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

Attitude Adjustment?

Editors [Scranton Times-Tribune]:

A friend in Florida recently said two things: (1) too many people who are not thinking about our overall life and society need a kick in the butte; (2) I am done with being reasonable anymore because it is doing nothing to stop MAGA, QAnon, Proud Boys, and others from their asinine behaviors.

In other words, America needs an attitude adjustment. I am all behind this one person who said the things I quoted.

I have been writing now for nearly two decades.  Most of my writing was published in the Palm Beach Post. I received kudos from many people. The one who came down hard on me was a woman in the church where I attended (she is now deceased) because she hated Gore and liked Bush and did not like my writing in support of Gore and Democrats. In the writing to which she responded, I never mentioned anything bad about Bush and only demonstrated a support of Al Gore. I used facts such as, “the only Republican county in the state of Florida [at that time], Pinellas County, and the majority voted for Al Gore, not George Bush.” I used facts to back up what I said. This woman is now deceased, but it seems her ghost remains within the Trumpicans today and many naive Republicans who, as my mother (also a Republican) would say, “they don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.”

When, a few years back, the editor of the Palm Beach Post retired, no one ever accepted my writings anymore. Since moving to the Binghamton area, I believe there was one writing published in Binghamton’s Press & Sun-Bulletin. But no more. Nada. None. I never get what I write published anymore. Is this American censorship in practice? If so, then many Americans need a kick in the butte. An attitude adjustment.
I have been told that my writing improved over time. Yet, as it improves, nothing.

Am I moaning and groaning about this? No. Because I find other ways to put out a blog and so forth. But still. Nothing.
I feel like the New York Times columnist who was fired because, in his attempt to get to the truth regarding George Bush’s AWOL situation in the National Guard, as we see many attempting to get to the truth today with regard to thugs on Jan. 6 of this year, he was asked to stop writing what he uncovered. He refused to stop. He is now writing from Canada. We hear about people in exile from communist nations. What about an American who writes “in exile” due to the stupidity of people in this free nation forcing him to zip his mouth as he uncovers the truth?
The woman who scourged me because of my support of Gore was a musician. She owned a pedal-pumping, non-electric, organ in her home. In many respects, she was “old fashioned” by using such an “old fashioned” keyboard. But she got to do what she liked to do. But she had become an old curmudgeon, not willing to accept anything which was not in place with what she had known in life. As such, was it not the Christian thing to do to go and pay my last respects at her funeral? I don’t say this to brag, but just to mention how bad such a large part of America has become in denying business services and being as mean-spirited as this woman was towards me and others, just because we speak well of President Biden? Why do we have such an America today with so many quoting from a song, “money makes the world go around.” Indeed. That song was from a musical written by a gay man and spoofs Hitler’s dictatorial attitude in Germany, stating in a sarcastic manner that, “money makes the world go around,” and thus ignoring all the other atrocities of mean-spiritedness perpetrated by Hitler and his thugs.  At least at the turn of the millennium, this woman was not one with as much power and control. It is sad to see too many who are like this in power and control today. To the lawyers who insist on serving only a small number of people with their personal injury lawsuits and workman’s comp, I say to you: you asses with “money makes the world go around.”  You favor some while many others who have invested in healthcare over 40 and 50 years go without. You lawyers are just like this crazy woman from Massachusetts who retired to Florida and remained loyal to a political party before loyalty to this nation.

This woman needed a swift kick in the butte and an attitude adjustment, as others do today. It is tough to try to be reasonable anymore to such mean-spirited ones who have apparently lost their brains to think and live a life based on fear-mongers and their mean-spirited nature.

Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post (lives in Florida – or at least did when i began writing and she was writing with the Orlando Sentinel) – is someone whom I have read and done so for years. As with any other human beings we associate, we will NEVER agree perfectly and on every issue there is. That is the case with Kathleen Parker. Same thing with George Will of the Washington Post. When I was in the seventh grade, a teacher in my school, boarding in our home, gave me a subscription to Newsweek. I kept that subscription for many years and, when I was able to do so, renewed it myself. George Will had columns in Newsweek that I recall reading, from a young age forward. I don’t always agree with him, either. There are times, though, when he makes a great deal of sense. There are too many mean-spirited Americans who believe that if they read just one item from such columnists like that, then they reject them overall. They are mean-spirited ones who hurt America.
Recently, I read columns from Parker and Will and found them to speak quite eloquently on several issues, as they made their point. On the topic related to making voters feel fear and disenfranchised (not the main point of her column, but related), Ms. Parker said, “it’s not politics, it’s propaganda.” How many times have I heard voters in America just want to throw in the towel, being disenfranchised, in talking as if it matters not whether Republican or Democrat (politics), they are all bad. This statement made by Ms. Parker that “it’s not politics, it’s propaganda” really addresses what I have been trying to say for decades now and no one listens. This scathing attack against both political parties is a Hitler-style strategy to ruin democracy. That is why I try not to attack Republicans as a group, but concentrate on the Hitler-types running the Republican Party by calling them “Trumpicans.” There are too many good Republicans and all they are doing, sad to say, is act like wimps, bowing down to the Trumpicans. And that is the only part of which I am critical.

Same thing with Democrats. There are not all, particularly the “blue dog” type, with whom I agree. I have often mentioned a local Democrat, business person here, who, when the sales tax was introduced in New York, spoke out against “Rocky’s tax” because of how much it added to the overhead of a small business and cut into profit margins.

Yet, how many times have I listened to dolts who accuse the Democrats of being, “tax and spend” or “always wanting to spend?” That is asinine and needs an attitude adjustment with a kick in the butte so as to recognize there are good and bad in both parties, but don’t succumb to the fact that there are only bad people in politics. There are bad people who push autocratic dictatorial government which is on the level of a Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Tojo, Castro, Mao Tse-Tung, Putin, and many others.  As Kathleen Parker says, “it’s not politics, but propaganda.” Interesting to note that Hitler’s propaganda minister is quoted as talking like “tell a lie over and over again and it becomes the truth.” Parker is not telling a lie here, but it gets ignored and the truth does not get repeated over and over again. Instead, we hear lies about “fraud” in an election and the fraud was really just as minuscule as it always has been. Consider the openly “fraudulent” activity of a “butterfly ballot” in Palm Beach County in 2000, put in place by a Republican Party Supervisor of Elections in that county. Having voted in that election of 2000, I found that ballot to be very confusing as I walked away from the voting station. I had to scratch my head and wonder, “did I vote for Al Gore or was the ballot such that I pushed out a ‘chad’ with a vote for Buchanan?” i would have voted for George Bush before Buchanan. But the ballot was set up to mystify voters. Now THERE is fraud. Electioneering at polling places for Bush, Trump, or others is fraud and against the law.

Recently, I read an article in a newspaper about people who support Bernie Sanders coming together to organize. Makes me think of the time period following the disastrous 2016 elections. I voted for Sanders in the primary, but Hillary won the primary in Florida. OK. So I was disappointed. But I prefer Hillary to Trump any day.  The CONSERVATIVE leaning writer whom I had followed since the seventh grade, George Will, endorsed Hillary. Still. I would have preferred Sanders. Sad to say, it did not happen. So, following the elections, there were groups of Democrats getting together to, once again, organize in favor of Bernie Sanders. We attended those meetings. We listened to moaners and groaners complain about what had happened to Bernie in the election. It got so sickening listening to several of these moaners and groaners, we asked them to go to the meetings with us. Oh, no, they did not want to go. So, my reply was: “actions speak louder than words and you are only using words of moaning and groaning at something which we need to put behind us and move on.” I lost friends by saying such a thing. Am I saddened at that? No.

Once again. I don’t agree with everything Sanders says and I speak out when I do not. Hell. I am a capitalist who believes the false notions about capitalism is the result of a misinterpretation of it by Karl Marx and helps drive many people towards socialism. This false knowledge still lives on today. But I still supported Senator Sanders. The one thing for which I have spoken out against Bernie Sanders is an issue which there is no evidence of it being used in Scandinavian socialist democracies. Where does the CAPITALIST type auto company come from? Volvo is what I am referencing here. Volvo is not about John Stossel stupidity type talk that only those with money can create jobs and opportunities. John Stossel talks about monopolistic supply-side economics which is NOT the capitalism intended by Adam Smith, as he endorsed the idea that “free markets” cause supply-side economics and monopolies and destroy true capitalism. And we wonder why the Scottish wish to break with Britain and join with the EU.

Capitalism is supply AND demand, stupid, not just supply because supply-side economics creates monopolies, not capitalism of supply AND demand. Claudia Tenney is a liar who won by only about 100 votes against incumbent Anthony Brindisi. Her money came from supply-side economics advocate, Spectrum. Just yesterday, in speaking with someone at Spectrum because I get interference from others with great tech savvy which is used to hack into other people’s systems. Spectrum does not believe this is going on, claiming “it’s your computer.” BS. I have had this computer gone over time and time again and nothing has been found. But Spectrum with its fat pigs at the top of the corporation who funded the lying Tenney refuses to allow its people to say anything but to blame it all on the demand side of the marker – the customer. I went over and over regarding this score yesterday and countless times before with Spectrum folks who follow the autocratic line of the fat pigs at the top. Bet they don’t do that at Volvo in Sweden. I could be wrong, too. I just threw that out as a consideration. Law enforcement and others, unless it is a big corporation with clout and a belief that “money makes the world go around,” refuse to do anything to help out the little guy who has much less.

As I sit here looking at the piles of paper which gets mailed to us each day, whether paperwork from WellCare Medicare or others, i cringe to think that we have to drive each morning to get our morning newspaper, while the big fat pigs at the tops of the publishing houses (such as Gannett) push us to do paperless newspapers. It is not a consistent approach across the board, as I look at the piles of paper on my desk. Some of the paper may have been generated by my own notes and log books. Some might be copies of columns by people like Kathleen Parker or George Will. But a huge amount is paper which comes in the mail. Yet, the newspapers claim they are unable to find delivery people. That is BS. With Amazon doing delivery to compete with local small business and these publishers make a claim they are not able to do so? Maybe it also has to do with the way the big fat pigs of Gannett and other organizations have yanked away the ability for local people to interface with their customers and expand their customer base? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that these big fat pigs at Gannett and other organizations pay a pittance of a wage, rather than opening up opportunities for local business people to purchase bundles of newspapers (high volume) at wholesale price and sell them at the asking price, thus making a CAPITALIST profit by considering SUPPLY AND DEMAND. In South Florida, the successful newspaper was the one which sold bundles of newspapers to people who stood on street corners and at I-95 off-ramps (and other means), selling the newspapers. The one not successful was the one purchased by Gannett and its fat pigs.  Instead, we have to spend money on gas to drive about eight miles each day to pick up a newspaper. One of those newspapers is NOT Gannett based, but from another city and has not, as with the ones in Florida and here, “condensed” the content and implementing a strategy based on an example of the pre-Darth Vader in Star Wars, “you will believe this.” In other words, “you will believe the fact that no one wants print copies because, we the evil fat pigs at the top say so and money makes the world go around.” You will believe the lies because, as Hitler’s Goebbels said, “tell a lie over and over again and it becomes fact.”

That New York Times columnist “exiled” (not really) to Canada’s Toronto newspaper, was seeking the truth, not money. The truth hurts, as it did for the Bush family. However, for many of us, the “truth will set us free (John 8:32).” I believe that Jesus Christ said this. Adam Smith, the one who theorized about capitalism as a challenge to royalty monopolization with supply-side economics, had a belief in what Jesus Christ was about. But, of course, don’t bother to believe this either and it explains why people embrace “money makes the world go around.” Neither Donald Trump nor Adolph Hitler believed in the spirituality which revolves around God and the Creator. As one writer to the Scranton Times-Tribune said, “rather than ‘in God we trust,’ it has become ‘in greed we lust.'” And let me also mention that Jesus Christ was a Jew, which is the reason there has been such success with a Judeo-Christian approach to our lives.

Then there is Joe Scarborough (Republican) and Anthony Brindisi (Democrat). I like their rationality and reasoning. Unlike Teddy Roosevelt, they throw in the towel and get out of the arena of “blood and sweat” like wimps do.  Both have quit Congress (Brindisi does not intend to attempt to return) at a time when we need such people more than ever. To the Congress, “money does make the world go around,” as the members of Congress get benefits galore and for life, while Americans struggle. Then there is the crew of asses in Congress who claim that health and retirement benefits are socialism and convince too many people of this lie. It’s socialism only in the sense of what the people in Congress receive and little investment do they put into it. We put tons of money investing over the years in Medicare and Federal Insurance Compliance Act (FICA known as Social Security), only to watch those receiving true SOCIALIST benefits (except Bernie Sanders who speaks out in favor of the little guys). It is all so mixed up, INTENTIONALLY, by the big fat pigs of America. It’s time the American people learn the truth and it will set them free.  Bottom line. Failure is a form of learning which has endured in the human spirit since we were babies learning to walk.

Bad attitudes of too many Americans. We need an attitude adjustment.

Now that I have said all of this, will it get published? Nah. I bet not. it will be ignored and there are those who might say to me: “shut up.”

Professor Douglas Willet Cornwell (Retired)

Newark Valley, NY

bibsinger@gmail.com

———————————“Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “The problems of the world are not that some people love in a different way. The problems are that so many people don’t know how to love at all (CGA, 1970).” A Puritan is someone in fear that someone, somewhere, is having a good time. “Liberty and justice for all [not priorities on individual and selfish rights].” “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union [and overall wealth of American society]…” 
Benjamin Franklin: “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are affected.” Stacey Abrams: “Compromise about actions, but not about values.”  Oscar Wilde: “I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.”  Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Benjamin Franklin: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  Whoopi Goldberg: “To handle this COVID-19 pandemic effectively, we all need to get on the same page.”  Note: To be clear, I do not like being patronized. I do not express my disdain over what happens to my fellow humans just for my own sake and to pursue favors and handouts. I do it in order to gain R – E – S – P – E – C – T for me and for millions of other Americans of any race, ethnicity, religious belief, or sex and sexual identity who try to walk in integrity as they attempt to achieve, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  PERIOD.  One nation under God [our Creator] with liberty and justice for all.

It’s the Economy Stupid

The Republican in the U.S. Senate who claimed “infrastructure is socialism” is perverted and does not understand what socialism and capitalism are all about. It’s the economy, stupid. It’s the economy.

Once again, let me identify who I am. But of course don’t take me seriously and continue to hold onto your individualistic ideas which go along with what you hear said in the groupspeak of the perverted ultra right wing white ones with a superiority complex and want to see Jim Crow vigilante groups returned, just as in Germany on the Krystallnacht, ordered by Hitler, the man on meth.

I am a capitalist. Furthermore, I am a person who believes as Teddy Roosevelt did about regulated capitalism.

I have had my finances figuratively “confiscated,” not by a socialist or not by a communist like Castro. I have had my resources figuratively confiscated by Republicans who came out of FSU and are ultra right wing fascists like Hitler and the Nazis. Many of them were more Yankee than Dixie, but they came to Florida to align, as in the Atlas Shrugged story about John Galt, with others of like mind and thinking. They were perverted ones who aligned with other white bitchy folks of wealth forcing deregulation and “free markets” down our throats for the purposes of creating supply-side economics in the industry where I once worked and turning the “free market” into a one-sided market with a few people dictating from the top and pushing for trickle-down economics. That is NOT capitalism. They sold it as capitalism by destroying regulated capitalism and proceeded to move to merge companies together into huge companies. I lost my salary and I lost my stock in the company, as a result, so the big fat pigs at the top, the lazy ones who don’t know how to EARN money but to steal money from us.

If infrastructure is socialism, as this perverted Republican senator proclaimed today, then we are wrong in having concern for one another to coexist and socialism is the reason. OK. I am not a socialist. But if that is what socialists are in pushing for human infrastructure, as was discussed today, then I am all for it and it is the far right lousy perverted ones in the Republican Party who push me to it, not socialists. Because Adam Smith made it clear that care and concern for one another was based on principles of Christianity and a love of neighbor that is second only to a love of God who also taught us, through Jesus Christ, that he “agapes” his children who are all those on earth. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, not to condemn the world, as Trump and the Proud Boys, QAnon, and Oath Keepers and KKK and others do, but to save the world. He does this out of love and as a means of teaching. Bad attitudes are created by the Evil Spirit which permeates people like this perverted Republican senator. Fixing infrastructure is not socialism or a problem, stupid. It’s the economy.

Thanks to such perverted Republicans who have controlled this nation far many more years since the 1950s than Democrats, we have a Federal budget deficit. The reason? So as to make a claim that “there is not enough money to do infrastructure repair.” So as to say, “there is not enough money left to make Medicare or Social Security solvent.” That’s because perverted Republicans have STOLEN the money the people have invested in Medicare and Social Security so as to make a claim that “there is not enough money.” Had these perverted Republicans, led by thieves such as Mitch McConnell (he makes money from taxpayers – he steals it) not stolen the money which we made in long-term 40-, 50-, 60-year (or more) investments in a CAPITALIST way. Mitch McConnell is going to have healthcare benefits and a pension check guaranteed to him the rest of his life, but, like Leona Helmsley, says, “taxes are for little people.” He and the other perverted Republicans in the Senate, like the one bloviating an un-truth today (like 7-Up was the “un-cola”).

Shame on such perverted ones who are trying to consolidate power and control for a dictatorship which many like to be kind and call it an “autocracy.” Joe Biden thinks his “Republican friends” are still in the Senate. Hello. Those “friends” are gone and replaced mostly by perverted people with a white superiority complex. There may have been some such people during the days when Joe Biden was in the Senate, but they were not the ones with the power and control, as is the case today with perverted ones controlling the U.S. Senate and led by Mitch McConnell who says he will try everything possible to make sure Joe Biden does not succeed. If that is a “friend,” President Biden, then who needs enemies?

To the perverts in the Republicans of the U.S. Senate: “it’s the economy, stupid, not infrastructure.” Besides if you perverts think putting forth an infrastructure bill would destroy America, then why don’t you let them do it and destroy America? No. You know damn right well that the Democratic Party proposal has a good chance of working and succeeding and you don’t want the Democrats to succeed. You are perverted traitors to America who need to be hung because you don’t put America first. You put your GD egotism first.

WRONG! FICA is not a tax, as described at SSA.gov

FICA means Federal Insurance Contributions Act. With these words, it is not a tax. Yet, on the SSA website is described as a tax. It is not a tax. I repeat. It is not a tax. If it were a tax then the money put into my “contribution” to my homeowners’ insurance would be a tax, too, would it not? FICA is a capitalist investment into a pooled insurance resource run by the government. It is not a tax. Need I say this again? FICA is not a tax, no more than the “contribution” I make to my auto insurance is a tax.

My investment with FICA provides me with a better capitalist return on investment than return on investment from my homeowners’ insurance, which stands at 0% over some 50 years of my investment. I wish I had put my homeowners’ insurance premiums into a government-run pooled resource for all those years, then I could make a claim for a return on my investment. As it stands now and with the various companies to which I have invested the funds, there is no good paper trail over time in which I could claim a return on investment. That makes it nicer for the wealthy pigs of America to take money from us and give us no capitalist return on investment.

With FICA/Social Security, we are held hostage to the fat pigs of America who don’t pay a FICA (insurance contribution) which is equivalent for all of us, across the board. The fat pigs don’t make money the old fashioned way, to earn it, as those of us who work hard have done. I don’t answer surveys with “expand Social Security.” If possible, I would want to comment that we need to tighten Social Security which is an equivalent percentage figured for FICA (insurance contribution) for all.

Three-Penny Op-ed: Socialism, Ambiguity, and Short-sighted Two-sided Contrasts

Everything is presented as black and white. We, the citizens of the USA, rarely get presented with more detail about a subject. If we did, though, too many of these younger generations reject learning and removing the blinders to soak up the details. Thus, the media folks and others can make statements based only on THEIR interpretation and never taking into account considerations for black, white, gray, or other tones or colors of the rainbow. After all, the rainbow naturally occurs when rain and sunlight simultaneously appear before our eyes.

I like Joe Scarborough and have learned a great deal from him, since I first read his article in a business magazine, published in 2005. Even Joe Scarborough, though mentions “free enterprise” and a black and white contrast between that and socialism. I would like to suggest that is not the case.

A Cuban whose family was forced to flee Cuba when Fidel Castro’s troops confiscated her family’s property helped me learn these differences. There is socialist autocracy as dictated by Fidel Castro and there is supply-side economic centrally planned autocracy as dictated by Battista, masquerading as capitalism and “free enterprise.” When this Cuban person visited a socialist democracy where the people are the happiest on earth, Denmark, she commented about how their mobile phone system far surpassed that in America. No wonder the people of Denmark, time after time, have been rated the “happiest on earth.”

The people of Denmark have socialist-capitalist democracy, not autocracy. They also have free enterprise, too. Yet, the American herd mentality, generated by the media in the USA, just use the word, “socialism” to describe Denmark and other Scandinavian nations. Mr. Scarborough, there does not need to be a differentiation between socialism and “free enterprise” capitalism.

In 2005, Mr. Scarborough wrote about the need for regulation. This COULD mean regulating the capitalist markets with an infinite demand or supply. Few supply side industries are infinite. One would think oil is infinite when listening to those who control the status quo in oil, from Texas to the Koch brothers to Saudi Arabia (whose royal family was responsible for 9/11 and for cutting off the heads of their citizens who disobey the autocratic monarchs), and many others. The net result is that we pretend oil is an infinite supply, when it’s not. Big oil works to block the R&D efforts and businesses which can provide more capitalist competition and help do what capitalism is designed to do: competition can help keep prices lower. Supply-side idiots controlling and regulating the markets. In criticism, I say that Mr. Scarborough appears to follow the American supply-side fat cat herd mentality when putting forth the “norm” of there being a black and white contrast between socialism and free enterprise. I just mentioned something which pretends to be free enterprise and it is not, so it regulates its own market and works to destroy a third-party regulator, the government. There was an American family with two presidents who side with Saudi Arabia and the oil monopolies, with one saying, “what is good for business is good for America.” Wrong. Balance is good for America.

The Scandinavian nations prove that socialism can coexist with capitalism and democracy. The Scandinavian nations are more racially homogeneous than the USA, so they don’t have to consider only two sides of the equation with “black and white.” America has to go beyond just two sides of the equation because it is not racially homogeneous. The reason why Americans are against socialism are the same reasons and the common thread which runs through so many issues in America: systemic racism. And I am not being ambiguous here because I refuse to accept those, whether black or gay (Lindsay Graham) who are “Uncle Toms” and do just what the “massa says.” This is the reason why so many white people wish to “make America great again” by going back to the days when white supremacy reigned in America. To these jackass idiots, this makes America great, not human equality as it appears in socialist notions, Social Security, Medicare, ACA, freedom to carry guns (for white folks to use the guns against African-Americans, Latino/a, indigenous folks, as in the past). This is the background of the NRA and the false ideas about the 2nd Amendment. False because it was how the 2nd Amendment was applied for many years when the “nation was great” (according to the MAGA group of the idiocracy).

This would mean that socialism is too much of an “equalizing” force.” Therefore, it is rejected by preaching ambiguous notions about what socialism is. It also means that only white people should be allowed to carry guns and kill by “standing the white-skinned people’s ground” as developed by the NRA (and Jeb Bush of Florida). America needs to BECOME great by getting over these ambiguities and simple “black and white notions.”

This is all said with all due respect to Joe Scarborough. I also say, with due respect, that Bernie Sanders and “socialism” is not, in many respects, the socialism of Scandinavian socialist-capitalist democracies. For instance. According to information I have read, out of Sweden and other Scandinavian nations, there are no government-instituted minimum wages. Why not? My impression is that we are describing a situation in which these nations recognize the role of balance in capitalism. Just as supply and demand in industries helps create a competitive environment in order to provide better prices and for being able to obtain products and services with more “bang for the buck” (value at a better cost), a lack of minimum wage will help maintain this. But. What are these nations doing to train its people so that industries in the future can better serve the demand side of the markets? Are they using privatized education and hospitals in order to accomplish the goals to solve problems? I really doubt it. It is another style of regulating what is done, but doing the regulation responsibly.

Are these nations perfect and more perfect than America? Not likely. There is no perfection. But they might be more reasonable and rational. One could say, “well they don’t have very many black people there.” OK. That might be true, when contrasting with America. But what is that worth? You mean to say, Americans are not able to learn to coexist in a nation where we do have multi-colored people? Bull. I don’t believe it.

I invoke, once again (and again and again and again and again) Frank Sinatra: “we can have fun in fixing an imperfect nation.” Frank Sinatra had a black friend in his “rat pack” who experienced systemic racism in this nation. From white Army troops in World War II pissing on Sammy Davis, Jr., to being denied the same entrances to the same hotels where he and Sinatra were performing, there was a problem in America and that problem was NOT what made America great. No wonder Sinatra described America as “imperfect.” Sinatra was not willing to give up solving the problems of the land he called, “home.”

If people feel they don’t want to be contentious with others, so they just shut their mouths, out of fear of retribution and willingly accept lawyers who pit Americans against Americans with personal injury lawsuits and workman’s comp (rather than equalized healthcare for all), what a shameful, shameful, shameful bunch of Americans. I feel sorry for such people in their scummy ideas against anger and contentiousness when people say, “I am mad as hell and I ain’t going to take it anymore.” Anger and contentiousness against inequality in America, in any form, means we stand up for what is the correct thing for America to do to combat systemic racism (and homophobia, too).

Also to be mentioned is the idea of unions. When either side of unions is irrational and unreasonable, they destroy the balance which should be achieved. The ones with the whips had enough control to knock down the unions which went too far in America. They developed NAFTA and shipped jobs overseas. The irrationality of such bastards on the management side felt forced into a corner by irrational unions. Perhaps that is the case. In the process, these management bastards have increased their salaries and bonuses exponentially, as they still continue to work to destroy unions, in a vengeful attitude which then puts the union people in a corner. These working people think a Trump will solve their problems. Think again, you idiots. His cronies are the ones who wish to continue to replace workers with robots, you idiots, so go vote for idiot Trump and his followers, but be careful what you wish for because you might get something you don’t like or enjoy. As a member of a union, I can say that we faced this irrational attitude with an administration which refused to acknowledge our rationality while attempting to work out compromises at the negotiating table. I suppose I can say I understand why such Republicans acted in the manner they did, due to the lack of balance in unions and their delight at destruction of good things.

One more thing. Regulated capitalism might have elements of socialism, as what I have described here, but only when there needs to be regulation on both sides of the supply and demand considerations (on both sides of union-management negotiating table) and the goal is balance. Lacking this kind of balance and pushing the one-sided aspect of “free enterprise” and we end up getting rid of the “referee” in government (third party). This can be likened to letting Roman gladiators go in an arena and killing people like Christians. Supply-side economics with centrally planned economics from top-down of monopoly-style big corporations is not capitalism because, like the gladiators in an arena, it destroys and “kills” the opposition.

This can also be likened to a what-if scenario. What if an NFL team played a high school football team? What if there were no referees and all the rules were established by the NFL team, including the possibility of destroying human beings in the process? What if such a situation existed? If you would love to see this, then go to h-e-double hockey sticks because you are a savage barbarian trying to invoke your will upon a civilized nation.

My Cuban colleague I mentioned who came from Cuba at an early age in her life, also served on a Civility Committee which recognized coexistence and attempted to teach our students such concepts. Not barbarism. Civility. Coexistence. In America, the imperfect nation that it is, but being able to have fun in fixing it.

I would have fun in creating a democracy NOT based on a two-party system, as well, but based on something similar to the parliamentary system in Britain which went against King George and removed some of the taxes he imposed on the colonists. Bet Americans don’t know about this little aspect. But a parliamentary system night have two parties in control, but there are other parties to which the party which is in control has to make alliances with the parties with smaller numbers in order to name a prime minister. That prime minister has to maintain that coalition and partisanship is shot in the foot in the process. I do not believe the upper house of the parliament has any stupid freaking filibuster rules, either, which decimates the ability for compromise. Go to h-e-double-hockey sticks, Mancin.

With all due respect to those who continue to invoke a two-sided contrast in any form, it’s the resulting ambiguity and lack of compromise in actions (not values), stupid.

Short & To the Point: It’s Jobs Shipped to Foreigners and Robo-answering-message-menu-machines, Stupid

We hear complaints that unemployment checks cause laziness in the work force. I have to ask, who really are the lazy ones? I believe the lazy ones are the CEOs who have mastered plans for 1000% rise in salaries and bonuses, take pensions and benefits from their employees (the hard working ones), and hoard the money, doing little for America while trying to avoid paying taxes. They put customer service jobs overseas so Americans often do not get hired to do such jobs. They utilize the most ludicrous computerized systems to answer customer service calls with questions galore which never address the reason for a customer to call, then follow up with the customer service human being asking some of the same questions again! In the corporation where I once worked, we would classify this as a waste of time for the business. It’s not the unemployment checks making people lazy. There are many other reasons. One is this: it’s customer service jobs hipped overseas and rob-answering-message-menu-machines, stupid.

Short & To the Point: It’s the Huge Increases in CEO Salaries & Bonuses, Stupid

Statistics show CEO salaries in America have risen exponentially since the 1970s by more than 1000% over that time span. If my salary had increased that much, I would have been making a very handsome three-figure salary. I ended my career in the five digits which is where I began in the 1970s. I am not complaining because I did better than many other hard-working Americans. The lazy CEOs took money from the workers. Now we call American workers lazy, right, when they use unemployment checks and not go to work, right? Lazy? Who is really the lazy ones here? Meanwhile, these lazy CEOs have shipped jobs overseas, too, making customer service answering lines a joke with robots, a long wait, and some foreign person eventually answering us (if we are lucky to even get someone). Meanwhile, the American worker is lazy when he/she receives unemployment checks? Go blow it out where the sun doesn’t shine, will you please? It’s the huge increases in CEO salaries and bonuses, stupid. Lainbrains who shoot themselves in the foot while supporting the white cronies of corporate supply-side American near-monopoly centralized planning businesses, run from top-down.

Short & To the Point: Property Taxes or Not?

Property taxes have been around for a long time. At one time, property could only be owned by white males. They paid the property taxes. It is pleasant that we live today with human equality. Or do we? Perhaps, because if one can afford property, they pay the taxes, irregardless of sex, color of skin, religion, or sexual identity. Thank God for that. But are property taxes the best form of tax or should we have other forms? This author is not certain and has wrestled with this question for some time. Property taxes are used at the local level to support streets, sidewalks, public schools, public hospitals, and other local community facilities and actions. Property taxes are paid whether one owns the property or rents the property. If one rents the property, the tax is like a value-added tax (VAT) and is opaque to the renter. The owner of the property sets the price of rent based on the property taxes (supposedly, if the owner is an intelligent one who pays the taxes). What is the alternative? Opaque taxes like a VAT take less paperwork and less work by accountants and lawyers, so we save money. If the VAT causes too high a price for the commodity, then people have a choice in a capitalist market. Thus, the price can be controlled by the value of the commodity PLUS value of the tax on the commodity. With property taxes, this can become a more complicated matter, as the demand side of the housing market is quite an infinite demand, unless people choose to pitch a tent in a public park, as what happens with the homeless. Also, property taxes are applied whether there is a home for residents or a building for commercial or industrial use. The tax is lower when it is an open field or wooded area with no buildings. Then there is the farmland consideration. Too complicated for me to consider here at this time. Homestead exemption options (primary residence, so get a deduction, but 2nd property and/or property only used as an investment not residence, and there is no deduction) and STAR (NYS). People who own rental property do so as an investment, so to lower the cost to renters, rental property for personal residences could have a higher homestead exemption, could they not? After all, owning a piece of real estate with no building does have a lower assessment and a lower tax. I know. I was once in that position. So, why can’t we give residential rental property a higher exemption? Owners of business, commercial, and manufacturing rental property are leasing to people who are more likely expected to make a profit. Residents are often pushed into a position to make little profit, especially with an income tax which considers profits for the “little guys” – the common folk – to be “disposable income.” How insane, which also makes me consider how irrational the regressive income tax is in punishing people for making a profit.

Short & To the Point: Replace Income & Sales Taxes with Value-Added Taxes Applied to Domestic Goods & Imported Goods

The income tax is regressive. It punishes people for making money, to the point that now we have a class of people who invoke a love of money. Like the income tax, sales taxes require business entrepreneurs to cut into their profits in order to pay people to maintain their books, or else cut into their OWN time for doing the business they are trying to do. This was once pointed out to me, as a kid, by a DEMOCRAT and small business owner when REPUBLICANS were implementing a sales tax in the state of New York. Who was Rocky? The small business person deemed the sales tax, “Rocky’s Tax?” Think about it and answer, who was Rocky? It was not Silvester Stallone, either. A value-added tax, or VAT, is a tax one time proposed by CONSERVATIVES because it returns us to the days before the income and sales taxes. As a solution, I don’t give one damn whether it is liberal or conservative. All Americans should be the same and stop the BS that goes into their ears from propaganda broadcasting owned by an immigrant from Australia. It allows a tax to be collected on products, perhaps not services, at the time the products are created or re-made and appraised. The cost to the consumer is the price figured with the tax added in and there is no damn paperwork and ledgers required by business. It would “save businesses” all this money that the big fat cats keep drying and moaning about not being able to save in order to make a profit. But really. These big business fat cats don’t have to worry about it because they can dip into their profits and pay lawyers and accountants, plus pay for lawyers and accountants to run for Congress. For the small business people of America, which is greatly declined, due to the deregulation and monopolized status resulting from supply-side non-capitalist, non-competitive business in America (which is like centralized business planning in a communist state like Cuba, China, or the former Soviet Union). Fat cat Ray Kroc, and other bastards of this non-capitalist model really did work to deliberately put small business people out of business. This is how we have ended up where we are, with jobs created for lawyers (ambulance-chasing bastards when there was a glut of lawyers with no jobs) while so many other jobs and businesses in America suffer or go under. This CAN be changed. It won’t be changed until the lousy no-brain idiocracy stops soaking up propaganda broadcasting, read newspapers and other publications with knowledge, not propaganda, lies, fibs, hatred, hypocrisy, and irrational crap. Replace income taxes and sales taxes with the VAT. Period. Another time, this author wishes to speak about other taxes, like property taxes, inheritance taxes, and professional fees required for those in the trades and in work such as EMTs to attain licenses to work for America and its people.

Short & To the Point: Small Business Incubators and Planning?

What has happened to the small business incubator concept which this professor taught students in business at the college level in the 1990s? We never hear about these anymore. We taught students about developing a small business and taught them how to use databases to do market research in order to identify the market portions which would help make them profits in a business. For instance, there was a database which could provide information to fulfill the requirement of “location, location, location” by examining the numbers of drivers going in dual directions on any street or highway. This could be utilized for best placement of a business. This was not the ONLY database, but it was useful for determining placement of brick and mortar retail establishments. You say, “well things have changed today.” You are correct. If it is not just “brick and mortar” alone, then there are statistics for the impact of ordering online and delivery services today. One could put together a successful business plan, according to such marketing trends which never end once the plan is made. So, of the idiocracy which finds fault with unemployment checks being issued (and just salivating about complaining about Democrats) and causing negative pessimism in order to DESTROY rather than fix, I never hear ANY of the lawyer-accountant politicians come up with optimistic ideas such as, “give unemployment checks” to those who will utilize and PROVE the use of business plans, business incubators, and other methods of doing supply and demand capitalist marketing. Provide options for training in corporate and business intelligence, something the big fat cats at the top of monopolistic centrally planned corporations figure they are above such use. These lazy fat cats at the heads of corporations believe we should just hand the money over to them so they can line their pockets and pay off lawyer-accountant politicians to do favors for them in government, lobbying for their fat ass benefit only. Small business incubators and other considerations could be pulled in, but who is doing this? Silly me that I don’t go along with the large numbers of people with their simplistic shallow no-brain lazy listening to Fox and other propaganda, lies, hatred, love of money and guns talk. They refuse to think for themselves so perhaps would find it hard to accept a check for unemployment with strings attached to do something to improve America by means of the business environment and other concerns for America.

Short & To the Point: Supply-side Economics is NOT Capitalism

Supply-side economics in America was promoted with deregulation by Ronald Reagan. The stupid man thought it would be about less regulation from the third-party government regulators. Instead, it has turned into a Roman gladiator game by big fat cats of corporations who destroy small business and any competitors. They act like cowards unable to know how to win in a competitive war. For instance, big health insurance helped sabotage and destroy the health insurance marketplace created for the purposes of CAPITALIST competition, by Democrats and President Obama. Corporate utilities have been deregulated and have turned into merged companies of large proportions. Newspapers and publishers have merged and become huge corporations. In each case, the excuse, without the competition, is usually these moans and groans about how “there is not enough profit.” It’s about the top corporate fat cats making the money to the tune of increased salaries and bonuses which have risen exponentially since the 1970s when we had smaller corporations, small businesses and more capitalist competition. The big fat cats at the top have been winning and don’t give one damn about the demand side of a capitalist market. Yet, the corporate where I worked, when it was deregulated and merged into a larger one was known as being a “cash cow.” There was no reason for doing this because more people took advantage of the “cash cow,” but now only a few at the top and those who own the most stock benefit from the profits. Thus, there is top-down control which does not benefit the Middle Class or lower classes. In the process, R&D money has been snipped and America has fallen far behind in the world economy. R&D being done in the company where I once worked has been moved to Europe and Asia. All due to supply-side economics in the name of “free markets” which then turn the big fat cats at the top into those similar to the big fat cats in a communist politburo who make all the money and CLAIM the workers do well. It’s centrally planned supply-side economics, stupid, not capitalism with its capitalist competition which creates “wealth of a nation” (18th Century theorist, Adam Smith who ultimately rejected “free markets” because he said human beings had no self-control, follow the model of Jesus Christ, and be moral and ethical when dealing with each other, so they need to be REGULATED).