefully.”  No matter how complicated life is, it can be peeled back to the absolutes.   If you can’t, you haven’t peeled it back far enough.   I never said it would easy or the absolute had no consequences or effects. What is the most complicated device you use everyday? The computer. In fact, you are using it right now. Everything on the computer is nothing more than series of 2 choices made several trillion times a second. It is 1 or 0. That’s it. Every choice, every issue you face is a 1 or 0, which leads to another choice.

It is like being pregnant, (oh no, here it comes another quote from the same chemistry teacher)  “Pregnancy is not like Cascade.  There is no virtually about it.  Either you are pregnant or your not.”  But once faced with being pregnant, you can choose the absolute of abortion or the absolute of birth.  They both have consequences. One is filled with regret on the soul.  One is the filled with regret from your wallet.  One is filled with opportunities in life without physical baggage of a kid, the other is filled with life whose baggage feeds the soul and heart with opportunities. 

Obama, tell me what are your absolutes?  Creating jobs isn’t complicated.  Yes, government can create jobs. I attest I have one.  It is safe from the markets to a degree. I enjoy it to a point.  I work with good people. There are some huge flaws in my line of work.  It has decent hours.  I get good vacation time.  Benefits are reducing every year, like everyone elses.   Oh, you want to know the huge flaws?  I don’t get paid what those get in the private sector.  I know it, I accept it. It’s a big price to pay to have a job when so many are getting laid off.  The other flaw? It is a doozy.  Government doesn’t make a dime. Not a single solitary dime of income.  My little government sector spends an astounding $1.7 billion a year. Talk about a money pit!!!

But if all government does is spend money where is the pay off?  After all there has to be a payoff somehow.  To quote the ultimate black book, government jobs ‘begat’ services.  We all enjoy the services government provides. But like the Bible hints at with the word begats, it takes nearly a generation to reap its rewards.  All those bridges, highways, government green building redo’s, libraries, and new sod for the national mall will take years to complete, then what?  Ask anyone who drove thru Little Rock, Arkansas in the 80’s will tell how fast government interstate road construction takes. I suppose the shaved minutes off delivery times mean saved dollars to FedEx and UPS.  But for the majority of us, a larger highway just means we will live longer due to less stress we could have endured in our daily commute.  It literally takes a generation for all those property tax dollars to educate a child so they can become a taxpayer.  Pay off at last, 13 years later.

Obama, here’s my plan. It’s called ‘Give It Back’. Give every taxpayer $10,000. Gee. Thats it. Think of the thousands saved on paper alone. The tree hugger environmentalists should be in hog heaven at the mere thought of saving a few hundred trees!!! “Hold the presses, Al Gore, I’ve got a plan to save some trees.” Think of what a businessman would do with the money. He will create jobs, by producing stuff you and I want or providing a service that can be delivered immediately.  Cash, check, credit exchanges hands on a daily basis.  That money has taxes in which Uncle Sam wants, Daddy Sam and Mama Sam need. Banks get deposits which in turns lends to the next guy.  Other businesses get money because they supply the chain.  Everyone wins in short order.  Ooooh stimulus, to quote Emril…..BAM!

Obama its a choice and its not complicated. Here’s an absolute that will absolutely pay off. You can keep building your empire that keeps spending money and never earn any for generations OR you can give it back to the taxpayer who give you exactly what you want quicker than Lulu can scatter, smother and cover in Waffle House!  What’s the worse that can happen?  

• The taxpayer puts his money in savings account in the bank….mmm the banks win
• The taxpayer pays off the debts he owes, which again goes to the banks
• The taxpayer spends it on goods and services which in turns cycles it to the next taxpayer
• The taxpayer now sees a comfort zone and decides to invest a little…again the banks win

Besides the fact Nancy doesn’t get her $300 million for her condoms and pamplets, I am trying to see a downside to a massive tax relief program. After all, I took economics in college, along with physics, engineering and accounting. I avoided those literature classes, too many flakes in those classes….

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10. February 2009 by admin.

MoveOutUSA.org is born!!!  A quick search on google mammoth will reveal that this domain once belonged to a some extreme leftist group.   I bought out this domain name plain and simple.  To counter the MoveOn.org communists that are trying overtake our country.  

So here it is plain and simple, MoveON.org, I encourage you please move on, right on OUT OF THE USA!  If you really feel that the socialist ways of Europe are so great then let me know I will make the call to Mayflower Movers for you.  Go ahead, get packing.  I’ll send over the boxes.  If, for some reason you think America was founded on such absurd values desired by Barbara Streisand and the inventor of the internet himself, Al Gore and you want to reclaim them then you have come and take America from me. 

I enjoy the freedom my father, brother, grandfather, uncles and grand uncles have fought and some have died for.  When is the last time you have thanked a military man/woman for their service?  You and I work on careers to gain a profit.  You think they do?  They take the bullets, the endure the odds that Hollywood actors fake in studios, so that you and I breathe the freedom we have. 

I celebrate the fact that differing opinions, ethnic peoples can all come together join the movement set forth by our forefathers over 200 years ago.  I am positive the signers of the constitution would stand up and shout over what the leftists are doing to this country.  They had no intention on America changing itself into a socialist country so that everyone can be supported by the government.  No, it was set up so everyone had every OPPORTUNITY to succeed.  That is it. No more government telling them what to do.  We the People!!!

No, I am not some right wing bunkerist, or a ultra-republican.  I am nothting more than an American that has lived in Europe for 7 years.  I know the European life, heritage and culture.  It is not Utopia. It is not the answer to life’s social ills, economic ills nor anything else.  I will rightly admit I enjoy the Alps for the natural beauty and Interlaken, Switzerland is one of my favorite spots on earth for a cool summer vacation.   But there is a reason the Swiss have never fought wars and try to maintain neutrality.  They would lose!  For all the Swiss neutrality their freedom is not as we know it in the USA.  Freedom is hard fought and earned. 

Wanna guess who I voted for - the socialist or the one who took the beatings and torture in defense of their country?”

God Bless…
Steve

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