In context of this story you may be most interested to know that I prefer purchasing the highest quality products I can afford. To the detriment of those close to me I usually seek out the priciest of the products, as I think the general rule is that products are price-competitive, and the most expensive is usually of the higest quality. I took this approach with my video cards but I am changing my ways.

In 2008 I purchased a 8800GT Alpha Dog from XFX. This card had a flaw in that the fan is not variable. I did not realize it was set at some low setting, perhaps 30% (I cannot recall the exact setting.) I think this contributed to the demise of the card.  Personally I own very few games and rarely buy newer games that have significant hardware requirements.   After a couple years of playing mostly Half Life 2 and Team Fortress I began to see artifacts on the screen during gameplay. They began to appear a couple minutes into gaming making me think the issue was hardware degradation due to heat. I contacted XFX for help. They forced me to do all kinds of very time-intensive testing of the card, including, but not restricted to, putting it in another system. (For me my PC is so reliable, I own ONE, that’s it. Not the two or three cheap servers I used as backup in the late 1990′s.)

At some point I decided to buy a new card, thinking I could continue gaming, get the Alpha Dog repaired or replaced, and have an extra high-quality card as a backup. I purchased a new XFX Radeon card, and have not seen articfacts since. I sent in a rebate form for this new purchase but received a rejection letter. It stated that the retailer I purchased from was not a participating retailer.  Now I distinctly recall reading the rebate form thoroughly and there was no mention of any retailer on the form. I requested my proof of purchase back from them so that I could return the item. I never heard from the rebate center again.

Back to the Alpha Dog. I came to think that XFX’s requests for additional testing were unreasonable and I stopped all correspondence. I even deleted all of my personal information from my online account.  To me, if something has an obvious break, and it is guaranteed for life, the product company should jump through hoops for me. If they want advanced testing, I can mail them the card, and they can determine in their factory if the card is broken or not. Considering that I paid a premium for this card I felt that I received nothing extra from XFX, save for a spectacular runaround.

Before I purchased the 8800 GT I read all of the blogs and tried to make an informed decision. After all I replaced a PII 400 with a 2.4 MHz quad core, and thought it would be likely that I would use this computer for five to ten more years, the same as my last computer (insert disparaging comments here about how the PC will be outdated soon…) The rest of my PC consists of the highest quality components – An Intel motherboard, Western Digital Drive, and an Antec Sonata III case with the Earthwatts power supply. All of these components have served me without a hiccup for three and a half years, except for the XFX card, with its inherent fan control flaw and ostensible overheating. At the time I built this PC I distinctly remember many others asking in the newsgroups if the XFX brand was worth the extra cost. Feelings were mixed, and so I went with my gut: I should buy the card with the lifetime transferable warranty, it is a no-brainer.

If you are currently on the same mission, to purchase a quality card, and wondering if the $20 – $30 premium for an XFX card is worth it, I, having been through my own novel of an experience, can say ABSOLUTELY NOT. Do not pay the premium for the XFX brand. The runarounds with service, especially in this day and age where time is of a premium, make the price exorbitant. The failure to pay me a rebate for my second card, and failure to even contact me to explain the rebate rejection versus the text of the rebate terms makes XFX another one of those “profit above all” companies. When purchasing a video card, take any of the major brands, keep your case cool (I have a tornado blowing right on the video card), and take time to install fan control software and set it for your gaming conditions. Use the money you save by not buying XFX brand for ice cream or a music CD or anything cool in life. But for goodness sake, do not send it to XFX.

A 62% Top Tax Rate?

For those Americans who truly care about the country it is important to try and understand what is truly best for the economy. Let your guard down, and release your pre-conceived notions. Now consider this: Increasing tax rates do not generate more revenue. They never have and they never will. If you are a fiscal liberal, you are now shouting at your screen, “Oh this blog is part of the right-wing conspiracy, and this guy has no idea what he is talking about.” Unfortunately you would be wrong. The truth is that the amount of money collected by the federal government is historically inversely proportional to the tax rates. So you scratch your head in wonder, thinking how this could be? Mathematically if the rates on the rich are raised from the current top rate of 35% to 90% for example, then the government would collect 55% more taxes on the top income. However, this never happens, so put aside your old math and prepare for JBM’s Reality Math. The truth is (this is going to offend you jealous people who wish to punish the rich, so be courageous) the amount of income tax the federal government collects is solely related to the size of the economy. If President Obama and congress take steps that help increase the economic output, tax revenue will go up. If the economy remains in recession, tax revenue will not change.

There is another factor that must be thrown into the equation: The income of the rich is highly volatile and is proportional to the robustness of the eonomy. Areas like California have taken the worst tax hits in this recession because they rely more heavily on taxing the rich. The income of these rich plummeted with the recession, wiping out a huge portion of California’s income tax. Now let us take the step that the government is contemplating and boost the top tax rates, for example by 55%.  What is 55% times zero? Zero. That will be the additional revenue generated by taxing the rich. No, it will be slightly more than zero, but with the dead economy, the top bracket income is dead in the water, so the gains will be tiny.

Additionally, and regardless of how staunch a liberal you are, or how much you are in favor of Obama’s policies, raising the tax rates will put a damper on this economy, the economy that is already in a “double-dip” mode. Raising rates puts a damper on the economy every time it is tried. Something supporters of higher tax rates are missing: Taxes in America are already punitive to the economy, thus higher rates will have a more profound economy-killing effect.

It is true that jealousy is described in the Bible as a terrible sin.  Those who wish to tax the rich based on “fairness” and their personal jealousies should understand this: Upon meeting the Lord, they will not only have to account for their own personal sins, but also the sin of taking money from others out of jealousy. This being said, many Americans support higher taxation, and president Obama and the congress will most likely raise top income rates. They will do this out of jealousy, and partially out of anger for all of the banking corruption that has occurred. The unfortunate result is well-proven: The economy is going to tank further. If you support the forthcoming policies of higher taxation, even though you did not learn from any of history, I would like you to pay close attention to the financial state of everyone around you. It is going to get worse with higher taxes. Once the severe damage is done, I hope you take a second look at your ingrained politics, and hope for you to begin thinking freely, not only about reality, but about what is right and wrong. Note that this is not an encouragement to vote republican. The republicans will go right along with higher taxation. They seem to revile the US as much as democratic leaders do, and wish to have a stranglehold of control just the same. So I encourage you to understand what is happening if only because you have an obligation to use your God-given brain. When more people understand the true effect of taxes and regulation, we as a nation will be less likely to repeat these mistakes.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

The truth is that our economy falters due to the exportation of manufacturing industries, inflated costs, withering wages, and increasing taxes and regulation. Note that Washington is doing nothing to remove these problems, but does continue to augment them.

The 2012 presidential election should be interesting. Economic conditions continue to wither, president Obama continues to soliloquy with thousands and thousands of words, but nothing is changing. In his mind he probably presumes the economy will even out, the same thought that most analysts have. However, with each new recession, conditions have continued to wither, and the Economic Collapse of 2008 has been a tsunami of a decline. Will the next election be split 50-50 like most of them due to the polarization of the voters and the weak candidates who are always put forth? Will the election easily sway republican, mostly because the people usually vote to reject the person in power, and with good reason? Irrespective of the next leader, (they are all in it together) I do not see conditions changing much, so hold onto your wallet and plan the most detailed household budget you have ever planned. We as a country are lost in the dark woods, and there is no light peeking through to guide us.

In this new book Ron Reagan states that his father had developed Alzheimer’s to some degree while he was still in office. Considering that Alzheimer’s is little understood, and a disease that develops slowly and sometimes stealthily over a long-period of time, this may be true. The strange thing about this is that the responses to President Reagan at the time, and the responses to Ron Jr. now gather more attention that the late president’s sickness itself.

To begin, Ron Jr. is of a liberal mindset unlike president Reagan who was known for his conservatism, such as strong military support and low taxes. Reagan did support protectionist tariffs on Japanese goods, and create the overwhelmingly large Department of Veterans affairs, decidedly liberal actions that are ignored by his liberal critics. However, because of the differences in their primary political aims, Ron Jr. is being accused of intentionally slighting his father with the Alzheimer’s claims for the purpose of selling books and denigrating conservatism. In my view there is nothing wrong with Ron Junior pointing this out, presuming it is a real observation of his. We may never know the truth because critics of the president always attacked Reagan as an old man with dementia and his allies, as well as those who simply maintain a great regard for the presidency will argue that these criticisms are fabricated and Reagan was always quite sharp while leading the country. Which brings up the most poignant observation of all: Critics of Ronald Reagan who called him nasty names and implied that he had a loss of brain function were mostly likely making fun of a human being who was suffering from a disease of the elderly. What is astounding is that the critics are primarily political opponents, liberals, who regard liberalism as purely compassionate and conservatism as heartless, even barbaric. Out of all of the political squabbling that has occurred during my lifetime, I look back at this, and aside from the pure lack of respect for the presidency that it indicates (every president gets thrashed by opponents, so the lack of respect is clearly universal) it is an unusually bold and inhumane treatment of someone, by a group of people claiming humaneness as their own. Clearly, well-known liberals, including congress, the media, and anyone else in the public eye, who criticized Ronald Reagan for their perception of him being confused, having memory loss, and the such, truly owe the late president and his family a great apology. Meanwhile, we should probably take Ron Reagan Junior’s statements as observations and not presume that he is denigrating his father, whom he vehemently opposed politically.

Who can tell me, did anyone openly mock Franklin Delano Roosevelt for having polio?

The ‘Paralyzing’ Principle

Things are truly awry when the government will spend any amount of money attacking any problem, while the wages and tax revenue that fund it continue to dwindle.

Meanwhile, back in reality, this WSJ reader gives a real perspective on the degree to which the citizens are being taxed. Hint: It is far greater than the tax rates would indicate.

The Spending Is the Taxpayers’ True Cost

The chief motivation for pro-tax, pro-government ideologues to raise taxes on the rich seems to be equity. The rich pay lower tax rates, and so their rates must be raised to be “fair.” I am simply astounded that a large segment of our society continues to support increased taxation and every resulting government action that has failed to produce any positive result, other than for the sake of “fairness.”  Social Security has caused poverty of the elderly. The Department of Education has not significantly improved education these past thirty years.  These plans and more represent trillions of dollars wasted, but there is a huge crowd of people who continually push for more taxation and more government funding.  I do believe our tax and regulatory burden will diminish the economic power of the U.S. until we are on par with most lesser developed nations.  After being told this explicitly by a very liberal friend of mine, many of the pro-government proponents do not care about the U.S. whatsoever.  They care merely about equity. So if we all end up in a slave labor force like China, that will be fine with the liberals. Funny how liberal America talks a good talk about how bad our treatment of minorities was historically, but now that the whole country is sinking into economic oblivion this appears to be the equitable solution the liberals prefer.

One issue that is bandied about is the problem of CEOs making far more than their average employees, and that tax policy should combat this.  The problem is that a CEOs salary is determined by a company’s stockholder  good ol’ boy investor group. If the government raises taxes on these CEOs, this will not solve the fundamental immorality of the good ol’ boy network giving itself huge money created by the slaves of the corporation. What this increased taxation does do is take the money generated by over-worked, stressed out, formerly “middle-class” America, and redistributes it from the government to every group with their hand out. Nothing solved.

Additionally I do not understand why so many people want to punitively tax corporations. It makes no sense to tax a corporation. A corporation is a pseudo-entity that merely represents people.

Next, the ubiquitousness of the idea of punitive taxation for taxation’s sake demonstrates that millions of Americans are very jealous people. Jealousy is a highly destructive sin, and a chief polarization that has split the country apart. Pro-government forces are doing everything they can to turn us all into serfs. If everyone is a serf, life is “fair” and “equitable” because we are all on equal footing. The result is the evaporation of the American dream. To you proponents of raising taxes on the “wealthy”, you are very mistaken if you think that the misery of increased taxation will not trickle down to the average man. With every major tax rate decrease, the economy expanded, proving your theory wrong.

As far as solving our economic ills, the small business owners that politicians tell us are “wealthy” are going to continue to struggle. The large majority of American workers, due to wage competition with China, will continue to lead lower standards of living. Raising taxes will not reverse any of these problems.

Lastly, if any of you proponents of high taxation actual care about government revenue, government revenue is determined solely by the size of the economy, not the tax rates. This is why government revenue typically increases with lower tax rates.  The tax rates are a major factor in gauging the economic climate.  If the climate is bad, aka higher tax rates, the economy will not expand.

The congress knows all of this, as, despite the outcries from their left wing, the majority of congress is probably going to vote to extend the current tax rates. If they do not they risk the economy sinking further down in 2011 from its already abysmal state. Congress, along with the Federal Reserve, has made many moves leading us toward depression. They probably will not be able to squeeze many more American economy-killing plans in for the next couple of years.

America, you thought when they started teaching sex to some of your eight year olds that public officials could not become any more disgusting.  You were wrong. They decriminalized groping of everyone you know and clearly never thought twice about it.  These people have truly forsaken God and the great moral values our country once stood for.  The people pushing this agenda, President Obama, and much of congress, these men are perverts, there is no other word for them.  This is not about blue versus red, flyover country versus the coasts, or anything political.    I once thought president Clinton was a bad man for the stories of violent rapes he committed, but now I wonder if most of our representatives have gotten away with such in their personal lives.  This groping law they created is so grotesque, there is no way I would leave kids or women alone with our leaders.

If you feel the pain of deep financial insecurity, other aspects of our lives are bound to get much worse.  We cannot legalize perversion and then expect God to continue to bless us with comfort.  Make no mistake about it, the actions of the TSA are the greatest violations American citizens have ever experienced.

Egypt Hunts Ancient Artifacts

Egypt is lobbying museums around the world to return Egyptian artifacts, and having great success at it. It is a very good, ethical action for American museums to return artifacts to their home country upon request. People are more advanced now and can understand that tombs that were raided in foreign lands are not the property of the finders. With the good rapport built, artifacts will always return to the U. S. periodically in the form of temporary exhibits, for all of us to enjoy.

Are their many native American artifacts spread around the world?

Notable and Quotable

Note  his extraordinary statement that cancer researchers who are only interested in research and not cures in particular!  America you should learn something from this:  Many charities exist only for their own propagation, for their own jobs and budget, and they may be complete detached form the purpose that you think you are contributing to.

Realize when you give to a charity, depending on the charity, that you may be temporarily comforting another human being, but you most likely are not contributing to a cure or any sort of fix to a major problem.  If the problem were to go away after all, the charity would cease to exist.  In this manner, charities are like government: They only exist for themselves.  I suggest you consider comforting a neighbor or relative before funneling your hard-earned cash down the Toilet of Supposed Compassion.

Oh yes, for my analytical speech decrying charities I was called quite a nasty name, by an otherwise pretty decent fellow at work.  I suppose I understand and he probably thought that I implied that he is a sucker.  Take this argument for what you will.

U.S. Tech Probe Nears End

JBM

Paradise Lost: Why Fallen Markets Will Never Be the Same

Here are the reasons why I think this article is accurate in its predictions:

1) Many areas of the United States never recovered from the 2000 recession.

2) The U.S. government is on a hiring bonanza right now while revenue in the private sector is flat.  The bill will become due for the government waste and it will further hinder the economy, if not destroy it via money printing and the consequential mega-inflation.

3) The last boom was the PC and Internet boom.  The PC has allowed corporations to slim down to ridiculously productive levels.  They no longer need the 18 million people who are out of work.  Many of these jobs are simply not coming back, or not as full-time jobs with professional salaries.  This represents a further slimming of Americans pocketbooks, which reduces the tax receipts of the government dramatically.  The result is increased tax rates (if Americans do not riot first) to pay for the current spending bonanza.  Consumers will continue to be thrifty.  All of these factors will contribute to a flat economy or even a slow, steady downward spiral from the current anemic economic conditions.

JBM

Boomers Going Bust

Notice the median value of retirement accounts from ages fifty-five to sixty-four is one hundred thousand dollars.  Can you recall twenty years ago when grandma passed away and she had the same amount in her savings account?  Also can you remember how many years since then that medical costs went up thirty percent a year?  That spells doom for baby boomers.  At a minimum it spells no retirement.

One major problem that has led to this is our reliance on the stock market for savings.  What many people now understand is that  the stock market is one hundred percent risk.  A one percent interest rate, which is pretty high nowadays, would have been better for savings, than losing forty percent of it in the recent downturn.  Note that the Dow Jones first hit ten thousand in March of 1999, and it sits there today.  Wall Street made a killing off of personal retirement funds, and individuals lost the farm.

The second major problem is Social Security.  This program was designed to supplement the income of the elderly in case of disaster.  It was designed to feed retirees if they had severe financial problems, in other words, a last resort to prevent financial devastation similar to what occurred during the depression.  Fiscal conservatives knew it when Social Security was implemented, and know it still today:  Handing people money changes their behavior.

The baby boomers had the greatest opportunities of anyone in American history for income growth.  Jobs in many sectors of the economy flourished from the 1960s through the 1990s.  There were many years of high interest rates, such as 6.5%, on savings accounts.  But the fact that social security was waiting in the wings for them meant they would never save their money. They learned the bad lesson from their parents that  Social Security, designed as an emergency stipend, could be used as a primary income source.   Yes, a primary income source if one loves to live a life of  near destitution. So we continually hear stories that grandma cannot afford her medication.  Now, mom and dad are never going to retire, never going to get a chance to just sit back and relax, and enjoy the fruits of their lifetime of extremely hard work.  They thought that SS was going to pay all of their bills.  Keep in mind we have not had severe economic conditions until the economic collapse of 2008.    In my mind, Social Security has caused people to live in squalor, even though the conditions of the Great Depression, until now, have never repeated themselves!

The strange thing is that although Social Security has actually caused poverty, the same poverty it was designed to prevent, few people will consider making any significant changes to it.  This is called the public being on the government dole.  Everyone gets a government payment now, so even fairly fiscally conservative people want to make sure they get as much of the payoff as possible.

Far be it for me to criticize without suggestion a solution, which is to offer social security as optional. The politicians can talk all day long about the greatness of this program, but how about freed om of choice?  (Do not tell Nancy Pelosi or President Obama, but “choice” only exists for killing babies in their mind, and real choice should never exist:  The government knows best.)   Let us give a generation of people the choice of Social Security or not Social Security.  After forty years of observation we can empirically compare the lifestyles of those that opted into the program and those that opted out.  Those with the better lifestyle will prove that their decision was correct.

Along with allowing people to opt out of SS, the populace needs a steep education on money.  All Americans must save more.  Our real wages, with the collapse of 2008, have taken a permanent dip.  Unemployment is here to stay, part time jobs are here to stay, the ability to increase ones standard of living is going to be extraordinarily difficult from here on out.  Thus, personal savings are the key.

As part of the Social Security Opt-Out plan, the government shall mandate that the employer contribution be paid to the employee.  I will gladly take a 15% raise, and will no doubt prove that I can do much more with this money than the federal government of the United States.

JBM

I highly respect this man and here is why: He is talking common sense. It is utterly negative and sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it all seems to match up to reality. I know little about economics, but have been telling friends for over a year that the federal spending is going to lead to a ten dollar head of lettuce at the super market. Even the citizens who voted for the people that put this colossal debt in place will be angry and highly motivated when they cannot fill their shopping cart. Batten down the hatches because the government is doing everything to create these problems while at the same time telling us how much improved the economy is. I know when I am being completely swindled, and like Celente wonder what the analysts are looking at. Every day the paper shows, “Unemployment claims rise unexpectedly.” Unexpected? For whom? Like Celente said how can fuel not be part of the inflation numbers? I paid a buck fifty for gas ten years ago and now gasoline has settled at three dollars. How can this not affect the average person significantly? The answer is: It is affecting us and not being reported. ”Jive Talk.” Right on Celente.

A book that predicted some interesting changes in society that are currently evolving towards his predictions here in the 2010 era:

To Randy:

1) The people should expect that with the largest corporate and government payouts in all of history, that the economy should improve significantly.  The economy is now tanking again after little improvement, making most of the president’s major financial actions completely ineffective.  If we realize that the these huge payouts could result in deflating the value of the dollar, and that as a result we may be paying ten dollars for a head of lettuce in a few years, these actions may result in absolute catastrophe.

2) Please see CNN’s observation of the unofficial White House statistician.  President Obama, very early in his presidency, has already played more rounds of golf that President George W. Bush played in his eight year presidency.

President Obama plays more than Bush

I do not have explicit feelings about Sarah Palin leaving the governorship and I am sure there are many factors that contributed to this, such as her want of the presidency, and the distraction of the perpetual ethics charges against her by her political opponents.  I can say this:  The presidency overtly affects me, the Alaskan governorship does not.  Randy you appear to be a clear fan of President Obama, and that is fine.  However, I wonder if you are interested in opening your eyes to the realities of today.  Now that you know that during the worst recession in our lifetime, and through the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, that the president has played more golf than an eight year president, do you have any concerns for the country’s short-term future under President Obama’s rule?

Cancer

The money flowing into cancer charities must be spectacular by any count.   Quick Internet searches indicate that the American Cancer Society alone has put several billion dollars into cancer research through its history.  The list of cancer charities has grown much larger in recent years as people have it in their forethought to cure the mysterious illnesses classified as cancers.  However, what is the reality of cures and advancements in cancer medicine versus the dollars taken in?  The most popular treatments are radiation therapy, surgery, and chemotherapy.  According to Wikipedia, radiation therapy for cancer has been around since the late 1800′s!  Chemotherapy and surgery, while helpful, seem medieval in how they attack the human body.  For all of the donations, what has truly helped cure people of cancer?  The answer is early detection.  Yes, age-old, visit the doctor once a year, and have standard tests performed based on the patient’s gender and age. By doing so, one can catch the cancers that commonly afflict people who are similar to you.  Once a cancer is caught early, many times it is eliminated with the old barbaric cures I listed above.  There you have it in a nutshell:  Catch the cancer early, and attack the little blob before it gets out of control.  Now I want the reader to compare and contrast these treatments against the billions of dollars flowing into cancer charities and research.  If cancers overall are not being cured, where is the money going? I am certainly not new to introduce the concept of “The Inefficient Charity”:

American Cancer Society: The World’s Wealthiest “Nonprofit” Institution

One would think that charity funds, whenever possible, would be directed to research or to those individuals suffering from the affliction. This recent Wall Street Journal article points out that a great deal of charitable money may go to attorney fees atsome charities:

Charity Brawl: Nonprofits Aren’t So Generous When a Name’s at Stake

If a charity rides the coattails of another charity by infringing on a trademarked name, and collects more money as a result, does it matter to the victims of the affliction? Why would a charity be so vehement in protecting its name if it has the identical interests of helping the afflicted? I fear the answer is the same as always, “Follow the money.” The money provides salaries, jobs, and a certain lifestyle for those working for the charity. I question that charities with such selfish needs are truly charities. The major charities have overtly grown into businesses but we do not call them such.  They have a selfish interest to support themselves above any cause such as a cure for the afflicted.  Even comfort for those suffering comes secondary to many charities.

United Way

With layers upon layers of management, and six-figure salaries galore The United Way has taken its share of criticism from people like me.  I ask the average reader, do you make a six figure salary?  If not then why would you give to a charity to support its six figure salaries?  If you have read my writings you already know that I am not an anti-success or jealous person. On the contrary  I would like all hard workers and entrepreneurs to become wealthy so that they may take care of their own.  I simply find it impossible to identify large bloated organizations with huge salaries  as “charities”.  United Way is even a “pass through” charity, meaning they give money to other charities while taking a cut of the money for themselves.  This poses another question, why not give directly to the charities and leave out the middle man?  The United Way is a business.  It is supported by, among other things, coercive efforts in major corporations where employees are highly pressured to give to United Way.  Many workers find it mandatory to fill out Untied Way donor cards even if they never give to the charity, an embarrassment of a high order.  Clearly the management of major corporations makes efforts to pad the pockets of their executive friends at the United Way.  I find my personal experiences with coersion as downright repulsive and I dare call the corporate efforts “evil.”

The Bible has always set a good example as the moral examples in it always best any alternate ideas that modern man creates.  The Old Testament sets the example of a ten percent tithing to the church, and the New Testament reinforces the general idea of giving of oneself to the less fortunate.  While church hierarchies are full of politics and even abuse of funds, when I see my local church feeding and clothing people who live down the street from me, I cannot help think of the church as a worthy donee.  Church services are perpetuated mostly by volunteers and thus make an efficient charity.  There are other examples of efficient charities but I hesitate to present names as I find myself disagreeing with people over the same organization.  And debate is good as I really do not know a charity’s effectiveness without looking at the books.

What would I suggest if Americans were to pull a great deal of funding out of the non-profit segment?  The following article is the piece that helped me decide to put my overwhelming and negative thoughts about charity onto paper, or screen as it were:

Job Creation Is the Very Best Charity

I agree fully with this letter to the editor and understand that to some, this argument may sound like a hard-core right wing pro-business argument that neglects the needs of real people.  However, my dream world is one with escalating salaries, where Americans canalmost exclusively take care of themselves and their families without charity.  Americans do need to put more money into health insurance plans in order to combat the unlikely disasters that sometimes happen to loved ones.  We need to forego the iPods until we have made sure that our immediate family, include grandma, have the resources to pay for their medicines and medical treatments.  We must be responsible as individuals, and not spend all of our money on toys, then spend years worrying about grandma being able to afford her heart medication.  However, some things that are out of our control are nose-diving real wages.  Some studies show that the real wages for non-supervisory workers are one-half of what they should be when indexed against inflation over the past thirty years.  Congress and large corproations are alwya promoting H1B visas for educated workers which has turned into a proactive effort to reduce wages in America.  The deck is stacked against the average worker there is no doubt about it.

Despite overwhelming taxation which will perpetually fund Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, all of which are broke, and America’s spectacular charitable giving, the roles of those in need never, ever seem to go down.  On the contrary, in the midst of this recession the roles have increased like never before.  I would like the reader to understand that despite their giving, most diseases are not being cured.  Charitable giving at most provides comfort to people (which is great!) but at the least gets eaten up by a bureaucracy of money managers, administrative assistance, and medial researches.  To help provide something better than the American Charity Economy, I encourage you to start a business, leverage the Internet and the ease of worldwide distribution, create great wages, and promote individualism to your children.  One must plan for medical costs, retirement, and unlikely disasters.  Teach as many people to fish as you can.  These tenets will help to make the so-called “charity” a nearly extinct species.  If charity were to become extinct it would only mean that the needy are finally taken care of.  That is the goal isn’t it?

Next I ask why the president spent time shaking down BP for cleanup funds?  Why is he distracting the CEO of BP whose sole job now is to protect the Gulf of Mexico with any action he can possibly take?  The mayors and governors of the southeastern U.S., through the court system, will eventually get the funds they need.  Right now this disaster needs to be stopped, and it requires the non-existent actions of the president, as well as the army core of engineers, foreign countries and foreign companies.

With a daily disaster occurring in the Gulf Of Mexico, why is the president spending any time or effort on developing a lawsuits to fight Arizona’s new immigration policy.  From The Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Considers Arizona Lawsuit

This disaster may ruin the coast of a large area of the southeastern United States.  Every single day is an emergency day for us Americans.  Yet the president sits around and counts solely on British Petroleum’s solution which might be complete by December 2010.  America,

I am irate.  A significant ecosystem is being destroyed, yet the president of the U.S. is sitting around talking about how bad B.P. is, and how nasty Arizona is.  Was not there a campaign promise about “getting things done.”  With one of the worst disasters in human history, Obama has already proved he cannot get squat done.  How awful.

Can someone smarter than I please calculate the oil leak rate? Take the diameter of the pipe, the reserve pressure, the back-pressure the water exerts, and calculate the flow rate. I have always thought that a simple calculation could be determined and that we can ignore all of these federal government “estimates.”

I think such in-your-face style demands are going to increase dramatically for president Obama.  With the excitement surrounding him during the elections, he certainly made it seem as though he would provide drastic relief in many ways for Americans.  Unfortunately, after billions of dollars in payoffs to his corporate buddies at the banks and General Motors, the president’s policies have had a net zero effect on the American economy.

Of course we here at the State of Affairs do not believe the federal government creates real jobs, so we do not rely on Washington unlike many others.   Additionally, while layoffs seem to have bottomed out, I do not see any substantial growth in jobs for five to seven years or longer.  What will that effect have on the presidency?  People vote their wallet, and with little improvement, the president with the most excitement surrounding him in all of history is clearly going to be out of a job come 2012.  The only remaining question will be if Hillary or other high ranking democrats can completely distance themselves from this administration in an effort to gain the presidency.  With the economic collapse of 2008 fresh in everyone’s minds, and with none of the promised relief from president Obama and the democratic congress delivered, the answer will most likely be “no.”

JBM

Lost iPhone Brings Scoundrels, Sharks and Shysters Out of the Woodwork

The author of the above story poignantly demonstrates how sometimes morals are completely thrown out the window.  I myself would like to make one point from this story.   We are caught in an era where the populace will skewer the Wall Street Robber Barons ad infinitum, and rightfully so, for their colossal moral failures which have devastated the world’s financial economy.  We can plainly see though that individuals, nobody’s, will make deals with Satin all day long, just the same.  It is hard to point fingers at moral and ethical failures with a seemingly large proportion of our population that has no moral standards left.

Reading the above article I would surely believe that there are thousands of bloggers, lusting for cash, who would have done the same thing as the mentioned perpetrators.  There are certainly a large number of people who would sell their soul for the potential for such notoriety.  Too bad, I say.

A friend told a story about visiting Europe years ago.  This happened I believe in the 1980′s.  He left his camera equipment, a set of Nikon or some high-end hardware, in a high-traffic public place.   He discovered his mistake the following day, and went back to retrieve his camera equipment.  Astoundingly, it was sitting in the camera bad, on the public bench, exactly where he had left it.  It was completely untouched.

As you read this, you may be on one side or the other, but I sure long to belong to a community with such great respect for other people.  Unfortunately, no matter where one is, the ethics of the town are a crap shoot anymore.  How thoroughly sad this is.

In lieu of the White House granting gay people the “right” to visit loved ones in the hospital, I wish to inform any Americans who see this as an advantage that it is meaningless. That is an important distinction because the president has now distracted many people from doing the things they need to do in order to assure that they do in fact have visitation rights! Please note I am neither gay nor an attorney so I have no stake in the recent proclamation, but all Americans in fact need to take the proper legal precautions or risk losing visitations to loved ones, or other significant financial problems.

If you have never retained an Estate Planner, please do so. You can contractually setup arrangements such as designating anyone your want be your beneficiary, have hospital visitation rights, etc. Your planner will guide you to state forms and procedures (yes, our freedoms truly lie with the states, not the federal government) that will guarantee your related needs. If a hospital were to violate these legal preparations they will in fact be violating the law. However, until you prepare, you are at risk, whether you are straight, gay, martian, or Purple Gambezian Poison Flower Chomper, of being turned away from your loved one’s hospital bedside unless you are in fact their legal guardian.

JBM

TOP SUGGESTED NAMES FOR ACORN BRANCH OFFICES

1) Walnut (Wild And Looney Nuts Undercover Today)

2) POOP (Previously Ostercised Operational Politics)

3) PECAN (Prostitution Easily Can Annoy Non-leftists)

4) CASHEW (Communists And Socialists Helping Elevate Welfare)

Feel free to share your ideas!  There are thousands of branch offices doing covert leftist political work, prostitution, drug smuggling, and more, and they all will need unique names so that you cannot find them.

JBM

Can Drew Carey save Cleveland?

Justin Fox of Time Magazine has it nailed as to why I ignore the statistics that are published in the newspapers each day:

When Economic Indicators Aren’t Worth That Much

Joroto – iPod applications, Gift T-shirts for programmers

Please see the following article:        The U.S. Needs an Industrial Policy

Perhaps it does.  However I believe in the free market and it seems counter-intuitive to ask the same government that has screwed up literally everything it has done to command yet another top-down economic policy.  On that level I disagree with Mr. Hofmeister.

I agree with one aspect of this editorial and that is no one in the world has replicated the spectacular movies that Hollywood has created.  Hollywood is so good at what it does (notwithstanding the garbage that it also spews) it seems to be the most irreplaceable asset we have!   If that does not leave you with an “UGH!”, nothing I say will.  That being said, thanks for “Pirates” Hollywood!

Joroto – iPod applications, Gift T-shirts for programmers

This editorial talks of how the Super Bowl ads were crass and sexist.  Let us face the fact that class is nearly gone from Hollywood.

Super Game, Stupid Ads

I would like to know who is the marketing weasel who selected Won’t Get Fooled Again to be played as the players took the field?  The Who performed at half time, so that just reaked of not being original.  Oh well, Mean Joe Green, here’s to you.  And where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Joroto – iPod applications, Gift T-shirts for programmers

Here is a chart produced by Wall Street Journal writers which ranks the top movies of all time.  Depending on how one looks at the list, it may differ dramatically from much of the uproar depicted by movie advertisers:

Reel Dollars

Sort the list by “Inflation-adjusted domestic box office”. AHA! Classic movies occupy a huge percentage of the top movies.    I am surprised to see how high Titanic truly ranks.  What was the draw to this movie?  A young talented, handsome actor?  Was not this a chick flick?  I cannot speak as I did not see it.

I am happy someone did their homework here, as I get tired of hearing about new movies being top dollar movies.  An adjustment for inflation eliminates most of the manufactured hype and gives us the reel [syc.] story.