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Remember our Military November 11, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Uncategorized.
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You stay up for 16 hours
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a ‘headache’, and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti war/don’t support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You make sure your cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

You talk trash about your ‘buddies’ that aren’t with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.

You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn’t get to eat today.

Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn’t have time to brush his teeth today.

You’re angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He’s told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love’s perfume.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they’ll ever meet.

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don’t.
He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.

You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.

If you support your troops, send this to 7 people. If you don’t support your troops well, then don’t send this out. You won’t die in 7 days, your love life won’t be affected, and you won’t have the worst day ever.You don’t have to email this. It’s not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your rights.

What Obama’s tax plan means to the middle and lower class. October 20, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Economy, Policy, Taxes.
4 comments
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Many lower income Americans are loving the idea of receiving the tax credits that Obama has proposed during his campaign, but will they really benefit? Obama’s tax plan doesn’t revolve around actual tax cuts for middle and lower income families, it revolves around tax credits. What this means is that the whole gain of which will be received once a year at tax time as a larger rebate check even though corporations and companies will be paying into this all year.

What people haven’t asked themselves is what the companies response to these higher taxes will be. As far as companies are concerned taxes are simply a cost of doing business. If the cost of doing business increases then companies will react. This reaction can take on any of three forms or any combination of them, which will probably be the case. The first is lower dividends or payouts to its shareholders, which of course where Obama is hoping this comes from even though he doesn’t mention much that this is where our 401k growth comes from. The second is higher prices of goods and services, which will affect people throughout the year even though they only get the extra money from the government once a year. Better learn to budget well. The last place that companies will make up this money is through lower wages and/or less jobs, not a wonderful prospect for us working class.

Obama’s entire plan depends on keeping the status quo but history and basic Business 101 shows us that companies will react and we the middle and lower income will suffer. Realistically, the best we can hope for under Obama’s plan is to have the roughly the same amount of buying power but now with the added bonus of having another layer of bureaucracy and the cost that comes with that, both in terms of money and additional government influence in our lives. Based on the wonderful job ours or any government has done in the past (insert dripping with sarcasm here) that is a layer I would rather do without.

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

 

–Abraham Lincoln

 

 

Ayers, Acorn, Obama and Others. October 14, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, Character.
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Up to this point I wasn’t going to write about this topic since I think the McCain campaign is putting to many resources into this line of attack. Not that I don’t think the issue is valid but that the people in the age range to remember Bill Ayers, and therefore feel any passion towards the issue, are in a demographic that McCain already has a nice lead in. Let’s be realistic, it is hard enough for people to remember how bad the 70s were, and how Obama’s plans are similar to that, and that was a decade later. However, I heard something this morning that got me to thinking.

A news reporter was bringing up this issue with the person he was interviewing and the response was that McCain has had his own problems with bad associations in the form of Keating 5. I thought about that and realized that Keating 5 is the exact reason why Bill Ayers is a valid issue. Keating 5 shows the damage that can occur when a young and inexperienced politician has association with a person of disreputable disposition.

The association with Keating 5 helped cause the damage done in the S&L scandal along, what damage do you think could be done with a person who’s associations are with domestic terrorists, American hating reverends, fraudsters, and organizations that promote the idea of voter fraud. All this rapped up in a person trying to be President. If you think the damage done by a senator and a disreputable banker was bad the try Obama and his associates in the White House.

You know, if it was any one person that Obama was associated with I could write it off to a case of bad judgment and really not let it influence me, but when it is a continuous string of the worst kind of people then one really has to start to doubt. At the rate that Obama is having to disassociating himself from his past acquaintances he is going to save a fortune on Christmas cards.

 

Social Engineering is Anti-American October 13, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Economy, Freedom, John McCain, Policy, Taxes.
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Well what a wonderful mess we have gotten ourselves into. Many of our banks are so close to collapse that the federal governments all over the world are stepping in and having to shore up these banks with tax payer money. Mortgages and the shoddy, irresponsible ways that the banks set these loans up have produced this effect, but what was the cause? Social Engineering! The government mandated legislation that forced banks to loan to people that could not afford those loans is the root cause of all that is happening today. While I do believe that there is blame to lay on all government, banks, and the people who signed note loans for houses that they couldn’t afford, the seed that allowed all of these to grow was the democrats and their idea that people shouldn’t work for a better future, but that they were owed a better future.

Now enter Obama who, despite this failure of social engineering, has plans to start a new, much more grandiose project in socialism. This new program isn’t just limited to banks, it now goes after the idea that 95% of all people are owed something for nothing. Why limit it to just the banks when government can go after all moderate to large businesses and mandate that they give to all.

Higher taxes are not the answer, bigger government is not the answer, tying up capital in government taxes that would otherwise be used for investment and job growth is not the answer. People do not invest money for profit, they invest it for a certain amount of after tax profit. If you lower that profit margin there is a certain amount of capital that will not be invested. This means less jobs, which means more government spending to support these people, which means higher taxes. This starts the loop over and over and sinks the economy lower and lower with each round.

Obama says that he will not tax small companies that make less than $250,000 a year. 85% of companies that make less than that number have zero or one employee in addition to the owner. Where is the incentive to expand? Where is the job creation? Where is the incentive to succeed when the extra hard work needed has such a small pay off. Just today Obama came out with new plans to help the economy. Part of those plans were to cut taxes for two years on parts of the economy. When pushed into a corner even Obama has to admit that lower taxes do work to stimulate the economy.

One of the worst times in recent history as far as U.S. finance goes was the 1970’s. This time period had close to 10% unemployment, 18% interest on mortgages, and almost no economic growth. It also had some of the highest taxes and government interference. The definition of futility is to keep trying the same experiment over and over and hope for a different result.

Our country was based on the principles of limited government, personal responsibility, the belief that hard work and individual achievement should be rewarded. Following these principles has allowed our 222 year old country to become the most powerful economy in the world. These are sound, proven principles that have a history of working. If these principles are abused you don’t blame the principles and try to scrape them, you stop the abuse. The people of our country need to be allowed to excel. They should be encouraged with the idea of a better life for themselves, not dissuaded with the idea of their hard work meaning a better life for others.

Social Engineering doesn’t work. Countries that practice it are the same countries that we passed up in becoming the most powerful country on this planet. Any step in the direction of socialism, no matter how small that step is, is a step backwards for our country. Any step towards the liberal agenda makes our country less than what it is. The power of our country is not its government but its people. If you diminish our power by larger government, if you diminish our freedom by more government intervention then you diminish that glorious idea that is America. Use your vote, use your freedom to make sure that doesn’t happen.

McCain / Palin ‘08

 

Just a few thoughts of the moment I have had. October 7, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Uncategorized.
3 comments

Hello all,  sorry it has been a while since my last post.  I have had the mother-in-law visiting and my wife on vacation for a couple of weeks, not a good scenario for blogging.  I should be starting up again on Monday Oct, 13th.  Until then, here are some thoughts I have had in regards to the election.

 

I fail to see how jobs will be created by taking money out of the hands of the people that sign your paycheck.

 

The social engineering program that forced banks to lend to people not qualified to have home loans failed miserably, but that isn’t good enough for Sen. Obama.  He now wants to expand this same type of program to all areas of the economy by forcing the wealthiest to now support lower income households.

 

I don’t see how Sen. Obama can say he has faith in the hard working people that make up the middle class when he would force them to go on a federally sponsored welfare program thinly veiled as a tax program.

 

Our government has become a reactionary government.  It waits until an issue has reached crisis mode before it acts and then it acts with crisis mode regulations.  The crisis eventually recedes but the regulations stay in place.  It shouldn’t be a matter of more or less regulations, it should be the right regulations that don’t respond to situations but stop these situations from happening in the first place.  Remember, it was regulations that forced banks to lend to people that couldn’t afford the loans in the first place, this is the base that caused the crisis in the banking industry.

 

Freedom isn’t just the right to make your own decisions; it is the right to make your own decisions and to allow those decisions to have meaning in your life.  Every time the government steps in and moderates those decisions for you it takes away from that freedom.

 

Our country is much younger that other economic powers of the world, yet in just 222 years we have become the only economic superpower in the world.  How did this happen?  By allowing the hardworking, innovative and creative citizens of this country the freedom to succeed and reap the benefits of that success.  These liberal, socialistic, government sponsored programs that Sen. Obama has proposed are the antithesis to everything that has made America great…they are a step backwards.

 

Sen. Obama has dressed up his policies in bright and shiny colors to dazzle your eyes.  The problem is that when you put them all together they just don’t fit quite right.

 

The government has no power except that which you the people give it, the government has no money except that which you the people pay it.  As such, any mistakes made by the government is born directly on the shoulders of the American people.  We know that freedom works, we know that capitalism works, we know that personal responsibility works.  What we don’t know is if Sen. Obama’s extreme left policies will work, and if they don’t work then once again the American people will pay the price.

The Bailout, another poorly thought out government reaction plan September 23, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Bailout, Congress, Corporate World, Economy, White House.
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I’m still seeing a lot of the blame game going on in blogs.  The interesting part of this is it is exactly a mirror image of the real problem going on in our government that allowed this financial crisis to happen in the first place.  Both the dems and repubs have become more beholden to their parties than the have to the American people.  Ideas have come from both sides of Congress and the White House over the past 5 years and all of which were shot down over partisan votes with very little real consideration and no real acknowledgement of a problem existing.  I believe this came about because the country was riding a wave of equity backed spending that was propelled by unsound business practices and nether party had the courage to reduce this wave and be blamed for slowing the economy.  Well the wave got bigger and bigger and then, as all waves do, it crashed down.

 

I have heard congressmen complaining that they didn’t know what was going on.  This is just an excuse, the chose to turn a blind eye.  From 2004 to 2005 twenty-two states, who have a tendency to work in a more bipartisan fashion, enacted laws increasing restrictions on sub-prime lending.  This added to the six states that had these laws enacted prior to 2004.  If so many states were willing to do this all at once then obviously there was a problem, Congress just chose to ignore it. 

 

So what do we do?  Well, in my opinion, this new $700 billion Wall St. bailout is a simplistic approach to help all the wrong people with tax payer dollars.  These companies to the risk to buy these loans and should continue to take at least part of the loss.  Fannie and Freddie are on the road to reform, now being beholden to the people instead of the share holders.  Funds should be funneled through these companies to buy these bad loans, but buy them at a discount.  If these loans are bought at 80% of loan value then the companies selling them will still take a loss, just not as big a loss.  This will allow these companies not only to cut their losses but to also get a quick influx of cash to allow normal operations without having to go through the 3 to 6 month foreclosure process plus 9 to 18 month marketing time, which is good for them.  Part two of this plan should include the government to be able to force options to purchase fixed rate, full doc, low risk loans from these companies equal to 50% of the amount of bad debt loans bought.

 

Why all the extras?  Buy buying these loans at 80% it increases the government’s asset to liability ratio allowing a greater recuperation of monies down the road that will cut down the overall taxpayer cost in the long run.  This also gives the government more flexibility to work with the homeowners on restructuring their loans into something they can afford, and cutting the price tag on doing it.  With solid loans on the books from the get go it will bring in an immediate income flow to help further funding of loans by Fannie and Freddie and allow them to pay for their normal operating procedures.  Finally, it will stop Wall St. firms and other companies that are already lining up for their share by putting a cost to them for this bailout.

 

Even with this approach it will be an expensive project for the government, but it will be less expensive, at least in the long run.  It will also do more to help the people that government should be helping, the taxpayer.

 

Of course, none of this matters if government does nothing to correct the problems that caused this in the first place.  For my opinion on that please read here.

 

The Dems “Johnny didn’t want to play with me” Defense September 19, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Congress, Economy, John McCain, Policy.
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In one of the lamest excuses ever used the democratic congress is trying to say that they were unable to do anything about the financial crisis because the president wouldn’t tell them.  Do they actually expect us to believe that, without the president providing answers, they are incapable of action?  How interesting to know that every law ever written in congress was written on information provided by the government.

 

We constantly hear of congress having hearing with a multitude of people.  All of them have ties to people of knowledge, power, or influence that are not in government.  If congress, repubs and dems alike, wanted to know what was going on in the financial sector they could have found out.  The truth of the matter is they didn’t want to know, at least not until it was too late.  No one wanted to mess with a problem that at the time was an economic boon, even if the boon was floating on a title wave of irresponsibility and bad debt.  Sorry dems, you all failed.

 

Both candidates have serious issues in their past that will be used against them in this campaign.  Obama is guilty for less that savory ties to Freddie and Fannie, its former CEO’s and their checkbooks.  Make no mistake about it, this current crisis has its base in these two institutions and the dems are the ones that forced them to open up to higher risk loan.  McCain has his own problems for supporting deregulation.  This didn’t start the problem but it did perpetuate it.

 

McCain is calling for more regulations now.  He needs to stop this, with his past history it is a point he can’t effectively win.  What he needs to point out is that the government has hundreds of bills on banking regulations, none of which seem to work.  The answer isn’t a hodgepodge collection of more and more regulations.  The answer is better regulations, a cohesive set of new regulations that make sense for the 21st century.  It is time for the government to start being proactive instead of reactive.

 

For Obama I have no advice.  He seems convinced that only he and his economic advisors, the ones that helped get us into this mess, have the answers and they don’t need any outside help.  Well good luck with that.

Is it the economy or the government that is broken? September 18, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Congress, Corporate World, Democrats, Economy, John McCain.
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Dems are using economic fear tactics stating that the economy in general is broken.  No, it isn’t.  The financial sector is broken.  Now granted, this is the one section that has the potential to spread to other areas quickly and by all means needs to be fixed ASAP, but manufacturing, energy, technology and the service industries are all showing growth.  Of course this answer doesn’t really provide Obama with what he needs to paint McCain as the bad guy, so Obama did what Obama does best, he exaggerates the situation.

 

Well here are some interesting tidbits to keep in mind as Obama goes to war with the greedy Wall Street CEO’s and fixes this problem that he is convinced that only he can fix.  Sen. Dodd (D) is the main beneficiary from lobbying effort by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Sen. Obama is number two on that list.  Biden’s main campaign contributor is MBNA and, as we all know by now, his son has received quite a bit of money from MBNA for lobbying activities.  Biden’s voting record really does prove that lobbying works.

 

The democrat’s hero, Bill Clinton, is the one that signed legislation forcing banks to ease up lending restrictions which lead to the irresponsible loans that were made by the banks.  Freddie and Fannie funneled huge amounts of lobbying money into the pockets of the democrats to ensure continued support of these programs by the government.  Unfortunately, this is one that the republicans blew too.  It is all of the government’s job to remain diligent to issues that may have a negative impact on the American people and all of government failed us.

 

So what’s the plan?  Well Obama’s plan is to allow politicians, the same ones who do such a bag up job keeping the books straight in D.C., influenced by the same people who got us into this mess, to come up with new government regulations on the finance industry.  This is the equivalent of randomly placing duct tape around a collapsing building and hoping it doesn’t fall again in the future.  McCain’s plan, while much better, still isn’t perfect.  McCain wants to form a commission to find out where the weak spots are and put in proper regulations that will actually make a difference.  This is equivalent to strategically placing plaster on the weakest parts of the building, but it is still the same old crumbling building.

 

Let’s look at this building.  It is created from a hodgepodge pile of regulations dating back more that 100 years.  Few of these regulations were ever made proactively, most were made as a reaction to problems that already existed and none were made as part of a cohesive plan.  This building made of government regulations is the shack surrounded by the huge skyscrapers that is today’s economy.  It is time to tear it down and rebuild.  It is time to set in place a system of regulations that is relevant to the economy of today, one that is cohesive, effective, adaptable, and doesn’t smother the free markets ability to grow.  Having more regulations is not the answer, having the right regulations is.

 

The last thing that is needed is to have a government watchdog group to pay attention and be diligent to the economy.  Congress has a tendency to pass laws, shake each others hands, pat them selves on the back for a job well done, and then forget about what they just accomplished.  Nothing stays the same in this world.  The government needs a constant watch and to use consistent diligence on the issues that they are responsible for.  This is a part of their job that they are failing at and until this is done the world will continue to change around them and the purpose of government will continue to be playing catch up.  It is now the 21st century and the country needs a 21st century government.

The Economy: McCain, Good….Obama, who knows. September 16, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Barack Obama, Corporate World, Economy, John McCain, Policy.
2 comments

Well the stock market dropped 500 points in one day with the announcement of two major financial institutions having major financial difficulties.  Of course the answer from the reactionary government is that more regulations must be needed.  Has anyone ever noticed that the government only responds to issues after they have reached crisis mode and that their response always seems to be an extremist measure that not only overreacts to the crisis at hand but isn’t really healthy or relevant to the issue when the economy is sound.  This is an issue that the government has had for 50 years, the result of which has caused an incoherent patchwork of regulations that are either confusing, outdated, irrelevant, over restrictive, or any combination of these.  The answer to the problem isn’t more regulations, the answer is to find the right regulations that reflect the economy as it is today and regulations that allow the fluidity to adapt to the economy of tomorrow.

 

John McCain was right when he stated the fundamentals of the economy are healthy.  Unfortunately, the one part of the economy that is not healthy is the banking industry, especially those banks that had assets heavily backed by mortgages.  This is the one part of the economy has the ability to heavily influence all the other parts of the economy and so is a threat that could ruin those fundamentals that are sound. 

 

I think that McCain was right that a 9/11 style investigation is needed, not to ferret out the wrongdoers, but to find ways to prevent the underlying causes that create these kind of problems. Only then can the government put into effect effective regulations that don’t overburden the business’s trying to create a strong economy but also don’t allow them to overreach themselves causing these types of collapses.  The U.S. economy is the backbone of America’s power and can no longer afford to be governed by a patchwork series of regulations that are created by over zealous politicians.  Reform is needed and John McCain is the person to bring about this change.

 

This paragraph would normally be used for me to tell you why Obama’s plan wouldn’t work.  Unfortunately, up to this point all Obama has done is attacked McCain’s plan without giving one of his own.  Well given Obama’s past theatrics I guess he plans on governing by Divine Intervention and we all know that Obama believes he is the only one that can bring about that kind of change.

Now this is funny. September 15, 2008

Posted by Nevada Pundit in Uncategorized.
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The SNL skit: