The intent of this blog is to promote human equality, human progress, human peace and justice, and optimism. To accomplish this, to encourage the discussion of ideas after identifying and discovering problems, and then creating positive solutions for "we the people," in order to provide for the "general welfare" and "domestic tranquility" of America now and its "posterity" into the future. To encourage an emphasis on separation of religion and state for all, no matter if this is for those "of faith" in a Maker / Creator (Deists, God-loving people, Christians, various people of spirituality) and atheists or agnostics.

Archive for the ‘Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce’ Category

Sadness Rates in the World (and America)

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Dear Editors:

I have read David Brooks columns for many years.  I have listened to David Brooks commentary Friday evenings on PBS.  Many times I see eye to eye with Brooks’s somewhat more conservative ideas.  Many times I don’t see eye to eye with Brooks.  That is what America is about.  Considering commentary (sometimes opinion, too), learning and gaining wisdom, and synthesizing into our own thoughts. 

There is no way we can always see eye to eye with a person 100% of the time.  Whether that person is our spouse or just a friend or acquaintance, we can never be in agreement 100% of the time.  That is the way things should be, but they are not, as fascist Republicans use scare tactics to mesmerize the minds with opioid treatment. 

With this being said (and extending my message with more words), I now must comment about the commentary, with facts, presented by Mr. Brooks on 2 Nov. 2022.  His facts are about a “grim tide of sadness” in the world.  He uses facts to demonstrate that the lower portion of society are in the lower sector of society who have seen an increase in sadness. At the same time, those in the upper classes (I shall call the oligarchy) have seen an increase in happiness.  In other words, at the expense of the lower classes of people, the upper classes are happier.  The lower classes are not as happy.  Facts presented as part of his opinion-editorial (op-ed), but I see it more as a commentary with facts, not an opinion.  (The media has caused the problems we have by calling these op-eds). 

Mr. Brooks discusses such facts from various Asian nations.  Communist China is one such nation.  The oligarchy in a presumed communist nation (which should NOT have an oligarchy) have experienced this ordeal and an increased wealth among those at the top has been revealed. 

This sounds like what has been happening in a presumed capitalist nation like the USA.  Reaganomics and supply-side economics, in my humble opinion (I can provide facts, too), are at fault for this happening in the USA.  A twisted idea of what capitalism truly is, as we think of capitalism as “supply-side economics,” while Adam Smith (18th Century contemporary to our Founding Fathers) defined capitalism as something to challenge the oligarchy of supposed divine-rights kings and feudal landlord nobles and barons with the idea of SUPPLY AND DEMAND.  Balance and not individualism at the top.  In this practice, only government can regulate the balance between supply and demand.  Reagan claimed “government” is a problem, due to such regulation.

Another side to what Mr. Brooks says harks back to my days of learning from a Christian pastor who embraced the ideas of Deist Thomas Jefferson, that ideas from the Hebrew scriptures regarding creationism do not have to be examples of rejection of evolution and survival of the fittest (Darwinism and atheism).  This pastor pointed out that the men who wrote those Hebrew scriptures were merely attempting to come to grips with what God was about in the universe.  That seven days in the lives of men could be millions of years in the eyes of God. We cannot be certain about God because human beings did not have the knowledge of God. 

Another aspect I learned from this Christian pastor had to do with Darwinism and atheism.  This pastor represented survival of the fittest as meaning our human species having dominion over animals, but that Jesus Christ came as the WORD OF GOD (John 1:1) to help dispel such ideas by centering on a love of one another, all human beings. 

This means that survival of the fittest is not between “chosen people,” as Israelis contend, or between white and black people, or between Latinx and others, or between straight or gay, or between men and women.  It is not a matter of surviving by having control of one human species over another.  Rather it is about all human beings having love for one another and working in community, not as selfish and greedy individuals who berate their fellow human beings. 

Examples.  White supremacists think they are better than black folk. I have heard this crap expressed against former President Obama. On the other hand, black folk who proclaim the election of Obama as being a “first.”  White supremacists who have invoked lynch mobs during the era of Jim Crow.  They only accept black folks unless they follow the marching orders of white folk (i.e., Thomas or Walker).  The males reject females when someone like my mother runs in a Republican primary for a political office and many males say, “they don’t want her to be town supervisor because she is a woman.”  The black man who thinks we need to get rid of abortions, for the sake of black folk and no consideration of the entire human race and particular situations where the mother might lose her life (the fetus is more important than the mother, so both must die?) or there is rape or incest involved.    In all of these examples, people have thick skulls and don’t allow the elevator to go all the way to the top.

Thus, we get supply-side economics and the development of only the “me, me, me” individualist greedy attitudes which Mr. Brooks addresses in his own way.  We are living with the lack of love for one another and no care or consideration for one another, due to individualist “survival of the fittest” attitudes.  We don’t think about providing opportunities for all people and many times it’s more about providing handouts instead, although that, too, is objectionable to white supremacists and others. 

America HAS been the shining light, compared to Communist China and other sections in the world.  For the sake of “survival of the fittest” of the Chinese people, CBS Sixty Minutes report this past Sunday pointed out that the Communist Chinese version of Tik Tok is very controlled so as to EDUCATE their own people.  But for the rest of the world, they put it out there in an “anything goes” fashion.  It helps the Chinese survive while helping to destroy the education and learning capacities of our Western civilization. The Chinese embrace what Western classical music can do for the brains of people, while our Western people, stupidly, reject it and demonstrate their stupidity and lack of a brain, in the process. 

The net result since the Reagan and the birth of supply-side economics, has been  several developments in America.  (1) we want opinions, not facts; (2) we have big fat pig newspaper publishers who reject good journalism, local investigative reporting, local information and commentary, and do everything by sensationalism; we then wonder why “nobody reads newspapers;” (3) Ronald Reagan, Jr., who identifies himself as being an atheist and one has to wonder whether he supports “survival of the fittest” as being between those in the human species, not between humans and animal species – anything goes, but stop two consenting adults from doing what they wish to do; (4) defense of greed, narcissism, love of money, and lack of caring for one another, due to “survival of the fittest;” (5) love of gladiator-type games and being mesmerized by blood and guts and guns splashed on television screens. 

In the 1950s, the character, Perry Mason said just the opposite of what publishers say about newspaper journalism and the facts.  Perry Mason:  “I don’t want opinions, I want the evidence.” 

In the 1980s, the character, J.B. Fletcher said, “I have a theory [not a conspiracy theory] but I need the evidence and facts.  All opposite of what is being said today throughout our society when invoking greed and narcissism and validating it with “survival of the fittest.”  Then the far left liberals wish to spend all our time protecting the animals with which humans have dominion.  That is fine to have such opposition when humans massacre animals for the sake of greed and selfishness.  But to protect us from losing our own food stocks, such actions by the far left push the envelope too far.  Example. 

Killing predators of deer and domestic livestock, we kill off the coyote.  Then the deer populate to such a point that they become a nuisance for drivers and for those who maintain gardens for the sake of human needs for consumption.  When, in actuality, When in actuality, the “survival” factor could be to have donkeys protect the livestock because they are able to stomp on any coyote which come close to the livestock.  Nature working together for the sake of “survival of the fittest” among animal species, but to consider that God does not intend “an eye for an eye” among the human species because Jesus Christ said something contrary to “an eye for an eye….”

Sad to hear the sadness rate increases for “lower class” humans.  This should be stopped. An attitude adjustment contrary to survival of the fittest among the human species needs to occur.  Balance can be accomplished by regulation of business so as to eliminate the creation of monopolies with the use of supply-side economics.   Mr. Brooks only presented the facts, but really did not identify solutions.  Thus, I refer to Mr. Brooks and his facts, but also present ideas for solutions, too.  

My writing is not a letter to the editor because it is too lengthy.  My writing is not an op-ed because it is a commentary with solutions. Really.  It is not too lengthy to be an op-ed or a commentary.  Thank you, Mr. Brooks, for the facts included in your commentary. 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Education, fascism

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It’s Not Just Inflation, Stupid

In 1992, James Carville said, “it’s the economy, stupid.”

Today, we are listening to a media which keeps pushing this statement, using it against Democrats and President Joe Biden.  Wrong, stupid media.

The cover story of a recent Economist magazine is as follows:  “It’s not just inflation.”  One cannot say, “it’s the economy.” 

Facts.

1992 Unemployment: 7/4%; GDP: 3.5%; Inflation: 2.8%; Event: NAFTA drafted

2021Unemployment: 3.9%; GDP:5.7%; Inflation: 7.0%Event: COVID-19 pandemic and recovery

1992 and President George H.W. Bush was in control.  It was an election year, but Bill Clinton did not take power until Jan. 1993.  Sadly, the Democrats joined with the Republicans in implementing NAFTA.  Unemployment was already bad in

1992.  NAFTA did not help the situation, but the fallout from NAFTA did not happen for years, as Bill Clinton reduced unemployment during his tenure as president.  In those years following 1992, GDP and inflation fluctuated, but unemployment was reduced.  By the time Bill Clinton turned the government over to George W. Bush, the Federal budget was a balanced one, due to the tax credits given to the MIDDLE CLASS, not so much the UPPER CLASS with its people who refuse to pay taxes (as today). 

During the period under Democrat Bill Clinton, for the first time in years and two Republican administrations, the interest rate came down to single-digit percentages.  I know.  I purchased a home in 1988, under Republicans.  Double-digit rates.  I purchased a home in 1996 under Clinton. Single-digit rates.  Facts from my personal experiences. 

I suggest the media and many others read The Economist.  In this way, they will stop yelling,, “inflation is the end-all description of all our problems and therefore, Biden and the Democrats are at fault.”  I suggest, by reading this Economist article, the media will stop being lainbrains in their coverage of the political situation in America.  They will begin to say, the economy is following a period of recovery as we attempt to overcome a pandemic.  That, compared to 1992, unemployment is down and the GDP is up.  Two basic parts of the economy (plus others), are decent, while inflation is the bad thing.  But then, how is the problem of inflation solved? One means of doing so is to raise interest rates, something the president of the USA has very little DIRECT control (indirect? yes). 

But by making the other two parts of this economy equation going more smoothly today and not pushing overseas business over American (as Republican Bush wished to do by throwing the American auto industry under the Japanese bus, plus NAFTA). n contrast, today, President Biden and the Democrats wish to encourage development of American business v. those in Asia, with his infrastructure bill (perhaps to help avert war with an Asian nation, too?). 

The media is failing to present these ideas and to shut up the signs with “Biden sucks,” and so forth.  What lainbrained stupidity and the fault of the media for allowing it.  Again.  The media should begin to read The Economist more frequently. 

It’s not just inflation, stupid.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Economy, Inflation, Gasoline, Oh MY!

Washington Week, Oct. 21, 2022

My factual commentary, not an opinion editorial (op-ed).

First of all, this is no way for contacting you – by form. I despise it. Same thing with social media. It’s all about the opinions in short messages. I object. A person whose funeral was celebrated in the past two weeks, reminded us by way of her eulogy, that using technology and phones was so un-human when considering we no longer talk face-to-face. Thumbs thumbs thumbs and not speaking with one another.

Now I have that out of the way, the reason for me contacting you.

On your program last night (Fri., Oct. 21), your analysts proved once again how media concentrates on analyzing opinions, not providing the facts. As on a one-time television program, the police detective said, “just the facts, ma’am, just the fax.” The character of Perry Mason said, “I am not interested in your opinion, only the evidence.” You use opinions as evidence far too much. Those two television series were models for the American public in the 1950s and 1960s, as reading by Americans declined (according to George Will).

Recently, a wonderful actress named Angela Lansbury died. In her series after the time period I describe above, she would often say, “I have a theory, but I need the evidence.”

I ask you wonderful media people, with due respect, why do you constantly analyze the opinions of people and never look for evidence to support such people. Where did the opinions of voters, brought forward last night, derive? From surveys? From just a few voters? Where did those opinions about issues derive?

Recently, in waiting for my car in a detailing shop, I waited some two hours in a bar. I was not drinking, but just needed to get a soda and burger to eat and the establishment was the closest for walking. Just to clarify because I rarely visit bars.

Perhaps I should visit bars more often. Because what I heard spoken by the people (mostly men, but a woman, too) was this. How lousy healthcare in America was, particularly focused on one PRIVATE local healthcare unit. I never heard one thing about the “bail issue in NY.” That “bail issue” lying commercial was prevalent – from the Republicans. Lies in the commercials. Not one word was spoken about any of the other issues for which Republicans in New York are lying so as to gain votes. Hitler’s Goebbels: “tell a lie so many times that it becomes fact.”

Never once do I ever hear the media of any kind speak about what is happening with regard to lies. Just presentation of analysis of the various opinions, even some voters. Just the facts, ma’am. Just the TRUTH, ma’am. And in the process, your remarks do nothing but scare voters away from the polls.

Last night, you had a clip of the debated between Stacey Abrams and Kemp of Georgia. Kemp was quoted as saying (paraphrased) that he made the voting registration process in Georgia an online system easier to use. Beg your pardon? You broadcast that piece of information and later last night, I get a call from a person who recently moved from Florida to Georgia. He described the voter registration, online, as being a nightmare, so he did not do it. There goes one vote from Abrams, whom he likes a great deal.

My bet is that it is now too late for this person to register for the upcoming election in which he favors Stacey Abrams. Every vote counts. So, I suggested he vote absentee in Florida since his address is still in Florida and he would vote for Charlie Crist rather than Ron DeSantis. Every vote counts.

Instead, this person reminded me of what it was like to vote absentee in Florida. He lived at a residence far from where he was attending college. It was a nightmare. I recall when I turned 18 in upstate NY, living at college but my primary residence being my home some four hours from college, doing absentee ballots then and finding it to be far less complex than what Florida made it, for the sake of the Republicans. More Democrats in the state of Florida, yet somehow the Republicans win and have a one-party state there.

Where is the historical evidence when discussing inflation and gas prices? There were many times of inflation in my life. We never pointed at the government.

Gas prices today are equal to about what they where 50 years ago (1973) during the time of the oil embargo. Historical economics evidence speaks mountains. First of all, if people would read newspapers, an op-ed columnist wrote about how, on the basis of inflation over the LONG TERM, the prices of gasoline today are lower than in the early 1950s when there was a gas increase and LOWER THAN the prices during the oil embargo, WHEN ADJUSTED FOR LONG-TERM INFLATION. Look at the salaries of the big oil conglomerate oligarchs today, compared to those earlier years? Did you do that? No. I know that oligarchic salaries since the 1970s have increased 1000% or more today. Even the salaries of workers paying for the gasoline are higher and give them a higher earnings level than those during the oil embargo (but not as much as 1000%).

The SAME PEOPLE who gave us the oil embargo are the problem today. Trump and big oil of Texas LOVE the Saudis. Trump and big oil LOVE Putin and the Russians. Putin is a by-product of those years during the oil embargo.

Did this historical evidence ever get revealed last night? Not once did I hear such examples. Instead, we heard the presentation of opinions on the side of “what the voters are saying.” Does it ever behoove media to present historical evidence which might show these voters being mesmerized by the very people who are the cause of the problem – Trump and his cronies, big oil, and the remnants of OPEC? What is presented is stupid people too easily mesmerized by lies who are snotty brats moaning and groaning like a bunch of spoiled brats.

I say this because in the years of the oil embargo and high gasoline, we came together more often to do something. We did NOT point fingers at a president or the government, due to the oil problem. We did not look at handouts from a government. How many times did I take my 4-hour trip to college in the cars of other parents other than my own? Car pooling on our own, not done by a government. How many times, when I purchased my OWN car, did I share rides with other college students (four of us to be exact) on the 4-hour drive to college and back? I saved those parents the gas money for each of four potential car loads of students. My parents never paid me for the gas. I would sometimes receive some cash from some of the riders, but I never insisted on it.

There were others who did the same thing. Voluntary car pooling. No one FORCED us to do it. Some did the car pooling from Long Island to the college, typically a six to eight hour trip. Some rode the bus.

We used different modes of transportation Only after a few years did some local governments set up car pooling options for the residents. AFTER the years we car pooled. Had electric or hybrid cars been available, we would have rejoiced. Big oil is trying to sabotage that and captures the stupid imaginations of too many stupid people.

The other thing about last night’s broadcast. Never mentioning the accomplishments of President Biden and the Democrats, except to brush them off with no analysis of WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. Unemployment is down and has been reduced since President Biden took office. That should shoot holes into the lies of Oz in Pennsylvania, based on big oil, when discussing a Keystone project. “Loss of jobs.” OH? And what about the increase in jobs in the economy which has caused a lowering of unemployment? In other words, it’s lousy to lower unemployment but boy is it lousy that there is a lack of jobs due to – Keystone – offshore drilling in Florida, etc., etc. etc.

And then to hear some dwell on the reason to be against electric vehicles is the unfunded mandates for putting such vehicles in public transit. I have seen Republicans do unfunded mandates MANY, MANY, MANY times – to the detriment of public education. Don’t notice these people who are whiners complaining about those unfunded mandates which cause the taxes for public education to increase.

As for inflation, those of us who lived through inflationary periods have a great deal to teach, but are being shut down by the listeners of false information – from Fox News. how many times have I tried to take the opportunity to TEACH (my career was teaching) and other on the “red” side of the coin simply talk over me and not allow me to say one thing? My only way to say anything is writing, as in this example. But the media makes it more difficult to get published, with short snippy little tweets full of emotions and opinions, not the facts.

And who reads newspapers, right? Those of us who don’t like what I describe here which happened in last night’s Washington Week. The rest of the snotty young spoiled brats don’t read newspapers. Yet, in the newspapers of LOCAL INFORMATION and so forth, we have read information explaining how to overcome inflation. Instead, the Republican jerks of America rely on the fact that people don’t read such information and wisdom of age and inspire these brats against the government of Joe Biden and the Democrats. People who are NOT PERFECT, but have a record of doing some good things to counter what has been happening. The good things apparently are being BURIED by the strategies of lies and emotions emanating from a Republican Party leadership. Thus, these bastards LOVE it that we don’t come together as a nation and figure out how we can all deal with the inflation. They just expect someone to fix it.

When I was recently in a grocery store and looking for short ribs for a recipe I came across, the prices of short ribs exceeded $10 per pound. WOW! I was not going to pay that price. Sometimes, due to the cost, the stores just did not stock that meat.

When speaking with a human being called a butcher (at the store), it was suggested to me there is a less expensive cut of beef I could consider using to replace the short ribs. It was still on the expensive side, but it was worth considering. My thanks to human beings like that on the supply side who can help those of us on the demand side of a capitalist market, during these days of turmoil.

Yes, these examples are from the Middle Class. Yes, there is some suffering in the Middle Class. But so far, it has been Republicans who have worked to decrease the opportunities for people to live in the Middle Class, hoping to have “trickle-down economics” to all who become slaves and more impoverished. It has already been happening. Jack Walsh of GE, an anti-LGBTQ bigot, destroying the pensions of employees, leaving them with higher risk individual retirement accounts, while he and others have been corrupt and unethical in taking all the money for their bonuses and the 1000% increase they have gained since the 1970s. Many other CEOs, in particular big oil and the Koch brothers, have worked for the same results. Hording money at the top and denying it, but in a trickle, to the bottom, while private business and privatization have increased the costs for us in the Middle Class.

Did your media folks even delve into this issue? Not. Once again. Analyzing opinions only.

Mortgage rates. 3% in the 1950s when our parents purchased homes. 12% and 13% when we attempted to purchase a home in the 1980s. This was done under the REPUBLICANS who had PROMISED to reduce the interest rates. In 1982, under Reagan, 12%. In 1988 under George H.W. Bush, about 10 or 11% – still double figures.

Promises, promises, promises so as to only blame Democrats and unseat Democrats by not fulfilling the promises they likely COULD NOT fulfill. Those Republicans only delivered for FIRST-TIME HOMEBUYERS, not those who had already owned a home. Historical evidence, once again. Those of us who had already purchased homes at the high rates did not see relief into the single digits until Democrat, Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, Reagan and the Republicans had won over the YOUNGER Baby Boomers who were the first-time home buyers. It was such people and younger who are the mean-spirited and vicious ones defending Republicans today, with their bratty spoiled attitudes, especially when things don’t go their way. They own huge acreage and more than what i can afford on a teacher’s salary and still wish to ask for more. Just like Ebeneezer Scrooge and the LOVE OF MONEY and MATERIALISM, before human beings.

Today, the fault with high housing prices and a possible head to high interest rates has been caused by Republican bank buddies, flipping of homes and corruption in selling new homes in new developments (particularly in Florida, as written by investigative LOCAL NEWS reporters, backed by librarians doing research, in the early 2000s). All of this opened the doors for corporate slum lords to move in to purchase homes and FORCE the people of Florida to rent rather than the “American dream” of house ownership for the LONG TERM. (And Suze Oman validates this with “the new American dream,” so as to make young folk feel better about all of this, rather than rid us of the thieves of business who are doing this – robber barons. What a joke).

And then there is the complaint by some regarding how President Biden is following precedence with the Chinese and taxes. Such spoiled brats are irritating and obnoxious because they ignore the ideas of the use of infrastructure development to light a fire under development of the U.S. semi-conductor industry. Why would he do such a thing? Because the semi-conductor industry is based in Taiwan, China realizes this, and intends to take over the nation. You think the tax situation with China is bad? Think about what would happen should all semi-conductors be made by THE COMMUNIST CHINESE. Better yet, think about coming to the defense of Taiwan and what that would entail. Give up our rights in America for the sake of averting war? Go to hell.

Again. Why did your media folk not go into what I have mentioned? Why do you not interject the facts and just concentrate on analyzing opinions? WHY? Unless this is changed, it will be the downfall of American democracy. Makes me wonder who is TRULY paying for the media in America today.

“Purple mountain majesty…” America the Beautiful. It does not read, “red mountain majesty…” It does not read, “blue mountain majesty…” It reads PURPLE, a combination of red and blue. How appropriate. How interesting that this portrays a beautiful America, a nation which SHOULD be working together for the betterment of this beautiful land, not scoffing and scarring those who are trying to do so. Working against one another, rather than blasting one another with guns, ammunition and “the bombs bursting in air…”

It is said that the most popular song played by the U.S. Marine Corps band is NOT the “Star Spangled Banner,” but “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Not “stars and bars,” which is the symbol of a certain battle flag. I suppose we can see that the later one is a verse with words that rhyme. Rhyme has nothing to do with the words we use, in this case, because the only rhyme or harmony, in this example, is inclusive only to white supremacists.

Let us work together for beating inflation and gasoline prices, not argue for one side or the other. Such ways are an abomination against democracy, supported by Satan and the Evil Spirit.

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Energy, human-rights, Journalism & Media, Living & Learning Moment, Mister Doug Notes, Mister Doug Report, Op-ed

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Fascist Big Oil & Bigots Need to Leave this Nation so we can Coexist in a Democracy with True Capitalist Competition with Supply & Demand, Investments & ROI

Fascist big oil working to mesmerize people about how their answer is the only answer – only one way. Monopoly. Perhaps wanting to take money away from investors who believe in a progressive future and are not liberal, but are being smeared. These ones are fearful cowards who are not able to compete. Talking and talking and talking face to face and never willing to listen. This has been my experience with the fascists around me. I am sick of this and think these people need to go hide in a hole somewhere. Fascist big oil is scared. They don’t like oil companies which are investing in the future with research and development to make alternative fuels possible. And jobs are the only thing, from Keystone to polluting oil companies who don’t give a damn about the environment with more and more oil drilling. Talk jobs. What about the American way of building a better mousetrap? What about investing in and incubating entrepreneurs who can build for the future? Instead, these fascists block anything that goes against oil, the slick pollution which has given us climate change and global warming, from the time the Amazon forests were cut down and took oxygen out and all the other things. Progressive, not liberal. Where is the trust buster when we need him? Where is the Progressives of the Progressive Bull Moose Party – Teddy Roosevelt. Rare to find such people in the Republican Party, but primarily in the Democratic Party. Only fascist cowards and bigots would put forth the corrupt practices so as to push their agenda. 😀 🧐🤓😁😎

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Energy, fascism, human-rights, If it's broke let's fix it TOGETHER, Peace & Justice, systemic racism

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A FASCIST Idea From Lovers of Hitler and Mussolini: America, Love it or Leave It

This is how bad search engines have become, whether Google or DuckDuckGo. There was a time when I was able to find information about how to write a formula in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc. The formulas were to calculate the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th Wed of each month, projecting the dates into the future because the Wednesdays are important for my finances. I saved the formulas. For most of the formulas, they still work. All of a sudden, I experience a NAME? error in the formula to calculate the 1st Monday. I have changed nothing in the names in this particular formula nor for any of the others. The others work as usual. This one gives an error when I changed nothing in the spreadsheet which contains these formulas. This is a common thing. Having settings changed on us on computers, laptops, or smart phones when we did not do the change and have no idea as to find the setting or the change and have to spend hours trying to find out and no one in the tech industry gives one damn about helping their fellow human beings. Me, me, me first and being consumed only with me and not giving one damn about others. You don’t believe me? Walk in my shoes to see for yourself.

So. I search for the help aids I once had to write the formulas. Whether I use Google or DuckDuckGo, and search with word such as “calculate” (which is what I used in years past), I get, “how to find…” I don’t want how to find, so I use what once existed in search engines to eliminate “find” from search. It was the word NOT preceding, in this case, find or the “-” sign to indicate NOT. In other words, -FIND. These search mechanisms once worked. I know. I used them for many years after retrieving instructions provided by Google in those years. Today I can add NOT find about a dozen times in the search and the first result, whether with NOT or without NOT, the first result is FIND.

People. I spend hours and hours trying to find the answers, something I once DID NOT do in spending the time. Yet, when I explain this to others in this GODDAMN me-first society of Ebeneezer Scrooges, I get this… for example, excess spam in Google email or other gmail functions I know about…… TRY THIS, as if I am some kind of idiot and don’t know enough to TRY THIS… I did. Over and over again, plus many other ways to attempt to solve the problem. None work. So don’t treat me like I am an idiot who does not know what I am doing when my statements are to find a team of people in this nation who are interested in solving the problem for more than just “me, me, me first.” If I solve a problem, I share it with others and it is NOT just for myself.

Another example. Walgreens has bought up many rural drug stores which were once serving their communities with pharmacists who were local, owned their own pharmacy, and cared about the customers and the community in the way George F. Johnson showed care and concern when he founded and ran Endicott Johnson Shoes. Walgreens sucks because it does not care about how best to provide prescriptions for the communities on weekends. They shut down on weekends in rural areas. In one community east of Binghamton, NY, the people there got up in arms and protested the decision. The situation in that town got put on channel 12 News from Binghamton. Here in Newark Valley, the ones who complain are nothing but complainers, even though it’s the same situation in another rural town where they did not just fall over and play dead.

We are such complainers that a pharmacist told me to “just leave this nation.” “I would if I could, was my reply.” And then I departed.

I would if I could means this: if I could take the MEDICARE MONEY I invested over some 40 years in a CAPITALIST way (and this was done by means of taxes, a socialist way, so Rick the Prick Scott now in the U.S. Senate can claim its socialism and STEAL, STEAL, STEAL from our money we INVESTED in Medicare. The SOB Rick the Prick Scott has stolen from the people in other ways, too. I can go into many examples it was done, for the sake of big oil of Texas.

But Donald Trump likes this prick of a SOB Scott, but says, “even pleading the 5th amendment means someone is guilty.” How many times did Rick the PRICK Scott plead the 5th when the trial against the fraudulence of Rick the Prick in Florida? Another words, it’s ok to plead the 5th if you are wealthy, like a Trump or a Rick the Prick, but if a Democrat who does not have as much money, it’s wrong to plead the 5th.

Once again, I diverge in order to try to hammer out my point. I don’t give a damn any more whether I diverge or not. Because either way, no one gets my point.

Medicare tax and FICA tax have given an excuse for the wealthy to call this “socialism” when it is NOT socialism. I can prove that it is LONG-TERM CAPITALIST INVESTMENTS INTO LOWER-RISK POOLS OF MONEY FOR THE COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE CALLED THE USA. Shall I repeat this or is someone going to find SOME WAY to shoot holes in what I say, rather than consider the IMPORTANCE of what I say. OK. Repeat. Medicare and Social Security are LONG-TERM CAPITALIST INVESTMENTS INTO LOWER-RISK POOLS OF MONEY FOR THE COMMUNITY OF PEOPLE CALLED THE USA.

I am even hearing lunkheads who are among the common folk and put down the developments of alternative fuels, solar, and so forth, in defense of the pricks of oil men in Texas. They have companies which are SOLELY oil and don’t want any competition from those who promote the continued subsistence on oil which pollutes the atmosphere. What about those of us who invest in OIL companies which are also doing research on the alternative fuel sources? What are we, chopped liver who need to leave this nation because, as asshole Texas oil men and Abbott or Cruz of Texas, think, “it’s my way or the highway” – fascists. We who lived during the Vietnam war era, started with a false Gulf of Tonkin Resolution for the sake of power over oil, recall people saying, “America, love it or leave it.”

I say to the GODDAMN freaking fascists like Trump, Rick the Prick, Ron DeSantis, AMERICA, LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT – an America for which we need to appreciate what was given to us by wealthy people who actually loved this nation over “me, me, me” and being like Scrooge was.

I belong to the Sons of the American Revolution, as does Jeb Bush of Florida. Jeb has no idea what that means, another SOB from another SOB family. My ancestor upon whom I joined, Capt. Frederick J. Schoonmaker, was a wealthy man during the time of the American revolution. He did not try to avoid taxes. He CONTRIBUTED TO THIS FLEDGLING GOVERNMENT AS A MEANS TO INVEST IN THE FUTURE OF AMERICA. HEAR THIS OR DO I NEED TO SPEAK MORE LOUDLY? THE PARK SYSTEM, WHICH TRUMP AND OTHERS WISH TO DESTROY, WAS CREATED AS A METHOD TO CONSERVE WILDLIFE IN AMERICA. THAT PARK SYSTEM WAS CREATED WITH THE HELP OF WEALTHY PEOPLE IN AMERICA WHO WANTED TO PRESERVE OUR WILDLIFE AND NOT MAKE MONEY BY POLLUTING IT.

Even, Teddy Roosevelt, a GOOD WEALTHY POLITICIAN, wanted to conserve the wildlife of American. Interesting enough, my Capt. Frederick Schoonmaker is from a family inter-married with the wealthy Roosevelts.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was smart in starting the pooled funds for Social Security. He was stupid in calling the revenues into Social Security the FICA tax. it is NOT a tax but a long-term investment into a government-run pooled resource with lower risk than individual accounts.

My dad told me he had essentially lost his shirt with individual retirement accounts. His losses, according to what he told me, were in the 2008 recession, a recession run by Shrub. He HAD to rely only on his investments by way of FICA (plus VA benefits for health where his return on investment was only because he served his nation and no money invested in it). Yet it was Shrub and others who privatized Medicare and made it the nightmare of a system it is today, for the benefit of the wealthy. I like to eat donut holes and clear them off a plate of donuts.

So, the complaints about the hours of a rural Walgreens, the convoluted practices of the Medicare donut hole for common folk in their older age, glucose monitors REQUIRED by —- WHOM? That is a good question —- WHOM —- Medicare or Medicare Excellus private insurance —- WHO is at fault? When the glucose monitor FORCED down our throats is a lousy one which I can take numbers repeatedly in a matter of a minute or so and every number comes up lower by several points. And asking WHY I see a monitor in Walmart which says ON THE BOX, “paid for by Medicare Part B, but am told by Walgreens that there is only ONE monitor paid by Medicare – the lousy Libre one. And when I ask about the monitors, I get told to call the company. Yeah. Call and wade through hours and hours of speaking to computers before getting a human being. I told this pharmacist that when my dad owned a business here, he did not tell his customers to call Gibson refrigerators when one broke down. He went to fix it – backed up what he sold as a small business person. And he did not charge a “minimum charge” just for coming to the house. The only ones who did that were the lousy sales and service people on lousy Long Island and had big companies – and fraud and unethical behavior, too. From dating a girl from Long Island, I learned about those, too.

And many complain about drive-by shootings? Someone should live in Lake Worth or Boynton Beach, FL, to see just how bad they can be. I am speaking about the state run by a Republican one-party government for more than 20 years now. Run by fascists like Rick the Prick and Ron DeSantis. Even Jeb Bush was a fascist who privatized the jail system so it becomes one of TRYING to put people e in jail so as to support a profit motive. All due to Jeb Bush and his “me, me, me” stand your ground gun shit.

And I try to find out WHY, for all these concerns i have and I am told that if I did not like these things, that I need to “leave this nation” —- ?????

The days that this Walgreens pharmacy was owned by a LOCAL small business man, as my dad was, and we had a local person interested in the community and the customers. Walgreens sends us a pharmacist who, when I ask questions which impact my LIFE AND DEATH, I get told to leave this nation. Don Jordan, who once owned Valley Pharmacy NEVER would have done that. NEVER.

Next door to this Walgreens is a locally owned supermarket which has been in the family for some three or four generations. I don’t get treated in that supermarket in the manner I was treated at a large-scale pharmacy chain. If I see a need for a product they don’t have in the supermarket, they are very kind and attempt to get it. I am most thankful for what they do. If they can get it they will bring it to their shelves. If not, I understand – they can’t get it. They are small, so there are times I need to drive eight miles away to Weis, Price Chopper, or Grand Union. Or order through Amazon. But those are always last resort because I appreciate the efforts of those in a small business who are the greatest.

Even the Weis, Price Chopper, and Grand Union are stores owned by chains. Those stores are part of smaller chains than Walgreens.

Walgreens, a corporation with top brass fat pigs who wished to LEAVE THIS NATION and move overseas. It was the Obama administration which worked to keep it here, for the sake of providing jobs for Americans. People also need to understand the history here. When this tiny little supermarket was begun in a small store on Water Street, they faced competition from A&P across the street. A chain store. Which remains here in this town? A small supermarket. Where is A&P? Gone. The A&P in a nearby town remained for many years until the chain went belly up. A CVS Pharmacy sits on the spot of that A&P, a Walgreens across the street in an building which once was home to Grand Union. I don’t remember the A&P here in this town because it was gone before I was born.

When my dad got pissed at the larger company which bought out the small business in which he worked for some 20 years. He quit and formed his own business. I am told my father’s business outlasted the bigger company.

Today, the buildings for that larger company are now the Hutchinson Town Hall. Hutchinson. A relation to the family which ran the local supermarket for years. Part of my dad’s business is now being run from a location near the southern town line. That other business is gone.

The local supermarket people have been most wonderful, including the owner whom, I am told, had to be taken to Cleveland because there was no healthcare facility, locally or even across the PA border, who could help him. He went to the same hospital which also owns a hospital in Miami, FL, where I used cardiologists from that same organization.

And when we sat in a bar to get a meal (not drinks), waiting for our car which was being handled nearby, we heard, for almost two hours, the men in that bar, talking about the lousy healthcare in the Binghamton area. Never once did I hear ANY one of them speak about the bail situation in New York. Not once. It was about the lousy healthcare and UHS was one name I heard come up.

I don’t want to bring this up, but… I was born in the hospital which is now owned by UHS. A couple years after I was born there, several babies died at Wilson Memorial because someone put salt, rather than sugar, in the formulas. My dad read the newspaper quite frequently and shared that article with me, from the Evening Press of Binghamton. I was just a little kid at the time. But I don’t forget it.

So, I am a complainer who should leave this nation? According to a pharmacist I should. Just do things “prescribed” (no pun intended) in the fascist way, by the big fat pigs of America who refuse to pay their taxes, have had an increase of some 1000% since BEFORE Reagan and his freaking lousy deregulation and supply-side economics (which is NOT capitalism) and shut up, huh? Like politics in a democracy, capitalism is about checks and balances. Deregulation removes the balances between supply and demand or between investments and return on investments. In the process, the little guy, including small business people, are destroyed. I will not shut up. And I chose to live in this nation because of my ancestors who built it, for which I appreciate, even with the lack of perfections over time. There is no perfection. And that is why we common folk need to put our heads together, speak up, and work together to find the best solutions based on best practices, not on what the “me, me, me” lousy attitudes of the fat pigs at the top. I have an investments in oil companies which pursue alternative fuels, including SOLAR and ELECTRIC CARS. Checks and balances for our future and those who follow us in death.

Am I supposed to be subservient to those who have tons of money and only push for a Keystone project, oil drilling on the coast of Florida with a danger of pollution, fracking (which destroys well water), and the big oil of Texas? What am I? Chopped liver? If you say so, then YOU are the traitors of this nation which was built for YOU, the common person.

Right now, the only one who gives us checks and balances is a man named Joe Biden. He is MY president. With his good and his imperfections. He is still OUR president. I am sick and tired of hearing the lies about him. I am not going to shut up about having to leave the nation in which I was born so that some people can steal from other Americans, as much as I have observed, among other events, in the 20-year one-party fascist Republican system of Florida. The Republican Party of Florida (RPOF).

As I once told a friend who felt as if I did not like her because I sounded as if I did not like Republicans anymore, it is not being a Republican for which I characterized her. I told this person that it is how wonderful I think of this one person and the great person she is, not which political party to which she belongs. After all, I was once a Republican, but I could no longer tolerate the LEADERSHIP of the party. It was not those individuals at my level in which I formed my ideas because many of them are good people. But the people I associated during Vietnam conflict era were NOT those who said, “America, love it or leave it.” I tried to stay as far away from such people, as possible. And I know there were some in this little town where I grew up who felt that way. But I won’t mention names.

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Money-loving Oligarchs of America are Traitors

Amazon. A river in Brazil, is it not? The home of a Brazilian dictator these days. The home where the rain forests were destroyed so as to create global warming. Perhaps one should shut up, right? One has to wonder about all of the connections here between all that is being identified.

Amazon. Prime. Notice the increasing number of trucks on the road? That is wonderful because we are able to get the products delivered which are in low supply in the stores. Low supply. Centralized economics like the “former” Soviet Union. A former KGB agent from the “former” Soviet Union. Centralized supply-side economics like a communist state and proclaiming as Karl Marx did, that capitalism was at fault when really, it was not a true capitalism which was to blame even in the time of Karl Marx, but it was supply-side economics crapping with manure on the demand side of the markets.

Is this what we accept?

News tip tonight from “Newsy,” a short clip. That FedEx is suffering financially. Then the opinion with no challenge. “It’s the economy.” It’s the economy? So the central supply-side economics can blame President Biden. Economy? Is it not possible that it is Amazon Prime delivery which is putting FedEx out of business? The economy? Who the hell’s opinion is that? The opinion of Jeff Bezos? The opinion put forth by Jeff Bezos so as to get Republicans elected to Congress? The economy? BULLSHIT.

Amazon commercial. Telling us how great Amazon is by training its employees for what? Technology. A world of technology and no concern for the needs of the demand side of the market, plus sending all the other necessary jobs overseas with the help of NAFTA. With the help of George H.W. Bush who pushed NAFTA originally. With the help of George H.W. Bush who threw the American auto industry and the UAW under the bus at trade talks with Japan. How much did George H.W. Bush really do in WWII to defend this nation against Japan and Tojo?

As for the auto industry pushed under the bus, you must read what Lee Iacocca has to say about that after witnessing this happening while at the the trade talks in Japan and George H.W. Bush puked afterwards. Read about it in Lee Iacocca’s book. But no. Let me not give the title because no Americans will read it anyway, will they? As they are mesmerized with the opiate of the masses – television with its screwball programs today and violence with blood all over the screen. Why? Why do these people put such crap on the screen? And don’t tell me money because there was a time when money could be made and we did not have bloody manure on the screen in such a prevalent way.

For me, my 40 to 50 years of experience in education, finding the needs of the community, including leaders of companies in some cases, tells me that there are many needs of the demand side of the market which are necessary and they ain’t technology, either. Electrical. Plumbing. EMTs. Fire men and women. Police. Tool and die.

The list goes on and on. These skills, plus the products and services necessary for our communities, are not being implemented in our society.

Add to that people who work to help other human beings, such as teachers, professors, nurses, healthcare workers, rehab workers (to help those who become addicted to many things).

We in education know what is necessary to meet the needs of the demand side of the market and find that every human can play a role; that it’s not just about sending everyone to college or training everyone for technology. Lawyers running educational institutions because Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis and others put them there, don’t know one damn thing about what it takes to educate for the future, so they wish to use the strategy to create training only related to technology. Change to technology for the sake of change, creation of slaves and sweat shops, and creating deep pockets filled with tons of money for lovers of money in the supply-side Reaganomics money-loving greed, self-centeredness, narcissistic ploys and strategies.

That math is not about forever solving for quadratic equations, but it is the role of learning quadratic equations which can develop the human brain which is only a small portion of it for which Americans are using these days. Or that the arts may not be done by pure music or art literacy (playing an instrument, singing, painting or sculpting), because not all are able to do so and sometimes do not have an interest. Instead, Art INFORMATION literacy so as to develop the parts of the brain which are ignored. Whole brain development, not right brain or left brain exclusively.

Then these supply-side Reaganomics people push for people like Susie Orman to make people feel better with instructions about “the change in the American dream.” That is not the bullshit I want my kids to have. I want my kids to be able to purchase their own home, not to be shoved off into ghettos of homes like in big cities, herded into urban areas like a bunch of animals. No wonder the supply chain has been gutted and local broadcasting and newspapers for rural folk have been intentionally gutted. So they give up and move to the city. In this process, we can all live happily forever, right? Like robots only in a city / urban environment, doing as the greedy fat pig oligarchs say we should all do.

Bezos owns the Washington Post. His former company, Amazon, is putting businesses like FedEx out of business. Yet, with all the Amazon Prime trucks I see, the newspapers COULD be delivered by Amazon Prime trucks. But they are not.

Instead, the fat pigs of money-loving oligarchs are trying to figure out a way to stop delivery of news print, with no concern for the demand side which still wants it. Money is not the reason. Money-loving fat pig SOBs are the reasons.

The deliberate strategy for a number of years has been to get rid of one source for local INFORMATION which has been provided by newspapers. Flash it on channel 12 so we have to take a quick look. NOW. Be quick about it when getting a pen and paper out to write it down because POOF and it’s gone.

Directories of information? Google has become a lousy search engine which dredges up shit paid for by money-loving fat pigs FIRST and not the core of necessary INFORMATION to answer a question. Search engines to find according to what we type. If we don’t know what to type, no directory of local information of any kind for which we can BROWSE through the newspaper for the necessary information.

And consider the shitty way humans are being trained so as to scoff at someone who wants to learn and asks questions. And this is happening at all ages, not just the ones who have been trained by thumbing a cell phone keyboard. The only stupid question is one never asked. But we are getting non-human beings who consider questions asked to be stupid, even when someone is trying to learn something and gain wisdom.

Or to scoff at human beings and shoot holes in what they say and never consider and THINK about what is being said. After all, we need to move lightning fast, like watching a TV screen when information is provided and … get it quickly… or else you are a dumb turd.

It is sicko and perverted. No wonder George H.W. Bush vomited at the banquet in Japan when he negotiated that Japanese cars could be sold in America, but made no means to open the doors of Japan to American cars. And don’t give me the damn answer that America could not sell the cars in Japan because you are a dumb ass who does not realize how, when America has needed to step up to the task, it does. If you shoot holes in what I say in this regard, then you are nothing but a traitor to America. Bush must have felt so guilty that he puked in Japan. And it’s the American people who have suffered, not the fat pig robber baron narcissistic self-centered greedy money-loving oligarch club.

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Capitalist Supply & Demand & I Won’t Back Down From Demanding the DEMAND Side with Newspapers

Speaking to people in defense of keeping print copies of newspapers available, I have made a pretty good case in defense of the DEMAND SIDE of the market which has been deliberately curtailed by big fat pigs at the top with a love for money narcissistic and self-centered attitude who simply wish to line their pockets with a USA Today approach like Pravda of Moscow and not considering other aspects about how they can make money with PRINT copies of newspapers.  They DELIBERATELY began to remove the one unique thing which sold newspapers and kept circulation numbers up.  I have been validated with reports from the broadcast media and other sources.  These are not just NEWSpapers, but local NEWS & INFORMATION papers.  These are UNIQUE to local newspapers as the Mustang is to the Ford Corporation.  Would Ford DELIBERATELY get rid of a product which is unique and put in place something which like USA Today and tell all the local people to go to hell and just read USA Today online. 

Because that is what is being shoved down the faces of the demand side of what is SUPPOSED to be a truly capitalist market (not supply side Reaganomics which is NOT capitalism and almost as bad as centrally-controlled government of communists in the Soviet Union) the ultimate result is a destruction of

  • LOCAL NEWS & INFORMATION & PUZZLES
  • LOCAL CALENDARS
  • LOCAL ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS
  • LOCAL OBITUARIES (we think Legacy replaces this? go to h-e-double hockey sticks because one needs an obituary NEWS source which provides the information, especially when one is new to an area and is not on the list of the cliques in town to be informed; Legacy plays another good role AFTER learning of the death of someone
  • LOCAL WEDDING REVIEWS
  • COMICS
  • LOCAL CLASSIFIED ADS
  • LOCAL STUFF LIKE
    • RESTAURANT REVIEWS
    • THEATER & CONCERT REVIEWS
    • LOCAL MUSIC REVIEWS
    • LOCAL ART EXHIBIT REVIEWS
    • LOCAL CONSUMER REVIEWS of LOCAL BUSINESS
    • LOCAL TV & RADIO SCHEDULES & INFO
    •  LOCAL COMMUNITY CIVICS REVIEWS (not politics)
    • LOCAL REVIEWS OF LOCAL POLITICAL CANDIDATES so as to keep people informed and not just listening to the BULLSHIT from news media which agrees and MIGHT NOT be the TRUTH; RESULT of such media? a population which is so stupid they cannot differentiate from right and wrong and digs in its heals with by maintaining the stupidity and a lack of knowledge; what is missing is the ability for people to know what is going on locally in POLITICS, whether at the village, town, county, city, or state

All in this list plus MORE than what is in this list.  The news & INFORMATION, not spread all over so as to search with a lousy Google search engine. 

When the demand side of capitalism answers the way the big fat pigs with mansions hope they would do – stop reading the new versions of what are called local  newspapers, they stop reading and search other sources where they are not TAUGHT but just look for what is in agreement. Yippee!  Then the fat pigs of supply-side newspaper industry Reaganomics can say, “look —— NO ONE IS READING NEWSPAPERS!”  Bullshit.  When you take away the sections and parts which sold newspapers, no one WANTS to read them.  No surprise.  The fat pigs are doing this to the newspaper industry so they can fill their GODDAMN pockets more than others and don’t have to figure out a way to lower overhead or other means.  Ask me.  I have a few suggestions for lowering overhead.  But these bastard pigs modeled after Putin refuse to listen.   

How many times do I get dildo heads who stand up for this supply-side Reaganomics?  All the time.  And I get insulted by such people.  Those who are wealthier than the rest of us simply defending the wealthy and using facts about how circulation has declined.  Of course it has declined.  When the content is condensed, why would it not decline?  Even if The New York Times DOES NOT condense its content, people are NOT being taught to read to learn, but to read to be entertained, as a result of those newspapers which DO condense the LOCAL news.  Besides, The New York Times is not just local but is a better national style news than any of the others, especially on Sundays.  They might have a large market of digital-loving bastards who want technology for the sake of change.  But they don’t take into account the ones who don’t want to go to the trouble and expense of maintaining the freaking technology which is like a little baby, needing constant attention and resources.  The New York Times in print and all we have to do is sit down and read it, not spend most of our time trying to figure out a technology and Internet which is very low quality and lacks any intuitive ways because computers and the ones providing such to the consumers are stupid.  And with gray hard-to-read lettering and really lousy brightness, besides the size of the print, one has to try to face a technology which sucks because it lacks any intuitive ways about it.  Setting up device XYZ12334555.  Or IP SHOCHOIJS10320kpf;jsakljoip.  What the hell is all that supposed to mean to consumers?  Go f yourselves with that bullshit, especially for those of us who are visually impaired and have one more impediment to it all and no one willing to service and maintain such device on the Internet  and on a regular basis.  More people are scammers out there with their hacking and sniper-based cowardly way just to see how well they can trip up the demand side of the market.  This is a barbaric picture of people who don’t give ONE DAMN about one another in America.  They don’t CARE and simply scoff at those of us who complain.  Or ask, “are you ok?” At the time we complain.  YES.  I AM OK.  IT IS THE GODDAMN non-human devices which are NOT OK and the fat pigs who push their national news on us in digital form and with no concern about the demand side of the market because they could no longer earn their GODDAMN money by sitting on their buttes in a lazy fashion. 

My newsprint costs

  • Sunday newsprint newspapers: $494.00 annually
  • Newspapers five or six days of week: $680.00 annually
    • Total: $1174.00 (without delivery, add the freaking gasoline costs a consumer might have: $300.00 (est.)

My technology costs

  • Technology maintenance & replacement: $500.00 annually
  • Internet and phone. About $3000.00 annually
  • Printing & scanning costs: cartridges & paper, etc.:  $300.00 (est.) annually
  • Other costs est. at $200.00
  • Time resource to print ONE article from The New York Times or the Washington Post (etc.) lacks an intuitive touch, perhaps due to the freaking lawyers funneling and wanting to protect royalties, salivating at finding another way to make money with nickel and dime approaches. Compare this to clipping and printing newspaper copy on a copying machine.  Less time in attempting to learn the lack of intuitive approach to do what is needed – with print newspaper. The lack of an intuitive approach to scanning or printing digital copies and no reasonable comparison to copying the newsprint, except the cost of paper and cartridges.  Freaking lawyers in the newspapers disgust the consumer because they probably don’t like the fact that some individual in a household is copying for THEIR OWN personal use what comes from a print newspapers.  Their greedy, money-loving narcissistic self-centered eyes widen with dollar signs from digital. 
  • Constant problems and time spent on fixing problems of technology: 4 to 6 hours in one day’s time, with no assistance (would pay) for regular examination of the problems, while those in the cliques get their own private help and don’t wish to share it
    • Total est. annually for digital:  $4000.00

Digital itself costs almost four times as much.  Almost 2/3 more for the digital.  Add to that the additional times for buffering which is comparable to a 1950s vacuum tube television startup time, plus other problems which are CONSTANT, not just isolated – some est. to be from sniping types of hackers who are nothing but cowards and don’t get stopped by law enforcement which might be more interested in treating those in the black community in a lousy manner.

Meanwhile, the consumers are being screwed. Some behind the cash register complain in stupidity about the price of $6.00 for a newspaper.  Look at these costs and compare these costs outlined above.

And the insulting of me for complaining about being FORCED into reading digitally.  No concern for fellow human beings, but just thinking from their own narrow perspective of life:  me, me, me, and that’s all.  One who states, with blinders on, “her perspective,” knows more about the lack of readers of newspapers than I do who can outline a very wide perspective about this isse, but get insulted instead. 

Others with wealth who insult me.  Perhaps favoring the legal system.  Perhaps defending the system to which one works with technology and wants technology for the sake of change (me, me, me) and does not wish to acknowledge those of us who find CONSTANT and CONTINUOUS problems and expenses of technology and are not WEALTHY enough to spend the money nor the time resources on this, preferring reading the newsprint instead.  We are insulted by such people who call themselves Americans.  But if they think they are friends, who needs enemies?  We would ask for assistance, but the ball is still in our court unless such people live with us.  Not sure such people wish to do that.  Narcissistic money-loving self-centered asses who don’t give one damn about their fellow human beings.  Freak such people with narrow perspectives and blinders. 

Local news broadcasts in one-half hour?  Great for some small minded people who don’t want to learn what is going on.  How many items in the list of local news and information entities above.

There are solutions to this so as to make this a consideration of true capitalist supply AND demand, but no one wishes to consider anything but freaking lousy ideologies with the spinning of a false sense of what capitalism is about by anti-communist jerks on the supply-side Reaganomics fat pigs at the top. 

Solutions:

  • Save newsprint by using tabloid sizes
  • Offer free copies of newspapers at schools, colleges and universities; I have witnessed college students reading newspapers under such conditions; the fat pigs may not be able waddle as much with loaded pockets, but such an increase in circulation can help bolster advertising rates
  • Offer lower prices to consumers who purchase subscriptions for print copies and don’t want the digital (perhaps the GODDAMN sports industry had ought to differentiate between on-demand sports such as football or baseball, rather than a subscription, as was done at one time with attendance at live games; another pet peeve of mine)
  • Have delivery people at busy intersections with newspapers at a very low cost – ANYTHING to increase circulation which is the driving force behind advertising.  More circulation, more readership for which advertisers can benefit and be willing to pay decent prices for the advertising
  • Garage and yard sale kits for placing classified ads
  • Other free offers for placing advertising

The problem with such solutions?  The fat pigs don’t care whether they can lower overhead, just to fill their pockets in easy ways and without having to deal with overhead.  They don’t earn money the old fashioned way because they expect to take money in any way possible, like a Trumpster who needs to be in a dumpster and carried away. 

The demand-side consumers will purchase the newspapers, should the local content not be condensed in such manner as what has happened want a source of local news AND information which brings local news and information in ONE SPOT, not sprawled all over the Internet and a search engine.  It is also easier to go through the white pages of a phone directory, rather than the stupidity of search engines which are designed to pull names and addresses of those who are wealthy and pay at the beginning of a search result list.  Again.  Based on freaking lousy supply-side Reaganomics, not true supply and demand capitalism.  If someone objects to my pointing out true capitalism of supply and demand are lousy humans who likely prefer centralized communism or any anti-capitalist idea beneficial to wealthy pigs.  They are stupid people. 

 I will continue to be adamant and stand my ground against any form of supply-side Reaganomics which is truly Hitler-style business which we don’t need in America.  I will not tolerate insults from stupid and sometimes wealthy people who don’t give a damn about my own desires which make my life happy,  as well as the lives of countless others.  So, Gannett, you can screw in your laziness to eliminate print copy deliveries.  I have offered to help deliver newspapers from another newspaper, as they advertised the need for delivery persons.  I have YET to hear back, so they can all go screw themselves, as well as those who insult me by DICTATING what we Americans SHOULD be receiving in digital.  Go screw and go to h-e-double hockey sticks – by putting them where the sun don’t shine – and that might be in a coffin.  How dare people insult me.  How dare they do that to provoke anger, mockery, and taunting.  This is my country, too, and I demand the freedoms we have with SUPPLY AND DEMAND capitalist considerations.  I am serious about this and find no one to have proof that we MUST have digital.  You have no proof, except the words of money-loving narcissists only. 

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A Tale of Two Villages

A long time ago, there were two villages in upstate New York.  Both about the same size. Both with manufacturing and production. Both bedroom communities of IBM.  Both with one-time business sections of the village which were quite similar with the active business life in each village.

One village was actually closer to the IBM plants than the other, but both were still considered bedroom communities.  How much did IBM help these communities? Did they offset taxes? Not certain.  Did they pay employees? That they did.

The village closer to IBM plants had a ladder factory.  That ladder factory was purchased by a big American corporate conglomerate called Werner Ladder.  According to a Google search, Werner is today located in Illinois. 

What did Werner do?  Shut down the plant and laid off all the employees in the one village.  No longer a tax base for the community.  By way of hearsay, I learned that the AMERICAN corporation wanted to pay less to employees – cheapskate big fat pigs at the top of a company which, like so many others in America, are Leona Helmsley and Donald Trump types and don’t want to pay taxes because “those are for the little people.”  Is this hearsay correct?  I believe it is and there are plenty of other examples of AMERICAN run corporations which have shipped jobs overseas – a bunch of cheapskates who also cancelled pensions and amassed fortunes at the top with corrupt bonuses paid to such fat pigs at the top.  (See the book, Retirement Heist which identifies General Electric and other companies which did this and then put peer pressure on the others at the top to do the same).  Corrupt self-centered narcissists doing everything for themselves and no damn concern for the “common folk,” but lying and being hypocritical, mesmerizing too many of the common folk that their way is best. 

What about the other village? See if you can guess what it is. The first village is located in Tioga County, NY, one of many very impoverished counties today in upstate New York.  A county run by Republicans who side with these big corporate conglomerate assholes at the top and have achieved NOTHING for the “Common folk.”  This second village has, for many years, had a production facility for another company. Can you guess what it is?  They manufacture devices for the types of lifts, etc. which a Home Depot might purchase for use in their stores.  BTW.  Home depot also sells the Werner ladder, too.  What about this other company?  It is still in existence today, after about 100 years or so being there.  Guess who owns this company in the second village? An overseas concern, not big fat American culprits making money hand over foot.  It is owned by a company called Toyota. 

Fascinating story.  A production facility in upstate New York owned by the capitalist giant in a nation we defeated in World War II. 

There are more examples which are similar to the first village in other communities throughout the northeast.  Production shut down and work sent overseas.  The claim? Too high a labor cost in the USA.  To which I say, with the example of a Toyota owning another production facility:  such things by cheapskates of America is nothing but bullshit. 

If I am correct, the congressional district to which the other village is part of is that of Anthony Brindisi who, by way of fraud from the Republican opponent, Claudia Tenney, lost to Tenney by just a few hundred votes.  But to Republicans, the only ones who perform fraud are Democrats, don’t you know?  Anthony Brindisi BROUGHT industry back to that district and how is he repaid?  Removed from office, for doing a good thing.  Imagine that.  Brindisi.  A Democrat.  Unlike the liars I heard recently in Owego, NY, with the lies of a conspiracy theory that “Democrats do what the Chinese want,” Brindisi worked with the military to stop purchasing products from the Chinese and producing them in upstate New York.  And this is how Brindisi, a Democrat, is rewarded?  I once worked for Democrats in a corporation in Florida which made good money and was considered a “cash cow.” Ripe for the picking by lousy Republican business people when they came in, took over the company, laid most of us off, and scrapped the good fortunes of the company in order to knock the stock price so low it would be ripe for merger and acquisition.  It was. It is now part of a huge company in North Carolina, while the Florida part of it was scrapped.  Regarding this corporation, facts not fiction.  But hell, A Tale of Two Villages is supposed to be fiction, right?  The fiction is the assholes who repeat Fox commentary in Owego with lies and conspiracy theories.  Perhaps it is Sloppy Don and the Republifascists at fault for many of our problems?  That is what I can prove with facts, not conspiracy theories. 

The other day, in driving through the second village, I saw the village and its business district doing far better than the first village with the ladder factory.  Most of the business district in the ladder factory village has been burned to the ground and no one has the balls to build it back up.  Don’t tell me there are problems with finances because I know about villages which have had, at their disposal, grant money to help build the villages.  I don’t believe the damn pessimism I hear.  I refuse to believe it any more.  As the writer of A Tale of Two Cities, I am sick and tired of hearing the pessimism. My Scottish family has a motto:  “As I breathe, I hope.” 

I don’t know if my first name comes from General Douglas MacArthur or not.  My dad served in the Pacific and told me about working some of the time with the occupation forces there in the hotel in Tokyo where MacArthur was headquartered in Japan.  When I asked my parents whether my name came from Douglas MacArthur, the answer was usually a smart ass one, “its for you to find out.”  Never mentioned.  But I was born in the early years of the Gen. Eisenhower administration in Washington.  It was just a few years after Harry S. Truman fired MacArthur for wanting to invade China from the Korean peninsula.  There still remain questions as to whether MacArthur, who had the ear of FDR, was correct in trying to convince FDR NOT to drop the a-bomb.  Cannot speak to that, except to report on the William Manchester biography of MacArthur, which is where I obtained some of this knowledge.  I am not going to debate the question of a-bomb or not because no one knows what the future could have held should we have done something different.  I repeat. NO one is knowledgeable enough to make and assumption of a “what if the bomb were not dropped on Japan.”  No one can predict the future of anything with a certainty. But we can try to find best practices which exist today, learn from history, and move forward.  The preponderance of pessimism for the future makes me ill and nauseous.  There is no certainty, either whether my first name comes from General MacArthur.  Just a bunch of circumstantial evidence which MIGHT point to this fact. 

With all of this being said, I now lead into a bit of information about Gen. MacArthur who was appointed by Truman to be the Supreme Commander over Japan, following VJ Day.  MacArthur was swift in putting down the communist movement in Japan.  Because it was raging after World War ii.  At the same time, Douglas ended the fascist dictatorial means created by a leader who claimed to be divine like a god and to be worshiped.  He squelched that, as well.  He squelched the type of Medieval supply side economics which was similar to Western Europe and pushed by Hitler and Mussolini.  MacArthur was the one responsible for putting Japan back on its feet, even if it took a couple of decades for the results to be noticed. 

Thus, for the one village with manufacturing facilities owned by Toyota today, it demonstrates that the Japanese have developed a mentality to hire American labor and not be cheapskates about providing living wages and benefits. 

I have no objections to those claiming the unions were at fault.  Perhaps they were? But in comparison to the Reagan supply-side economics and Trump cronyism for corporate welfare (and DeSantis and Scott of Florida), a good leadership SHOULD  have been able to mange by checks and balances.  Sure. Perhaps the UAW pushed the envelope too far. But did Lee Iacocca, a Democrat, have difficulty in dealing with the union, from a leadership position?  (See the Iacocca book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?  —- bet you will just snipe at me rather than read what I suggest here). 

Ass for the village with the company bought out by Toyota, it lives happily ever after? That is a statement of fiction, in case someone reading this does not have the intelligence to differentiate fact from fiction. If you grasp and put your arms around what Fox Commentary says, you demonstrate you are not able to differentiate fact from fiction. 

What can I say about the other village which once had a ladder factory for years?  Pessimism rules and is a preponderance over what it could be.  But the big problem are the fat pig robber barons at the top.

As I breathe, I hope.  With these words, I have to wonder whether the Scottish family of Gen. MacArthur used the same motto? 

For both villages to live happily ever after, there needs to be a change in attitude and stop being like a bunch of spoiled brats with pessimistic beliefs for the future.  How does that happen?  I know the answers, but do readers know the answers?  If we put our heads together with the goal of finding the best practices as our solutions, not some dimwitted answers from people like Trump, DeSantis, Scott or others, we can do it – together.  Best practices are not always those on the right OR the left.  Best practices are not always those identified with conservative or liberal.  Best practices are solutions which work and have been identified as working, as well as identification of consequences and the strength of those consequences where good overrides bad.  I am sick and tired of the ideology. I am sick and tired of the political parties.  I am also sick and tired of too many Americans who cannot see that whether ultra right wing or ultra left wing, the results are the same:  dictatorship and the destruction of democracy and a democracy which CAN work effectively, even if it can be slow at times.  A dictator rules with an iron fist, but that rule is usually only good for a few people, not all.  Peace and justice does not exist under such circumstances. In the case of national dictators, genocide is performed for “cleansing” the population of opposition to the dictators.  That might create a peace, but not justice.  Only cowards want to achieve such peace in this manner by extinguishing the opposition.  Such iron fists at a local level would only provide justice by literally banning the opposition from living there.  I saw this happen under a local iron-fisted dictator at the local level.  I saw it happen by studying the history of my ancestors who were banished by puritanical shitheads from Boston in the late 1600s.  In those cases, people had a place to escape.  Today, where can the opposition escape to, should such things happen at the national level?  They can only escape by means of death? Only cowards would want such a thing because it makes their lives easier.  Lazy bums.  Both villages now have solutions for the future.  What are those solutions?  Solutions so as to live “happily ever after and do so with solutions which does not make for a hell on earth for many and a paradise of money loving bastards on the other side?” 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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“Electric cars remain out of reach for many” by Jack Ewing (NY Times) (Scranton Times-Tribune Business section, 9 Aug. 2022)

For many of us, we are not able to afford an electric car and wish we could.  The key statement in the report about the cost of the cars is the paragraph which contains the following: “They [the carmakers in the past] introduced technology at a luxury price. With time, the features and gadgets make their way into cheaper cars.” 

Such information is analogous to other historical evidence.  For instance, there was a day when computers were not affordable by most people.  Over time, this changed. Patience is a virtue and we need to stop with the “instant gratification” attitude in America. 

Other examples.  Even in more recent years, as a professor at a college, I had many students who were STILL not able to afford computers when I taught online classes.  In fact, we hear all this stuff about tuition costs which are high.  Working as a professor, I discovered many students were unable to afford the textbooks.  Add to that the fact that many were not able to access e-textbooks because they were not able to purchase the computer equipment of have access to internet.  Professors get blamed due to tuition costs, even when Florida professors made diddly squat in salaries, compared to many other states.  Thank God for the library, which many educators with six figure salaries wish to decimate. It was the academic library which provided access to computers, Internet, and textbooks on reserve. 

I could go on and on with examples.  The bottom line. The capitalist economics run as they should, supply AND demand, not just with the recipients of corporate welfare dictating the supply-side economics, and the prices do come down, but we need to have patience and have the better attitude with regard to long-term investment and return on investment.  We have thrown much of that away with credit card instant gratification and no thought about long-term savings and investments.  We need to do this by making money the “old-fashioned way, we earn it.”  Many people in America need a lesson in this attitude.  Why? Because it DID work, even with its imperfections which need reform, not destruction of the entire process. 

One final note.  (I once was able to sing up to a high C; LOL!).  There was once a computer company called DEC. They produced minicomputers in competition with IBM.  Purportedly, some executive at DEC once remarked that “there will be no purchases a computer for each individual home.”  Where is DEC today?  Pessimism.  Open mouth and “eat crow.”  Working collectively is better than working according to the dictatorial ways, top-down, of the CEOs who benefit from embezzling funds and getting away with it. 

Murder and thievery, among other human acts, are defined in the Ten Commandments as wrongful human acts. It was some men who proposed that the church consider such sins forgivable but being gay as being unforgivable.  And with this among those who are pushing against being gay, is the push for instant gratification to make the deliberate acts – I said, deliberate and no differentiation from errors which are NOT deliberate – of embezzlement acceptable to those who do it and have plenty of money to protect themselves, that lower class people don’t have. Such things become examples for people to attain instant gratification. 

The electric car example is just one more way to push the idea of instant gratification.  “Gotta keep up with the Joneses.” (Is that not the similar to unacceptable acts identified in the Ten Commandments, too?). Thanks to Mr. Ewing (writer of this article), we learn a bit of history regarding how, over time, items become more affordable.  What has happened with the prices of big pharma, protected by lawyers?  Another topic for another day. 

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Cable TV

While living in South Florida, we had choices for cable TV and Internet services. Here in Tioga County, we often have only one choice. For many of us, that one choice is Spectrum, unless we try HughesNet, Dish, or DirectTV through the airwaves of satellite.  Satellite services are not given a good review, particularly with Internet. 

The FCC has given favor to big business and corporate welfare and has nationalized (socialism) by way of corporate welfare and favors to the wealthy who run such services. Not only have we lost local content in newspapers which were once chock full of local news, information, and culture, we have lost control of local broadcasting.  Television broadcasting, especially in rural hilly areas has been made so weak by the FCC, that we are forced to subscribe to Internet and cable TV.  It’s all a strategy to nationalize by way of corporate welfare by way of money funding the government and favors done for the wealthy.  Radio broadcasting, too, is weakened.  When in my younger years here, we did not have difficulty in driving in a car and receiving the local radio broadcasts just about anywhere, whether AM or FM.  Today, to open up bandwidth for the thumbing on mobile phones which come nowhere close to what we had in local broadcasting, we are unable to have powerful local broadcasting stations in this rural hilly area. Oh, I forget. When we go on top of the hills where the density of population is lower (smaller audience to make money), we can get clear signals.  In the valleys, the reception sucks.  It might not be a huge number of people, but sure is more densely populated with a larger number than on top of the hills.  Perhaps we should be like Chinese communists and move populations to where they wish to have them located – on top of the hills?  This is ridiculous.

In the 1960s, in the hills of upstate New York and Pennsylvania, the cable television industry was born – on the local level.  The FCC did not micro-manage these things with regulatory authority. The regulatory agency involved the local authorities.  The FCC, doing favors for corporate welfare CEOs, has wrongly regulated cable TV and other local media outlets. 

To reiterate. In South Florida, we had a choice of cable TV and Internet. The old copper telephone lines into our home were used to deliver Internet by way of AT&T fiber optic lines up to the box and connected to the copper wires.  We also had the choice of copper coax lines by way of Comcast.  The lines within the home were all the same type of lines as what we had with telephone and cable TV in the past. 

In addition to these two options, a small and local firm named Laurie’s TV offered cable television and Internet within our Homeowners’ Association development.  We could pay extra and at a lower cost for this HOA cable / Internet access, in addition to the HOA fees we paid.  The speed for the Internet was not good, so we chose AT&T, delivered by fiber optics and copper.  We chose Laurie’s TV for cable TV.  (FYI: Laurie’s TV was sold to another firm). 

Explanation about this HOA.  The HOA was like an incorporated village, but run by a private organization based 60 miles away in Miami.  Residents had problems trying to pay their bills at such a distant location, but were treated like dirt by an attitude of “I’ll break your knees if you don’t pay,” even when a check was lost in the mail.  The one-party dictatorial fascist Republican control in that state put teeth into the ability of these private organizations, called “condo commandos” to run rough-shod over the people.  Even a retired NY State Trooper was treated like crap by an organization like this. 

Within the “mini-village” environment, they provided choices for local cable TV and Internet.  But the costs for us, per year, to maintain sidewalks, streets, public lawns, and social hall were about four to six times what Newark Valley village residents pay in government taxes in order to do the same thing.  And they were like Mafia bosses in attempting to collect, protected by Republicans who controlled the state. 

I say, to people who wish to move to Florida, be careful what you wish for.  I say to people here who complain about incorporated village taxes, be careful  what you complain about because I have seen it much worse when such village services are provided by PRIVATIZED HOA services.  After all, George W. Bush and his brother, Jeb Bush of Florida always said, “what’s good for [PRIVATIZED] business is good for America.”  Not so fast in believing such stuff because it sucks, like a Nazi Hitler-type in Germany. Like a communist Chinese. Like a Putin fascist dictator.  Be careful what you believe and dig in your heals in such regard.  Being humble means learning so as to overcome ignorance. Not being humble and refusing to learn means being a stupid idiot. 

After some 40 years living in Floridan and observing what happened there, I bring a different perspective to this community. Cable TV is one issue in which I bring a different perspective.  I have a different perspective on other issues besides cable TV.  It would be nice if somebody would listen, consider, and THINK about my perspective and the information I have to offer. Stop the BS about whether this is politics and my opinion. It is my experiences with facts to share.  Stop  scoffing at me in the same manner 19th Century NY Governor George Clinton was scoffed at when he proposed what was called by the scoffers, “Clinton’s Ditch.”  Stop the taunting of me because I give my perspective.  Cable TV in rural upstate NY really sucks, but so does the nationalization of cable TV and media, for the sake of corporate welfare, while social welfare and taxes for all are issues castigated with wishes to destroy, not reform. 

Side note besides cable TV:  What the people need is to take back local control which is good for all, not just for a group of white supremacists called Nazis.  The Republican Party is no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln, but should be re-named the Nazi KKK Party. 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, If it's broke let's fix it TOGETHER, Journalism & Media

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