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

Oakdale Commons, Johnson City, NY

Dear Editors:

You had a front-page story about the Oakdale Commons. It was written, if memory serves me correctly, by Chris Stone (?). The email address was included in that article. But I am damned at “rying” in an attempt to locate that email address. So much for the Gannett way of forcing digital technology down our throats by eliminating the Saturday print copy and not getting good delivery of the print copy to Newark Valley. Perhaps your newspaper has a thorn in the side prophesy and attitude, so as to taunt someone like me who speaks out against someone who speaks out about this?  How nice to treat customers on the demand side of the market in such a manner.  Oh, well. So much for conspiracy theory!  LOL!

If you wouldn’t mind, I have an add-on to my comments about the Oakdale Commons. I hope you will be pleasant enough to pass this along to that writer. PLEASE. Or maybe you all have such hatred about my attempts to seek the truth, represent humanism, not politics, and have this hatred for me. 

Here is my additional commentary.

Add-on to discussion about the Oakdale Commons (Mall).

I suggested adding a buffet style restaurant such as Golden Corral because it opens the door for a wider choice for more people. I am a diabetic and try to avoid breaded chicken such as what Chick-Fil-A has (or KFC or McDonald’s or … all fast food which is successful).

I recall in my younger years, there were more Phil’s Chicken House Restaurants in the Southern Tier. From Binghamton to Owego, there were Phil’s Chicken Houses. (In fact I worked one summer as a short order cook at the Owego restaurant).

Their rotisserie chicken was modeled after chicken non-tomato sauce, non-breading=type recipe developed by Cornell University. Firemen’s Field Days and many other events always featured this style of chicken.

The cause of the rise of obesity and diabetes in America has been attributed to the fast food proliferation and the resulting destruction of a vinegar-based, non-breaded type of chicken found here in the Southern Tier.

Today, people follow the “fad” too damn much and crave the stuff which proliferates throughout the fast food world. Meanwhile, Phil’s Chicken House has been curtailed to one restaurant in West Corners (Endicott). That is shameful, as these big businesses cater, like the media, to “what the majority want” and ignore what MIGHT be best for people, particularly for those who are intelligent enough to seek the right kinds of foods.

Individualism, from the time of the automobile, prevails. Let us have shallow fun, fun, fun til our daddy takes the T-bird away. Let us grab at the fads and trends, whether they are good for us or not.

Even with Golden Corral, they have breaded chicken and one of my favorites, breaded chicken livers (also fried). But not roasted marinated chicken on a pit in a rotisserie.

Don’t give me the BS that it is expensive to make because American ingenuity, when people want it, can overcome such costs, in one way or another. Apparently, American ingenuity is dead when we tailor everything to the majority and forget the minority of people in an overall picture of business.

So, I now endorse the idea that there be a Phil’s Chicken House buffet at the new Oakdale Mall, or Commons.

Humanism first and that is not speaking about politics one single bit. There is no politics with humanism. Then, I remain fearful of saying that I also put God and country first, because then I come under attack by atheists and others.  God help me.

P.S. YEAH!  My glucose fasting numbers this morning were 86!!!   Oh, that’s right, forget it. Nobody gives a damn anymore about fellow human beings. Gee. I should shut the hell up. 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Personal Finance & Investments

Dear Editors:

“Survive the Sell” (7 Feb. 20222).

In learning about personal finances, I was always taught, “buy low, sell high.” It works For those of us who have used this approach in investing in real estate for a primary residence and investing for the  long-term. Such work becomes very clear.  It is also clear regarding stock market, insurance, and other concerns for investing. 

When the economy goes sour, though, many people panic, as James Royal points out in item 2 in his article.  That is a big problem. I have witnessed those who panic during a downward spiral of the stock market.  They panic and believe they should get rid of the stock immediately. When they do, they miss the point about “buy low, sell high.” For during a downturn in the stock market, one sells when the prices go down. Instead, one should be “buying low.” Panic leads people in the wrong direction.  It’s too late to sell because that should have been done before the downturn. People then need to sit tight and wait for the return of the market and prices heading upward.  Of course, even in a downturn, if one happens to have stock which remain high and/or gain in price, they should sell such investments.  But there is a risk that one day the price is good and the next day it is not.

Even with real estate, it is tough to figure out when the price has gone high enough and whether or not one should sit still and wait longer.  If there are signs of the market going down, of course, sell because the price may have topped out. It is a risk as to which decision, sit still and wait or sell while the price is good. 

At this point, though, I am dismayed at the headline, “Survive the Sell.”  In so many cases right now, in the stock market, it is likely a bad idea to consider any type of “sell” at all. “Buy low, sell high.” 

Nevertheless, it is a good thing for a newspaper to bring such guidelines in personal finance to the forefront. Look forward to more informative articles on the business pages. 

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Personal Finance

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Economy & Mortgage Interest Rates

Dear Editors:

Paul Krugman says the economy is doing well. There are many facts and figures which back up what he says.

Thinking about that idea that unemployment is down and the economy is doing good, I have to wonder who is fueling the fire behind the younger generations who are wet behind the ear and are complaining about a business cycle which those of us with wisdom of age have seen all the time and work to be prepared as best we can. Shit happens like inflation happens.  Period. It is a tough thing to prepare and yes, sometimes those of us in the older group find it difficult to be prepared. But we try.

Mortgage rates going up after a long hiatus of low mortgage interest rates is not a topic to be used to bemoan the economy, is it? For those of us in the older Baby Boom generation, we paid mortgage interest rates in the double digits, sometimes as high as 13%. Did anyone give one damn about that? Not on your life.

When Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet took measures to “reduce the mortgage rates,” his actions benefited the younger Baby Boomers born in the late 1950s. Why? Because Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet allowed the use of lower rates for first-time home buyers. By that time, most of us older Baby Boomers had already purchased a home so we were precluded. I tried to obtain a lower interest mortgage rate on a home in Florida in 1982 and was told no because I had already owned a home in upstate New York.  The house in Florida, at the base rate of homes in Florida, was about $20K more than the one we sold in upstate NY. People like us, purchasing a second home after leaving NY faced an increased housing value AND a very high interest rate. Was there anyone who gave one damn about this? And my salary was just about flat when compared t that I had in New York. Sure. It was my choice, right? Wrong. There was a freeze on hiring in SUNY and other education institutions.  Sure. Sure. Republicans came to power and attempted to destroy the work we were doing to improve software development productivity, reliability, and quality for the military. The terrible commander-in-chief was Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet.  What did we get instead? This fantasy of “star wars.”  Only a charismatic idiot who believed that the ripping down of the wall in Berlin and our troubles with the Soviet Union were over and behind us. Where was Putin at that time? A KGB agent? What are the left-wing people of East Germany and Hungary, and so forth, doing today? They are on common ground with one idea today: dictatorship, authoritarianism, autocracy. Nothing to do with ideology at all.

The Republican authorities monitored such events better between states than Republicans did to monitor whether Republicans from the north were voting twice in presidential races, once in the north and once in Florida. No wonder Florida became the one-party state, like a Putin state, as it is today.  Sorry. I diverge.

It is more than just mortgage rates. It is the huge increases in the cost of housing due to greedy and selfish ones with their house flipping. It is about corrupt developers and banks working together to price housing very high in many locations. Developers get their money and banks eventually get the homes which people cannot afford due to cost-gouging high prices.  Long-term investment on a slow pace, is gone, in favor of lovers of money and instant gratification.  During the years of high interest rates which hurt the older Baby Boomers and Neil Bush and others were subversively damaging the federal savings and loan programs created by their family’s enemy from the past, FDR. 

If someone is trying to muddy the waters of the younger ones today, by means of inconsistencies for which younger ones are not able to differentiate, then I, for one, ask that such muddying of waters stop. For those of us in the older Baby Boomers had to deal with very high interest rates after our parents had mortgage rates and lower housing prices after World War II.  It was tough on them, but imagine how much we had to withstand the financial difficulties. This added to an oil embargo which caused prices of gasoline to be at high levels, too. 

Paul Krugman is correct. The economy is doing well. It could do better with regard to mortgages and housing. But it needs more of an overhaul of the corrupt individuals involved in developing real estate and in the banking industry, overall. President Biden has already called for increased perspectives about regulating business, but he keeps getting slammed regarding any ideas he has. Or else the media never includes his ideas in discussions about elements of the economy.  This is areal problem for trying to fix the economy and all of us coming together to attempt to do it, even if we play only a small role. 

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Dear U.S. House of Representatives:

Even with other problems, such as Ukraine, impacting America today, I urge you to vote in favor of thee U.S. Postal Service Reform Act.

In light of the 75-year advanced payment for U.S. Postal Service health benefits, estimates are that it costs the taxpayers some $27B. This is outrageous and needs to stop.

Also in light of this fact, ultimately this bill would remove such an investment and save the USPS an estimated $22.6B over 10 years.
‘
This bill would also “well serve the USPS fundamental mission, by requiring it to continue delivering mail and packages six days a week.” For a consumer, I much prefer having a private mailbox than to force us to move to an Amazon confiugations of delivery to our personal home garage and such delivery people to have a remote key to our garage, as demonstrated in Amazon commercials. Some people don’t have garages and those of us who do do not want our privacy by way of waling to a mailbox to receive mail replaced by some companies access to our garage.

Our government keeps it private because it does answer to American citizens, as you, Representative Reed, need to answer to your constituents like me. How can we expect to trust big business to do the same thing? Who represents us on the Amazon or UPS or Fedex or Emory boards? Sleeping Ronnie in the the Cabinet was stupid in saying, “government is the problem.” It may be difficult for constituents NOW to speak out, but it’s better than the prospect of losing that means of doing so, as it is in Putin’s Russia which Republicans wish to impose such fascism upon us all. Thus with Sleeping Ronnie i the Cabinet and his deregulation and privatization since that time, we the people are losing out.

With this being said, the current Postal Regulatory Commission has regular “reporting requirements” for matters such as setting rates and other issues pertinent to the American public.

Again. I urge you to pass the USPS postal reform bill and stop the crap from Trump fascists in the Republican (to which I once belonged to the Republican Party) leadership who work to destroy, not reform. Thus, we can assure the long-term survival of the U.S. Postal Service.

At the same time, since only 25% of U.S. Postal Service employees join the benefits package paid by taxpayers, perhaps you should REFORM, not DESTROY Medicare, really lousy system implemented by Bush and the Republicans and one of the reasons I left the party. This system is set up with tiers, donut holes and “pre-existing” conditions in privatized Medicare supplement plans.

What I am discussing is health conditions covered AND PAID FOR WITH PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE, while employed, but going into retirement, we suddenly have to pay through the nose with six-months of premiums and risk not getting such conditions covered during the six-month period.

Put in place a single-payer user-financed universal healthcare plan with teeth to protect that money for healthcare of the individual based on a LONG-TERM investment and DIVIDENDS gained by such a capitalist notion.

Please don’t just reform Medicare by giving handouts to those of us who are senior citizens. Such handouts are typically figured on income and revenue stream, not the profit margin in a single family budget. Imagine giving out corporate welfare based on income and revenue stream, not profits. What is good for big business is good for we the people, is it not? After all, Citizens United identifies that corporate entities are like a human entity, does it not?

This is addressing the stupidity of Mr. AWOL George Bush who proclaimed that “what is good for business is good for America.” This statement also turned me off to the Republican Party so I sought something else in this democracy. What I say about big business and Mr. AWOL Bush defending it, speaks to big tobacco which Democratic Party Governor Lawton Chiles (Florida) and former U.S. Senator, worked to bring down due to the deaths to many people and society having to pay for such healthcare. But this statement also supports American drug lords and the lousy lawyers who defend them who don’t want to legalize what are called “illicit” drugs because they know it would not be “good for their business.” So, therefore, they have money to persuade lousy Baptists and other puritanical evangelicals to continue prohibition of those drugs which are now illicit, rather than the lower-cost alternative for society of working for rehab. Examples of the crap of Mr. AWOL Bush in his statement about business.

Side Note: Single-payer universal healthcare
On the topic of single-payer healthcare for all Americans, are you aware of the comparison of costs to the Canadian system, or do you cling to the lousy stupid attitudes of a fascist Republican leadership which bows down in reverence to the puritanical crap of America, and think it’s all about socialism. I just explained how there are matters involved in this question which are about capitalist long-term investments with dividends. Instead, the fascist Republican leadership also bows down to the likes of big insurance which does not want to maintain long-term benefits with dividends because it eats at the pockets of the big CEOs at the top, not the profit margins.

Read about 19th-Century Massachusetts Insurance Commissioner who found that money paid in premiums for whole-life life policies was being fragrantly spent by the CEOs of big insurance. Then at death, families of people holding such policies were told there was no money. Read all about it, in a book written by historian and professor, Dr. Daniel J. Boorstin. Dr. Boorstin was appointed to and served as Librarian of Congress. It was one of the better things that Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet did back in the 1980s, back at the time I was a registered Republican.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Healthcare, wellness, medicine

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Oakdale Commons, Johnson City, NY

RE: Oakdale Mall / Commons (23 Feb. 2022). We lived in Palm Beach County. The Palm Beach Mall was failing. New Owners put in an outlet mall. The old mall was torn down, to build the new one. Don’t know the reasons why. But the new outlet mall is fantastic. Just something I offer.

The ideas for the Oakdale Commons sound great. Someone suggested a coffee shop. We love Starbucks. But a local bistro coffee / bistro with art exhibits would also be wonderful.

As a person who has to limit his diet, due to diabetes, one establishment we really enjoyed in South Florida was Golden Corral buffet. You can pay a lower price and pick and choose the foods you want, rather than choosing from an established, pre-determined menu with combinations of foods.

Unlike Chick-Fil-A, the CEO at Starbucks is gay friendly and does not condemn same-sex marriage. Not so with Chick-Fil-A. We would never go into Chick-Fil-A. Shame on people who would go just to snub their nose at those of us who stand up for human rights and believe we don’t go “because we don’t like the food.” We never said we did not like the food. The question is about the treatment of human beings. Make the commons for the community, not just to satisfy those who want to push the LGBTQ+ back into a closet and keep us segregated.

One more thing. The idea of including health and wellness services in the commons is also wonderful. Another option similar to this is considering spaces where community college students training to be dental hygienists, dental assistants, cosmetologists, masseuses, and other vocations, could work with patients, under the supervision of instructors. They would clean teeth or do other functions in which they are being trained to do. This idea is taken from the old Sunshine Mall in Fort Pierce, FL, where Indian River State College had similar health offices just for the purposes I describe.

Best wishes to the new ownership of the Oakdale Commons!

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Local Control of Media & Supply-side Economics

As a kid growing up in this rural area of upstate New York, we could drive and pick up local radio stations from Binghamton, Cortland, Ithaca, Owego, and other areas. It did not matter whether the stations were AM or FM. The exception might have been with WENE as they reduced their power at night. So, with AM radio, we could pick up WKBW out of Buffalo, WABC our of New York City, or WQXR (classical music) out of New York City. We could even received Wheeling, West Virginia AM late at night. Try to do any of this today.

What do we get today? Driving to Owego, NY, on NYS 38 and encounter the “mountains” (hills”) north of Owego and few of the stations come in. When I once drove to a job at IBM Federal Systems Division (today, Lockheed Martin), I never ever remember losing a local station by the hills to the east of NYS 38. Today, we do.

We had a large antenna at the top of our home (2 stories plus a large attic). With this antenna, we could pick up Binghamton AND Syracuse television stations. That was VHF. We could put up a special UHF antenna to pick up additional (besides VHF 12) Binghamton channels and Elmira channels. Try to do that today and I am told it is near impossible. So we are stuck with only one source. Spectrum “cable” TV and Internet. We experience buffering and often a connection with Spectrum which reminds me of the wait we had for a 1950s vacuum tube television to power up.

Due to the hills here, we were one of the first areas, along with those in the hills of Pennsylvania, to get wired for cable television. Now we were able to receive clearer pictures, particularly on the local UHF channels, but also with ABC channel 9 (VHF) out of Syracuse. What a thrill that was!

But we had a choice. Either use cable television or use, possibly upgrade, our own antennas. Here we are in the 21st Century and, due to the FCC, we don’t have choices. How much money rolls into the FCC from the big corporate conglomerates, in order to give us this centralized supply-side economics? Your guess is as good as mine.

In those years, the FCC utilized the Fairness Doctrine of the late 1940s bipartisan effort, to moderate what was on the air. The idea, too, was to not allow one ownership in a local area of ALL the media. Boy, has that changed today. This idea was a smart idea so that one company did not own it all. The ownership was spread around to others. Seems to me that Gannett owned one of the local Binghamton stations (today Fox 40, which was once WINR Television and broadcasting the NBC network). Today, Seem to remember that the rules changed and WINR had to be sold. The result was NBC WiCZ 40 and WINR Radio. All done to spread the ownership around, rather than allowing big centrally controlled supply-side economics companies to own an entire market, as what is allowed today.

OK. So, the power of local television and radio broadcasts is reduced. Got ya! Yes, so we can have the all thumbs approach to more mobile phones, the bandwidth for local television and radio had to be reduced. All thumbs and access to nothing but Internet, fake and false news. Destruction of local news outlets, whether newspapers with local INFORMATION (not just news) in detail. Plus, the loss of local television and radio by numerous owners who could vary what the public received in news and entertainment.

Oh, sure. Now we have channel 12, but also MeTV. We have My 8 (whatever that is). All these additional ones are on top of CBS, NBC, ABC. It’s nice because the PBS television can add extra channels for kids, create TV, and perhaps others.

But try to receive this myriad of stations and channels here in “country bumpkin” land of rural Tioga County. There might just be a clearer line, with less hills, to Elmira, Ithaca, and Syracuse. Yet, the distance and the weaker channels preclude us from receiving such. And the FCC says Spectrum cannot put the additional channels out for us to receive. Tough rules based on what the supply-side economics corporations want from the top of their “divine right” stools.”

How many other rural areas face this obstacle in America? I don’t remember rural areas being treated like chopped liver (or stools of shit) in those years gone by, just because we had a less dense population.

All thanks to the Internet and mobile phones. I can recall that Spectrum in Florida denied us mobile phones three times. Three times we mentioned we needed the phones delivered to us in South Florida. Three times, we received acknowledgement that, “oh, yeah, we understand you have not yet moved to Melbourne, so w will send to your South Florida address.” That in a state where people are so mobile.

Never happened. By the third strike, one got rather angry at being treated in such a lousy manner. And here we are. In upstate New York with Spectrum and no other choices for Internet.

Mobile phones and Internet are more important than local television, radio, and newspapers. How perverted will America get, beyond just what I have described? It is disgusting.

And all the digital technology has moved outside the USA, while President Biden and the Democrats would like to do something about such a situation, from infrastructure to regulatory concerns. And what do Republicans do? Sabotage President Biden and the Democrats.

I just have to say all this because it disgusts me with regard to local control we once had when IBM was here in the Southern Tier. Now, it all flies out the window.

And we live happily ever after.

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democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Journalism & Media

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Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet, Supply-side Economics, & Privatized Medicare

Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet gave us supply side economics It was for the benefit of increasing salaries of fat pigs in the board rooms by over 1000%, busting unions and paying as little as possible to the people doing the work in this nation.

It was the idiot, Shrub, with words to validate supply-side economics, who said, at the turn of the Millennium, “what’s good for business is good for America.” Then with his political party gave us privatized Medicare in order to prop up supply side economics even further.

This was done while the Shrub and all those in Congress and in the government could get a lifetime benefit for healthcare which the rest of us “little people” don’t get, at least as good as those with “divine rights.” Remember, we are just “little people” and only numbers, not worth one damn except as chopped liver.

With this, then, we have this wonderful supply-side economics in the form of privatized Medicare.

When the glucose meter is working fine and is not broken, we face the “preferred” choice of supply-side privatized Medicare. The meter was not broken, so it did not need fixing. We, in America, often said, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” With supply-side economics, that is apparently no longer true. More like, if the big fat pig at the top can line his/her pockets by being paid off by manufacturers of meters (and other medical equipment), such as this one, we waste the money, whether the old one works or not. All for the sake of us “little people” in the senior citizens group.

No wonder we in America pay more for healthcare than those in Canada with their “socialized” system. We pay nearly twice as much asws our neighbors to the north. We pay and the big fat pigs line their pockets.

On top of it all, we in America have a lower longevity rate than our neighbors to the north with their “socialized” medicine. All for the big fat pigs with hedge funds and sitting at the heads of many corporations, on their damn fat asses like lazy bums in board rooms. While WE THE PEOPLE are treated like shit with this wasted money.

Let us give thanks to the demagogues with divine rights, such as charismatic Sleepy Ronnie in the Cabinet from long ago.

And we live happily ever after.

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Stupidity of Republicans and Bleeding Heart Liberals

Dear Editors:

Feb. 20, 2022, The New York Times.

Susan Collins wants to reform the Electoral College? Why? Is she afraid if she runs for the presidency, only a popular vote being in place will means she would lose? Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election with the popular vote, but Republican Trump won the Electoral College vote. Susan Collins lives in fear that she would lose due to the demise and destruction of the Electoral College? And in her “bipartisan way” she is going to convince Democrats who have no confidence in themselves that they might live in fear at the loss of the Electoral College? it is like putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound which might need to be stitched back together and expecting the wound to heal, as the person with the wound bleeds to death.

Another reader in the newspaper, when reacting to David Brooks and his lainbrained ideas that we should have hope that evangelicals would come to their senses, said, Brooks is simply putting wallpaper over a problem. Having hung wallpaper myself, I found that if there was a lump of wallpaper paste, it simply got covered over, but it still existed. Just as with a wound which needs something more than a Band-Aid.

Americans are poor at remembering history in order to learn and move forward. There is no sense for what the Danish Kierkegaard said:

​In the 1850s, when the Republican Party was formed, we can learn from history regarding the Republicans, civil war, and the Dred Scott Decision. The Republican Party was formed from members of the Whig Party which was dying at that time. Many Whigs became disgusted with the work by George W. Bush’s maternal line ancestor who was president at the time, a Democrat, who nixed the compromise arranged regarding slavery. ​The bleeding heart Yankee liberals in the Supreme Court felt they needed to appease the South (i.e., Dixie white supremacists and forerunners to the KKK and Jim Crow ideas) by issuing a scathing attack of a black man in that SCOTUS decision. Politics and appeasing white people prevailed, not justice for human beings, as the SCOTUS is SUPPOSED to do.

Being in these situations today and considering Republican Senator Susan Collins with SCOTUS today, there is too much being done to “appease” the other side. That would include the words of David Brooks, too. Appeasing the South did not nothing to divert a civil war after Abraham Lincoln was elected. When will America learn before it implodes from within?  After all, we want to feel better about “turning the other cheek” to those who are lousy ones and insist on their dictatorial anti-human race ways. Considering friends like that who want to destroy democracy in America, who needs enemies?

With friends who are being “overly nice” to the other side so as to show empathy to hateful bigoted people, it is as if hatred and bigotry need to be recognized as protected by a U.S. Constitution. Such hateful people and bigots are confusing the population with ideas which have survived from  Reagan, a hateful Democrat turned Republican, that “government is the problem.” Translated. To the hateful and bigoted ones, government is only a problem when it regulates how Americans should treat one another and not have hatred and bigotry. Reaganomics with deregulation actually got extended to the notions of hatred and bigotry. How do I know? I was a member of the Republican Party at the time. I feel just like the former Whig Party members who decimated the party and began a new one. David Brooks, too, has no brains and knowledge of history on this one.

But Senator Collins? Reform the Electoral College? Senator Elizabeth Warren says (in my words), DESTROY the Electoral College. It has outlived its purposes when it was created during the time of only 13 colonies and it took quite some time to get the election results from New England to Georgia.  It is no longer needed and could be replaced by a hybrid system based on the parliamentary system in Britain (and Canada and other nations in the British Commonwealth which has a very brilliant constitutional monarchy with the royal family doing the ceremonial stuff that our president does with all the other duties of the president).  Get rid of the Electoral College, specify that, should no candidate win more than 50% of the popular vote, then the top two winners do a runoff election on the day when the Electoral College would normally meet.

Democracy takes participation and time, so I don’t accept the crap about trying to get voters registered and to get them out to vote. Don’t give me bullshit about the complexity of the situation, but solve the problem.

Let me just say that we can make excuses and any excuse will do.  Getting people involved in the democracy by voting and also working for issues and ideas for solutions is what takes to run a democracy. It takes a strong Middle Class, destroyed by big fat pigs who have seen an increase in salaries, since Reagan, of over 1000% while workers have seen a rather flattened increase over the same period and work too hard to have time for voting and elections. The Middle Class has been destroyed in this period of time, along with unions and worker rights.

Suggestion. Abolish the Electoral College. On presidential election days, close all bars and grills and make those a holiday. Consider that anyone objecting to this due to their false ideas that their “individual rights” have been violated are nothing but traitors to this nation. Sorry to be so tough and play so much hardball with this question. But it is true. 

Why do I suggest the above solution? Because in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, it just happens to mention “WE THE PEOPLE.”  It does not say, “Me, myself, and I, dictator Trump or DeSantis or Scott…” It does not specify any other INDIVIDUAL only.  It does not identify a god (demagogue) with divine rights which is made in the image of hateful and bigoted men and women (like David Brooks with his heart out to evangelicals). 

When will people like Brooks and Collins wake up and learn from history, before it is too late? When will bleeding heart Democrats learn from history?

Sometimes a Band-Aid is necessary for a wound. But the question about the Electoral College is a deep wound causing too much divisive rigor in this nation. It is so deep that we really need to work to eliminate it and not expect perfection with a blind eye towards hate and bigotry with no chance of SCOTUS justice being accomplished so as to maintain the balance with scales of justice. In this case, the scales of justice need to be heavily weighted on the side of humanitarian ideas of coexistence and not political ideology or preference of political party. In the 1850s, a political party was destroyed and it was not the Democrats which have evolved, over time, into a more humanitarian party. I saw many such white racist bigots in Dixie leave and join the Republicans, of which I was a member. I found them to be disgusting people who tried (and are still working hard at trying to balance to their dictatorial hateful side)  to balance the scales of justice towards their side of hatred. 

Is my writing too long? Too bad. It is important to say what needs to be said here and do so in detail. I apologize for the detail because I might just detain those who are two thumbs just reading fake news on mobile phones or the fake news on Fox / Fake News. Is there a vulgar word in the text, without a “bleep” to cover it over? Really? I am surprised.  Well. At least it was not the “f” word.

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Commentary, democracy, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, human-rights, Political Commentary

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Let’s Discuss Inflation (Part 2)

Inflation is in the news. Inflation has been in the news in the past years, so we all need to check our history. Inflation woes are being over-rated and put too much into the attention of the public so as to blame the Democrats. Wrong. Just check history.

In Florida, there were arrangements made to bolster big insurance. Floridians were to pick up the bills for hurricane coverage in homeowners’ insurance. In the process, there are estimates that, during those years, Floridians saw an INFLATIONARY increase of some 60% or so. Is this true? Seems as if those of us paying this saw it happen. So, now, we are to be complaining about a 7% (?) increase in prices?

With the insurance thing, all the companies moved at once with the same high prices, protected by those paying off our government legislators in Florida. At least with the 7% rise in inflation, with groceries, gasoline, and other products, the consumer does have a choice. You don’t want a meat priced at $10 per pound, then find a lower cost meat. WIth homeowners’ insurance, if I did not wish to pay the higher price, then find another one? NOT. The OTHER one did not exist. Furthermore, the money we put into the higher premiums went into some black hole, probably to pay the 1000% increases of CEO fat pig salaries during those years and there was a 0% return on investment. For me, myself, and I, I can say that, for my 40 plus years of investing in homeowners’ insurance, I have received zilch – nothing in return for all that money I have put in. No dividends. Nothing. Nada. Does anyone even care about the inflation with this product called homeowners’ insurance. Nah. No one cares. But we have to view and read in the media the BS about inflation right now, blaming the Democrats. I know for a fact it was primarily fat pig Republicans at the heads of those insurance corporations who were a large part of those on the receiving end of my premiums.

Then there is healthcare insurance. I worked on union negotiating teams as we tried to work to hold down the increases in healthcare insurance for our union members. Republicans on the other side of the table who were appointed by Republican Jeb Bush or Republican Rick the Prick Scott. Many of those guys were vicious and had no human cares at all, as they pushed healthcare increases upon the employees.

Now, being on Medicare and being on a lower revenue stream, I see increased costs far worse than the inflation to which the media and others lend microphones for people to complain.

Makes me wonder. How is it that these inflationary prices were missed when we had to experience them? Did they have no impact on the numbers figured for inflation? In other words, the 60% increase in homeowners’ insurance had negligible impact on inflation numbers? The increases in health insurance premiums PLUS healthcare costs had negligible impact on inflation? After all, we are reading and hearing that the numbers for inflation are the “highest in years.” Gosh. Where was I, on the planet Mars, when I experienced exponential increases in insurance premiums? Gosh. Silly me for complaining.

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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Drugs & A Wall?

Dear Editors:

Headline: Virginia Republicans wish to Tighten Marijuana Laws.

Headlines: Trump Convinces Americans to Build a Wall in Order to Protect us from Influence of Drug Lords.

Headlines: Trump Creates Time Line for Withdrawal from Afghanistan. New President (Biden) Follows Through with Plans for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Comment on last headline. What did Trump do to establish peace AND justice in Afghanistan? The timeline was about peace, but nothing about justice, was it? What did Trump do to stop the drug lords in Afghanistan regarding the opium trade? Does silence grow like a cancer so as to cover over drug lords and their business interests, both in the USA and in Afghanistan? Are people afraid to do anything about these issues, for fear of their lives? Is the “wall” a cover-up for the sake of American drug lord business interests?

Are marijuana laws being protected by keeping the substance illegal? Is this why we hear people being encouraged to resist the freedom of making marijuana legal? This is not only a question in Virginia, but also among Republicans in New York and other areas, too.

Fact. Illegal drugs are good for business for many people who wish to keep the silence about it going, due to an interest in covering it all up. By doing so, such people make more money than if the products were legal.

Fact. There were people who made more money when alcohol was illegal. America had to put up with guns and violence in the process, so such people could make more money illegally by silencing competitors and those who wanted to reveal what was happening.

Fact. It was Republicans and one particular Republican leader who always said, “what’ s good for business is good for America.” Anybody put these facts together and figure out how drugs, guns, and violence is spurred on by “business” and that is “good for America?”

The answer, in order to divert attention from the hidden agenda of the drug lords of America, is to use taxpayer dollars from the common folk (because the wealthy drug lords probably don’t want to pay taxes) build a wall. And this is good for business in America and also good for America?

And what is the result for us when we speak up? Consider whether we need to protect our life or death situations? After all, we ever thinks and speaks like Nathan Hale any more, unless it is to protect guns, violence and secretive illegal drug cartels?

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Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce

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