# Something to ponder



## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

OK campers, I am going to try something new. A short preamble. I love this country. I love the principles that guided and molded it during its' creation, the principles for which it has stood, that has made it a beacon of hope to the world and the place of refuge for people of all stripes. I love it not just in a flag waving "we're #1!" way. I love so deeply that it hurts, so badly that a big, formerly strong man weeps at the thought of how far we have descended from the lofty peaks we enjoyed not too long ago.

I have to leave this world to my children and grand children, and I am afraid I will be leaving them a broken promise. I would like to live long enough to see it fixed, but at 65 and in less than perfect health, I have to confront the fact that I probably won't. The least I can do is try to start the process.

We didn't get into this mess overnight, or in the last three years. We have been disintegrating for a long time. One cannot blame the left or the right, they all are culpable. We can blame only ourselves for allowing it to happen.

A couple ground rules: I am going to state some opinions, personal, reasoned, honest, but they will be MY OPINIONS. What I would like to have happen is for you folks to read what I have to say, think about it, and if you have something to say, do so in a calm reasoned way. Try to leave idology out of it. Please, no conservative vs. liberal stuff, no finger pointing, no name calling. This is hopefully to be a way to start listening to each other with respect for the other's point of view and right to express it. Try to keep your responses rational, thoughtful, and polite with the goal being to find a way to 1) talk to each other without shouting, and 2) by doing so, begin to see the depth and causes of our problems. Recognizing a problem in its' totality is the first step in solving it.

OK, now for my thoughts. I apologize in advance if I seem a bit windy. I'm just a bit windy. The problems we face are the very real possibility of the total collapse of the Republic. Financially, we are in deep kimshi. The inequality of distribution of wealth is at its' greatest in our history resulting in huge upheavals in the way the country works. I would bet my life that no one on here is in the top 1% in income. We are the 99%, the ones in the trenches struggling to get by, and in many cases failing. We have the largest percentage of children living in poverty in the developed world. Same for infant mortality, families living with food insecurity, families living with the threat of homelessness, the list goes on. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, with more of our population being denied care because of cost than anywhere in the developed world. Health care reform has tried to bring people into the health care system, but the cost is unsustainable. The middle class, the life-blood of the Republic, is disappearing leaving the uber-rich and the rest of us. As resources dwindle, likes rats in a cage we turn on each other in fury and panic. WE ARE DIVIDED.

We are divided on purpose. The jobs didn't go to China, India, Kingdom of Pishtoff or where ever as a natural process. It was done deliberately so that stockholders would get a better ROI. Simply put, greed. Some industries naturally move to lower wage countries as their development peaks and ways to increase productivity diminish. That is true of some, but the bulk of the jobs shipped overseas were sent for greed. American workers are the most productive in the world, but still it is more pofiable to pay lower-slave-wages, have no worker protection or medicalo care, no environmental protections, no business ethics considerations. Just get it done cheeply, Send it to Wal Mart, market it and the schmcks will spend their last dollar to get it.

The system works this way because we have career politicians who will get in bed with any special interest who will give them money for reelection campaigns, lobyists who will provide the money delivered by big businessesw who then get to write the legislation regulating their industries. Sweet deal, except, as usual, the 99% gets screwed.

Solution 1) Strict term limits. The President can serve no more than 11 years, do the same to both houses. The time in in Congress would be absolute with NO going to lobbyists or consultants, and NO PENSION. Limit the motivation to stay in office to a desire to SERVE, not enrich oneself. If a deficit of more than 5% of the budget occurs in a given year, ALL are inelegible to receive pay, period.

2) Take the corrupting influence of big money out of the electoral process. Make elections publicly funded by a budgeted fund, with STRICT spending rules, and NO outside money or campaign ads allowed at all. Keep it between candidates, keep it clean, cheep, and HONEST. Money is not speech. One's voice should not be louder that anyone else's just because he has more money.

Correct the tax imbalance. We ALL have to pay for our Liberty. Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in America believes he and his contemporaries need to pay more. Both from a moral perspective and from a fiscal perspective. We can't cut our way out of this mess. The rich, the JOB CREATORS, have had it their way for almost a decade. Where are the JOBS? They are coasting and boasting while we are toasting.

3) Fix the schools. I am not talking about putting prayer back-kids pray before every test, I'm sure. We need to regain control in the classrooms. Discipline is gone, classes are disrupted, and teachers and administrators have no way to control the situation with no means of discipline at their command. The result is that kids who want to learn can't and teachers give up. Stop making kids FEEL GOOD about themselves, stop trying to eliminate those annoying standards and giving smiley stickers for a high school kid wh goes tinkle in the potty. 
Set REAL standards for learning, have more than one path-vocational as well as college prep-, make the curriculum effective-agree on a math program and stick to it, teach proper English, and above teach CIVICS. Personal responsibility, code of conduct, critical thinking, reasoning. An EDUCATED populace is strong. An UNEDUCATED populace is easy to manipulate. Make PARENTS equally, or more, responsibile for their kids' performance in school. If they don't show up so many days, a parent goes to jail. Same with homework, behavior, attitude, etc. Parents send little kids to school telling them it's not important, they don't have to do that, etc. and use video games and tv to occupy them so they don't have to parent. Make parenting classes mandatory for every expetant couple, or sadly woman.

4) Get medical care under control. In our for=profit system, costs go up at far greater rates than inflation and is not reflected in quality of care. Hospitals are major vectors of terrible diseases simply because of a lack of basic cleanliness. Nursing homes, besides from being ruinously expensive, are quite often a chamber of horrors. Prescription costs are though the toof, some doctor's fees are laughable. Needed tests are sometimes prohibitavely expensive, while a whole industry has sprung up around things like diabetes test strips, ambulatory assist devices, and on and on. Fraud is rampant and we are loosing ground. Big Pharma does what it wants, writes its' own rules, and we pay the price. We have seen how the market regulates iself. Other countries, England, Germany France, Italy, Japan, S. Korea, Austraila, Sweden, Denmark, etc. regulate, in some way, costs of ALL medical services and consumables. ALL. The medical industries wailed that they couldn't operate that way, but they do and they get along just fine. Consider, No one goes bankrupt in any of those countries because of medical costs, and No one has to choose between eating or taking their medicine. INSTEAD OF WONDERING HOW AND WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR IT, LET US LIMIT THE PROFITS THEY ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE, ELIMINATE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION, AND REDUCE THE COST OF MEDICAL CARE RATIONALLY, NOT BY RATIONING.

5) Eliminate speculation on commodities futures, ie. foodstuffs, oil, pork bellies, et al. It doesn't encourage production or benefit the producer. It simply drives prices higher on critical items while enriching rich peole.

6) When banks are too big to fail, do as Iceland. Driven ti the brink of collapse by the avarice of their bankers, Iceland in its' recovery let the banks fail. Then prosecuted those responsible. How much sense woulod it make to do the same here. Immediately after receiving bailouts, demanded by congress, they allocated several billion dollare for BONUSES for the very one who drove the train off the track. Regulaate the investment banking, indeed the entire banking industry, much more stringently. We have seen how they regulate themselves.

7) This is the last for now; I have to go fix supper, but it's most important. We ARE DIVIDED AS NO TIME IN OUR HISTORY. A political fact has allways been if you have no solutions to the problems, distract the people and divide them. Start a war, or pick issues sure to be controversial, push them, stir the prople up, and they won't notice them running off with the piggy bank. Well, we're divided. Conservative, liberal, gay rights, gun controll (I use both hands-give me a break), abortion; all important and all deeply felt, but they are not the important issues. As long as we stay bitterly divided we will not be able to solve these or any problems. As long as we stay divided, we will be at the mercy of the special interests and their political lackeys who care not for us or the Union. As long as we stay divided, this nation will continue to give up its' place in the world, continue its' downward slide into insignificance, and the hope of humanity will be lost.

I love this country, and I want it fixed. There is more than I have expressed here, but it is a start. Please remember what I said. Think, reason, and discuss civily. Prove that we can work together. This was the United States of America; let us make it so again. The motto of my home state is, "United We Stand, Divided We Fall." Think about it. I await your responses.

God Bless America
Steve


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## crank49 (Apr 7, 2010)

As long as you think the problem is rich people not paying enough taxes and mean old greedy buisness owners making too much profit are the main problems, you are indeed correct. We are doomed.

You state that the inequality of the distribution of wealth is at its greatest in our history. I can't respond to that without pointing out that if you study economies of other countries all over the world there is a common theme. The more socialist, a country is, the greater the "inequality of the distribution of wealth".

I'm getting too hot under the collar to stick to your ground rules so I'm going to leave now. But I just want to say you should work a few months in one of the Central or South American countries to see what real inequality of distribution of wealth is. I have and it was a real eye opener.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

How does an agnostic say "amen"? Here we go… "A MAN" who stands tall in the face of adversity truly IS a man.

My only REAL comment deals with this:
"A EDUCATED populace is strong. An UNEDUCATED populace is easy to manipulate."

So true! To limit education, in ANY fashion, only plays into the Party's hands of those who limit such funding. Period. And a limited education only leads to the type of manipulation that ends up with "ISOLATED INDIVIDUALS" murdering other citizens such as politicians, abortion doctors, and minorities, IMO.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Crank,

I am sorry tha you're upset. The whole purpose of this is to get people to THINK outside their normal way of thinking, get to the root of the problem, work TOGETHER without rancor r prejudice or pre-conceived positions, and come to a conclusion TOGETHER. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, when the Continental Congress was vascillating over declaring independance, "Gentlemen, If we do not hang together, we will most assuredly hang seperately!" Same here. We have to throw off all the enmity and divisive positions set in stone, and find a way out of this; ideology be damned. Take a look at your tag line, and Kentucky's motto. Think about it. Unless you're one of the 1%, in which case you may be excused, you are one of us, and I am one of you.; We are the PEOPLE and we need to realize that and work together. Not to reach your conclusion, or my conclusion, but OUR JOINT conclusion. We are up to our armpits in alligators and you seem to be defending the ones who are fleecing us. Please try to think this through. It's too important. We need you, we need each other.

Steve


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## Viktor (Jan 15, 2009)

crank49: "The more socialist, a country is, the greater the "inequality of the distribution of wealth"

Completely false, at least among OECD countries (lets compare apples with apples).


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## derosa (Aug 21, 2010)

Only issue I see is mandating parenting classes, come up with some sort of incentive program under the health care system to strongly encourage participation. Other then that I've always felt that most of what you've posted is largely common sense. Part of it is that we need to get the younger generations participating. I'm a gen-Xer and as a group we are well known for not being involved; I spend a lot of time trying to get my fellow classmates and friends involved in anything but it is an uphill battle.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Russ,

I can go along with that. Poor parenting is a self-replicating problem. One generation begets the next. The same with welfare. We have to be able to help people to pull themselves up without addicting them to help. However, in order to make people qualified for a job, and give reasonable hope as a motovator to leave welfare, it would seem to be necessary that there be JOBS available. Back to the old corporate greed question trading jobs for profits.

A company we studied in North or South? Carolina, the name escapes me now, was piloted by a ceo who stated that his primary motivation for starting the company and keeping it going was to provide employeement for his employees. He had his, said he didn' need the money, but felt a responsibility to pass it on. Steve Jobs was of that ilk too. We need more, what is it Russ, love for our fellow man? A Novel concept.

The younger generation will be a lost generation unless we get it together. I'm worried about the NEXT generation.

Steve


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## TCCcabinetmaker (Dec 14, 2011)

My problem is you still want to tax income. As long as people's incomes are taxed, there is no way to get ahead. It's what the gangs and mobs used to do in the 1800s. You want to work, you gotta pay me. It's called extortion by the way, at least when the mob does it….

Tax imported goods. I've seen figures for this suggestion, and honestly, it would fix the deficit in a few years, as well as provide protection for american workers. Nafta, Gat and any like trade treaties do NOT benefit anyone. Trade imballance does not benefit anyone, even the poorer country. What happens is unscrupulous people move in to make what they can as fast as they can without any consequences.


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Fussy, I agree with you. I have a few words/ideas that need to be put into practice:


Responsibility
Consequences for actions
Accountability

In no particular order. Just some of my rants:


Jobs overseas = greed. Maybe taxing imports will help this, I don't know. But I'm for it. 
Career politicians - They need term limits, boundaries. 
Cut gov't costs - Start with a flat 17% tax for people, AND businesses and eliminate 90% of the IRS. 
Introduce accountability - Tie congress's pay (and other's, all the way to the top) to their accomplishments. 
Under NO circumstances do we allow the(our) gov't to borrow any more money. They have to learn what we have been told and are learning and practicing ourselves. We don't depend on credit, we learn to live within our means. 
Make the banks and individuals that fail, fail. Don't bail them out. This gets back to accountability and responsibility. 
Require our leaders(yes, ALL of them) to use the same resourses we do, starting with health care.

There is more, but discussing this makes me want to vomit in their(DC's) general direction. I HATE OUR GOVERNMENT and what it has become.

Are you justified in being mad? Absolutely. Is LJ the place to get results, probably not, but the folks here need to be woken up as much as any other. So other than voting them out, how do you affect redirection?

Is there any expectation that we will ever get back on track? I believe so, but it will take a rebellion, and/or a revival.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

TC,

A couple things to consider. One, it is simply the cost of freedom. Taxes are not that high. As a matter of fact, taxes as a percentage of personal income, are at the LOWEST in over 40 years. Taxes on the uber rich are even lower, and for what reason? Job Creators? In almost a decade of tax cuts for them, where are the jobs? Look around. You may not have noticed this little economic blip. Big businesses are sitting on trillions of dollars in profits. Have been for quite a while. They're not hiring. Won't hire until we start buying. We can't start buying until they start hiring. Catch 22?

Jobs starting going overseas big time in the '80s, but we didn't notice. Most of us anyway. Remembe "Greed is Good". Guys like Carl Icahn and others loike him got their start buying companies in trouble because of the economic turmoil of that period. Instead of putting money in to rebuild them, they broke them up, gutted them, sold the parts, made hyuge profits and danced to the bank while thousands of people were left jobless.

The trend only accelerated from there. CEO's loaded the boards with other CEO's, not to help run a business more efficiently, but to assure themselves of huge salaries and bonuses, fabulous perks, and golden parachutes. They, in turn served on the boards of their friend's companies to reciprocate. In order to keep profits up and keep the stockholders in line, and with the Bush administration's encouragement (Compainie with off shore offices don't pay taxes in the US) began moving jobs offshore at a record pace. The trend continues today unabated. Go to any town in the US and look around. Do you see anyone working?

Talk about taxes, TC. And I am not picking a fight. This isn't a debate as much as it is a discussion. We're all friends here and we need to be tolerant even of an old man's hopless mutterings. As I said before, taxes are lower than at anytime I can remember. If everyone was working, after a while, we could cut a bit more. The problem is, not everyone is working. Taxes in Germany are a good bit higher than here, but they have low unemployment, a trade surplus, a health care system that works AND doesn't break the bank. Now how do they do that? We whipped their patushkas in two world wars starting from scratch. What do they know that we don't? It can't be the quality of their manufactured goods; our manufacturered goods are STILL the envy of the world. Buick is one of the most popular cars in Japan, and IS the most popular import. It can't be productivity; American workers are the most productive in the world and have been.

They do it structuring their system to reward companies for creating and maintaining jobs in-country. They make it difficult to move jobs overseas, and they make it a bit more expensive to bring goods from the outside. Not enough to start a trade war, but the point is made. And they do what Germany has allways done, they take pride in their people, products, and their homeland. The medical industry is tightly regulated, pharmaceutical profits are strictly limited, banks and banking qare regulated to prevent most of the excesses we've seen here. In short, they are united, they consider the common good, and they all work for it.

They pay more in taxes, but because they haven't had to deal with the rampant corruption we have, because they haaven't been fighting two wars on borrowed money, because their leaders WORK TOGETHER instead of stating for the record that their goal is to make the current leader fail at any cost: because they do this and we don't, they have prospered and we haven't. They simply get more bang for the buck.

What to do and how to do it? That's what this is all about. I think we have been sold a pile of whatever with free market economics. The market will not regulate itself, it will continue with wretched excess as long as we allow. Regulation does not 'kill jobs', it insures them. Regulation protects 'us' from 'them' and levels the fiels. Does anyone here want to go back to the days when rivers caught fire with boring regularity? Give up environmental regulation. Want to come home from the job in one piece, or don't you mind the risk of injury or death on the job? Give up OSHA. On and on.

One other thing, TC. Why do they call Social Security and Medicare entitlements as if it's something obscene? You and I have paid into it all our working lives. Who would put up with State Farm telling us we weren't "ENTITLED" to collect on a policy we had paid for because it was inconvient or costly to them? Think on it. Thanks for the input, TC. There are no easy solutions, but fighting and doing nothing are not among them. Best wishes and goodnight.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Rance,

Ok, I won't go to bed just yet. You hit one out of the park. I like most of your ideas, especially accountability, responsibility, and , and, uh, I'm sorry, I can't remember the third. JUST KIDDING! Absolutely correct, and it starts with parenting and Russ' suggestion for volantery parenting classes tied to health care.

Is there ANY hope of change? ABSOLUTELY! You said short of voting them out. No, NOT SHORT OF, VOTE THEM OUT. BOTH HOUSES, CLEAN HOUSE AND START FRESH. MAKE IT A NATIONAL PUSH FOR STRICT TERM LIMITS AND ELECTION FINANCE REFORM. We are in agreement. It has to start somewhere, and this may be an odd place, but for cryin' out loud, it has to start somewhere. Thanks Rance for your input. Chew on it and come back with more good ideas. There is hope. You have to believe. To paraphrase Einstein," If you keep doing the same things with the same people, why are you so surprised when you keep getting the same results?"

Steve


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Mandatory "parenting classes" need to start with the wealthy. Especially the *"helicopter parents"* like the Chris Christie crowd. To be honest, IMO, the rich are far worse at parenting than the poor for the sole reason that *the rich expect others to do the parenting FOR them.*

*Money is NOT parenting.* Geez, just look at George H.W. Bush's son-of-privilege "W" and how poorly he turned out, even after having ALL the monetary, educational, and job perks money could buy. Even being bought the Presidency of the United States could not keep him from screwing up further. And remember, "W" even had to go to court to overturn the popular vote in which he lost! And here we sit, paying for two very expensive wars that "W" built.

*PARENTING CLASSES SHOULD START WITH THE RICH PARENTS!* And THAT means several hours/days/years of on-going contact and supervision OF THEIR OWN CHILDREN.


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

Come on Mike, Inattentive parents don't have to be wealthy. It will be hard to mandate how much priority parents give children in their lives. I've always thought it common sense that children are the most important 'crop' or 'product' that we produce. There should be some basic principles that everyone can agree on, the importance of children in society should be one of them. That should be in a class taught way before parents are expectant. -Jack


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

Very thought provoking post and I thank you for that. 
*I would bet my life that no one on here is in the top 1% in income.*
I would recommend against that, because you won't survive it. I'll only comment on one thing; and that's the fact that we simply can't afford our healthcare system. We want the very best, by the very best, we want it immediate, and we don't want to pay for it. And it's not the "overpaid greedy doctors"; it's the cost of the desired technology. Health care reform needs to happen; but putting the government in charge of it is a very bad idea.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Mike, and Jack,

You are Both right. Bad parenting cuts across all socio-economic strata. It is not a phenomanon common to any one group. The methods of bad parenting and the motivations for it differ as you look across different social strata, but the result is still the same; children who have no respect for themselves or others, no respect for authority, who are self-absorbed, with a rich feeling of ENTITLEMENT, and a feeling that rules do not apply to them. This problem goes straight back to my generation and what happened in the 60's.

We rebelled, and rightly so, against all the artificial barriers; social, economic, racial, educational, sexualo (I didn't get in on that, Too old-fashioned. I had good, strong parents. I knew in my heart I would die horribly if I crossed the line (Rance, consequences for actions?), you get the picture. As with pendulums, this took a giant swing, and we went from excessive control over us to acknowledging NO controlls. Not to re-hash (Not that kind of hash) history, we as a generation went a little too far. The really big problems came in how we educated our children, and how we (our generation, speaking collectively. Not all of us fell into this trap, but enough) looked at our kids and our relationships with them.

We wanted the best for them (rightly), and wanted them to feel good about themselves (ok up to a point), and we began to dismantle all the wisdom of parenting and teaching that had been built up throught our history (China's cultural revolution of the same period comes to mind as an extreme example of what can happen when pendulums swing). We (collectively) began to question authority (good, for adults, indeed required behavior in a participatory democracy, not so good for children), and started changing the way we parented. We lowered expectationsand hence results, and continued til now in a incremental lowering of standards. A lot of went from being authority figures to best buddies with our kids. Helicopter moms are a logical extension of that.

How many of you have read John Rosemond? He is a behavioral psychologist who has colmns and radio shows (I beleive). Unlike the Dr. Spocks and others of that period who encouraged us to look at the"Inner child", to center on his/her feelings, John believes in old=fashioned parenting. He says, and correctly, our grandmothers and, in my generation (1946) mothers-mostly- would never have asked the kinds of questions he gets.

They were sure of themselves and their authority. "Because I said so" was their reason for telling us something, and they made it stick. They weren't buddies, friends, or playmates, they were IT.

Todays parents are unsure of and uncomfortable with their authority. As friends with children, all moral authority is lost. We can't treat our kids as equals, because they are not equal. They are still children.

So that is where PART of the problem began. We see the fruits today in bankers who know boundries, no sense of right or wrong, politicians who fall in the same behavioral group, spiritual leaders -some, only some, but enough--.

Someone said the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Close enough. Our problems are not the failure of one ideology or another. They are not the inferiority of one party line over another. They are not the failure of the rich, or the poor, or teachers, or parents. Our problems are much deeper than that and to begin to find a solution, we need to keep looking deeper into ourselves and our society. The causes of this mess are deeply rooted and interlocked and twined together like the grain in a really disfigured Manzanita burl. One thing leads to another. And in that way, one thing leading to another, we will find a way.

Keep them cards and letters coming, folks. Thanks for looking and thinking.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Bertha,

The problem is not all greedy, over-paid doctors, but SOME ARE. In my personal journey through hell, I came across dozens of doctors who were in it to buy their BMWs. One in particular saw me, spent 15 minutes berating me for being deaf and being unable to understand his Pakistani "English", ordered thousands of dollars in tests, never referred to and told me I was depressed and had fibromyalgia. Two weeks later, I was in emergency surgery at UK for spinal stenosis. By the time they figured out I wasn't depressed, I was paralyzed from the neck down and less than 36 hours from death. He sent me to cpllections for $1800 (one visit, useless tests were billed seperately). I told him to sue me and we would discuss his diagnostic prowess in open court on the record. He slunk off into the darkness.

Over-paid doctors are part of the problem, but a lot of them, just as there are good and bad religious folks, good and bad mechanics, but there are problems. Pharmaceutical companies are a big part of the problem. One drug I take is colchicine to help with gouty arthritis. It cost $4/month at Wal Mart and works fine. It has been around for over 3,000 years and was developed in China. A company with deep pockets convinced the FDA to remove colchicine from the market and substitute Colchris. They got exclusive rights to a pill that does just what my old one did, made of the same stuff, and the price went from $4/month to $349/month. That's a problem. The big pharmas got, because of their generous campaign contributions (see how the problems are linked? gets complicated), the opportunity to write the laws to regulate their own industries. They get to set the price they want, and to make certain it sticks, stuck in a provision trying to ban importation from Caanada and forbidding medicare to even try to negotiate drug prices. Yes, some doctors, most pharmaceuticles, for-profit hospitals are part of the problem. Especially when taken as a whole, our health care system provides less care to fewer people at a higher cost than any country in the developed world

Government can't run a program? Medicare and Social Security work just fine if the politicians wouldn't keep raiding the piggy bank to pay for pork that keeps them in office. It works. I can tell you from within the system, it works. And no I don't feel badly about being on medicare. I am ENTITLED TO IT because I PAID for it all my working life. Get costs under control instead of passing the bill for care to the states or to the people, forcibly reduce costs-flagrant abuse of our money, and get it fixed.

Solutions will be painful for all. We have to change our notions of how things work. We have seen time and again how well self-regulation and policing work. It doesn't. Part of government's job is to protect the people. ALL OF THEM. Control is a necessity. Think government can't run anything? Get a new government by voting out the carrier politicians all over the country who sap our life blood while they enrich themselves. Think government can't run anything? Send the replacements in with strict orders; fix this mess, get it under control, work together or you're history.

Failure of a government to govern fairly and honestly is a reflection of our failure as voters to participate, to consider carefully why we vote for one or another (he's in and can't be any worse than someone else is not good enough), and not demanding high standards of performance from our representatives and having dire consequences (Rance, do you hear yourself in here? Russ? Victor? TC? all of you?) for them if they fail. Like no re-election. Crank. Your tag line says it well. "diapers and politicians need to be changed often and for the same reason,"

The problems are deep. Reach down deeply, think honestly, and keep the dialogue going. Understanding is half the victory. Thanks.

Steve


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Entitlement. There's another good word to add to my list.

And as for parenting, you are sorta letting the tail wag the dog. Just require a license to have kids.

>"This problem goes straight back to my generation and what happened in the 60's." 
Sorry Steve, but you'll have to explain that one. You've lost me. I don't see where that was prominent until my kid's generation. I'm not saying we did not absorb the idea, I just don't think it became prevalent until then. Generally speaking, I think the core of it was the kids did what kids do, they whined about something. And rather than hold them to what would have been right, we took the easy way and just gave them what they wanted to shut them up. Well, then maybe WE did cause it.

I think that's the same reason ebonics came in to existence. Kids were struggling to speak and the parents said "oh, that's so cute the way he says that" and never took the responsibility to correct their own child. That's why "My bad" grates on my nerves. Now is that laziness or stupidity? I know adults(my own relatives included) that still say "Wif dis and dat.".

I've always said that whatever relationship you have with your children will flip flop once they become adults. 

If you always make sure you are 'friends' with them while they are a child, then they will not respect you as an adult because of what you had to compromise on to do that. To gain that 'friend', you had to reason with a 'child' and his way of thinking. 
If you lay down the law when they are a child(its called being a parent), then when they grow up they will finally understand why you did it and respect you when they become an adult. At THAT point, then they can even be your 'friend' also.

Pendulums? An interesting thing. They've been swinging for centuries. WE think of our childhood as being a blissful place where all was well and now we're in a mess. IF they were blissful, then there were certainly times before that where they weren't. That in itself gives us hope.

I'm sure they had other big messes back then too. Our parents went through the Depression, and the big Mobsters, or have they just changed names and ages for today to what we know as Gangs? This sorta brings up a new word for my list, Relativism.

So do you want them to get along with you when they are a child or as an adult. The adult timeframe will likely be much longer. It will be more meaningful and it will have more purpose.

As far as the screw up of society, consider how you boil a frog. We didn't get here from a few big mistakes or ideas from just a few idiots. It took thousands and thousands of small mistakes or misdirections(well-intentioned or not). Rather than creating specific roadblocks(laws), we are better off influencing the underlying core(people's general thinking). Change their underlying ideas, and they will come up with the solution(and usually a better one) on their own.

So I might boil it down to my updated list:


Responsibility
Consequences for actions
Accountability
Entitlement Society
Relativism

Oh, and find some way to keep OSHA from 'protecting' me.


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## Porchfish (Jun 20, 2011)

The whole deficit spending boogieman is just that, a straw man if you will. Does the American economy function as a cash only economy ? How many Americans would have housing and/or transportation without deficit spending ? You may have paid off your mortgage and car, but a whole lot of Americans are still paying them. Would you now have a home or all that you have managed to accumulate without a dip into the credit market ? How about small business start ups and major business expansions ? No , none of it would have been possible. So why would you think that all of a sudden we must stop our reliance on deficit spending ? If you insist on a reversion to the feudal market and barter system, you must be willing to subjugate our children and grandchildren to a serfdom, an existence of servitude with little real possibility for a future with hope ! If you can live with that, you are in essence saying that I got mine, now you figure out how to get yours without the same opportunities I had ! I don't think this has been thought out at all, but we like to repeat the rants we hear from talking heads !
I don't claim to have all the answers except that no one ever went forward by moving backward ! Fairness is the key. Can we develop a capitalism with a capitol C (for conscience) ? That is the important first concession we must be willing to make ! Greed can no longer be king as it has been in America for the past 30+ years. We must make a commitment to buy American made products PERIOD ! If you can't find American Made…...DON'T BUY !!
You will surprise yourself with what you can make or make do without if you are committed ! I use Green Valley / Veritas as a supplier rather than the home improvement stores because they make an attempt to sell US and Canadian made goods and identify those items that are imported.
I also try to talk my friends out of calling themselves "conservative" by asking what it is that they are trying to conserve ?
If it's the long shot possibility that you too will soon be wealthy by taking advantage of the labor of others, then you must vote with the top 2% as your credo ! If so , then you are as likely to succeed by buying one lottery ticket per week and voting with the top 2% in "solidarity" !!! 
Adam Smith , ("Wealth of Nations" 17th century economist etc.) is considered the father of modern capitalism and is reported to have said that …"not all conservative people are stupid, but all stupid people are conservative" So I ask my friends who insist on clinging to "conservative" labels and unproductive values why they wish to argue against their own true economic interests ? That's when most come to the conclusion that an open mind on the matter is the first step toward being at peace with who you are ! Yes The system is broke and in dire need of fixing, but childishly simple approaches tend to force us to throw the baby out with the bath water just so we can remain ideologically "pure" and in step with our favorite "Talking Heads" ! Step out of the self confining ideological box and say what YOU want to see happen ! The number of us willing to start over with our thought processes is astounding and an uplifting realization ! let's get busy !


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Rance,

I've never boiled a frog, but what I was saying about the '60s is this is where the parenting train started coming off the tracks. In shedding all authority, some of my generation abbrogated their responsibilities by catering to their children when they had them and tried to shield them from reality. This is nothing new, but each succeding generation has less old wisdom from which to draw, they wing it, take the easy way out, and the situation feeds on itself. We're saying the same thing.

You're absolutely right in that this mess is a compendium of past mistakes. Airplane crashes are never the result of a single action or circumstance, but the end result of a chain of events. Let's try to keep this p[lane from crashing. Thanks, Rance.

Steve


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## Porchfish (Jun 20, 2011)

Thanks fussy….stirring the pot brings to the surface what we haven't seen or thought about and keeps it from burning ! good post !


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## Porchfish (Jun 20, 2011)

Non - earned income should have the crap taxed out of it ! If you didn't earn it through your own labor , why the hell do you deserve to keep it all ?


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Don,

You're corect. The reason we slipped back into depression in the '30s was Congress panicked at the bill and pulled out the economic recovery programs. It was World War II that finally got us out of the hole. The difference between that war and these, they had plans to pay for it. Everyon sacrificed. Yoday, we just borrow from the Chinese with no attention to paying the bill.

One thing that would make it easier is not to cut taxes further from hiostoric lows, but concentrate on job creation. Big busoness is sitting on trillions in profits but they're not hiring. Government has to take the lead, and yes, that will raise the deficit. But if we don't, with a significant part of the population un-employeed or under employed the revenue to pay off the current won't be there. We must act.

As to your buy Ameerican idea, heck yes. Go to Wal Mart on any day, weatch what shoppers come out with, and ask if they could do without 90% of what they bought? I'm with you, Don. My thanks.

Steve


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Porchfish, I can see your point regarding "no credit". Thanks for pointing that out.  I do think there is some middle ground as to the national deficite skyrocketing. I stand by the rest.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Don,

Once again, the nail is hit on the head. Why do we (the people) carry the baggage for the super rich, fight to keep their taxes low so that we may wallow in misery. Mitch McConnell R. KY) says it's CLASS WARFARE!!" and he's absolutely right.The upper class has declared war on us and we are fighting on their side? Makes about as much sense as anything, I guess.

Taxes are a fact of life, the price we pay for our freedom. All anyone can ask is that the system be fair. We all have to pay according to our ability to pay. Nothing wwrong with that.

Steve


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

Steve, that was quite a treatise. I'm just not a good enough typist to invest the hours it would take me to respond to all of your ideas.

I am certainly in agreement with a number of your points. I think possibly the biggest obstacle we face is career politicians. The founding fathers, I believe, envisioned regular citizens, elected by their peers, taking turns running the government, and deciding the issues based on personal conscience and the will of their constituents. Instead, Congress is populated almost entirely by people who have either been bought and paid for by big business lobbyists, or who, at the very least, are casting their votes based on what they think is best for their own political futures.

With regards to big business, job outsourcing, reckless profiteering, and the disparity of wealth distribution, I have my own hypothesis, which begins with the passage of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

Prior to this act, many employees were covered by their employers' own pension and/or profit-sharing plans. These plans , because of the way they were usually designed, encouraged employees to stay with their companies long-term. But because these plans could become insolvent when a company failed, legislation was passed raising the standards of what could be considered a "qualified" pension plan. As a result, many companies were forced to dissolve their plans, and this ushered in the era of individual and portable plans like the 401k.

Individual retirement accounts and 401k plans changed everything, IMO, because practically overnight almost everybody became a player in the stock market. You get to determine how to invest your own retirement savings, so you are going to look for the stocks or mutual funds with the highest ROI, right? Now CEO's are starting to think less about the long-term interests of their companies, and more about the short-term profit margins that will lure investors. This means cutting jobs, outsourcing jobs, ditching long-term employees in favor of cheaper new hires, cutting product quality… this list goes on and on. At the same time, employees no longer have anything to gain by working hard and being loyal to their employers, so job-hopping and apathy become the norm. The bottom line is that because of the push for short-term profits, long-term responsible decision-making goes out the window.

And to finish with a few, possibly discouraging words about the economy in general, I think pretty much every economic system ultimately ends up creating an ever-increasing disparity between rich and poor. Human nature being what it is, the folks with the power, brains, and greed will slowly but surely accumulate more and more of the wealth, while the masses gradually become poorer and poorer. Eventually, it ends with a revolution, and the cycle begins again. That's not just theory…. it's history.


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## tom427cid (Aug 21, 2011)

Hooray,for once a discussion that makes sence! Thank you all for a meaningful exchange of ideas and some form of solution to the problems we are facing
tom


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

*Over-paid doctors are part of the problem*
I repectfully disagree. Doctor's salaries are commensurate with the degree of difficulty and cost of liability. There are bad ones out there, no doubt. But if their not paid or their liability becomes too expensive, they leave. See Obstetrics for an example. A glut of doctors will likely result in decreased admission standards. You think there are bad ones out there now…sheesh. Alternatives have been proposed to reduce salaries, like relegating more authority (even prescription writing) to non-physicians. Take a look at how that's working out. Good discussion here. Good people.


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Abbrogated? Stop using those big words Steve. I'm a simple man with a simple vocabulary. First rule of writing, know your audience. I'm a woodworker.


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## NBeener (Sep 16, 2009)

Like all things, I think health care is frightfully complicated and multi-factoral.

That said … *Al* ... in Colorado, the proposed legislation consistently goes the other way. [If I were guessing, that's not limited TO Colorado.]

In other words, they try to further limit the things that mid-level practitioners (Physicians' Assistants and Nurse Practitioners (eg, my wife)) can do-you know: For The Good Of The Children <grin>.

The State of NY has just proposed legislation that would require Nurses to have (OR GET) a BS, instead of an Associate's Degree.

At least we know THIS legislation gets to the heart of the health care issue: RNs clearly have NOT taken adequate French Literature courses ;-)


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## CharlieM1958 (Nov 7, 2006)

Al, c'mon…. you know you're overpaid….. you just spend it all on guns and ammo.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Wow,

Charlie, that's why discussions with a varied group are valuable. Your take on history and the roots of the current profiteering problems are iluminating (oops, sorry, Rance-neat). I hadn't thought of the retirement act being the genesis (sorry Rance, old buddy-start-YOU KNOW I'M KIDDING, RIGHT?) of the problem, but it makes perfect sense. That's why everyone has something to offer in this. The more different perspectives we get, the better informed we are. This is the way the founding fathers did it; they talked TO each other, not AT them, and they LISTENED to each other. Also, your statement on career politicians goes to the heart of the problem. But who keeps sending them back? Thanks Charlie.

Bertha, you'll notice I said SOME doctors' fees were outrageous. You make good points about medical malpractice insurance (could that problem have started with the American Bar Association's decision in the '70s to allow lawyers to advertise? Did more people see law as a quick and easy path to wealth?) Recordkeeping burdens for doctors are a part of it too. Would a single-payer system lessen that burden by simplifying things?
As for a glut of doctors, I don't see that happening, but what I do see is too many doctors flocking to the larger metro areas where the market will support higher fees while rural areas continue to be dangerously underserved. Mike has said that underinvesting in education is a fatal mistake. Could part of that investment be an extension of programs assisting with med school costs in return for service in needy areas? It could work. In the little (pop under 500) community of Paint Lick, Ky. is a doctor who accepts no insurance at all, see everyone, and charges a minimal fee based on a sliding scale of ability to pay which is paid at time of service. He knows the people (and sees patients from a wider area, and has never, to my knowledge, refused treatment to anyone. He doesn't live as his more affluent contemporaries, but he seems happy.
There are ;ots of good doctors out there, but, as in every sector of our society, there's room for improvement.

Tom, welcome, glad to have you. Feel free to put forth anything you have to add. We are all richer for any different perspectives.

Beener, You too are right. This just shows why discussions over a broad base are so important. There are so many sides to every question, that simplistic, dogmatic solutions are no longer good enough. We're making progress, and nobody's mad. Dang, that's nice! Keep thinking and thankyou all.

Steve


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

Saving the Middle Class-An Agenda for Economic Renewal
By Peter Morici

The hollowing out of the middle class is a potent campaign issue. Almost everyone-even affluent professionals and entrepreneurs-want to identify with the middle class, but increasingly, the genuine middle is a tough place to be.

Since 2000, the median income of working age households has fallen more than 10 percent. With the top 25 percent of earners grabbing a much larger slice of a shrinking pie, income losses for folks in the middle and working classes are much greater.
Lost jobs and stagnant wages have put 100 million Americans-one in three-below or close to the poverty line. Ten million Americans are permanently unemployed-many are displaced professionals or recent college graduates.
Globalization makes American technology, finance and resources more valuable, and individuals producing and managing those enjoy soaring incomes. But free trade pits ordinary American office and factory workers against legions of capable Chinese and others, and destroys jobs without creating enough new opportunities in exporting activities.
China and others are careful not to let free trade suck them into permanent dependence on western technology and banks. Their governments require American and European firms to establish on their soil R&D, sophisticated manufacturing activities and financial activities.
Through business acumen and shrewd government policy, emerging economies have captured more of the jobs and wealth that globalization creates than the free play of markets would require. U.S. policymakers cry foul but those governments will not willingly abandon successful approaches to economic development. To rebuild prosperity and the middle class, Washington must better grasp statecraft and rethink approaches to free trade.
Taxing the rich to finance longer unemployment benefits or a $20 a week payroll tax holiday are palliatives. To create enough high quality jobs and sustain the middle class, America must better play its strengths in technology, resources and finance.
American technology is buttressed by a superior network of colleges of science engineering and corporate R&D activities, supported by federal grants, loans and tax breaks.
Too many engineering students are foreign born and return to their home countries-taking American technology to compete for U.S. jobs. Universities should be required to adjust admissions and tuition policies to ensure more engineering students are educated to work in the U.S. economy. High schools should emphasize the importance of studying science and engineering as a national value, much as they promote social activism, multiculturalism and careers in public service.
Too often, federally supported R&D results in patents worked abroad-consider how little Apple or Microsoft technology results in U.S. manufacturing jobs. Federal policy should require that patents accomplished with some federal support be worked in the United States to be honored by the courts, otherwise competing firms should be permitted to manufacture those products here.
Innovations in solar power and other alternative energy technologies will dramatically reduce petroleum use in 20 or 30 years, but for now, the United States will continue to use oil and import 10 million barrels a day, greatly taxing jobs creation and growth.
At $100 a barrel, prudent development of U.S. reserves could cut imports in half, and coupled with better use of abundant natural gas and wiser application of emerging internal combustion technologies, the United States could become an energy exporter within a decade. All that is lacking is the national leadership.
For decades, Wall Street financial houses accelerated U.S. growth-innovative products fostered the more efficient use of capital. But in recent years, those creative energies morphed into the buccaneer pursuit of big bonuses and nearly dealt a lethal blow to American capitalism.
The recent crisis and new regulations are causing large Wall Street banks to acquire regional institutions who cannot cope with the quagmire of federal rules, concentrating control over capital and causing banks again to focus too much on trading and not enough on making loans, especially to heartland businesses.
The time has long passed to separate again commercial banks from the Wall Street casinos, break up the largest banks so that none controls more than 5 percent of U.S. deposits, and offer banks more streamlined regulation befitting the purpose of taking deposits and making loans. Leave the financial engineering to the cowboys on Wall Street but don't let them bring their six shooters into town.
The agenda to restore growth and the middle class is clear. It's not Robin Hood policies-those won't halt economic decline. Rather, it's the tough work of ensuring engineers educated and technologies developed in America build America, developing conventional energy instead of sending environmental challenges and jobs abroad, and cutting banks down to size to again serve their communities.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Holy cow, Jim,

When you jump in you do it with both feet. Once again someone with a different perspective chimes in with some GREAT input. I can't disagree with anything in that article. Very incisive and well put. Thank you, Jim. See how this works? People have ideas, ideas shared lead to closer associations with our neighbors, and that leads to unity and solutions. Thank you from the bottom of my heart all. Keep thinking.

One further thought. The US IMPORTS 10 million barrels of oil a day, yet is still a major EXPORTER of oil. How does that work and what effect does it have? The importation of oil has resulted in the largest transfer of wealth in history. That can't help. Solutions?

Steve


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

Fussy - The US is a net importer of crude oil. What the article refers to is the development of tar sands to produce crude. It is an expensive and energy intensive process, but at $100/bbl it is profitable. At current oil prices, developing these sources, the US *could* become an net exporter in the next decade. That would have a huge impact on our balance of trade. Policies like increasing the fleet mileage standard will also help as it will reduce our consumption.

Nice article Jim. I fully agree the best thing to get the economy moving is to get middle class wages moving up again. That creates demand, then all the companies sitting on their capital will invest to meet demand. The problem is that big companies don't want to see that happen, as it might impact their short term profits, and they'll lobby to prevent it. I think in the long run they will make more profit, as their domestic sales increase; a smaller piece of a larger pie.

One thought on the comment above on debt; the big concern is not that we have a national debt. I agree borrowing money can be a prudent thing to do. The problem is our debt as a percentage of GDP is continually increasing, we're borrowing money to pay for routine programs, not emergency spending, and we have no plan to pay the debt down. I predict that if the government could ever pass any meaningful legislation to address the deficit, the Dow would pop at least 500 to 1000 points. I wish they had made the findings from the budget panel binding; that would have given all the politicians political cover and provided substantial spending cuts and some increased revenue. Instead they do nothing.

My experience with business is that they don't so much care what the tax rates are, but they want stability and predictability. If they know what the tax rates will be, and feel secure the risk of significant increases are low, that's one less variable in their decision whether or not to go ahead with a project. Of course lower taxes make more projects attractive, but, as Buffet observed, they are not going to walk away from a good profit over a few points on taxes.

It's so nice to have a civil thread!


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## StumpyNubs (Sep 25, 2010)

After days of arguing, er… I mean having a spirited discussion… how about a 10 minute break for some light humor and something about woodworking?






Sorry, I couldn't help it. I'm a natural born peacemaker, and nothing makes peace like a good ol' woodworking video!


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## tom427cid (Aug 21, 2011)

Hey Stumpy,
Thanks for the informative(for the most part) video of the sharpening system.
I thought that Wilbur & Orville were from Indiana and they were involved in plain 
building!
tom


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## DLCW (Feb 18, 2011)

You mentioned speculators in your original post. I feel that anyone who elects to speculate has to have at least 90% of the cash up front for the transaction. I feel this would stop a lot of the speculation that is sending prices out of control (fuel for instance). I've been trying to figure out why diesel fuel (the sludge left over from gas refining) is so much more expensive then gasoline. It just doesn't make any sense. Could someone please explain this to me? Oil prices are high because of speculators not because there is a shortage. Another example of pure greed at the expense of the people.

Another area where I think we could help our country is to - in the near term - open up the new oil fields and build some new refineries. I know the greenies will do everything in their power to keep this from happening but if we are to become energy independent we need to use what we have at home. Keep the economy running why we make the transition to alternative energy sources. We can't follow the greeny movement and stick our heads in the sand thinking that alternative energy is the only answer when we have to keep our economy running to get to the alternative option. It is naive to think otherwise.


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

DLCW, I don't understand why approaching our energy crisis in an ecologically responsible manner should be considered "sticking our heads in the sand". I think the oil companies have spent a lot of money to make alternatives, less profitable for them, seem foolish. -Jack


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## DLCW (Feb 18, 2011)

What I was trying to say (not very well apparently) is we have to keep our economy running while we develop and make the switch to alternative energy. We can't keep relying on foreign oil to do that. It is to expensive and is ruining our economy not to mention we have to keep fighting wars to keep our oil supply safe. If we had the capabilities (drill and refine) at home we could reduce or eliminate this foreign dependency. The only thing stopping us (according to my nephew who works in the new oil fields) is that greenies are tying up in court the possibility of new refineries near the oil fields. They are the ones who have their heads stuck in the sand. They just don't seam to understand that our economy is geared to oil and we can't just shut it all off one day and be in alternative energy nirvana the next day. Just won't happen. The other thing my nephew told me was that our existing refineries are locked in to very long term contracts to only purchase oil from foreign suppliers. This means that all the oil coming out of the midwest can't be refined in our existing refineries. We need to build a few new refineries, refine our own oil, stop dependency on foreign oil.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

John,

You're absolutely correct that the US iis a net importer of oil. What I was referencing is that fact that even as we import oil at a record clip, we are still exporting some oil. Seems counter-intuitive if correct. On the national debt, I fully agree that the most frightening part is the increase as a PERCENTAGE of GDP and the absolute lack of any interest in planning repayment. Of course, firing up the middle class, from whence job creation really comes, will increase GDP, but there seems to be no will or courage for that either. Perhaps an old saying I heard as a boy is appropriate: "A congressman has two ends, a sitting and a thinking end. And as his whole success depends upon his seat, why bother friend?"

Tom, welcome. Dang, you are a handsome lad, aren't you? You do really nice work looks like, but at the risk of injecting incivility into this, and appropos of nothing really, you KNOW 440's rule the planet.

Stumpy, nobody's fighting yet. We're just having a catharsis, kind of a mental laxitive if you will.

DLCW, you couldn't get any closer to the truth. Buying stocks on margin (without paying up front and just issueing an IOU essentially) blew up a bubble and was one of the causes of the depression. I thought that was outlawed as part of the recovery. Was that provision repealed as part of deregulation? Someone help me out here. As to opening new sources of domestic oil supply being a good idea, yes with a reservation. aS jOHN POINTED OUT, STEPS TO REDUCE CONSUPTION SUCH AS INCREASING THE (Caps were accidental and too tired to go back, sorry) Fleet average fuel economy standards will help reduce consumption. Can't hurt. A national commitment and official policy to developing alternatives has to be jumped on right away and continued. There will be setbacks like the recent scandal, but NASA didn't hit a home run the first shot either. Remember Vanguard anyone? While working to bring alternative energy on line, and make no mistake the energy companies will fight tooth and tonail to stop it, said development HaS to be done in as environmentally friendly and responsible manner as possible. We were issued only one planet. We have a moral obligation to try to leave it in better shape for my grandchildren-and yours.

Jack, I think DLCW was refering only to the thought that green is the only possible choice without regard for transition as it becomes possible. I think we all would like to clean this place up.

One last thing to consider, and perhaps John, with your background, you can help us out. I may be way out there with this, but I'm curious. For years now, I have read that there are two theories of the origination of oil; biotic and abiotic. Biotic hypothesizes oil originates as a product of decomposed biomass from ages past; dead dinosaurs and rotted vegetation if you will. Abiotic, as I understand it, attributes the oil and natural gas to accreation of hydrocarbons as a part of planetary formation billions of years ago. In this view, vast deposists of hydrocarbons lie trapped deep within the earth, in far greater quantities than allowed for in the biotic theory. Some things that seem to give some credence to abiotic origins are 1) according to the biotic theory we should be just about out of or should allready be out of oil. Yet, there still seems to be plenty. 2) Some oil fields,originally thought to have been depleted, have been somewhat rejuvenated, 3) most convincing to me is the fact that we are finding huge reservoirs of oil at depths that would seem to be impossible to have been created within the biotic theory and 4), Russia has for years accepted ABIOTIC THEORY as National Policy upon which their oil exploration is based. They have been known to hit oil on a surprisingly regular basis in areas and at depths where, according to biotic theory, there should be none. While oil companies work hard to trivialize the abiotic theory of oil origination, and why wouldn't they if it WERE true that vast supplies were available making it falr less scarce and therefore less precious or costly, there seems to be a growing acceptance of at least the possibility that this may be the case. If this were the case, what would this do to the oil companies, opec, needy developing nations, and us and our allies? Economic upheaval on a grand scale and an evening of the odds for all. How would this affect a commitment to developing alternative energy sources? Mind, I am not saying this is true, not starting a pie-in-the-sky idea. This is a valid theory, and I would like for anyone with any knowledge of this idea to chime in.

Guys, I am tickled pinker than a hound dog's belly in a briar patch at how this has gone so far. I am learning a lot, finding out how deep the base is here at LJs, and how truly good people are. Thank you all and have a Happy and safe new year.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

In thinking over my last post on the possibility of abiotic oil, I did not want to sound like a raving looney (normal for me, I'm afraid) so I tried to think of what brought that thought to mind. I remembered getting excited at the possibility when I first heard of it years ago so I dug around in my vast library in the throne room and found it. An article in the Sept 14, 2011 issue of US News and World Report indicated the debate is still being debated.

Putting rusty research skill to work ( degree was BS in business admin, nothing exciting) and with no libraries open, I got really confused. I could follow some of the research, could barely understand the concept of serpentine synthesis, and recognized the word olivine, but I'm in over my head.

Saturn's moon Titan has an atmosphere of hydrocarbons, all the gas giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus (what about poor little Pluto?) have all been shown to contain hydrocarbons in their atmospheres, so they either acreted it during formation or generated it by chemical instead of biologic processes, right? That would lead one to believe the same could be true here on Earth, right?

Thomas Gold, Professor Emeritus @ Cornell is a proponent of the idea that vast amounts of hydrocarbons were acreted during planet formation, some oil fields appear to be refilling at rates deemed not to be supported by biotic origin of oil (Eugene Island 330 of the coast of La. fortunately NOT operated by BP), and assertions by Russian scientists that as much as 60% of oil reserves are abiotic. I am lost!

Somebody with some background in this please help. My poor tired brain can't wrap itself around this.

Steve


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

My background is refining, not production, so I can't say I have any expertise on the biotic vs abiotic question. I can say that until you mentioned it here, I've never heard of abiotic oil. Some quick googling leads me to believe it is a fringe idea, but that does not necessarily make it wrong. Let's think a bit about who benefits if that idea is true; unlimited oil would be tremendous for the oil companies. After all, people do not use crude oil, they use refined products; they need companies to extract and refine, and that where the oil companies make their money. So if this idea is true, you can be sure the major oil companies are all over it. Running out of oil would be very bad for oil companies.

One of the major reasons proven oil reserves go up [I'm sure everyone remembers prediction from the 70's that we would exhaust all oil reserves by about now, but now there's lots more oil] is that extraction technology has advanced. If an oil deposit is found, but can not be developed with current technology, it's not considered a proven reserve. As oil prices rise it becomes viable to invest more money with more expensive processes to extract oil from both old wells and new sources. Injecting steam and chemicals into old wells can keep them producing longer, and new technology has opened up sources like oil sand and shale.

A quick aside for Don - diesel fuel is far from a sludge left over from oil refining. While the US is mostly a gasoline market, diesel is King in Europe and Asia. They produce excess gasoline and export it to the US to get rid of it. This is one of the main reasons why US refiners are closing refineries; US refineries tend to be older and higher cost, and can't compete with new lower cost refineries overseas.

A couple of basic points on the oil markets, it is global and fungible Global supply and demand sets prices of both crude and finished products. Oil companies have virtually no pricing power; the best the retailers can do is forgo some of their profit (typically 5 to 10 cents a gallon) to sell more volume.

Let's take a few examples:
Pure refiner, no production - Sunoco is an East Coast refiner that runs expensive light (low specific gravity) Sweet (low sulfur content) crude. They sell into one of the largest gasoline markets in the world, the US northeast. They are going under. They shut down 2 of 4 refineries in the Philly area and the last 2 are up for sale and will be shut down this summer if no one buys them. Why? Margins in refining are bad. the economics are simple value of finished products minus cost of crude, minus cost of production equals profit, or loss.
Production and refining - ConocoPhillips both produces crude oil and refines. Their cost for crude is less, since they produce it, maybe for older wells it's $30/bbl. Their cost to refine is comparable. So their flush right? Well, they are also trying to sell of refineries because they can sell the crude for $100/bbl to someone else and make more money than refining it themselves. This is a point many don't see, but even though they could sell products for a lot less, due to their lower overall cost to produce and refine, they make more money by not doing that, so that's what they do.

So, what am I rambling about, building refineries in the US sounds good, but I don't think you could find a company willing to drop the $1-$3 billion required to build a modern, large scale (million barrel a day) fully integrated refinery. Not enough profit to pay it back. It is also commonly understood that it is impossible to get the permits to build a new US refinery. Last new one was in the 70's. You can expand existing facilities, but a new one, not likely.

My last point [I know this post is getting too darn long] is that we need to be moving away from an oil based economy. I'm all in favor of production in the short term, but long term use of fossil fuels is not sustainable. As a scientist (BS Chem Eng) I fully except anthropomorphic global warming, and I have kids. While I don't think we should trash the oil economy before we have a replacement, we need that replacement before we make our life planet entirely too uncomfortable.

Sorry for the length. Happy to answer questions or clarify.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

One other comment, in 20 years in the business I've never heard of refineries being in long term contracts with foreign suppliers. Quite the opposite. Crude is bought by the tanker at open market prices. We used to make a point of not buying the same crudes too often so the producer didn't assume we had to have their crude and tried to charge more.

Having said that, refineries are geared to run specific crudes, a light sweet refinery can not run heavy sour crude, and a heavy sour refinery wouldn't want to pay more for light sweet, and might not be able to handle too much of it. It is possible a refinery will pass on local crude because that can't run it. This is why the US might export some crude, as a specific type may be valuable to a refinery somewhere else, but not in as high a demand around the production site. It's all global baby.

Another possibility is that refineries want to buy in bulk, it makes little sense to buy very small amounts, even is it is local. The crude would need to be aggregated somewhere and sold by some type of broker.


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## woodklutz (Oct 27, 2010)

Good intelligent discussion. Health care is a major concern, it is riddled with scam artists. Marketers of various devices that sometimes are not needed but prescribed. This leads me to question why crutches, wheelchairs canes, beds,cannot be refurbished? We do it to our tools and our cars.
Go after Medicare cheats, both providers and so called patients.
Watch the ads on tv, the tag line "and medicare will pay" is always there. These people charge the government 10xs or more then what you can buy it retail.
Order your prescriptions from Canada, the price difference in most cases is astounding.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

John,

Twice again, you have saved the day. It's nice to have informed friends. Helps shore up my shortcomings. In a way, seeing oil as a finite, though ever more expensive and destructive commodity is a bit more reassuring. The actual thought of limitless oil is a bit frightening. Were that possible, one of the motivations to switch to something more sustainable and ecologically responsible would be eliminated. More responsible, but ?

That means we're back to all the green sources, and we probably need a Manhatten Project to accomplish this with nothing off the table. Japan has had it's problems with nuclear power, but building a giant reactor complex in one orf the most geologically active zones and on a coast known to have been swept in the past by Tsunamis was perhqaps a red flag. Still, France has managed to produce most of its' electricy needs with nuclear with nary a blip. One reason I've read for this is their choice to build standardized reactor designs. Reduces costs, and because the training and operating proceedures are standardized, one guy can work at the same position on any station and do the same things in the same way. Adm. Hyman Rickover advocated that approach, demended it in subs, but went unheeded outside the Navy. No two aMERICAN REACTORS ARE ALIKE (accidental caps) making cost higher and safety standards harder to implement.

John, thanks for all the information. I do appreciate it. Hope you and you and yours are happy and well. I too have two daughters. The only problem is they grow up and of course no man is good enough for your babies. But just when you get used to the idea that someone is in their eyes, along come grandchildren and the cycle starts all over again.

Steve


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

The whole "percentage" argument is a non sequitor. Guess what happens if you confiscate the wealth of the 1%? By golly another 1% shows up! The bastards won't die! And 50% of people are below average. Surely that needs immediate attention.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Woodclutz: "This leads me to question why crutches, wheelchairs canes, beds,cannot be refurbished?"

They can be refurbished, and should. The problem is that companies that supply these items look at the big picture. They are like a car dealership. They make more money on selling new units than they do repairing the older ones.
I am a wheelchair user. While I can walk now, on my bad days I cannot and depend on a wheelchair. I am badly in need of parts for both my wheelchairs (I keep one at home and one at the shop). It is hard to find parts. When I see an old one by the curb for garbage I pick them up just to scavenge parts. 
I went to three different places here in town that sales wheelchairs to see about ordering parts (for example, I need a new cloth/leather back for one of my chairs, cheap and easily replaced). They do not supply parts, but they want to talk me into buying a new one. 
So I asked my doctor about parts. Between the doctor, and the suppliers, they want to put me into an electric wheelchair. This does not make sense to me. I do not need or want an electric wheelchair. When I do get down (sometimes for over a week at a time) my legs do not work right. There is nothing wrong though with my arms. I would rather benefit from my limited abilities at the time and exercise my arms than to sit in an electric chair that allows me no physical benefit at all. Once again though, the supplier make more money by pushing the electric chairs.

Woodclutz: "Watch the ads on tv, the tag line "and medicare will pay" is always there"

Once again, money rules th days here, but to an absurd level.
I order my diabetic testing supplies from a mail order operation simply because it's easier and cheaper for me to do so. They send me a ninety day supply at a time. For the last two years, everytime I call they try to push sexual enhancement product on me, like the pump thing they are pushing now. The sales pitch is always there that it won't cost me a dime. Even after I tell them I'm not interested, they still try to upsale me on these product. It isn't one company either. I have switched companies now twice over this aggrevation, and now the third company is doing it too.
Here's why it rubs the the wrong way though. I have no need for these items. I have a screwd up back. They claim these products will help me. They don't care what problems I have, only that they make sales. When I get aggrevated enough with them to question their logic, none of them can explain to me how in the hell any of these products are going to put my back in good enough shape for it to do me a bit of good.

Woodclutz: "Go after Medicare cheats, both providers and so called patients"

I am on two different narcotics, one is a pain reliever, one is for muscle spasms. The same ones that I take, I know for a fact are sold on the streets for profit. No, I do not sell or buy them. I know because I'd have to be blind, deaf, and stupid, not to know it. I have been approached on several occasions by a certain person (a family member) who questions if I would like to sell some of mine. My question is this. If I was in a position to sell my medications, then why would I need them in the first place? If I sell them, then I wouldn't have them. If I could function without them, then I would not be in need of them and not need to be getting them in the first place. This rubs me the wrong way because of the current state of affairs. Because of my need of them, combined with the market for them out there on the street, people like me (wrongfully so) are seen as pill heads by anyone who knows we take narcotics. It is a sorry state of affairs. 
My question then turns to how some people are getting them to sell if they don't need them. I think that with all the cash that is thrown down the medical money pit that there could be some better checking of certain matters. I know two people personally that are getting narcotic pain pill prescriptions from more than one doctor. One other person I knew of (died last year) was getting the same prescriptions from four different doctors. I don't understand how that is possible. The pharmacy I use can enter a couple of keystrokes in on their computer and tell when the last time was that I filled my medicine, even if it was done at a different pharmacy. So, with that technology, and the fact that it is illegal to obtain more than a certain amount a month, how in the hell does one fill multiple prescriptions from multiple doctors, at multiple pharmacies? It appears to me that there is no oversight there, with doctors, providers, or patients.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

WOW


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## JollyGreen67 (Nov 1, 2010)

You know what they say about 40 congressmen on the bopttom of the ocean - THAT'SA GOOD START.


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## tom427cid (Aug 21, 2011)

Fussy/Steve,
NO,NO,NO,a thousand times and one-MOPAR? The only reason I am a blue oval fan is when I was first asked I said Ford,and all(read everybody)were bowtie fans. I mean that MOPAR is ok but you can't beat the ground thumpin sensation of a 427cid Ford,especially if it is a SOHC!!!
All kidding aside,my PU is a Chevy-more comfortable than a Ford. And at this stage in my life all I care about is that it starts and runs and gets me home.
Oh,and BTW the pic is pretty akurate! I just don't have as much hair anymore!
tom


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

More than 100 years ago Mark Teain wrote, "There is nodistinctly natice American criminal class, except Congress." The same is true even more so today. Some think that's fine; about 11% in the most recent Gallup poll. That is the lowest aproval rating since Gallup started asking the question. So, how can it be fixed?

An organization named No Labels (www.nolabels.org) has some suggestions involving rules changes that might fix many of the problems.
1) Require congress to approve a budget on time or not get paid.
2) Give the senate 90 days to vote up or down on Presidential appointments. No vote, the appointment is approved by default.
3) Curb fillibuster abuse by requiring the Senator who want to stall legislation to actually take and hold the floor during sustained debate. Also, end the practice of fillibustering "motions to proceed." That would allow the senate to openly debate more legislation.
3) Allow representatives to openly sign discharge petitions on proposed legislation. Signers' names would be revealed if a majority of House members signed. That would prevent party leaders and committee chairs from kiilling popular loigislation for political reasons without allowing a vote. Same for the senate.
4) Prohibit members of congress taking any pledge other than their official oath of office and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. This would stop specialo interests from controlling lawmakers through pledges such as not raising taxes, or cutting social security benefits. Bo Label says 80% of lawmakers have signed such pledges making it impossible for them to govern in a fiscally responsible manner.
5) Require the President to appear before Congress for a monthly tesevised question and answer session as in Great Britain.
6) Encourage cooperation across party lines by ending partisan seating arrangements, initiating monthly working groups off the record, creating a bipartisan leadership committee to work through issues. How can peoploe work together if they don't know each other and never talk honestly with each other?
7)Another good idea has been proposed by Rep. John Yarmuth (D. Ky.) and Rep. Walter Jones (Rep. N. Ca.).
The ammendment would specify that financial expenditures and in-kind contributions do not qualify as protected speech under the First Ammendment. It would also enable congress to create a PUBLIC FINANCING SYSTEM TO BE THE SOLE SOURCE OF FUNDING FOR FEDERAL ELECTIONS. (caps on purpose).

Imagine an election without attack ads and robo-calls funded by milloions of dollars from ananymous specialo interests. Especially a Congress and White House beholden to the American People instead of the highest bidders.

Reform like this will never happen without a significant pressure from average citezens. It will be opposed by many pollitical leaders, not to mention partisans who cynicalloy throw around words such as freedom and liberty as smokescreen to protect thepowerful people, corporations and organizations whose bidding they do.

The above are not my original ideas, but I agree with every one of them. This is from an article in the Lexington Heral Leader, Sunday Jaan. 1. 2012 by Tom Eblen. The points are from www.nolabel.org.

This is a start. If we do not return honesty to capitol hill, if we keep saying "there's nothing we can do", nothing willo be done.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Cr1,

1) So, amend the Constitution. What could it hurt? Granted the Constitution doesn't need to be opened up to all manner of fringe issues, on the whole, it works quite well. But people being people will look for ways around it. sPECIFIC PATCHES ARE IN ORder.
2) So have a written agreement. A "Terms of Service" agreement stating that they will not move from congress to an industry whose regulation they had overseen. Actually, that little problem would be eliminated by Reps. Yarmuth and Jones proposed Constitutional Amendment. See above in the previous post.
3) Taking big money out of the election process; Your last paragraph about bundlers and special interests and individual contributors being the same-they're NOT simply because the really big contributors, the big special interests, have more money to spend. In spiite of socus recent decision equating money with speech, it is WRONG! See above for the solution -Yarmuth-Jones.
4)Taxation is not un-lawful taking of anything. It is a duty and responsibility for each citezen to pay his share-as he is able. It is a cost of doing business in the most liberated country with the most opportunities available in the whole freaking world. Where in the world does government get the wherewithall to buy you the biggest, baddest armed forces in the world, build the roads you ride on, build the dams, except through taxation? You want them selling apples on the street? One of the beefs with England was TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. We had representation when tax laws were passed. It's legal. You just seem to resent having to pay. 
Your characterization of 50% of the people living as parasites is just plain mean-spirited bigotry. C'mon CR, welfare reform is long overdue again, I will agree, but try to hold back on the bile. Try to not judge everyone by the sins of some. There are people hurting out there, most through no fault of their own and you call them parasites. If your heart is that hard, God help you, and I am not even sure he exists, but if he does, I hope he can. Sheesh.
4) Warren Buffet. He's a very wealthy man, very smart, makes and has a LOT of money. He uses the laws and rules of business to his full advantage, just like any other business man. He thinks the laws should be changed to make him pay more. Wouldn't bother him a bit, but until the rules change, he will continue to play within the rules. He at least admits he should be paying more than others because he can. It is a cost of doing business here.
5) Here you go with parisitism again. As if the entire budget, other than defense is entitlements! First, I am on Social Security and Medicare. These are not ENTITLEMENTS unless you take the position that I PAID INTO THEM FOR 40 YEARS AND NOW I AM ENTITLED TO COLLECT ON WHAT I PAID. This is as much a revenue problem as a spending problem, but spending cuts alone will not balance the budget under any scenario you can dream up, and it most certainly will not pay off the national debt. Taxes are at the lowest in the last 60 years. Lower taxes will simply lead to higher deficits. Sorry you don't like taxes, but you live here, you enjoy the fruits of living here, lighten up and pay up. I do and have without bitching all my life. Does that make me a bad American or a good one?
6) Where would you build your factory? Dang, CR, I think I would do as the Japanese; I would build me a Toyota factory in Georgetown, Ky. and provide jobs for roughly 20,000 Kentuckians who just might be able to buy a Toyota. Then I think I'd build me another in Indiana. I think I'd do as Hitatchi and build plants here. Like Mitsubishi and build a MONSTER plant in Illinois. I would build my plants in the markets I was trying to serve based on Henry Ford's contention when he went to the $5/day pay scale, considered treasonous by his robber baron contemporaries, that if his own employees cannot afford the products they make, he can't sell enough product to make it.

Kvetching and moaning about the EPA, OSHA, equal opportunity laws and other whiney carrying on is just silly and short-sighted. I suppose you would like to have China's incredible smog problem? You would like to once again see the paint peel from your car as you drive through Gary, In? You would like to see rivers catch fire with such depressing regularity that if no one was killed, it didn't make the news? You would like all the health problems we see in the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky, birth defects, respiratory diseases, contaminated water, monumental flooding and destruction caused by mountain top remopval and subsequent loss of ground cover to control rain runoff. You want that? I suppse you would be happy with child labor, with hundreds of workers killed in any number of industries in any number of horrible ways to make production more profitable?

Would free rent and low interest loans in China sway me from a choice to build my factory here and help build the market I would be trying to serve? You want the truth? YOU can't handle the truth (to quote Jack Nicholson). But if you want the truth, here it is: I would build right here in the USA. I would follow ALL the rules, PAY MY TAXES GLADLY, DO WHAT I COULD, BECAUSE IF I HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE THE COUNTRY STRONGER AND MAKE MONEY-AND TOYOTA DOES JUST FINE, THANK YOU, I WOULD DO SO IN A HEARTBEAT. And it's NOT EVEN their country, but they SELL here, so they BUILD here.

7)Fixing the schools. How in the world, in a piss-poor economy, even in a rip-roaring economy, do you expect parents who have difficulty feeding, clothing, and sheltering their children, forgetting all about health care for the moment, how would you expect those parents to be able to pay for a private education? Or are you a Newt Gingrich who proposes that we fire over-paid school custodians, probably the parents of some of those kids, and make the kids work for free to pay for their education. Ludricrous is too kind a word. Getting rid of the teachers' unions will do what? You are now against workers bargaining for pay, rights and benefits, one of the cornerstones of modern democracy? And what is this poisonous communist drivel you're dribbling about? Starting to sound like a throwback to Joe McCarthy. Thought we had left that crap far behind.

Education is not perfect, not even close, but none of these ideas have any bearing on anything involving education. Investment in education is a fundamental requirement of government, to make it as broadly available as possible, and to make it as effective as possible. If we don't invest heavily in education, this country will continue its' decline. Maybe that's what some people want. Makes it easier for them to feel superior.

8) Getting medical care under control: Joe McCarthy is ALIVE!!! Communists everywhere, under the beds, HIDE!!! If your mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in! What a load, CR! Man, when you get bitter, you become incoherant! The biggest problem driving medical costs is GREED AND FOR-PROFIT MEDICAL CARE. Think I'll go join the Communist Party now that I've been outed.

Greed in medial care not an issue, you say? mIND Al, I'm not picking on you, but you will admit there are pockets of trouble. I'll give you a ferinstance. I take Colchicine 0.6 mg. twice a day to control gouty artheritis. Used to, 30 days's supply at wAL mART OR kROGER WAS $8. It was developed 2000 or 3000 years ago in China (of all places), has worked just fine, but a big Pharma with deep pockets convinced the FDa TO STOP PRODUCTION OF COLOCHICINE and let them have sole right to replace it with 'COLOCHRIS' Same thing, essentially, no research went into its' development other than lobbying research, and the cost skyrockets to $380 per month. Two friends of the family have recently elected to discontinue chemotherapy, not because of the side effects which are bad, or the efficacy of the treatments-uncertain, or because they really want to die, but because of the hundreds of thousands of dolars they don't have to pay for it. Now some would say that that money is to defray research costs which make the drug possible, but when a good bit of that research is underwritten by grants from the Federal Government (want to stop that too, CR?), and when I see more money spent on developing a new blue pill, or hawking adds pushing the newest antidepressants, or $1400 a month injections that might relieve arthritis pain (be sure to read the three pages of side effects including possible DEATH), when I see profits for big pharma skyrocket to record heights (I don't mind people making a profit from me. I want them to, but it has ti be fair and reasonable), I smell a big problem.

wHEN wILLIAM CAN'T TRY TO GET PARTS FOR HIS WHEELCHAIR without being pitched for a new one he doesn't want or blue pills he doesn't want because it will cost him nothing, when wILLIAM AND i AND OTHERS ARE BOMBARDED WITH PITCHS for new test meters and test strips delivered for free because Medicare will pay, when people are that eager to sell me an essential service or product at no cost to me, there must be tons of money to be made and I see a problem.

9) Speculation in commodities futures has nothing to do with market costs? On which planet are you living? Last summer's ('10) runup in gas prices was in large part tied to speculation in gasoline futures by investors looking for quick, sure profits after the stock market tanked. When Bush pushed for development of ethanol from corn as a way to energy independence, corn prices skyrocketed, food became unafordable and unavailable in many parts of the world, resulting in large scale famines. I know, they have famines all the time and they're parasites anyway, so who cares, right? Using food as an energy source is and allways has been a bad idea, even if it's more convenient and kills parasites.

10) Letting banks fail: Free market capitalism is a chimera and a lie. Left to its' own devices, the market will stretch every boundry in the search for greater profit. That means taking ever more foolish risks. With other peoples' money. All I am saying is, if they fail, they fail, they go to jail, for reckless and illegal practices, and at least partial restitution comes from their assets accumulated from said pattern of reckless and illegal activity. My Party Card just arrived.

10) Finally, we come to the root of your problem, CR. I can't tell if you are still fighting the Civil War, or if you want to re-fight it, but I do know that your characterization of Lincoln as a 'monster' is as twisted, rediculous, unjustified, and patently offensive rant as anything you have said in this whole thing, and that's being generous. You apparently live in another world than this one, and seem pretty satisfied with yourself. You seem pretty sure of your opinions, but seem to have no respect for anyone else. Disagreement with your stance is tatamount totreason in your eyes. I'm sorry.

This forum was created to be an open and honest discussion of problems and solutions, without enmity or predjudice or ideology; just a discussion and search for answers. I can't think of anything positive you have contributed; in fact a more negative rant would be hard to imagine. I can't begin to speculate on the depth of your bitterness, but I like you as a woodworker. If you can't leave your anger at the front door, perhaps you should stick to that.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

William,

What make/model/mfg wheelchair do you use and what parts do you commonly need? I may be able to find what you need at the rehab in was in after spinal surgery. Cardinal Hill Rehabilitation Hospital in Lexington, Ky. They are a non-profit and while I was there they fitted hundreds for wheelchairs and serviced them. www.lexingtonheals.org/cardinalhill/html. 859*254-5701. Give them a try, or if you want, pm me with your needs and I'll see what I can find out. Hard to believe you can't get parts somewhere. Don't give in, and don't give up. It's rough sometimes, but the alternative sucks big green greasy gopher guts. Happy New Year.

Steve


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""It would also enable congress to create a PUBLIC FINANCING SYSTEM TO BE THE SOLE SOURCE OF FUNDING FOR FEDERAL ELECTIONS."" 
fussy

It's already a publically financed system. In fact there is nowhere else to get money except from the public because it takes people and their work to create money. You can be displeased or dissapointed that some ideas are disproportionately better funded than others, but to try and legislate that not be the case is indeed to wrongly stifle free speech. Because people put their money where their mouth is.

There's a reason some political ideas never get a foothold and rightly so. Because if they can't raise money, it's a sure sign that there is no public support. To suggest this system be circumvented and all ideas be somehow given equal funding is a foolhardy and dangerous slope to go down and will never in any way reflect the actual will of the people.


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## Roger Clark aka Rex (Dec 30, 2008)

A very interesting discussion going on here with very good valid points made, BUT look much deeper and address the root problem, the Genie is out of the bottle, and before you can put him back in, you have to find him.

We often refer back to the good old days, but what do we mean?

Henry Ford built a transportation manufacturing business, as a proud American, he was not a skilled accountant or lawyer, he was an engineer. He made sure his employees earned enough money to be able to purchase vehicles the company made, basically because it was the right thing to do in his mind. He started engineering schools to train future engineers, he made the place where his factory was -Motor City and known around the world as a great American Example of how to do it.
There are no Henry Fords anymore. Companies today have lost their product development, manufacture, pride and ethics and are now managed by those who have no experience or knowledge of the actual product they produce. Mainly they are financial people who only have one quest - The bottom Line. They really don't give a crap about loyalty to the country, employees, product excellence, in fact they don't give a crap about anything excelpt making more money for themselves and to hell with who gets hurt
The Henry Ford story applies to just about every company who now operates with this idiotic idea, thus everyone including towns and even the country, suffers and goes down hill.

Just how do we fix this? The problem is huge, how can we become Americans again?

WE are all too easily misguided. Steve Jobs was lauded as a savior, citing his products design and prowess for them being ahead of their time and well made. BS, Jobs was a quite nasty character, but a good salesman who did not invent of design anything. I read yesterday that some guy had been knighted for his services as a fantastic designer - I can't even recall his name right now. This guy was/is is Apples chief designer and was/is responsible for all the iPods, iPhones, tablets - everything apple makes.. Like me you probably never heard of the guy, but "he's the man", not jobs. Could it be that the reason we have not heard of him is because he is British? mmmmmm

It is a good discussion without political rants, and I believe the posts by the members here look far beyond any political clap trap, all of which drives us further from addressing the problems.


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

Reoger,
You hit the nail on the head describing Henry Ford. There were thousands of others, to a lessor degree. They measured successful business as good products, fairly priced, and in demand. Their wealth was a by-product of their motivation to invent, manufacture, produce and grow.
I'm talking about the thousands that came up with an idea, started small and grew organically. Not the Robber Barons in the 1800's.
I read Ford's Biography as well as his Autobiography. Couldn't put them down. He was not perfect by any means, but his intentions to elevate workers to middle class, with family values was commendable.

As far as Steve Jobs go's, you're correct about not inventing or designing anything. But you have to give him his due in knowing who to hire, what innovations to follow thru on, and what company programs to stick with. He was a visionary who employed great people with innovation talents. That's what a great leader does.
He hated bean counters and other financial types as well. They almost wrecked Apple the first time, and was saved only because he was brought back in.


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## Roger Clark aka Rex (Dec 30, 2008)

Hi Jim C,
I'm glad you understood what I was trying to get across, sometimes it is really difficult for people to understand what is being said. In a nutshell, I was trying ti illustrate that there may be a lot of political reasons for our demise, the main problem is that we are no longer the people we were. There are a multitude of examples as Ford, in every industry, that's how we were and that is the loyalty we all had for each other and their lives.
Nowadays, stalwart companies have shed their former owners care and concern for the company, it's products, the employees and the towns and country. They ditch everything to make that extra dollar to share among an ever decreasing number of favored and privileged people. Often these people will even remove the company's flagship products, sell off the product to someone overseas, then transform the company into one that basically does not hire many, producing nothing tangible, closes plants and disappears into the mist as some "services????" industry. Look at Big Blue, Look at GE, look at HP - can you imagine why a computer company would stop making computers? Yeah I know there are arguments available, but where is their pride?, their motto is "Invent" but inventing stuff is great, so why not want to manufacture it and keep the name of the company and it's employees proud?
Look at what our "bedrock" companies gives us, Chinese toothpaste, mouthwash - and from a security standpoint products like these can easily be used as poison weapons…....come on….......are we that stupid and hungry for making an extra buck?
We NEED to get back to self reliance for many reasons, we should not import anything we could produce ourselves. As it is now the import list grows by the hour, soon it will be meat and dairy products and might end up with military hardware - how about that?
We have GOT TO cease being customers and become makers again, with loyalty and pride in our products and allow our citizens to benefit from full production and have the ability to work and share in the prosperity

Now, what political ideology is going to make this happen????. You can argue all day long, but whoever gets in does not have the guts, allowed power or the inclination to "put the Genie back in the bottle".

What a dilemma.


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

Roger,
I said pretty much the same earlier, but you turned it into eloquence. Thank you for that. Right on.

And you may not agree with cr1 on everything, but I believe his point are well taken. If someone who was politically correct rephrased his points, more would agree with his way of thinking. 
But cr1 is cr1 and he takes no prisoners. HA! He tells it like it is.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Ok, CR, You may be pretty smart, goodness knows you think you are. You may be well-informed in a narrow minded self centered way. You might even have touched on a couple issues, but trying to have a DISCUSSION with you is about as enjoyable and productive as a barbed wire enema. Allowing that Lincoln was a monster, that you share no interest in anyone elses' problems but your own, that "Tail Gunner Joe" was anything other than a criminally corrupt, delusional, self agrandizing crook, your obvious contempt for anyone who doesn't follow you around (two paces off your right heel) and say "Yassuhm massah CR. You's right suh" is ignorant scum. How anybody can get that bitter, that selfish, and that dead,flat. wrong in one lifetime is beyond the scope of this discussion.

Having a discussion means there is a civil exchange of ideas. Name-calling, disparaging remarks, and a know-it-all cold war mentality with no regard for anyone elses' opinion do not foster civil exchanges. Everyone else on this forum has been civil and respectful, even in disagreement. Not one ill-tempered comment has been posted, no one called anyone stupid or parasitic until you came along. It's a shame you can't control your anger and bias because you sound smart enough to contribute if only you would. Instead, you try to dominate. You try to stifle dissent by sheer volume. contribute nothing, disrupt what has until now been an interesting and informative exchange. The rules were posted at the beginning; be civil, respectful, leave your ideologies behind and be open to ideas. You don't seem to be able to abide, so I don't understand why you bother. Perhaps 3200 posts in 280 days indicates you need something else to do. Volunteer in a soup kitchen ferinstance. You really need to calm down and let others talk for a change. You have two ears and two eyes but one mouth for a reason.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Roger,

Very good points. The generation that served in WWII, my Father's generation, Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation", was quite different from what we see today. Self-reliant, self-sufficient, tougher mentally and emotianalloy. Bound by old-fashioned codes such as duty and honor, and common good.

Jim, industrialists like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison are few and far between. Companies are not what they once were. And the bean counters rule. It is amazing how well the English, and even former English, use our language. You would think they invented it.

Gentlemen thankyou for your contributions, and the eloquence with which your points were made; Jim and Roger both. Jim, you are right about CR1's approach. Lots of his points are valid, if only he wasn't so daned loud!

Thanks for keeping it civil, and thanks for the perspectives. You guys have a lot to offer. See if you can lead us out of the abyss. You guys are on top of it.

Steve


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""industrialists like Henry Ford and Thomas Edison are few and far between. Companies are not what they once were."" 
fussy

It's not the industrialist and companies that have changed. It's the workers. Fast forward Henry Ford and Thomas Edison 50 years in time and they would have been just two more greedy sob's out to make a profit in the eyes of entitlement minded employees.


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

And Miles,
You could be right about the entitlements driving away business's that only want to make things better without interference from government, lawyers and labor unions.
Hmmmmmmmm!


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

And Fussy,
Keep cool. This is a civil thread. cr1 is just being cr1. He has his thoughts.
Don't become a "Mikey" Don't lose it.


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## HamS (Nov 10, 2011)

I have seen first hand the results of what happens when government 'builds socialism'. That was the slogan of the German Democratic Republic's (East Germany) english language broadcasts obviously targeted to the US Army of Occupation in Berlin. You could climb an observation tower near the border and look into E. Berlin and you had to look over tank traps, and plowed strips with mines and dogs. At night the streets were dark and you could hardly see anyone moving except for the border guards. You could turn the other way and look into West Berlin and the streets were busy and lit up like Vegas and life was exuberant. That was capitalism versus socialism.

CR has a way of making his points.

One truth is that every citizen needs to bear the duty of government. I see that income taxes are paid now by 49% percent of the population. That means that 51% of the population does NOT pay any income tax. In fact there are advertisements to file a tax return even though you have paid no taxes to get the earned income credit. This is NOT equal protection under the law. There can be arguments about what the fair share is, but everyone should be required to participate. If you get a check, you pay taxes!

I could solve the tax problem though, pass a law that you have to write the tax check and not have it withheld from your pay; and make it a felony for a member of congress, the president or supreme court justice to have assistance preparing there tax return. Our tax code would be greatly simplified.

Of course slavery was an evil and a blot on our nation. That does not change the fact that the constitution was shredded in putting down the rebellion. Yes we went back and changed things after the fact.

What I find interesting is just 45 years after our Civil War, our president championed the right of provinces to succeed from their governments. It was okay when you were talking about Poles and Hungarians amd Serbs amd Croats and the country they were suceeding from was the Autro-Hungarian Empire, but not okay if it was Texas or Georgia.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Miles,

I will agree that workers are not what they once were; neither are Americans in general. Unions, at first a necessity to protect workers from management excesses and to secure living wages, went overboard in an effort to stay on top of the labor bank rolls, and pushed demands out of sight. GM is a good example of what happens when unions ask for too much and management gives in to expedience and allows it. But the companies themselves have changed as Roger so eloquently put it.

Ham is right, of course that everyone who gets a check should pay taxes, (Pained groan here) I'll even allow CR is correct that some take advantage of breaks INCLUDING THE FREAKIN RICH WHO BUY CONGRESSMEN RIGHT AND LEFT TO KEEP FROM PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE (oops, that just slipped out). But people being people, everyone's looking for an angle/ Can't bellyache about one without the other.

The problem is none of this changes anything. Roger asked who will/can get the genie back in the bottle? How can this be fixed? Miles, as long as candidates have a chance to forgo federal funding and raise money , it is not a federally funded process. The idea that super pacs are just little people pooling money instead of big special interests with way too much money to spend, i think you're mistaken. The idea that money in politics doesn't corrupt is silly, no offense. We have the most corrupt congress in (I was going to say history, but of course that's not true) a great while, and the reason is money. Ideas can sink or swim on their own meits in strictly financed campaigns.l All ideas would hold equal weight and the voters could decide on merit. The only ones afraid of that are the ones who fear the loss of influence. It's not a restriction of free speech, it's a reinforcement.

Jim, I am cool. I haven't blocked him, nor have I called him stupid or other vile names. I simply disagree with nearly everything he has said and the way he has said it. It's hard to tell sometimes, he's so shrill. This is and will be a civil thread. I started this to get people to talk. I would actually like to talk to CR, as I said he seems smart. But I don't like people who try to yell over everyone else and belittle others. Cr is Cr but that's not all good. I am cool, and if you guys find anything uplifting or informative in him, that's ok with me.

CR, I don't think I was at all harsh to you, but if you do I apoloigize publicly. I don't see much use it trying to talk with you as we are so far apart. You are welcome to your opinions and to express them as is your right. All I ask is that you tone it down, try not to rave so much. That would be a start.

Everyone else, thanks again. I'm learning and that's a start.

Steve


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## Roger Clark aka Rex (Dec 30, 2008)

It has been most pleasant to see a civil and informative discussion here, I'm sure it has offered some good suggestions and observation from whatever you personal political beliefs are, if any.
We should all take pride that decorum has ruled here and that gentlemen can still be found.
I value everone's points and opinions, I find something reasonable in just about all of them …. sometimes you have to read a post twice or you miss the worthwhile bits - in my opinion 
Again, IMO voting at any level for anyone is almost pointless, local, state and national candidates are all promoted, pushed and financed by others who would benefit some way over others if their candidate in their pocket makes it. Sadly, I see elections as auctions or gaming bets where the highest bidder wins, not the man in the street. Again, IMO, I believe ALL external funding, including cash support (bribes) from corporations and lobbyists should be absolutely banned. Some might say doing this would restrict our freedom, when in today's world, it only provides unrestricted canadidate IOU's.
Again, IMO, all the political saber rattling and stances just divert attention away from the underlying the real dilema: Our country has changed without us taking much notice, the values of hard work and rewards, pride, country and citizenship have been reduced to almost "junk bond " status. We have allowed proud small business to be obliterated by a greedy quest for cheaper goods, to hell about quality, who cares about the community and working citizens, the only concern now is how do you make a lot of profit, have no local employees and divide the heist between as fews people as possible. Did I hear anyone cry "Rape"?
Again, IMO, until the American citizens can get their heads around the fact and reality of how our self esteem as a country has gone, and citizens remained dazzled by the political grandstanding instead of being willing to do whatever is necessary to take back the country and act like Americans again, I see no way the status quo will change.
Heck, I don't have the answers, I just understand the problem.
Fixing this is going to be the most difficult problem this nation has ever had, and sacrifices have to be made. Is anyone ready and willing to do anything about it?


> ?


??
Well, enough of my IMO's, it's just that. I don't claim to have any magical skills when it comes to goverment, I just spend a lot of time anylizing.
Y'all be nice and treat others how you would want to be treated.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

Here's something I've been thinking about watching the Republican primary process, and perhaps it's just wishful thinking. But, with all the unlimited money flowing about from SuperPACs, I think we can expect this election cycle to produce a veritable avalanche of media. How will the electorate react to it? As the messages will be so mixed, so contradictory, and so unending, I think they may just stop listening. As it is, in past election cycles, most folks seem sick and tired of all the ads in the run up to the elections. I wonder if it will all become background noise, and not really have too big an impact on the process. Or, maybe it's just wishful thinking.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""The idea that money in politics doesn't corrupt is silly, no offense."" 
fussy

I agree. It just isn't quite as silly as the corruption that will ensue when central planners fix it.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

About the superpacs discussion, I'm not up to speed on all the ends and outs of that one, but I'm assuming that a certain situation that my son is involved in is something similar to what we are discussing here, so I'll go with it on that assumtion. Yes, I'm aware that assumptions make and ass out of you and me. I already know I'm an ass though so I'll go there.
My son is in an iron worker's union. I won't get into the union versus non-union debate here excpet to say that they are a much needed group in this country that in some cases has gotten too big for their britches. I apologize, back on topic. My son is in an iron worker's union. This particular union is a firm supporter of the Obama campaign. Therefore, there is a small percentage of every union member's paychecks taken and placed in in funds each week that go towards supporting the Obama campaign. My son is NOT a supporter of Obama, yet he has no say in this if he wants to continue being part of this union. 
Now, in my opinion, this is simply wrong, wrong, WRONG. In this case, my son is FORCED to support a candidate that he does not wish to. Ok, I will even back up and play the devil's advocate. He is not forced to. He could simply leave the union and put the same money he pays now into supporting a candidate of his choice. Wait a minute! So it's right for him to be forced (back to forced) to give up the best job he's ever had, force his wife and kids to accept a lower standard of living because he'll make much less money and benefits elsewhere, and basically shoot himself in the foot over this matter? I don't think that would be a smart move on his part either. So he's in one of those damned if he does and damned if he don't situations.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

"" Now, in my opinion, this is simply wrong, wrong, WRONG. In this case, my son is FORCED to support a candidate that he does not wish to.."" 
William

Couldn't you imagine if liberals were forced to support the Tea Party? It ain't just wrong. It's over the top corrupt and immoral bullying by unions and so called uber tolerant libs.


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## bunkie (Oct 13, 2009)

I agree that a political discussion without the vitriol is, indeed, refreshing.

"5) Eliminate speculation on commodities futures, ie. foodstuffs, oil, pork bellies, et al. It doesn't encourage production or benefit the producer. It simply drives prices higher on critical items while enriching rich peole."

I have to disagree with this one. Futures markets serve a very important role in the production of commodities. Without futures markets, for example, farmers would not be able to finance day-to-day operations. For the producer, the guaranteed promise of a price upon delivery for his product allows him to budget and borrow needed operational capital with a smaller risk than if he had to go without.

While it is true that speculation can drive prices up, the very same forces drive them back down. Futures markets have a built-in feedback loop that ultimately causes self-correction. We always hear about record prices for oil, but we almost never hear about the subsequent declines when actual production and consumption don't match up with the scenarios that drive prices up.

Futures markets are run on public exchanges which means that both the pricing and quantities are public knowledge. One of the changes to the industry that is, in my opinion, very good, is that financial derivatives are now being moved to these exchanges (CME, COMEX, ICE, etc.). One of the big problems a few years back was that no one had any idea how many Credit Default Swaps (CDS) there were because the deals were private (not trade on public exchanges). With these instruments being traded publicly, the market has a much better idea of the risks involved.

One non-related point. We hear a lot about the incredible cost of political campaigns. What no one ever seems to ask is "where does the money go, who benefits?". The answer is, for the most part, local and network television stations. The same ones that are licensed by the FCC on our behalf to "serve the public good" as defined in the Communications Act of 1934. We have the power to regulate this process if we so choose. Where do we get most of our news about said campaigns? Isn't this a case of the fox guarding the henhouse?

In my opinion, television stations pose an interesting problem. Unlike print media, there is a physical limit to the airtime. This favors those with deep pockets. They can simply bid up the price of airtime and muscle out weaker campaigns.


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## bunkie (Oct 13, 2009)

Regarding the Union support for candidates, I would say that we almost always are forced to make compromises. Want to live in the town with the good schools? One must accept the tax rate to do so. Want to make a living? You have to do what your boss tells you to. How is union support for candidates any different? You don't have to belong to a union. Alternately, as a union member, you have a voice and a vote. Work to change the policy if you don't like it.


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## bunkie (Oct 13, 2009)

"Money also shows the electorate something: That you are no so nutz that you can't manage your own affairs."

Kim Kardashian has a lot of money. So do lots of people who are "nutz". Money is a poor indicator of fitness for public office.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""You have to do what your boss tells you to. How is union support for candidates any different? "" 
bunkie

I have to say your answer evokes pity bunkie. To so easily breeze through an explaination of forced political contributions to targeted candidates in an extortion scheme to have and keep a job, is patently unconcionable.


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## bunkie (Oct 13, 2009)

Miles,

Are there no other jobs? There are plenty of non-union jobs out there. All I'm saying is that if you want the benefit of having a union wage, there are compromises to be made. That's not "breezing through" an issue it's a choice you can make. No one is forcing you to work a union job.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

Bunkie,
So Al Capone wasn't really a problem then. Nobody was forced to live in Chicago. Unbelievable.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

So the new OWS method is to go after the school kids - - The district claims these lyrics were all thought up by the 8 year olds (3rd graders) - - Looks more like indoctrination to me, but no one would be punished in the progressive school system.

*School Defends "Occupy" Song For 8-year-olds
Jan 3, 2012
By Todd Starnes*
A Virginia school district is defending a song allegedly written and performed by a group of third graders about the Occupy Wall Street movement that conservative bloggers are calling a form of indoctrination.

The song, "Part of the 99," was performed by children at Woodbrook Elementary School in Albemarle County, Virginia.

"We really don't censor the topics that students come up with," school spokesman Phil Giaramita told Fox News & Commentary. "This is the first time we've had the lyrics of one of these songs criticized."

"They're actually claiming third-grade children wrote these lyrics and chose the topic as well," Weasel Zippers wrote. "Because what eight-year-old child isn't obsessed with class warfare?"

But some critics are wondering how a group of eight-year-old children could write the following lyrics:

Some people have it all
But they still don't think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They're not content
Never satisfied
Yes - they're the 1 percent

I used to be one of the 1 percent
I worked all the time
Never saw my family
Couldn't make life rhyme
Then the bubble burst
It really, really hurt
I lost my money
Lost my pride
Lost my home
Now I'm part of the 99

Some people have it all
But they still don't think they have enough
They want more money
A faster ride
They're not content
Never satisfied
Yes - they're the 1 percent

I used to be sad, now I'm satisfied
'Cause I really have enough
Though I lost my yacht and plane
Didn't need that extra stuff
Could have been much worse
You don't need to be first
'Cause I've got my friends
Here by my side
Don't need it all
I'm so happy to be part of the 99

Next up will the be "Our Dear Leader" *oh wait that was already done*
Lyrics: Songs About President Obama

Published September 24, 2009

Song 1:

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

I am headed off to the shop, so I don't have but a minute.
I don't have the time to research more on it at the moment, but all I do know for sure is that if my child (my third grade child, I actually have one in third grade) came home telling me the story DrDirt just posted above, there would be some serious hell raising (by me and all the other parents I could round up with this one) at the schoolthe next morning, at the next school board meeting, and at City Hall. 
Kids that age who one could possibly believe came up with that I honestly believe someone needs to look at their home life, because something would definately have to be screwed up. These are third graders. Their little minds are still on Play Dough and Legos. Some third graders like mine, are bright (he's in the gifted class because he was ahead of all his class mates) and would rather spend their time reading. He's on things like Beverly Cleary though, not reading up on the social injustices of America or the perception thereof.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Yeah Bill I have 3rd 5th and 7th graders - 
I can't believe they want the public to believe that these kids wrote these lyrics themselves -All about how they USED to be in the 1% and are now happier to be 99 percenters.

I used to be sad, now I'm satisfied
'Cause I really have enough

Ahhh those precocious little 8 year old tycoons…

Ooff….I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

This rather brilliantly cuts thru all the political doublespeak we get. It puts it into a much better perspective and is the same for many countries in Europe …

Why the U.S. Was downgraded :


U.S. Tax revenue : $2,170,000,000,000
Fed budget : $3,820,000,000,000
New debt : $ 1,650,000,000,000
National debt : $14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cuts : $ 38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget :


Annual family income : $21,700
Money the family spent : $38,200
New debt on the credit card : $16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card : $142,710
Total budget cuts : $385

Puts it all in perspective


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm going to add this little nugget that I've been saying for years now and leave it at that.
There are people who wish to destroy our great country. I have heard all kinds of fanatics who talk about coming wars, and all kinds of other drastic ways that America will fall. What some fail to realize is that the people who wish to destroy this country are smarter than that. They are trying to do it slowly and methodically so that the majority of the population can ease into it and won't see it coming. Everyone sees the tornado that rips a roof off. Noone notices the gentle breezes that slowly lift the shingle edges till they break one at a time.


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## HamS (Nov 10, 2011)

"Anyone notice the water getting a little warmer in this pot?" says the frog.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Yup Remove 8 zeroes - and government becomes easier to understand
1 Obama
2 Biden
3 Reid
4 Pelosi
5 Boehner
6 Steney Hoyer
7 Barbara Boxer
8 Maxine Waters


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

About the Occupy song supposedly written by kids, according to this website, it was a program that uses proffessional songwriters to help the kids. Their website is here. I can't find the song on the website, but if you go and listen to other songs there these songwriters are helping these kids with (and if you're anything like me) it'll make you madder than hell that they're doing this with kids. If this crap came to my kid's schools we'd have a problem.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Now kiddies, time to start thinking instead of fingerpointing and tossing around talking points. Doing that while our country was sold to the highest bidder is how we got to this point in the first place. We get distracted so easily.

This system is broken; some would say beyond repair, but not yet, I hope. If we don't get busy, quit nattering at each other about how bad the other is, you can kiss this liberal experiment (because the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are two of the most liberal documents in human history) and your collective keisters goodbye and wonder which nation will step into the vacuum left by our passing. Russia, China, France? So stop pissing around and thinki!!

This system is corrupt to it's core and everyone owns a share of the failure. We continually vote for clowns and crooks who tell us what we want to hear, work tirelessly to divide us while they enrich themselves, and work night and day to make certain they hold onto POWER. ALL OF THEM.

No system of governance or ideology is perfect. The communists thought so and communism collapsed of its' own weight and incompetance. We are close behind for the same reasons but from the other end of the spectrum. IN what constructive ways can we modify the current failing system, both government and business ( they're really intertwined), or do we just go down biting and screaming at each other. Idology and partisan politics do not trump reason and common sense, so let's hear some real ideas instead of a constant round of recriminations and bitterness. Our asses are on the line.

I have no illusions that this will change anything; we are but a small slice of American society. However, if WE can't reason with each other civily and constructively, then the whole damned shooting match is screwed and we may as well look for an explaination we can get our kids to swallow. THINK, AND REASON.

Steve


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

That's a tall order Fussy. 
I don't have the answer for everything, but I know the best place to start. 
We need to go to the polls in November and vote every single member of our national (and local in some cases) government OUT. Start fresh. Any of us, even a complete moron, could pick four hundred some odd strangers off the street and stick into office, and guess what? Those people could not possibly do a worse job than what the current batch in Washington is doing.
You're right about the left and right, and somewhere out in left field, back and forth bickering though. It is pointless. 
Let's take just one campaign as an example, the presidency. I hope. No, I pay to GOD, that Obama is not re-elected. Here is the problem though where any answer I have hits a brick wall. What are our options? The way the election process works at its present time, we will only have a choice between Obama or one of the, oh God I lost count how many are still in the running at the moment, Republicans. Whoever gets the nod for the running on the Rebublican side, I haven't seen anything that particularly impressing upon me that any of them will do mch better.
So I guess what I'm saying is that our government needs a re-boot. How do we do that though? How do we get enough people in this country to stop this silly pick a side politics that so many are too used to, get them to look at the issues, not the party, and throw their hands up and do what would be done to anyone else in the world with the job performance that they've been doing, and FIRE THEIR ASSES?
As I said earlier, I don't have the answers. I do know one thing for a fact though. We, as a people need to realize that instead of republicans, instead of democrats, instead of whatever party offiliation you wish to associate with, we are, above EVERYTHING else, AMERICANS!
One of the wisest quotes I've ever heard when it comes to society as a people is simple enough for anyone to understand, they only need to embrace it. That is, together we stand, divided we fall.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

William,

That is the motto of my home state, Kentucky. At least YOU are thinking. With respect to Obama, he is not the cause of our troubles, just the inheritor. He can't be blamed for failing to fix things, not he alone, when he has been saddled with a do-nothing congress, lead by a sour, cynical, corrupt, criminal senate minority leader, McConnell from Ky., whose stated mission the last three years has been to make sure the Obama presidency fails at all cost, no matter the risk to the country. There is enough blame to go around, but start where it fairly belongs-congress, both houses, both sides. Nono of them are worth the gunpowder it would take to blow them away. Save the blame for Obama until he's had a fair chance to prove himself with a congress that will do something besides try to stay in power.

Thanks, William.

Steve


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Fussy, I have never understood how or why any president is has the nation's problems placed squarely on his shoulder. It seems that every little problem in America is always the presidents fault. I wonder sometimes who actually paid attention in civics class. While it is true that the presidency is the highest office to be held, it is not without its limits. A president cannot make laws. He has to have the legislative branch of the government to accomplish that. Also, he cannot wholly reject laws either. If there is enough backing from the congress and senate, a president can veto all he wants and a bill can become law whether the president likes it or not. So any blame placed on the executive branch of the govenment has to also fall upon the legislative branch. They are all at fault. 
This goes back to my earlier statement that we need to get rid of them all. 
Now, I never have liked Obama. I didn't like him before he got elected because I done a lot of research on his voting record when he was in the senate. I've heard a lot of people claim they were decieved because the media didn't cover a lot about his history and voting record in the senate. This is the age of technology though. His voting record, history, and most of everything he'd ever said since entering politics was readily available on the internet. This, however, shifts some of the blame on the people themselves, something a lot of people would never willingly accept. 
I now go back to my earlier statement though, what's a better option than Obama. If it's out there, I am afraid I haven't seen it yet.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Dang, a thinker who was awake in civics class. Thankyou! An imperfect system can't be fixed willy-nilly by tossing out the least of the objectionable choices and replacing him with a freak show. The best we can hope for is to send him a mostly new congress with orders to get something done together. This is not an overnite fix. It has taken uss since the end of WWII to get here, it will take several election cycles with consistent progress to change.

You're right about the republicans having no candidate to offer. As long as the republican party is in thrall to the extreme right wing, no decent republican will expose himself to the aabuse and demagoguery to which honest candidates ( I know, it's a non sequiter) are exposed. Neither party has much to offer, but the repub's less so. Remember, gang, ideology and party loyalty don't trump common sense'

Steve


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

But Fussy - if it is just congress - what culpability does the president have?

Obama had a rubber stamp congress (house and senate) for the first half of the presidency.

We watched the debt ceiling debate (and are about to watch AGAIN) - It is explained that if we don't raise the debt ceiling the Social Security and Military Pay checks will be stopped, and government would shut down.

Wasn't the same consequence true when Bush wanted to raise the debt ceiling and EVERY Democratic Senator voted NO?
Was it the Democrats that were "driving the country off a cliff?"

What Obama said in 2006 is as true today as it was when he said it: 
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. … Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.

So what is Different about Obama raising the ceiling? He's a nicer guy?

I am only objecting to the characterization that Obama is simply *caught up in a mess and is completly powerless*.

Our unsustainable war spending under Bush + the tax cuts was running a 400Billion/year deficit.
Now the annual deficit is 1.4 trillion.
Where did the extra 3 trillion go in the past three years?
Clinton and the House Repubs got us out of the deficit - but for the 8 years he was in office - 
Clinton borrowed 500 million dollars every day.
Bush borrowed 1.5 billion every day (triple Clinton)
Obama is borrowing 4.2 billion every day - ALMOST TRIPLE BUSH!

As of today,January 4, it has been 980 days since Senate Democrats passed a a budget.

And during that nearly three-year period, the president's party enjoyed a supermajority in that legislative chamber for two full years, with a filibuster-proof majority for almost seven months. January 24, 2012, the same day as the president's State of the Union address will mark the 1,000th day since the chamber his party controls has passed a budget. 
Oh, and *"annual budgets cannot be filibustered."*

Bill is right we need to get them out - but the only real way to do it is constitutional term limits…..need an ammendment.
Problem is everyone voting thinks that the money their senator brings home is for NEEDED INFRASTRUCTURE, but the OTHER states senior politicians spending is pork.
Question is would this fix anything or make the corruption more immediate with a need to Cash-in on their office and line up post political jobs faster?


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Dirt,

Bush's culpability comes from starting two wars, one based on lies, for a personal agenda, and the other abandoned to start his personal war, neither of which was planned beyond photo ops on a carrier deck declaring victory before it got started, with no plan to secure the "victory", no plan to pay for it. He compounded the screw-up by ramming through a huge tax cut that benefitted no one but his rich buddies at a time he was spending record sums to fight the wars. Further, he encouraged the bone-headed banking policies that lead to a near depression that may yet take the world economy down. I would say there's enough culpability to go around.

Obama's mistake was trying to act in a bi=partisan manner with people who A) had no damned intention of acting in a bi=partisan way, or B) were to chicken******************** (pardon, but it fits) to do anything cooperative and decisive for fear of loosing their seats.

As JMOS has said, it is not the fact we have a national debt that is worrisome, deficit spending is sometimes necessary to kick-start the economy in down times, the problem is that the debt as a percentage of GDP is steadily getting higher. It is at least as much an income problem as a spending problem. The biggest mistake we made as the country eased out of the great depression, is congress worried too much about the deficit, stopped economic recovery spending, and allowed the nation to slip back into a depression relieved by, you guessed it, deficit spending because of WWII. We have been running steadily higher deficits for years to cover normal spending.

I agree pork barrel spending is a huge problem, but both sides are equally guilty. We agree that much spending is unnecessary or wrong, but you don't take a chainsaw to the budget to get rid of just the things you don't like. We agree that the first step is flushing the current congress and replaceing it with people who will act FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE, NOT SPECIAL INTERESTS AND THEMSELVES (Emphasis, not yelling) and we agree that strict term limits are a bare beginning.

Now you can either argue dems vs reps vs tea partiers vs martian invaders till you're blue in the face and accomplish nothing except get a few attaboys from the far right or left, or you can accept that there's enough blame, for all of us for letting this happen, for allowing ourselves to be enslaved by one ideology or the other, instead of remembering and honoring the ideology we should be following; the way the country was intended to follow, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, with liberty and justice for all.

As I said, THIS thread is about learning how to talk to each other civily, to undersand our problems, to address them with respect and openness and honesty, and to see if we came come to some solution. If we can, the country can too. If not,--. As I have said, ideology and party affiliation has no place in this discussion-they are at the root of the problem. Finger-pointing and blame gaming have no place here as they contribute nothing. We are looking for a way out of this mess. Anyone with anything substantive to offer is welcome, just be polite. If, on the other hand, anyone wants to play politics as usual, dump on the other guy to avoid having to accept responsibility for your side-taking "sides" in other words-go somewhere else. There is only one side in this discussion; that which is truly good for the country. There are plenty of us vs them bash each other threads around here. I intended for this to be serious. I'm not trying to control comment, and I have nobody particular in mind. I am simply restating the purpose and goals; just trying to keep it on topic and keep it friendly and productive. Thanks all, and think seriously and productively. The country need you. My grandchildren need you, and your families need you.

Steve


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""Obama's mistake was trying to act in a bi=partisan manner with people who A) had no damned intention of acting in a bi=partisan way,"" 
fussy

I feel like i'm in the twilight zone. How you get that opinion of such a petulant little partisan ideologue who spent twenty years in a church damning America and typical Americans is…..I don't know what it is. It's a total disconnect from reality. It's scary is what it actually is. And this disconnect phenomenon, whatever our descendants decide to call it, i'm convinced is at the root of our demise as a people and a country.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

The link that CR1 provided is a good read, for the people who can understand it. I understood it perfectly, after reading certain parts of it several times. 
This shows another problem with things. I'm sure C1 understands every word in that link while simply skimming through it. If my memory is correct, he is a lawyer. He is trained and, from experience, can digest some of this type of reading. For the common man though, lawyerese (my word for such legal wordings) is so hard to understand. It gets worse though. 
I have spoken with a few lawyers that I know on a personal level about this exact problem. Even for them, when you can get them to admit it, they know that there are so many laws on the books that not even most lawyers know what the laws are in their entirety. Some will even go as far to admit why they have the need to have in their imploy virtual armies of researchers. They need to keep these people on payroll because there is no way one lawyer can assist people honestly in a variety of cases and know all that they must know before stepping foot in the courtroom.Of course, there are specialized lawyers who only deal with a small spectrum of cases that they can do it on their own. However, a majority of lawyers have to constantly research every case. Between the amount of laws on the books, and the slew that are changed or added every year, it is impossible for anyone, even ones that are paid to argue them, to know what laws are relateable to any given scenerio. 
So here is something I think needs to be fixed. I don't know how to accomplish it though.
We need a cleansing of our laws. What I mean by this is that there needs to be a process to go and removed outdated laws. There are laws on the books that have no bearing at all on modern law. They are just there, on the books, further complicating an already complicated matter.
Laws need to be specific. CR1 brings up a valid argument that our government uses laws to do things that the original law had no bearing on. I cannot and will not even try to get into the wheat case that he mention, but let's look for example at the Health Care law that is all the talk in America for the last couple of years. That law is what, like ten thousand pages. Look at that in numbers (10,000). That's ridiculous. There are congressmen and senators who are still coming out of the wood works and admitting that they have no idea what is in that bill. We need laws that cover only specific items of content and are written at a length that a normal person could read it in one sitting and understand them.
Laws need to be understandable. I'm referring to the language in them. I'm not saying they need to be dumbed down to the point that retards can understand them. However, most people in the country, with a reasonable sound education, should be able to read a bill that is proposed for law without looking bewildered and saying, HUH? 
Also, I say we need to notch it back to where the average citizen can know basically what his rights are under the law. I know a few lawyers. I know one judge. I know mulitple city policeman, sherrif's deputies, and two highway patrolmen. Here's is what I gather from knowing these guys (and gal). Noone knows what the law is. Each of us breaks some laws (usually several) every single day of our lives. The laws are so complicated and numerous that each and every American, if they get out of bed in the morning, breaks some law that they had no idea existed each and every single day. It gets worse. There re so many crazy laws on the books that I would be willing to bet that in some city in America, there is someone who would be breaking the law if they stayed in bed.


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

I am really concerned about North Korea's appointment of the "dear leader," Kim Jung Il's youngest son, to be the new leader of North Korea-a nuclear power!
After all, Kim Jung Un (pronounced Kim's young-un?) had NO military experience whatsoever before daddy made him a four-star general in the military. This is a snot-nose twerp who has never accomplished anything in his life that would even come close to military leadership: he hasn't even so much as led a Cub Scout troop, let alone coached a sports team or commanded a military platoon. So, setting that aside, next they make him the "beloved leader" of the country. Terrific!!!
Oh, crap! I'm sorry. I just remembered that we did the same thing here. We took a community organizer who has never worn a uniform and made him Commander-in-Chief-a guy who has never led anything more than an ACORN demonstration-and made him the leader of this country. Never mind.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Well, I think I have my answer. There is little hope for this country. Positions are too entrenched, people want change but no one can agree on what that change should be. People any more think with Fox news soundbites instead of common sense and some of us are just too far gone to be reasoned with. The atmosphere is poisoned and I don't see any way out.

Thing is, I am beyond caring. I have been told I am in kidney failure. I will probably be ok, I have beaten it before, but at this point in life I see no reason to argue with people who want only to hear themselves spew their hatred and bile or ignorance.

Miles, you disappoint with the narrowness of your views. CR, all I can say is a mind is a terrible thing to waste and you have wasted yours on bitterness, contempt and vitriol. William, JMOS, Charlie, Ham and all the others who tried to make sense of the situation, you have my grattitude. I guess you will have to deal with my 5 year old grandson when he grows up, and for anyone who stands in his way, good luck.

I have made some friends here, and met people I really admire. I have enjoyed for the most part my experience here,m but I no longer have the energy to fool with it.

Steve


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

The only way out of this mess -


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Fussy, I am sorry it is hard to have these type of discussions in an open forum. I told you privately why I usually stay out of them. I have never really turned loose with all my ideas about the state of affairs in this country, at least not in a public setting anyway. I wish you could come to my shop. You seem like the type of man that you and I could kill a few pots of coffee and actually have an intellegent conversation for hours on end. As I said in private to you, I love a political DISCUSSION. It's the political arguments that I feel are useless and gets us absolutely nowhere.
For what's it's worth, I know exactly what you mean by everything you stated in your last response. I have already passed that point and can only do what I can do these day. 
I know my days are numbered. All I can do at this point is to prepare my kids the best I can. I can make sure they are aware of everything that is going on in this crazy world. I can try to teach them to think for themselves and not listen to everything that is crammed down their throats from media, government, and the political parties. 
I think you and I both know the cold hard truth. Whatever the outcome of this great nation, you and I will not be around long enough to actually see much difference than what we have today. It is our duty though to prepare the next generation (the ones of it we know anyway) to deal with it. It scares the hell out of me just how much this world has changed since I was my kid's ages, and to think about all that they will have to deal with by the time they're my age. Anyone who put all that into perspective, and is honest about it, and if they have a heart, surely sheds a tear or two at the prospects our kids have.
We can also educate kids other than our own. A friend of my kid's came to my house a while back and started talking politics. This kids is seventeen and will be voting age by the next elections. I listened to him for a bit before I proposed the big question to him. I asked how he planned to vote. Well he told me he was voting a certain political party (won't say which, it doesn't matter, not the point). I asked him about which candidates he supported. He couldn't even tell me the candidates names, only that he was gung ho in support of his chosen party. He and I had a long talk about the fact that he can choose individual candidates and not only one political party. 
I feel this type of education is most beneficial to young people today. We have to break this cycle of mindless support for our leaders based on party lines. A candidate is in no way correct only because of which party they belong to. Society as a whole has to start finding solutions to the issues and realize that no political party has their best interests in mind. 
I will say this again in case anyone hasn't already read it. People need to realize that before republican, before democrat, we are first and foremost Americans. We need less part offiliates in this country, and more American patriots.

Also, thank you Fussy for trying to keep this topic thread non-confrontational. If we could have more *discussion* on here, I would participate in it much more.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

""I love a political DISCUSSION. It's the political arguments that I feel are useless and gets us absolutely nowhere."" 
William

Let me guess the difference. A discussion is where cognitive dissonance never gets pointed out or threatened.

I got a question for modern liberals i'm curious about. When you watch reruns of Leave it to Beaver, has Eddie Haskel now become the good guy hero of the story for you?


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

Miles,
You are too much LMAO!

June Cleaver: "Ward, last night you were tough on the Beaver"


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

A discussion is the free exchange of ideas. It does not mean that each side will ever agree. Sometimes there is a need to simply agree to disagree. Too often with heated topics though, it turns into an argument where one side, or both in some cases, refuse to let go of a particular opinion unless the other side either goes away or agrees with them. This is pointless and counterproductive to a discussion.
Having a discussion does not guarantee that either side will ever agree on anything. In order for a discussion to be of any consequence though, both sides need an open mind. An open mind does not mean that one changes positions only to satisfy the other side. It only mean that you're willing to look at things objectively. An intelligent person is always willing to question their own beliefs. If one's beliefs (in my opinion) are too weak to hold up to questions, then the belief isn't too grounded in truth to start with.
I never hold an opinion that cannot be changed if reason supports it. I know nothing to be absolute fact, especially when it come to politics. Any opinion you've ever seen me type on here can be changed, by you or someone else, if your point of view supports a reasonable poition to make me change it.
Arguments continue with pointical discussions because some refuse to change their position on any issue. They assume they are always right. If someone disagrees with them, they must be wrong. This stance, no matter what the topic, simply does not make sense. Noone is right 100% of the time.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Example, I think a lot of CR1's viewpoint start with sound ideas, but simply go way out into left field. He is what I call extreme, to say the least. However, there have been several times here on Lumberjocks in hs topics, before it turns into name calling and childish back and forths with certain other members who are guilty of the same, that he has opened my eyes to views that I had not considered before.
For that, I respect him. I think he is a very intelligent man. I am pretty sure he is much better educated than I. On the other hand though, I think that in a lot of cases he needs to dial back the dramatics. His methods do not make him wrong though.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

A piece of this comes to the civics side -

You cannot argue that the President "Ran the Show" under Bush, but Obama is a Blameless victim of congress on the other.

The Battles between Reagan and Tip O'neil were epic -
Clinton balanced the budget with the Republican Congress - 
but arguments (NOT discussion) such as:

Save the blame for Obama until he's had a fair chance to prove himself with a congress that will do something besides try to stay in power.

Obama's mistake was trying to act in a bi=partisan manner with people who A) had no damned intention of acting in a bi=partisan way, or B) were to chicken******************** (pardon, but it fits) to do anything cooperative and decisive for fear of loosing their seats.

Leadership is a big part of the mess we are in.
presidents are not emperors - though they try to be using executive orders (all of them)
They do however set the vision and frankly the morale of the country.

That is something (independant of specific policy decisions) Reagan had in spades. He was overwhelmingly positive in both mannerism and message. Frankly Clinton was very similar

The positivity and pride in the nation are downright infectious. However so is the negativity which is where Obama is.
He is on the Carter plan - "party is over" "Spread the wealth" "stick it to the Rich" "Social Justice" 
then sit back and say it was the minority repubs in congress that held him back from compromise.

I look at the issues that are truly OBAMA's not congressional, rather done via executive/cabinet action - and the list of ills gets really long -

Drone strike on american citizens
Fast and Furious
DREAM act
Suing states on Immigration
Suing states for voter registration
Executive Order stopping deportation of Criminal aliens
Fiskar (500Million to Sweden)
Solyndra
GM
BP
the EPA regulation of CO2
Education standards
Labor Board - blocking Boeing from opening the South Carolina plant (a plant in China will be much better for the USA???)
The Health Care "debate" - with the prewritten bill 
Green Jobs Czar
Holdren appointment
Not talking to congress before involvement in Libya
Arab Spring - now the resulting sectarian violence
Money to Pakistan
Gitmo still open
Department of Labor not allowing kids to work on the family farm until they are over 16….no chores and no ladders, no feeding the animals
ANOTHER free trade agreeent now with Korea and Columbia

So the concept that there is "nothing to judge" obama on because of congressional obstruction really doesn't hold water.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

Well said, Doc.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

But David - are you realy agreeing that Obama has no record of his own?

he is only a 'victim' trying the best he can, and that all things bad are just because the Repubs didn't go along??? That is really where it turned -

Once you start a thread about needed change - you cannot decide that Obama is untouchable and blameless in any and all ills of the past three years.
I agree congress is a challenge - but he owns his executive orders, and cabinet actions…..that CANNOT be blamed on republican obstructionism


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

DELETED


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

I think that a big problem we have is that the safety nets don't work.

There is plenty of room to discuss whether they should be there and for what purpose - but the 'Hand Up' goal is not being met.

To me there is a structural problem in that the welfare programs are "all or nothing"

Say you are laid off from a 40K/year job (~20 bucks and hour full time - 2000 hours per year)
You qualify for benefits, perhaps even medicaid for you kids and other things.
Life is pretty meager though.

So you get a minimum wage job flipping burgers at the golden arches.
Poof! All aid goes away because you are employed.

Net is that there is dis-incentive to work hard or take what is available. An unfortunate result is that people become fully dependant on the government and there is a cycle of poverty.

I would propose that that Minimum Wage job becomes a societal OBLIGATION to take it. No paying people for sitting around.
Medicaid/Vista cards/food stamps etc are handled on more of a sliding scale - say you get a 2 dollar raise, then have a 1 dollar cut in government aid - thus there is still an incentive to work hard, rather than a penalty for working at all.

I think the program would be much less expensive because we set an expectation that people are contributing to their wellbeing (unless medically unable). I think as americans there is an obligation to HELP, but not an obligation to TAKE CARE OF people cradle to grave.


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Ummm David - when you post like this:

*Dirt*…nice try but I'm not getting sucked into this bulls t again. I have spent the last few weeks working in my shop and actually doing some woodworking, rather than going around and around with a bunch of closed minded ignorant, racist tea baggers, or condescending, arrogant lawyers that think they are so much smarter than everyone else, or fox news fact checkers….I still read these blogs and I might throw a comment in once and a while, or a lawyer cat meme….. but I'm not wasting any more of my time arguing with ignorance..

It seems to be directed at the Subject of the lead sentence - bolded for ya.
You posted you diatribe directly to/AT me !! So when you now say
..I didn't name names..I just used generalizations…if the Fox news fact checker fits..then wear it..

That is BS!

Here is the definition for you David - part of the Urban Dictionary
1. internet wuss*

I won't post it but here's the link now go get a mirror
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=internet%20wuss*


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

My generalizations were that I didn't name names with my funny, yet accurate descriptions of some of the people that post in these forums..I was talking directly to you in reference to the fact that I wasn't going to get sucked into your political discussion that YOU wanted to have that had nothing to do with my post..

*Dirt…nice try but I'm not getting sucked into this bulls**t again. I have spent the last few weeks working in my shop and actually doing some woodworking, rather than going around and around * 
Directed at you…

with *a bunch of closed minded ignorant, racist tea baggers, or condescending, arrogant lawyers that think they are so much smarter than everyone else, or fox news fact checkers*
Generalizations….


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## DrDirt (Feb 26, 2008)

Really?? you switch from personal to Generalizations mid sentence…..You sure you aren't a lawyer - talk about parsing your words.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

David, get back to the shop. I know we're on opposite sides of the fence but I don't see either of us getting anywhere here. I seriously need some shop time but all this political crap puts me in such a bad mood that I'm disinterested in going to the shop. It's also really friggin cold out there


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

While I am not going much further into the discussion versus argument point, I do want to make something well known, my feelings on the whole Obama fiasco, and fiasco (in my opinion) definately sums up his presidency thus far.
The reason I want to point this out is that I think some feel I'm a fighting defender of Obama. I had to come make it clear that this is surely not the case. I think this because of:

Miles wrote:
""I love a political DISCUSSION. It's the political arguments that I feel are useless and gets us absolutely nowhere."" 
William
Let me guess the difference. A discussion is where cognitive dissonance never gets pointed out or threatened.
I got a question for modern liberals i'm curious about. When you watch reruns of Leave it to Beaver, has Eddie Haskel now become the good guy hero of the story for you?

DrDirt wrote:
A piece of this comes to the civics side -
You cannot argue that the President "Ran the Show" under Bush, but Obama is a Blameless victim of congress on the other.
The Battles between Reagan and Tip O'neil were epic -
Clinton balanced the budget with the Republican Congress - 
but arguments (NOT discussion) such as:
Save the blame for Obama until he's had a fair chance to prove himself with a congress that will do something besides try to stay in power.
Obama's mistake was trying to act in a bi=partisan manner with people who A) had no damned intention of acting in a bi=partisan way, or B) were to chicken******************** (pardon, but it fits) to do anything cooperative and decisive for fear of loosing their seats.
Leadership is a big part of the mess we are in.
presidents are not emperors - though they try to be using executive orders (all of them)
They do however set the vision and frankly the morale of the country.

There's more, but you get the idea, I hope.
I wonder if some have taken what I said on this thread and think I am defending Obama. So I went back and read some of my own responses and agree that at times it seems that way.
Here is my opinion of Obama.
I feel that Obama is the worst thing that has ever happened to this country. I felt when he was running for office that he nothing more in mind thanto get into office and see just how much destruction he could do to this country. I don't know if it was from his muslim backgrouns, his anti-american religious advisor, or his dream of a one world government, but what I did know for a fact, based on his own words and senate voting record, that he was not right for this country. 
I talked to as many people as I could about this matter during the 2008 election cycle. I often got shouted down though. I was labeled as a racist because I didn't support this nut. I was beaten down so bad during that election cycle that it is a huge factor in why I don't often get involved in politics anymore. That process of 2008 showed me that until there are some changes to way minds work in present day society, that there was little I could do besides vote and keep my mouth shut except when it was absolutely necessary. 
Here's the funny thing that I could not get one single person to see about their racist label they were placing on me. So many people I talked to voted for Obama based on the color of his skin. They were scared to death that they would be labeled a racist if they did NOT vote for him. That, in and of itself, is the most racist crap I have ever heard. I know some out there honestly believed his crap. I think that if you'd taken away the voters that voted strictly based on skin color, he never would have been elected.
I contend to this very day that if Obama had been white, and run the exact same campaign, he never would have made it past the primaries, much less into the white house. If that makes me sound racist to anyone I deeply apologize. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am not the one who voted for a president based on skin color.

This is EXACTLY what I was talking about earlier today though. I don't agree 100% with certain people here, so based on the three PMs I've gotten now, I'm an idiot who supports Obama with no regard for intelligent discussion on the real issues. 
For the record,
AGAIN, 
I am not a republican. I disliked most of Dubya's crap.
I am not a democrat. I think Obama is the worst thing that has ever happened to this country. They've said he could be compared to Carter. I don't think Carter would even want to stand in the same room with him if he were honest about it.
I did like slick Willy. His biggest indisgretion was getting oral sex in the White House. While I don't agree 100% with that decision, my two thoughts on the matter was that 1. Have you seen his wife? And 2. Youre the president by God, couldn't you have found a better looking intern?
I'm sorry, back on topic.
What I am is an AMERICAN. 
My answer, I just don't know how to achieve it if we can't wake people up, is to vote every damned one of these sons of bitches out and get this country back on the road to where it needs to be. I can't fathom how 99% of the people in Washingtn D.C. are still there. If any single person in America, even CEOs, had the work record of these people, they'd have been fired long time ago. 
Wake up America! Washington is the enemy at this time. We regular joes are on our own. We have got to make some changes. The only way we can do that is change. Change will never come from Washington unless we change the players. If we can't achieve that change, I hope you all are stocked up on food, water, and ammo.


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## Bertha (Jan 10, 2011)

*I hope you all are stocked up on food, water, and ammo.*
I know I am. I'd add gas, too. And…
*until there are some changes to way minds work in present day society*
I think you're entirely correct. There's been a fundamental shift in the work ethic, as I see it.
We are all doomed.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Damn! Can't even go into hospital for 24 hours and the place falls apart. I do believe I stated and re-stated the rules pretty clearly and for the first few days everything was fine. Then a bunch of right wing clowns (for want of a better description) showed up, and in typical Rush Limbaugh fashion, tried to hijack a serious and informative thread by resorting to third-grade histrionics.

If liberals or moderates were to attempt something like that, we would be hounded out of town for daring to go against the fox-party line. Free speech applies only to the chosen few, I suppose. This was supposed to be a civil discourse, leaving ideologies and anger at the door. We were having that civil exchange, and beginning to realize the breadth and depth of knowledge and perspective here at Lumber Jocks. It was fun. I am sick, but I am also sick at heart and thought of shutting this down, and even thought of leaving LJs in disgust, but a rash of pms lamenting the degeneration of a good thing has caused me to rethink that.

I don't know if they expect us to slink off and leave the field to them alone, but this is our thread, OUR DISCUSSION, AND IT WILL NOT BE HIJACKED BY A GROUP OF MYOPIC PEOPLE WITH NO IDEA OF WHAT THE WORDS CIVIL DISCOURSE MEAN. With that in mind, and after wrestling with it , I have decided to keep it going and see where it leads. There's a lot of stuff to consider and we will get to it.

To make sure that this remains a peaceful forum, I have gone back over the posts here and picked out the people who had nothing to add but trash-talk and silliness. Their aggressively negative tone, name-calling, and other breaches of the rules after a couple admonitions to keep it civil have kead me to do this. I have blocked CR1, DRDirt, and Miles125. Far from denying their right of freedom of speech, it is an affirmation of free speech. I started this thing, I get to set the rules. I tried to get people to keep it on a higher plane, but they wouldn't follow the rules. If that pisses anyone off, I am truly sorry, but I am not going to sit by and allow anyone, no matter how smart, to monopolize something that so many others were enjoying. Many were reluctant to enter because of the stupidity and mean-spirited crap.

If you guys want to continue this in peace and harmony, it will. ANY FURTHER BREACHES OF THE RULES WILL BE DEALT WITH BY BLOCKING. Youy wingnuts of whichever end of the spectrum are free to start your own thread, and I doubt if most of us will bother. But that kind of behavior and attiude will not be tolerated here. This will be my last comment on this. From now on, any posteer that goes where these guys have gone, is gone. Now let's get back to it in peace. I am going back to bed and recover.

Steve


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

Hey fussy, I'm a Right-Wing Clown. I resemble that remark.  Please don't make generalizations(see definition above) about us.  And don't be sucked in to the name-calling that is going on.

Glad you are back BTW.


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

Rance, Don't want to take away any Right-Wing cred, but you seemed an honest participant in the discussion earlier. You mentioned a 17% tax, How about explaining that. Where do the numbers come from? -Jack


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

David, Please DFTFT. -Jack


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Ok, it's been a rough day today. I've spent most of it in bed loaded up on pain killers. I done some things yesterday past what my health allows (against doctor's and wife's orders). After lying down a while longer though, I have calmed down from my anger over the private messages I recieved. I want to apologize to everyone here. I normally shrug stuff like that off. I can't really tell you why I did not this time. I reacted without thinking though. I'm feeling a little more like myself now.
Another point I MUST bring up is a result of another private message I got. Don't worry, this one was sent in a civil tone. DrDirt sent me a friendly private message. He felt I suggested that he was one of the ones who sent me a private message. I assure you all that he is not. I am also sorry that I do not out people who send me nasty stuff like that. I feel like if they were man enough to say it publicly, then I wouldn't get it in private anyway. If not, it's not up to me though to reassure their manhood by doing so. However, if anyone EVER thinks I am blaming them for something they did not do, I AM man enough to admit when I'm wrong. Let me know and I'll correct any misconceptions. If you reed this DrDirt, I apologize if it felt I was imlicating you in the whole mess. That was surely not my intentions.
Now, on with more important things.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Back on track.
I am the type of man that I will never surrender myself as an American. I do, however, know when to retreat. I have came to the realization that as the way things are now, we can't change things on a national level. Until enough people realize that the status quo is a complete and utter failure, then we will have more of the same on a national level. 
What we all can do is to work as much as we can in our own locals. Educate, vote, prepare. It's another one of my sayings. Hope and pray for the best outcome, but always prepare for the worst.
So how can anyone make a difference in the country as a whole on a local level?
I'm glad you asked.

I feel a lot of people are so busy looking at the forest that they never see the trees. In this age of instant media access, some look at the major media outlets, who overdramatize everything on a national level, that they fail to realize what is going on locally. 
National politics have gotten so crazy that noone has an answer for the mess. Local politicians are different. They have to be. They are the ones who we go to church with, see at the gas station, go to school with their kids, see their wives (or husbands) at the grocery, and so on, and so on. They are the ones who will have the folks who elected them in their face when things are out of line. Yet, so, many people are focused on the national level that they fail to see what is right in their own home town.
Now, I'm nat saying that the national offices are not important. I just saying not to lose sight of your own back yard. As I see a lot of local problems going on in the news (in different parts of the country thanks to national media) I notice something. Often times the same people who are all up in arms over what is happening didn't even show up at the last local elections. Also, back to the national problems, how do they get implimented? By the help of local officials all across this country. So what do you think will happen when strong local officials on a large scale basis refuse to go along with crazy national agendas? Well it'll make it harder for these crazt agendas to get passed in the first place if they know there will be a national backlash of people and local officials who just won't stand for it.
Now, that helps some with social issues and such, but what about the bigger issues, like the national debt? That's where it gets harder. I honestly believe though that with strong communities (back to the local), this country will improve overall. Things can get better. When things are better, the whole country benefits. Please don't think I'm saying this magically takes care of the national debt. 
Part of the local works that needs to be done is to educate young people. Regardless of whether we like them or despise them, the young will run this country one day. The school systems are not teaching them all they need to know. With all the broken, disfunctional, and single parent homes out there, most of them are not learning what they need to at home either. Yet, so often, people simply blame it on the parents and say there's nothing they can do. Yes, the parents have to bear some blame. I disagree though that we can't do anything. I have eight kids. That's a huge burden. My wife and I though never turn our backs on any child. If a child is in need, and their parents aren't doing it, someone has to. The government is not the answer. The community is. A lot of these kids need something called guidance that the government cannot do. 
I'm not telling anyone it is easy. I have butted heads with a few parents who resented that I dared try to direct their kids to do anything (even if it was the right thing). I've had a lot (not all, but a lot) of parents also come back at a later date and thank me for the change I've started in their child'd minds and attitudes. 
Three of my kids are teenagers. They often bring around other teenagers. Some of them are or are near voting age. I talk to them (especially in years like this leading up to the national elections) about their choices. You'd be amazed these days at the number of young people who haven't even considered their right to vote. It may also surprise some that a vast majority of these kids have some damned good heads on their shoulders. All they require is for someone (like me or you) to push them to use that mind of theirs for something besides video games and facebook. Here's where the effects multiply though. You do this enough and these same teenagers will bring around other teenagers who don't understand things, with noone they can ask, who also need your advice. You have to be willing to take the time and answer whatever questions they have. They need you.
Here is where the right attitudes are required though. I never tell these young ones how to vote. I do try to make clear though that they have an advantage over my generation. They usually like this part. They have something called the internet. They don't need to trust what the media tells them. They can research any candidate they are considering and see what they really stand for, not just what they spew on the campaign trail. I also encourage them never to allow themselves to be painted into a box called republican or democrat, or whatever. I tell them to be proud patriots who will try to vote according to what's best for their country. We need this coming up generation to be patriots, because it is going to take true patriots to pull us out of this hole we've dug ourselves into.
How many have written a congressman or senator? I hear often that this makes no difference. Of course it doesn't, because a very minute section of society has ever written even one letter. Remember about the local level. This includes your congressmen and senators. They have to come back and get re-elected if they want to keep their jobs. A majority of them are only worried about money. They're no idiots though. They realize that their money flow stops if they can't get elected dog catcher. Nothing states this to them more than letter upon letter, by the bag full, showing up at their offices. Put yourself in their shoes. We don't have the money of lobbiests. We do have the ower of the voing booth though and they know this. We need to start a letter writing campaign. I guarantee that on any given issue, if a congressman's office is bombarded with letters, their loyalty to lobbyists will wain real quick when these same letters, letter after letter, explain to them what will happen next election if they don't get their thumbs out of their ass and do their jobs. Of course, the population has to show up in droves and back up these threats. It may take an election cycle or two, but it can make a difference. Now the problem is, how do we get people to realize this with the attitude these days of wanting instant gratification. Again, this starts close to home. Educate people about how this country works. We've got to take it back.
Ok, my fingers are about to fall off from this typing. I'm not well today. I apologize. I promise I'll type more at a later time, unless I'm not wanted here. If that is the case, I'll gladly go back to only offering my advice in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 
All this goes back to free thinking though. Can we have this discussion? Can we recommend solutions without name calling or degrading each other? I, for one, admit that I don't have the answers to everything. You may notice thatI have a lot of local advice. However, nationally, I scratch my head, A LOT. So who has some real answers? Does anyone out there have some real advice besides restating the problems? We need answers. I am open to discussion on any and all issues.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Rance, you right-wing clown, I would never make generalizations. Well, not often. I'm glad you're back. As I told William, that's the good thing about friends. We can disagree amicably on some things, and find enough areas of agreement to make do. The key is respect for the other's viewpoint. Welcome home, my friend.

William, what can I say. For a guy who has little to say and who thinks he has no answers, you come right to the point with nothing but good thoughts. Of course the place to start is at home. Make sure the younger generation is educated and capable of independant thought, choose candistes wisely, and hold their feet to the fire. The other thing is, you try to bug out of this site and I'll come to Vicksburg and whomp you with a rubber chicken. Ought to anyway for the stunt you pulled yesterday. Of course you are welcome here. We need you. Just take care of yourself.

No reason to wait to change Congress. As far as I am concerned, all of them need to go. There are a bunch of guys on here that I would like to see in congress and I don't know or care what their politics are. I just like the way they think.

Brad and Jack, I'm going back to bed now. Glad you're still here. I think we have a good start and should have some fun, learn from each other and maybe, just maybe, serve as an example of how civilized people discuss issues. Thanks all of you.

Steve


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## tierraverde (Dec 1, 2009)

Fussy
Just one question, as I'm out of here for good with my take on this thread.
You blocked people, who you judged were out of line with their comments, and yes, maybe they got a little wild, but out of convenience for your beliefs, you didn't block the "mouth" from the east who continues to post cartoons and stated* "bunch of closed minded ignorant, racist tea baggers, or condescending, arrogant lawyers that think they are so much smarter than everyone else, or fox news fact checkers"* 
He is equal to them with his name calling and comments. I'm disappointed.
Quite biased in my opinion.
Have a good one sided discussion.


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

What does DFTFT mean?


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

Bye Jim… don't forget your torch and pointed hat…tell Rush and Sarah Palin I hope they choke on a soup bone..
Of course he's got to leave now….hes like that cartoon with the little mouthy dog that stands next to the big dog…and you banned his big dog…


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Jim,

I'm sorry you feel that way, but the guys I blocked were more than a little over the line. They were hostile, sarcastic, and plain nasty. Boys will be boys, but we are trying to be adults. I didn't block Brad because, 1) He was responding to deliberate provocation, 2) his responses did not nearly sink to the level of the attacks upon him, and 3) Brad was trying to contribute to the conversation as were most of the others until the clown show showed up.

If you read carefully the posts in here, you will realize that this thread is anything but biased. Ther are more opinions here than you can shake a stick at and not nearly all are in agreement with mine. No reasonable discussion is possible with the hate-filled sewage that was being spewed. It was clearly in violation of the posted guidelines, and I acted reluctantly because otherwise this was going to turn into another shouting match. If you think I was wrong to block them or if you think that kind of crap is entertainlng or uplifting, we are farther apart than I imagined. I still think you have a lot to offer; your post on saving the middle class was a brilliant article and just what I expected from you.

We can use all the good minds we can find. If you choose to participate, you are absolutely welcome. If, however you opt out because I refuse to put up with devisive, rancorous obstructionism, I too am disappointed. I sincerely hope you will cool off and change your mind.

Steve


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Ok, Brad. Cool it, my friend. The show must go on and we have to play nicely. Back to bidness.

Steve


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

David, Something the younger ones taught me. Do Not Feed The Trolls. Spelled it wrong- sorry. DNFTFT


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

I want to go back to #3 of the original post, fix the schools.
Most of you know by now (I brag on it enough) that I'm the proud papa of eight kids. Five of them are still in school. The three oldest have graduated high school. So I have a lot of first hand knowledge of how our local school system works. I don't even try to claim I know about every school system in the country. I'm sure that a lot of people dealing with the schools may have similar issues as I've had though.
Let me kick it off with how the money is handled for these schools. To make a point, I'm going to use my seventh grader as the example here, or more specifically, the junior high that he goes to. 
This was his first year at the junior high. When the schoo year started, I went to the open house event they had. The parents were led around, spending about ten to fifteen minutes in each class on the same schedule that their child would use every day. What I noticed was that my child had very good teachers who cared about his education and were very helpful. What I also noticed was the politics they have to contend with and the inappriopriateness of funds that come into the school system.
I could talk about this matter all day. To make it more simple though, let's stick to one issue, the schoo gym versis classrooms. 
Yes the classrooms are important, but I think that pysical education is as well. I'm not suggesting that we dump all of our money into athletics. Some parents would like that. I'm only saying we need to use some common sense. WhatI saw was a locker room that is dangerous to walk into. The school board has been promising to fix these for over four years now. The excuse is that there are no funds to do so. With the lack of funds, eighty percent of the lockers in the boy's locker room (the only one I seen, I don't know about the girl's) are falling apart, and worse, falling over. This issue causes injuries, and los of possesions. The kids have nowhere to put their stuff safely during physical education class.
This seems like a small issue until I realized that every classroom, starting this year, has new electronic boards that cost around eight grand a piece just for the initial cost. This does not include maintenance and upgrades, which are ineitable on computer controlled board. The teachers told me that they didn't have a cost estimate on that. The thing is, as nice and cool as these things are, I didn't see one single thing they did that couldn't be done on regular old chalkboards. 
This angered me because I live in an area where the school officials constantly gripe about the financial situation for the school system. I have no problem giving money to the schools. My wife and I are very active, and always have been, in our kid's schools. We can't afford eight thousand dollar electronic board in each classroom though while we can't afford basic infastructure in the boy's locker rooms.
So I made a few phone calls. I went to a school board meeting and brought this issue out publicly to all the parents that probably had no idea of this situation. I don't know if it was a group that made the point clear, or maybe one well connected parent, but after my school board meeting speech, within two weeks, there were new lockers installed in the boy's locker rooms. 
So what is my point?
The point is the same as the one I was making about my local involvement. We, as a community, need to get involved in our kid's schools. The schools are where these kids spend a majority of their time. The situation about the lockers is just one small Vicksburg happening. There are many more issues that need to be addressed all over America. I have proven time and time again that parental involvement makes a huge difference here. The problem is that I can only get involved in problems I know of. If more parents got involved, we'd get more done.
Yes, I know that there are a lot more parents out there than me. I also know, that if the reaction I get here are any national indication, that not enough parents are getting involved. I have been told so often by teachers and principals how they wish more parents would be as involved as my wife and I. The administrators do not listen to teachers. That is a proven fact here. They do listen to parents though. They especially listen to parents such as me who has proven that he has no problem getting up at school board meetings and writing letters to the local paper that gets more parents involved when there is an issue. 
Let's go onto another situation I had to deal with, preparing for college. It has somehow became a common misconception in this country that all kids need to go to college. This simply is not the case. Some kids have no business trying to go to college. It almost appears that these kids have no future and are supposed to just get on welfare and be left alone. They are coddled through school. Then they are kicked out with no future. Well I say that is crap. Let's move on to my oldest son for the example on this issue. My oldest son has dislexia. He can barely read and write his own name. He was in the special education program. Yes, they made my son ride the short bus. When it comes to books, the boy was dumb as a brick. That is all the school system seen in him too. They didn't give a rat's ass that he had plenty of common sense and could learn anything in the world as long as he didn't have to read much. So what did they do? They taught him how to wipe his nose and ass, which I'd already taught him at home. They taught him to make a pot out of clay. You get my sarcastic point. They didn't exactly take time to extend any kind of special help to making sure he learned something in order to be a productive member of society. Now let me back up a bit. I'm only trying to make a point. I'm not saying they should have. That's my job, but they were standing in my way and I had to go the school board route again.
I taught my son all I could to try and instill some work ethic in him in hopes that he'd pick up on something. This was back when I still done mechanic work for a living and, lord knows, I don't think I wanted him hanging around my shop forever. He didn't have the patience for mechanic work.
So one day, he sat as still as he could while I welded on something. When my work was done, he said he wanted to learn to weld. I told him the same thing as I was told when I wanted to learn to weld. There's scrap metal, there's the welding machine, there's rods, burn em. You see, I'm not a great teacher. He tried, but just didn't seem to get it. My suggestion, why doesn't he take votec at school. I felt that welding may be good for him. So he signed up for metal trades. This is where the trouble began.
Soon after this, I got a letter from the school. My son couldn't take metal trades because they didn't allow special ed kids there, "for liability reasons". You bet I went to the school the next day. My argument was this. What is this kid supposed to learn? It's a pretty sure bet he wasn't going to be a book keeper. The school said their hands were tied. My only avenue to complain was by way of the school board. By the way, this was my first time before the school board. I warn you. Until you learn the routine, it is a bear to get on the list to speak there.
Anyway, I've gotten too long winded here, so let me get to the point. 
It took quite a bit of hell raising, and the backing of a few other parents there who understood the plight I was going through with my son, but he wound up taking metal trades at vo-tec. What does this matter? He now is twenty five and works full time for the iron worker's union making about eighty grand a year. I'm not necessarily happy about the union part of it, but that's for another post. The point of the story is that he now makes his living welding, something the school didn't even want to give him the chance to learn without some pushing.
Votec, and similar programs, are disappearing around the country. Even the ones of us who don't have kids, kids are the future. We are wood workers here. If you can support your local building trades, for example, please do so. Donate a tool, or money if you can afford it. Donate some time. I have helped with a couple of scroll saw classes at the local vo-tec. These programs are dying without the support of local people. The school systems all across america have adopted the national attitude that schools are only there to prepare kids for college. If we don't push to keep these programs, all these other kids who are not college material are going o be left by the wayside.

Ok, folks. That's just two of many school issues. I have got to try to lay back down. I'm only up right now because of severe back pain keeping me from sleeping. I would love to hear about what other problems others have seen in other local schools and maybe suggestions on what to do about them. 
I will say this, and I may talk more on this one later on. Money is not the answer in schools. They do need money. Don't get me wrong. But, like here in Vicksburg, more money being thrown at education has not necessarily meany better educations. Fancier schools and technology do not always teach better. 
Next time, if its alright with everyone, I think I may talk about lack of discipline in schools and how, in many ways, the schools here are more like jungles than learning environments.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

I think the main problem with schools is the parents. It's that simple. We've poured more and more money into failing schools and it does no good. I recently watched "Waiting for Superman" which I thought was a very one sided documentary, but it made a few points accidentally. While I agree the teachers Unions are not helping with reforms, all the examples they gave of schools that were working either had involved parents or took the kids away from the home more and kept them in an environment that stressed the importance of learning. When I was a kid my parents always told me my job was to got to school and do well. It was expected, failure was not allowed, and I did well, even though I hated school.

I'm currently fortunate to live in a community with really good public schools. We spend about the same per pupil as surrounding nonperforming districts, but we do really well. Why, because the parents in the community really care about the schools. The PTA is very active. When they need help, parents are there. And all the parents expect the kids to perform.

I think getting rid of bad teachers would be great, and it would help, but it's now silver bullet. Like William described, if you involved in your kids education, it makes a huge difference. Where would his Son be if he hadn't been involved? The problem is that it is not PC to tell parents in failing districts (urban and rural) that if they want an education for their kids, they have to do more than pay their taxes, they have to parent as well.

Speaking of, time to take the kids to school…


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## Brad_Nailor (Jul 26, 2007)

Good points both of you. Involvement by the parents is key. My stepdaughter is a great student and was accepted to every college she applied to. I think my wife's heavy involvement in her education was a defining factor. Also as a society we need to put a greater emphasis on education..make it a priority. Modernize the schools, pay teachers well, but the parents are the critical link. Too many look at school as more of a babysitter than an educational opportunity.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm back, and back on the school issue.
The other side of the coin is the way the kids are treated these days. I feel that lack of discipline has degraded most schools to the point that they are madhouses where even the best teachers have problems teaching, the best students have troubles learning, and the best of the parents are constantly haveing difficulties keeping our own kids from getting sucked into all the chaos.
Some years back schools, and a lot of parents started with the notion about punishment for kids when they do wrong, but also reward for when they do good. Ok, this seems like a terrific idea. It became a slippery slope though. Now it has gotten slanted so far to the reward side of the equation and there is no discipline when they do wrong, only reward for everything, and I mean EVERYTHING.
I just had a discussion with my own kids this morning. Today was only their second day back to school after the winter break. Two of the youngest ones who go to elementary came strolling in with blue jeans, ready for school (normally they wear uniform pants). So I asked why they had on jeans. They get stars for doing good and can use this reward system for things like wearing jeans or caps on Fridays to getting a pass to not have to do their homework.
So, I started asking what they get stars for. I have no problem for my kids getting rewards for doing good. When they've been especially helpful to me and we go to town, I let them pick out a bag of cookies or something. It's something I do though when they've been ESPECIALLY helpful, not just because they rolled out of bed in the morning. At school though, they get rewards for things like getting to school on time. Since they ride the school bus, they ought to be there on time. Rewards for being at school all week. This is called truancy, theyare supposed to be at school all week. Rewards for keeping a single file line to and from the cafeteria. This is, once again, an expectation, when I was coming up what we got was NOT whacked upside the head if we stayed in line. Rewards for doing their homework. Again, something they should be doing (something I check every night and my kids had BETTER be doing). Rewards for not talking in class.
Ok, I stopped my child right there. I'd heard enough. So I asked what happens if you do talk in class. Well, you don't get a star. So I then went into one of my rants. As I understand it, they get rewarded for doing what they should be doing regardless. They get nothing basically if they are bad. So, they can act however they damned well please and have a normal day or act normal and have extra priviledges. And schools and society does not see an issue of hyper sensitive, overly priviledged group of society forming here? This is rediculous!
Now let me back way the hell up here. This is one issue I have fought for ages and gotten nowhere. So what do I do? I have fallen back to my parenting skills. I can't change this at the school because a majority of parents think this scheme is just peachy. What I can do is to talk to my kids regularly, stay in touch so that when my kids do wrong (and they're kids, they do get out of line now and then) I can make sure there is discipline when they get home, and make sure how they use (and not abuse) this reward system. First of all, I have no problems with them wearing jeans. I don't agree with elemntary kids wearing uniforms anyway. I see the uniforms (locally anyway) as only necessary because the schools here couldn't enforce a damned dress code. I do however have a problem with them getting out of homework. My kids are never to use this reward system for that. They will do their homework every night. Yes, I am a stern parent. One of my kids once tried to lie to me and use the reward system to not do his homework. He forgot though that all this is recorded in his folder that I see each Wednesday. He got grounded at home for lying. He still had to do the homework. He still lost his earned priviledge points that he used to avoid the homework though. 
As you may have noticed, the schools stay in touch with me about all the happenings there. They do so because they know I am a very involved parent. They know I will raise hell and make the next school board meeting uncomfortable if they do not. Most (not all, but most) also appreciate the fact that with my involvement, they have very little problems from my kids compared to some others there. 
This brings me to another story that happened a few years ago.
One of my kids, fifteen at the time at the high school, fell over while fooling around in his desk. Without thinking about it, he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "********************". I was called to the school. I got the lowdown on exactly what happened. I crawled up one side of my kid's butt and down the other right in front of the principal and before it was over, my kid apologized to the teacher for disturbing his class. 
This is what shocked the principal though. She'd eve heard of such and I think thought I was the biggest nut she'd ever met. 
When it came down to it, I was making sure my kid knew WHY he was in trouble. It was not for cussing. He was fifteen. Although he doesn't cuss around me (that would be disrespectful), I am fully aware that he cusses. Most fifteen year olds are. What upset me was WHERE he cussed. You see, I cuss like a sailor. I know where he heard it at. He learned it from me. I also wanted him to learn something else from me though, and he realized a very important lesson that day. He started paying more attention to where I cuss and where I don't. When I'm out in public I am on my best behavior. I expect my kids to do the same. 
All this that I've been talking about points to a greater issue though. I have some pretty good kids. I'm not too terribly hard on them. Yes I will spank them if they get too far out of line. It's not what some people think though. For the most part, their butts were spat a few times when they were barely out of diapers. After that, they know that Daddy means business and they keep it in line. As they get older, there are other punishments. My daughter, for example, hates coming to my wood shop. She is not going to get so far out of line that she has to spend the whole day with me there. That's just one example, but you get the idea. As they start developing their own personalities, there are plenty of consequences I can use that keeps them in check. So often these days though, I don't think a lot of kids have any discipline at all. Proof of this I think is public settings. Stop sometimes in any public place and just watch how kids act these days. Then the sad part. As you watch this fiasco, look and see how many are acting this way with their parent right there watching them and not saying a word. If they act this way right in front of them, how do you think they act when they're by themselves?


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

I'm sorry, I accidentally hit the post button. I was going to edit, but decided to just start anew since it was getting pretty long anyway. 
So back to discipline.
So we can not change the parents. No. That's too politically incorrect. I found out long time ago that trying to talk to parents is a lost cause. I feel deeply in my heart though that there are enough people in this country that still have morals and respect that we can still teach some of these kids the right way. We can't completely change them, but we can show them that the way they're taught at their home won't fly in the real world. 
It is an unwritten rule. Kids that hang around my kids know, and if they don't know they learn quickly, that they will have some respect and act right around me, my shop, or my home, or I will crawl their butts just like I will any of my own kids. Some have told me that this will make my kids not have friends. I am here to tell you that this is completely and 100% wrong. The kids that I have to set right (not all, but most) love coming to my house. You see, kids crave structure. They know what is expected around me. They also know that an adult here is here for them, good or bad. No matter what they do, I will help steer them in the right direction. I have had a few kids that got into trouble and called me instad of their parents. I'm not saying that is right. I'm only saying that it is very telling when you have a child that will call the man they know is going to get their butts instead of a parent that is going to do nothing. Of course, when I get through, I carry them to their parents, often to see a blank, I don't care, stare from them when I tell them what has happened. The next day though, that kid is right back at my house, with their head down apologizing to me. That is when I explain how much I respect them for coming back and doing so.
So what am I suggesting?
I'm suggesting that more adults have to get out of this politically correct rut and stick their necks out for kids other than their own. I am sick of hearing, not my kids, not my problem. When anyone suggests that any kid is not their problem, remind them that the kid in question will grow up and either be mayor, or be the one robbing them at gunpoint.

Now back to national issues. It has taken years to get to the point we are at today. It will take years to get back on the right track. So this is why I have been talking so much this morning about kids and education. By the time this country gets back on track, the ones running things will be the ones that are in school right now. All of us on here talking will be dead and gone, or too old and in too bad of health to really care much about what the national defecit is. If we do not care to change the way these kids are coming up now, we may as well wave the white flag of surrender and give up.

I will try to get back online later tonight. Right now, I have got to wobble my hurting butt back over to the shop. I may not get much done today, but I can NOT handle another whole day in bed. I gotta see the shop before I go completely insane. Have a good day everyone.


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

William, I agree with most everything you said. One thing I thought you would bring up is the whole 'self esteem' movement. I think this is where things went off the rails. When I was in school (70's and early 80's) corporal punishment had pretty much gone away, but we did get punished if we misbehaved. [I do agree with taking corporal punishment out of the schools, if my kids are in trouble in school I don't want some administrator hitting them. Detention, loss of privileges, sitting in a corner, public embarrassment, all fine, but I draw the line at physical contact. If it gets that bad, I'll handle the discipline.]

But, sometime in the 80's or 90's some geniuses got the idea that if you just tell all the kids how wonderful and special they are, all the time, over and over, they will perform better. This is when they started things like not having grades, and everyone who participates gets a trophy. It pretty much stripped away any special privilege for doing well, and any consequences for doing poorly. I think this is where many of the practices William mentioned came from.

Data shows this to be a colossal failure. Measured self esteem is very high, but performance does not correlate one bit. In fact the groups that show highest self esteem also shows the worst academic performance. But, schools still engage in this nonsense. Kids should feel high self esteem when they master a subject, not because some teacher says they're great. If the kids are constantly getting praise from teachers, that's one less, and very important, reward that is no longer available to motivate kinds.


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## IrreverentJack (Aug 13, 2010)

IMO- The worst failure for public education in the'90s was its' approach to reading instruction. Proven methods that incorporated every learning style were tossed in favor of ever changing "modern" methods that failed a larger and larger number of students. Note the increase in the percentages of "learning disabled" and ADD-ADHD children from this time on. IMO- What they were saying is "If your child isn't learning from *us*, there is something wrong with *him* (but he should still feel good about himself?)". It's too bad there was/is so much money in this scheme. -Jack


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Jmos,
That's a whole other can of worms you've brought up there, but a very good one.
During our generation there were winners and losers. We were taught that if you wanted to win, you did your very best, and then pushed even harder. If you lost, it meant it was time to buck up and try harder next time. We didn't get certificates just for showing up to school every day. We got our butts whipped if we skipped if we weren't sick. 
Now days, kids are constantly praised for everything from sitting still to wiping their own butts. There's a reward for things that anyone with half a brain ought to do anyway. I'm looking any day now for there to be an award for breathing. Have any of you been to an awards ceremony at the elementary schools in the last few years? They make sure every kid gets an award. Last year there was a kid in one of my children's class who did absolutely nothing all year. They gave the little moron an award for being the best class clown of the year. No, I am not exaggerating. This kid actually walked up proudly, while his parents clapped their ass off, and got an award for disrupting the rest of the class all year.
This is a major failure on the part of the school systems. These kids grow up with the impression that they are always supposed to win. So when they do not win, they can't handle it. It's a major reason there are oung adults who can't cope with everyday struggles. 
This leads right into Jack's point about the ADD and such crap they diagnose these kids with. They aren't doing right? Forget discipline. Give them a pill. This is because under the current standards, everyone is supposed to git a mold. They're supposed to be like robots and everyone perform at the exact same level. This is crap that intellegent, concerned parents must fight tooth and nail about. I honestly believe that all kids are good at something. Just because they don't fit a mold doesn't mean there's something wrong with them though. 
Out of my eight kids, all are different. I told you all about my oldest that can barely read his own name. He learned to weld and works a labor type job. I have another son who is book smart. This kid is practically a genius. The problem is that he overthinks everything. When it comes to common sense, he's dumb as a brick. Want to guess what the school counselor called me in to tell me? He had ADD. I have seen kids who actually have ADD. My child was not one of them. So I snuck in and watched one day while my kid was in class. He had no idea I was even in the school. The problem was that he was finishing his work so fast that he would get bored and start fiddling around in his desk. The teachers thought this was a sign that he couldn't pa attention. He paid plenty of attention. He was ahead of the rest of the class and was bored from sitting and doing nothing. So I got him into the GATES program (gifted class) and we haven't had any more problems. What would the outcome have been if I'd listened to the counselor though and assumed he had a problem? If I'd taken him to the doctor, they would have made him practically a zombie with their medications.
As for the corporal punishment issue, I'm in full agreement with you. If my child needs to be spanked, that is my job, noone elses. I wouldn't mind it except that these days, I want to make sure WHAT my child is being punished for. Yes, I'll bet you guess I had a personal example of that too. One of my kids was being pushed around in the bathroom every day. He told the teacher the first two days. He told the principle the next two days. The fifth day, he done just what I'd told him to do, he pushed back. Then I get a call that they wanted to paddle my child for pushing back. They assured me that the other kid was getting a paddling too. It doesn't matter. If they'd disciplined the other kid the first four times my kid reported it, then my kid wouldn't have been in trouble in the first place. So, since I wouldn't allow them to paddle him, they suspended him for three days. He and I went fishing. He hasn't been bullied in school since then.

You two brought up very good points. These are but a few of many problems we have with schools these days. I think fixing our schools is a very good starting point though. I think that common sense needs to be brought back to the schools. Some of the policies and rules make no sense none whatsoever. I encourage everyone with kids, find solutions to the problems that pop up. Do not accept the status quo. This is one of the areas that we can make a difference. The schools are run by local school boards. You can get results by standing up and being heard. When all else fails, when it is a legitimate problem, it is easy to get other parents involved. It's easy to write letters to the editorial section of the paper. Even when the school boards do not listen to a single parent, their biggest fear is having whole communities against them. Just like with their teacher's unions, parents have power in numbers too.


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

iJack, It comes from my recollection from a proposed Flat Tax that Dick Armey(Congressman) and probably others were pushing in 1995. You can google "Dick Armey" "flat tax" to research.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Guys,

I am back, but must be brief. This discussion of schools is an excellent beginning. Thanks William, John, Jack and Rance for your ideas. We are having a blow-up in our county system over funding. The school board can raise property tax assesments for education by 4% without notice or comment. They have done this after having a $700,000 surplus from the previous fisacal year. To dispose of it, they gave the superintendant a $17,000 raise, and teachers and staff %1, the rest went to pet projects.l Nothing to do with education.

Now they are plaNING A $1.75 MIL SPORTS COMPLEX FOR FOOTBAL AND BASKETBALL. Taxpayer watch groups are up in arms. Teachers are none to happy as no provision for buying books has been made.

Teachers are not the only problems we face. School boards are major employers, with huge budjets and little oversite. n Over 10 officers in central office make $100,000 per year or more for what? To improve schools, we need to get rid of political hacks who think of it as their own personal power structure. We need to get new blood into the school boards, new superintendants who actually educate, give teachers the tools to mantain disicipline in class rooms, and get parents closely involved with their kids' education; by will or by legal force. If parents don't get kids to school, if parents don't assure that their kids do the work, if parents don't preach the need for education, they are failing and they need to have legal pressure applied to get them off their sorry asses.

All of of you have had some good ideas. Look at your school systems , ask pertinant questions and see what is needed. If you have to request under open records laws, do so. Let us know what you find out.

Steve


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## startreking (Jan 4, 2012)

Wow so many thesis writers here.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Steve,
Having made a career out of education, MY recommendation would be to require School Board Officers to be required to come from the ranks of current teacher staff within the School District and RETURNED to teaching staff when their term is completed. Call it a temporary transfer/duty and require just a two-year stint before replacement.

Teachers are at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to nearly everything a School District does, yet teachers make up the largest percentage of the budget (by the shear numbers teachers required to adequately teacher our youth).

++ This would "bring home" the importance of working within a budget. Most teachers have MULTIPLE degrees (I have three, includes PhD) and those degrees ARE IN THE FIELDS OF EDUCATION.

++ This would tend to point resources directly at the most pressing issues within the profession/classroom and local Ditrict.

++ This would thin out and/or control Central Office bloat $$$ and make those remaining Central Office personnel VERY responsive to real educational issues (cutting the effects of politics while I am sure they won't eliminate them).


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## HawkDriver (Mar 11, 2011)

That's a very good idea Mike!


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## DLCW (Feb 18, 2011)

The whole school issue has me very concerned as well. I volunteer time at the local high school woodshop to help the kids learn CAD/CAM software and how to run their CNC router. I'm also putting classes together that I will be delivering on basics, like sharpening tools, project design and logistics (which uses other subjects like math, chemistry, etc.) and hands on how to of working with wood. The shop teacher is a metal shop teacher and was forced to take on the woodshop when the previous woodshop teacher retired. He is really out of his element. I figure by the time the school year is over, I will have volunteered several hundred hours to try and give the interested kids some knowledge they can take into life when they graduate.

In addition, the State of Washington really gets in the way of votec training. For example, I was approached by several parents about 3 years ago about running an apprenticeship program for their high school kids. It would have been 4 kids total. I was really interested in pursuing this to give these kids a votec education in the mechanics of woodworking as well as some practical experience in how to run a business. I talked to my lawyer and he said he could draw up the waivers and explain them to the parents. My insurance agent said the underwriter would cover this without a problem. He did say I should contact the state workers-comp/unemployment agency to see what was required. To make a long story short, even though I wasn't going to be paying these kids (other then in knowledge and experience) I would have to pay workers-comp and unemployment insurance at the rate of $17 per hour per kid to apprentice them. Needless to say, that put an end to the idea of giving back to my community because of government regulation. The parents were really pissed that the state nanny was going to deny their kids an opportunity to learn a trade (other then how to go to college) and be able to do something with their lives other then be dropped by the wayside.

When I grew up these kinds of opportunities were the norm and that is what got me and a lot of my high school friends that didn't want to go to college a great head start in life. Another example of the downfall of America. It is SOOOOO sad what we have declined into.


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## fussy (Jan 18, 2010)

Mike,

Good ideas all. I have a feeling that in my county, the excrement is about to hit the rotary oscillator. A local figure with a lot of influence seems to be making this a personal issue. He has lots of good ideas, and though he has never run for public office (has held some appointed posts), he has lots of followers. If he gets his teeth into this, things will happen. I (with your permission) will write him with your suggestions. It would require an act of the legislature, but he has the wheels to get it started. Thanks.

Don, a true furball. There has to be a way around the red tape. I understand your frustration, and that of the students and parents. With guys like you wanting to give, there should be ways to make it happen. The loss of vocational education opportunities make it harder to re-establish manufacturing in the US as qualified workers are not available in sufficient numbers. The state of Georgia, on the other hand, has a very successful program in which manufacturers commit to hire a given number of workers, tell the state what training they need to have, and the state screens, trains, and certifies the workers the company needs for free. The idea being that they will more than pay back the cost in payroll taxes amd increased economic activity.

Schools are a great place to start. Periodically, goofy fads pop up in medicine. They get lots of play, lots of Hollywood followers, and fizzle. Their proponants, however, do not run the medical schools, so the fads die out. The same can't be said for teaching. A friend changed majors years ago with the lament that "Teachers who can't teach, teach teaching at UK!" Yeah, soooo sad.

Steve


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## jmos (Nov 30, 2011)

I read not too long ago that some US companies were actually unable to increase production due to a lack of trained, experienced, machinists. I believe the example in the article was Caterpillar. They talked about how these were good paying jobs (~$70k I recall) but they couldn't fill them.

I had two immediate thoughts. First, it's sad we don't have good VoTec programs to produce these skilled workers. And second, the article made no mention of wages increasing to fill the jobs. The company appeared to have their pay rate, and they would rather see the job unfilled than increase pay to steal someone from another company.

Isn't that how it's supposed to work, shortage drives up wages, incentivizes more people into the jobs, satisfies demand. I think you would see more interest in these types of careers if the wages were increasing due to lack of supply, instead of the companies just complaining about the lack of supply. Seems like something is broken.


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## HorizontalMike (Jun 3, 2010)

Steve,
The only thing I might add is that in determining the makeup of this hypothetical school board, one could also mandate that particular slots be filled with each of the major teaching fields so that the board could never get TOO slanted/biased toward one subject area. And keep one slot open for a non-school parent and one for a non-school member of the public. The board would be a bit larger but it might be easier to reach a quorum that way.


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