From time to time for fun, I like to pretend that I have a magic power that allows me to grant wishes. I limit each recipient to one wish and state that I will fill the wish if I can, but that I cannot fill all wishes. I listen to my co-workers talking, and if I hear a wish, I try to fill it. One co-worker wished for a pack of gum, and I immediately purchased a pack from a vending machine. She was grateful until she learned that she could have wished for a million dollars instead. She wanted to trade, but no deal. Many people ask for money. I am not rich enough to fill their wishes directly, but I do supply a copy of the book, Automatic Millionaire. That book advocates saving by payroll deduction where the employer matches funds going into a 401K. It takes time and effort, but the saver can accumulate a sizable nest egg. Granting wishes takes thought and some resources but it is very satisfying. Try it, you'll enjoy it.
Barack is called upon from all sides to grant all kinds of wishes, some very contradictory. That is why I limit my recipients to only one wish each. It would be hard to grant two wishes that are directly opposite each other. Barack must deal with citizens who want stimulus for jobs at the same time the deficit is reduced. Logically, deficit reduction comes after job stimulus. Barack has the much tougher job of satisfying so many conflicting demands. I wish him luck for his sake and for ours.
In England in Charles Dickens's day, people who could not pay their bills went to prison. They stayed until they raised the money to get out, either by selling property, inheritance or through the efforts of friends and relatives. Prison furnished very little and prisoners were required to pay for any extras like clothing, more food or a better cell location.
Now we don't use debtors prisons; our debtors are allowed to roam the country so that they can work to repay their debt. As an experiment, I suggest that you add up all the interest that you pay per month including mortgage interest. You'll be surprised at the total; I was. Mortgage interest is deductible on your income tax, a subsidy to the home buyer, but also to the lender who can thus charge more, Lenders don't really provide much of a service for the exorbitant amounts they charge, If too big to fail, the risk is minimal. And it is our money they are lending, not theirs. For more on this I suggest a nearly century old classic, Other People's Money by Louis Brandeis. A slender book as true now as it was when it was written.
In Dickens's day before TV, people used to visit debtors prisons and insane asylums for entertainment. Now we can be entertained without leaving home by watching home videos of people falling down. A small improvement. Instead of finding other's problems entertaining, we should be doing all that we can to help solve their problems. With the debt problem, that means insisting on lower bank fees and interest rates.
In a recent post, I predicted that Iran would be an ally on the war on terror. I want to explain my thinking. Before the 1979 revolution, the US supported the Shah with weapons sales so that Iran would have a big stick to police that part of the world. The US had installed the Shah in power and he had ruled with an iron fist through his secret police, SAVAK. Their abuses probably exceeded ours at Abu Graib. Our interference in Iranian affairs made many Iranians anti-American and goes a long way toward explaining their current attitude to the US.
Our current allies in the West are doing little in the war on terror and in Afghanistan and want to do less. Our allies in the Muslim world do little to help and some sectors of their societies are actually helping the other side. Saudis are funding madrassas, schools, in Pakistan that produce Taliban recruits and probably recruits for al-Qaeda too. The Pakistan intelligence service, ISI, has been an active supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now that support has boomeranged with Taliban attacks in Pakistan. I do no know if ISI support for the Taliban continues at this date.
We in the West who are not Muslim are infidels to be converted to Islam. Shiitie Muslims in the Middle East are considered by most Sunni Muslims to be heretics to be put to death. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, That puts the Muslim Shiites and the majority of the West on the same side. I do not expect Iran to send troops to Afghanistan or Pakistan. I do expect that Iran will desire peaceful borders with Iraq, Aghanistan and Pakistan. Iran has a larger population than any of its neighbors, save Pakistan. Iran has a big stake in settling the wars in their neighborhood.
If we reduce our dependence on Saudi oil, the Saudis will not be able to take our support and protection for granted. Our friendship with Iran will put pressure on Saudi Arabia to modernize their society, reduce corruption and reduce funding for the madrassas in Pakistan if they desire our continued friendship.
Yesterday my wife called a local branch of a national bank. While waiting to speak to a real live human, a recording told her that the call might be recorded for training purposes and quality control. She jokingly suggested that she was recording the call as well. Tit for tat. When the real live human finally came on the line, she questioned whether my wife was really recording the conversation. My wife admitted she was not. If she had tried to record the conversation, the bank representative indicated that the call would be immediately terminated. Small thing you say? Yes, but indicative of the non level playing field between the banks and us.
Banks were largely deregulated to foster competition that was supposed to lead to better service and lower prices for consumers. The only result of banks competing is that banks are competing in raising fees and profits so that the larger banks can merge with and swallow smaller banks. Then they are too large to fail and must be bailed out if failure is imminent. We the taxpayers pay if the banks succeed or if they fail. Interest rates used to be regulated. Now the banks can charge whatever they please and change interest rates whenever they please. I consider an interest rate above 10% as usury. Usury is condemned in the Bible and makes getting out of debt very difficult. Consumers should use debt wisely so say the lending institutions. Then why do they make it so easy to borrow and hard to get out of debt?
My wife feels about banks the same way I do about insurance companies. Her solution is for the consumer to boycott the banks until such time as the banks start treating the consumer with respect. Not a bad idea if it were possible. My approach would be through our Congressional representatives. Through deregulation, they got us in this situation, and now it is time for them to get us out.
Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity was published in 2002. This is the first in an occasional series of reviews of the writing of Barack's critics. Sean Hannity is co-host of Hannity and Colmes on Fox. It is not a show I watch regularly but I might give it a sampling now and then. Hannity considers his life a success and he says that if he can do it with hard work, anyone can. Apparently he has been lucky so far but then we'll see if he changes his tune if life deals him a reverse or two.
Hannity is a conservative who believes what he says. Some of his opinions are flat out wrong in my opinion, and he shows that he has given little thought and done little research on some topics that he offers opinions on. Religion plays a big role in his life and his world view. The US is the greatest country and can do no serious wrong. Criticism that could lead to improvement is not welcome. He worries that Congressional hearings into national security could become political circuses. Certainly there is an ample supply of clowns in Washington. Less government is better; least is best. Liberals who disagree with him are against freedom and democracy. We owe it to our children to support a strong military so that no other country or group of countries can challenge US hegemony.
I believe that he subscribes to the conservative ethic that the husband dominated family is the strength of the country. Straying from that model leads to all kinds of evil that weaken the country's morale and morals. The liberal view of the family is a partnership between two adults, usually of differing genders, but not exclusively. The liberal family lives a moral life that is not dictated solely by someone else's interpretation of the Bible. It is possible to live a moral life with a different or no religious belief. That is anathema to the religious Right.
Hannity began his broadcasting career at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He says that he offended the powers that be with his conservative views and was asked to move on. I lived in Santa Barbara at that time and I was not aware of his presence. I was also conservative in my earlier years and I was disturbed by the lopsided liberal voting pattern at UCSB. I thought then that the students and other residents of the university community should think for themselves. 90% versus 10% results, to my mind, did not represent independent thought. Thinking for oneself and being willing to accept new evidence are the mark of the truly educated.
Socialism is a term used by many today to express their opposition to many different proposals. The favorite term used to be communism but you don't hear that used as much today since the USSR dissolved. Socialism is a word used as though democracy and freedom are opposites. That is not true. Most countries still practicing socialism successfully are democracies with all the freedoms we have, but with a higher level of taxes. Who opposes higher taxes? Those who will have to pay them and those who are fooled into thinking that they will have to pay them.
Let's do away with taxes and government. We want freedom and free market capitalism which are not the same thing. Let's do away with Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits and disaster relief. Make our highways into toll roads. Extend the workday to 12-14 hours each, six days per week. Take children out of our failing schools and let their start earning a living in factories here in the US instead of sending those jobs to South America, Africa or Asia to employ children there. Our children can work just as well as their children. Now that is freedom.
Afghanistan is rightly called a graveyard of empires. The natives gave Alexander the Great a hard time when he passed through on his way to India about 2300 years ago. More recently, neither Great Britain nor Russia was able to subdue Afghanistan for long. Now the US is finding how difficult a nut Afghanistan is to crack.
Some say that as the world's only superpower, we have the right and the duty to rule the world. The rest of the world disagrees. Great Britain gave up its empire to preserve its democracy. Russia gave up its empire and never really achieved full democracy. What it did achieve is slowly slipping away. Now it is our turn to choose between empire and democracy and we must make our decision soon. I choose democracy.
I am certain that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney wanted to protect the US from al Qaeda and thought that they were doing the right thing but they also wanted to increase the power of the President, upsetting the checks and balances among the three branches of government. Republicans claim that federal judges should not legislate from the bench making new laws. However, those judges are carefully scrutinized before confirmation.
In the case of Bush/Cheney and the law, Bush and Cheney shopped around among government lawyers looking for lawyers willing to write opinions that would alter the law and give Bush and Cheney the powers they sought. I doubt that those government lawyers received the scrutiny that federal judges receive.
Pres. Obama may want to consider having the big three auto makers in America pay back thier loans with providing green vehicles for the feds to use, since th provision to outright buy them was cut out of the stimulus bill. The cars could also be sold to civilians with the ads that they are part of the new green age in America! Also, why haven't the auto makers been asked to make cars that have solar panels on top or that run on food oils? there are such cars being designed and produced in India!
Maybe a better tax cut would be one for purchasing the new cars made in America!!
