"Bailout"

Wow! Our new president has really topped himself now.

Let me give this scenario again. Say you own a business, and you have to get a business loan or your business will fail. You have a board of trustees and that board determines your salary. So, when you get the loan, not only do they expect you to pay interest, but they tell you that you can no longer have the same salary you had before. They tell you that you have to make the same amount of money as someone who runs one of your offices instead of the whole company. Would that be right?

So, here we have the government lending out money (that isn't theirs and that they don't have), and the government will charge INTEREST on the money lent, but that isn't enough. They then tell you that you have to cap the salary for your execs.

What? When did the U.S.A. become the U.S.S.R.?

Folks, the people in charge right now ARE NOT CONCERNED ABOUT THE COMPANIES FAILING. They see their golden opportunity to push the socialist agenda that they have been dolling out piecemeal for over 60 years.

It has been said by more than one Soviet/Russian leader that Western Capitalism cannot be defeated with conventional wars, but could be routed through the system of education and with careful rhetoric in the public arena. My friends, their plan has come to fruition. Just a few seeds has turned into the ultimate product for them: A president, first lady, and a congress engrossed in socialist idealism.

I would say to be afraid, but I'm beyond fear. I'm ready for change. Our new president may be right that he is an agent of change, but maybe not the change he plans on.

An article that I published in the Trammel Trace Tribune .

The Trammel Trace Tribune published this article a while back for me. My last blog brought it to mind. And here we go:

I have been watching the news and listening to my customers lately, and seeing how folks are becoming more desperate for a solution to many problems. The list is long and rather depressing. For a while, it was gas prices that vexed us and though the prices have gone down, most wonder how long that will last. Now we are being told we could be on the cusp of a huge recession or even a depression, a frightening concept to say the least. The DOW hovers somewhere in the 8K margins, and banks are collapsing worldwide. However, something started to turn over and over in this hard noggin of mine before this latest "crisis" began to raise its own ugly head. I am no economist, and my only claim is as a sort-of old-fashioned barber in a little Texas town, but I am a thinker. I ponder a great many things, but whether the things I ponder are worthwhile or not, is something I will leave up to others to decide. One of my most recent ponderings had to do with the crunch over fuel and grocery prices. I hear a lot of people grumble over having to drive 20 miles for certain needs, and while listening, I could sympathize with a great many of their grumblings. A lot of folks go to Longview, or Marshall, Carthage, or even Shreveport to buy many things and use many services that folks in those towns take for granted

I began to run through an inventory in my mind of the things that I go to Longview for and realized a great many of the things I drive into "town" for are at places like Wal-Mart, Target, Sam's, or other major corporate chains. That thought process led into a new one on how we have come to rely more and more on such chains for many needs. Don't get me wrong. I am not an anti-corporation person. I believe in capitalism and a free market, but how free is our market, really, if we are only finding fewer sources for our needs as each year passes?

Years ago, people didn't go to town almost daily for needs as many do today. There weren't a lot of restaurants, and folks got enough groceries to last them as long as a month or more before having to go back into town for something else, and even if they lived in town, they did not waste time on constant trips to the stores. In communities like Tatum, there are unused and run down buildings that used to carry the types of goods we now drive into larger towns for, because one of those aforementioned chains is there. The small businesses that traded and sold goods to folks were the backbone of the American economy when it was at its strongest, before credit created a false sense of success.

Local goods and services for smaller towns like Tatum have dwindled for good reason. Inflation, cost of operation, insurance, taxes, and other more subtle factors can cripple a small business today. However, some economists claim that a consumption tax, and elimination of income tax could solve a great deal of the problems that hobble small business in America. I wouldn’t mind having to charge a tax on haircuts to keep from having to mess with the I.R.S. every year, and most I talk to would love to eliminate their income taxes and would gladly pay a bit more for goods and services rather than deal with that bloated government entity.

Lately, with our current credit "crisis" and with banks falling apart, an economy based on hard work, solid tangible assets, and trade that is generated more on a local level instead of nationally may just be a major part of the solution.

Another major part of the solution would be for folks to realize that everyone cannot live like Donald Trump, and the Jones family next door may just be able to afford their stuff without financing it. So why choke ourselves out with debt to try to keep up with them? Whatever happened to living within our means and being responsible consumers?

To live within our means and to be responsible consumers means a bit of an inconvenience. People will have to make sacrifices. We won't all be able to have a 62" plasma screen television, satellite programming with DVR, and a brand new car every few years. This also means, (sigh), maybe fewer haircuts throughout the year. Some of us may have to find work actually working instead of playing with numbers and credit all day, and only the C.E.O.s who create success will make the big bucks.

Yes, that means some jobs will be lost, but who are we trying to fool? We have built an economy on a paper shelf and it won't hold any more weight. Instead of basing our economy on solid, tangible assets like precious metals, food, and goods, we have created a paper nightmare that is just beginning. Our only way to make it may just be to get back to basics. It means that folks writing up loans and mortgages, working with credit, and men and women making consumable electronics that are simple conveniences rather than necessities may just have to rethink their career choices.

What would come of going back to the basics aside from losing a fancy lifestyle many live and few can afford? We can have more time with our families, more time with our neighbors, and even the “greenies” will get the satisfaction of less consumption.

We have become a society deeply obsessed with obscure and unnecessary conveniences and entertainments, and we are willing to pay whatever price is asked for the right distractions, and if we can’t afford it, we finance it.

Maybe, just maybe, we are in the middle of a wake-up call. Instead of finding ways to get out of work and make money doing it, and instead of living outside our means it may be time to start putting our noses to the grindstone and being productive, churning out inventors, craftsmen, and tradesmen again, because I have a feeling, we are going to be in desperate need of such men and women real soon.

A Practical Fix for the Economy

I may be a stupid redneck, but I do have some knowledge about economics. Working in the banking business for a time in my life certainly gave me some perspective, but it did not leave me an expert. Something I feel that I do have plenty of, and it could be a sign of my own folly that I feel this way, is horse sense. Yeah. Good, old fashioned common sense.

When I was studying all of the information I could get my hands on about the mortgage industry, I had an epiphany (hehe a fancy word for a redneck). I had been paying attention over the years, as I hope anyone reading this has, and noticed how jobs were slowly leaving this country. The main types of jobs that have left and continue to leave this nation were/are manufacturing jobs.

The basis for a strong economy in any nation is manufacturing. When a nation no longer produces products for domestic consumption or export, the economy will collapse. Just look at what happened in Russia when everything was based on weapons manufacturing. The economic infrastructure of the U.S.S.R. was garbage.

We are facing the same thing in this country, a collapse of our economic infrastructure. I don't buy into all of the convoluted explanations that the press is duped into believing. They are idiots, don't buy into their crap.

Anyway, in the same way that the Soviet infrastructure was tied heavily into their weapons manufacturing (which nobody bought and the weapons just piled up), we have created a stockpile of something ourselves. We have created a stockpile of credit based on non-existent money along with an economy that has slowly shifted to a reliance on intellectual property.

So we have essentially painted ourselves into a corner. Intellectual property eventually becomes obsolete or outdated, and it tends to be easily reproduced or improved upon outside of our own economy. In the meantime, double taxation on manufacturers, labor unions, etc, along with free trade have pushed our manufacturers out of this country. So we are left with a weak backing by manufacturing as opposed to what it was only 30 years ago in comparison.

So we add to all this our current education system. It is a system that is bent on making everyone the same. Those who stand out can be rewarded as long as they don't stand out too far. The kids who are inventive, active, and high-spirited, are drugged into submission, their minds and spirits are dulled, and the inventors, innovators, and leaders of tomorrow are tamed into being another cog in the machine, thus causing the major edge that the U.S. has always had over the rest of the world to be dulled.

Albert Einstein in today's society would never have been able to do what he did when he was alive. George Washington? He would have been too religious for politics and would have been considered an enemy of the environment for chopping down cherry trees.

Well, I think you get my point. Innovation, manufacturing, pioneer spirit. All things that are looked down upon and pushed aside for the sake of intellectual property. The Romans did the same thing. Where are they today?

Here is my fix:
The companies that are failing. Let them fail. There is no such thing as being too big to fail. Of course that DOES put people out of work, but here is the thing, people being out of work, being desperate, is what creates necessity, and necessity is the mother of invention. A lot of people are wasting away working crap jobs and making the money to get by. They can't shine, they don't know that they can. The worst economic times in this country have sometimes produced some of the best, most innovative products the world has seen.

Change our education system. Not every child is the same. They can't be made into automatons with standardized tests and some idiotic notion of what leaving no child behind is. If we truly want to leave fewer children behind, then we MUST allow competition in our schools, but not in a way that most people think of when they hear that.

Starting at the sixth or seventh grade level, aptitude tests should be given to children to learn their talents, and not just in academics. Not all children will go to college, so what is the point of preparing ALL of the children for college? It is an idiotic concept and I have no idea how we fell into such a trap. Years ago, a boy could leave school and follow a trade if he chose to. It led to more productivity as a nation, for sure.

Don't get me wrong. I don't want children to leave school, but what about the majority of the kids who really don't use a college education after they have one? Why push kids through something that is a waste of years of their time? Why not give them alternatives in school. Let them choose something different. Let them take tests at a junior high school level so that they can make a choice to go down a different path besides academics?

I can answer that easily. Two main reasons come to mind. Number one, the less paranoid reason, is that education is a big business now. Some of the wealthiest organizations in this country are places of higher learning, and they still get government funding. A LOT of money is made in education.

The more paranoid answer is that the indoctrination process takes college. The liberal aspect of education is in the majority, but they don't control all of the public schools in all of the towns across the nation. They do have a strangle-hold on higher education. The purpose of higher education isn't always about career choices and educating tomorrow's work force, it is as much about indoctrination as anything else. In a university setting, you can get the kids without a daily influence by the parents.

So, let the countries fail, fix education, and FINALLY, open up this nation to better manufacturing opportunities. This is probably the most important. To have better manufacturing opportunities we have to:
1. Fix the tax code to stop double taxation of manufacturers.

2. Fair tariff practices. If we are exporting goods into a country and they charge us a tariff, we need to charge them too.

3. Bust the unions. NO, don't eliminate the unions, but bust them up and remove the national politics from the equation. Put the union members back in control of the unions.

4. Fix the patent process

5. Have more tradesmen. That means more trade education for our youth. This is one of the most important factors because without it, we have nobody to employ.

Hey, look at it this way, computer programmers and bankers are going to need somewhere to work soon. Lets bring the manufacturing back.

Media Morons

Okay, I watched a bit of Glen Beck's spot on Fox and Friends this morning. I have to say, that he has got to be so frustrated when he goes on that show. I know that I have been told that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Well, the folks that say that don't watch the news.

Moving on to my point...

I have been watching the media go into a frenzy over the economy. Watching them try to appear financially astute is laughable. These are people who cannot get it through their heads that the same people who have our government in debt for trillions of dollars are NOT the best people to solve problems in the private sector. They don't seem to understand that it is government involvement in our financial institutions that has caused the mess. They all seem to be looking to the government to fix our problems.

Hello! Wake up people! I would not let any of those idiots in Washington balance my checkbook. Why are you morons in the media pushing for our government to fix a problem that their ignorance helped to create in the first place?

Now, they think they have to scrutinize every penny spent by the banks to try to drum up business. The morons bash Bank of America for drumming up a TON of business at the Super Bowl. All we hear about is what they spent on the event, but they stand to TRIPLE, yes triple in earnings from the event the amount they spent going into the Super Bowl. That is not what we get to hear about. The media just harps on about how much Bank of America spent on the event.

In the mean time, a tax dodger who could NEVER be an I.R.S. agent is now IN CHARGE OF THE I.R.S.!!! The idiots in the media are more concerned about a Super Bowl party (in which the guests paid the majority of the expenses out of their own pockets) simply because it involved banking executives. We are about to see another tax dodger and a man who lobbied with health care companies put in charge of national health care. But what is the media more concerned about? They are more worried about Citibank holding true on a retirement package for the former C.E.O. being able to use one of the banks private jets. In all this, they gripe about "tax payer dollars" being used to give fringe benefits to execs.

Let me put this into perspective. Say you got a low interest government secured loan.. I don't know, maybe a student loan. Your tuition and books only took up about half of it. So, you go out and buy a nice dvd player for your car and install some little televisions in the headrests. What would you say to someone who came along and bitched at you for using that money in an "inappropriate" way? Exactly! You'd tell em to kiss your ass! So, if that is okay for you, how come when a bank gets a government secured LOAN, that they can't do what they want with it AS LONG AS THEY PAY IT BACK?

There is no difference, as long as the loans are paid back, nobody has a right to tell you or the banks what to do with the money that is lent. HOWEVER, it can be said that no more loans will be given to people who are irresponsible with the money.

Let me give another example of how ignorant the media is. Think back to the elections. How much did we actually hear about Supreme Court appontments? We heard about all sorts of things that are outside of the president's power, and outside of the president's responsibilities, but how much time was spent on one of the most important things a president can do? Almost none!

What we heard was, "How many jobs can you produce?" or "How can you fix health care?" and "How will you fix the economy?" What? Were we appointing a king, or were we electing a president? The president cannot DO any of those things without congress. Hell, fixing the economy is something the government needs to stay the hell out of.

What we didn't hear were questions about the empty judicial seats that keep adding up. What we didn't hear were questions about how they would use the power of their office to stop the fillibustering of judicial appointments that require no debate, maybe a few questions and a yes or no vote.

I have heard Glen Beck say a few times that the club mentality in Washington has GOT to be busted up. The only way we can do that is to get the media on board. Here is the problem. The majority of the folks in media today are so much like the politicians that they want to be a part of the club too. They are mostly a bunch of social climbers. They are all about themselves, and they all want power, or money, or posterity, or fame, or all of the above. Blinded by their ambitions and thrist for power or money, both politicians and memebers of the media have brought this country to its knees.