I just love a good commercial that illustrates (and sometimes exaggerates) something contained therein. Though the commercial below is a Bing.com (a Microsoft company) advertisement, I am in no way a Microsoft fan and prefer Linux for my desktops, laptops, and servers. Yet, with that said, this is a great commercial to illustrate how civilized folks are just not connected and conscious to the world these days. Everything seems to be reactionary based on input. Very little original thought and/or critical thinking.
There's a phrase used for people these days, sheeple (sheep-people .. people that just follow for the sake of following), which I think is attempted to be used for everybody but I think it's more correctly used for unconscious folks that go through life that never originate a critical original thought on their own. These people, listen to their input (can be of any political flavor they like, any religion they like, any anything they are part of) and react accordingly.
Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan, calls being connected: Being in the Now. When he works his canine-magic, his typical routine has him arriving at the house of the problem owner (which happens to have a pet dog) to see what they (the pet owners) think the problem is. And without a doubt and variance, the problem stems from the behavior of the owner. A dog will only reflect back the energy that the owner puts off. If the owner is showing a messed up garbage can of energy, their dog will also exhibit that garbage can of energy as well. Let Cesar Millan take the leash of a dog he's never walked, because Ceasar doesn't put off bad energy, the dog behaves differently .. because Cesar is plugged into the NOW of the moment.
People with bad behaving dogs, are going through their life unconscious. They aren't thinking (or more likely) or are numb to what's going on around them because of the overload of the world.
This kind of unconsciousness really causes a lot of problems for everybody. This kind of unconsciousness causes topics of conversation to be polarized among groups. Everything is either a heaven / hell issue, good / bad, black / white, on / off, sweet / bitter, hot / cold, beautiful / ugly, fast / slow, whatever one way / the opposite the other way for everything that comes your way. This does nobody any good.
It's important to have opinions. It's most important to have YOUR OWN OPINIONS. If someone is asked about one of these particular subjects that are traditionally polarized, and they are prompted as to why they think that way and the response is .. "Because ___fill_in_the_blank__ my __whatever_relationship__ said so." Means that person has never critically thought of the topic and they don't own that position. They are only echoing the opinion of someone else and are giving the lazy answer.
In general, man is lazy. Yep. I hate that to be a revelation to you. Man is lazy. There's a reason why the cliche says "80% of the work is done by 20% of the people." That implies that for every 5 people, one is a doer / thinker and the remaining 4 are sheeple. If I had to point the finger of blame for how civilization got this way, I'd have to indict the whole general system that is striving for efficiencies, cutting corners, and stretched for time not to do the right thing. Whether it's parents, teachers, ministers, etc. there's a long line of people serving people that people are only doing enough to perform the task at hand.
Parents these days don't take the time to sit down with their kids.. so there are things they don't even know about their kids. There are even some public service announcements putting forth the idea that all of the things of life are known by the parents, yet the name of the child's history teacher is unknown. The presses of today's world has the parents in a survival mode that hopefully allows them and their family to reach an age where the children can go out on their own. If parents can manage to bring their children to adult age of voting and moving out and the kids end up not being criminals .. that's good enough to get by.
Teachers, can only go so far in the education they provide. Though I believe the public educational system is engineered to NOT produce a critical thinking body of students. It serves politicians well that the public [as it matures] be less challenging to the politicians in order for the politicians to get things they want done to serve their agenda. I believe the mental development of students are geared towards becoming an average member of a larger pack by teaching students how to fit into the body of an average society. Though there are great public school teachers, I think that's occurs far fewer than what should be and those that are not taught by these great teachers are shortchanged. Teaching kids how to fit in and go with the flow, continues and guarantees them to be an unconscious member of society. Teachers (and coaches) probably would do well to teach kids not to be satisfied with an average performance. Always do better than their previous time before. If you get knocked down, get back up. Never be happy with mediocrity and always terrified of stagnation. If you're not growing, you are dying.
Ministers, are in much the same arena as teachers. Of the kinds of servants mentioned so far are likely the most closed-minded to new thoughts and notions. Their business relies upon what they say is regarded as truth and undoubted and solid in it's roots. By itself, religion / spirituality is just one (or few) feathers from the peacocks beautiful tail that make up the person. Yet, the religion / spirituality part is put forth as the only important part. I believe it can help as a good moral compass. Even for those that are still unconscious members of society, a good moral compass can keep people from getting into trouble for decades and decades of life. So, it's not a bad thing. The problem with the ministry (which is a lot like the way politicians are as well) is that they often don't like being challenged. Challenges are regarded as a threat to what they know to be true and many do not ask for challenges and criticism. Because what they say is regarded as unchallengeable people ingest fully what is said and do not internalize those things to be topics they own. It's always "because the pastor said." Which will work as a reason when other unconscious people challenge other unconscious people. When someone in the NOW challenges someone with these different unconscious thoughts, they can't give a reason for themselves as to why they think that way. Ministers would do well to welcome challenges at all times even when it's inconvenient. That will show how well a minister can think on his/her feet and show the foundation of thought by which the have an opinion. If all a minister can say is "That's what the bible says... I believe it .. it is so." .. I'm sorry, that's not enough. That doesn't tell me how/why the minister connects his thought to what is written in the bible. Citing scripture requires context and interpretation in order to find out what it says (and preferably in more than two places as well that agree).
If people can start to connect to the NOW, then people will start to see that not everything that is a polar opposite to what they hold as good .. is completely bad. They'll start to see different elements of others opinions are also correct as well. Those that are regarded as enemies won't be the idiots/beasts of the past as previously thought. They'll start to regard people in a different way as they start to feel the energy others radiate. It may not be enough to engage in a beer summit from one person to another, but good common ground can be found whereby a foundation of good between them can be laid to find and coach the best out of people.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Video YouTubes from Heritage Foundation on Health Care Reform
This is really a good set of videos from the Heritage Foundations 'FixHealthCarePolicy.com' folks...
There are four videos.
The first one is about the real impact of Health Care Reform and how studies have shown that up to 88 million people will lose their health care.
The second one is about the long history of rationing of Medicaid. Delivered by a person that formerly ran the Federal Medicaid program as well as a state Medicaid program.
The third one is about how Medicare won't be safe if history is a guide. Delivered by a health care analyst that is aware of the pending legislation and the history of Medicaid.
The fourth one is about how Obama's health care plan will hurt small business.
There are four videos.
The first one is about the real impact of Health Care Reform and how studies have shown that up to 88 million people will lose their health care.
The second one is about the long history of rationing of Medicaid. Delivered by a person that formerly ran the Federal Medicaid program as well as a state Medicaid program.
The third one is about how Medicare won't be safe if history is a guide. Delivered by a health care analyst that is aware of the pending legislation and the history of Medicaid.
The fourth one is about how Obama's health care plan will hurt small business.
Onion News Network video says Obama is bi-polar
This video is of good production quality. Good actors and even some of the better look-a-likes used in this production. Straight from Onion News Network an EOO (Equal Opportunity Offender). I doubt if we'll ever see anything like this in the dominant media culture (DMC) anytime soon unless it's leaked as true to Fox News.
White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase
White House Reveals Obama Is Bipolar, Has Entered Depressive Phase
Monday, August 17, 2009
The pathology of viri and legislative reforms
Ok.. let's start with a definition of terms of the words "pathology" and "virus" retrieved from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:
Basically, if I were to draw a parallell relation for you, fluid dynamics is to a rushing river as pathology is to virus / viri. Pathology is all about *how* viri cause infections.
A virus (a pathogen [causative agent] by definiton) occurs in this world in many different ways. We are mostly aware of two different kinds of viri, biological viri and electronic viri.
They both share similar characteristics. They are both pathogens that require help from a transmission agent (to spread the virus) and a host body to infect and multiply. For biological viri, the transmission agents can be mosquitoes, feces, sneezing, coughing, and other measures of lack of hygiene to spread a bad poisonous microscopic bug from one host to another. For electronic viri, the transmission agent is primarily of two varieties that start with the poor habit / behavior of a decision by the person using his/her computer. They open a piece of email they shouldn't or they surf to a web page they weren't knowing they should stay away, etc. By opening the infected object, they willfully open up the door to computer infection. For some viri, this is the only way they can infect other computers. For other viri classified as "worms", they have the smarts of a specific kind of payload to run their own programing in the host and to self-propagate across networks looking for computer security vulnerabilities.
E-hoaxes, we've all received them, are a special kind of social virus. They normally prey upon well-intentioned people wanting to spread the word about overly good things of blessings or overly bad things of destruction to their friends. The e-hoax relies upon the good intentions of one person wanting to save/warn his/her friends of whatever it is they need to spread the word. Never mind that it's about free food from Applebees, money from Microsoft after forwarding email messages, free computers from Apple or Hewlet Packard, etc, etc, etc .. or they refer to a sheriff or deputy about someone attacking innocent people, or they warn of receiving email messages with certain subject lines that indicate something in the email might wipe out everything on your hard drive, etc. In either case, it requires people to feel the need to help their friends, so they pass the social virus (e-hoax) onto their friends never knowing they have been infected by evidence of forwarding the e-hoax to others. Even if the payload isn't destructive, it still is a virus by the way it is passed around by the infected hosts especially since it robbed the time of the infected/sympathetic host from doing something more productive.
In any of the cases (biological or electronic viri) the host never suspects impending infection and doesn't plan on a fight to happen within it's own host body that will drain it's own life resources from the host.
Viri, for the most part, are all trojan horses. What's a trojan horse? A trojan horse is a object that presents itself as one thing usually friendly, in order to gain favor and access of it's target, yet carries a payload of destruction to be used on the same target. Regardless of whether it's a biological host that gets infected with influenza, acquired immune deficiency system, a sexually transmitted disease, a bacterial infection, etc. the infection is real and it lessens the strength of the host until it's out of the host system.
E-viri isn't quite so devastating (normally). Though if proper measures to keep watch and keep a system sterile of e-viri aren't working properly, important data can be lost forever, or even transmitted to other systems without having detected the informational security leak and loss.
Another thing that seems to be characteristic of both kinds of viri is the speed at which it is transmitted from host to host. This is the reason why the centers for disease control plot the speed at which different pathogens are spread around the world. As well as the way that different anti-virus software companies keep track of how quickly new e-viri are discovered with the proper anti-virus patch send out to the users of their anti-virus engines.
So, what do we have? A fast moving pathogen that is disguised as something it's not with the sole task of host infection, host reorganization, and host destruction. Tell me, what else does that last bold phrase describe? That's right, modern legislation.
How many legislative bills lately have been rammed through the US Congress without proper review? What is the payload of those pieces of legislation? Do any of them create governmental agencies? Do any of them expand the power of the agencies over the people? You bet they do! Here's an example.
Over the weekend, I received a health alert from a mailing list about a bill that has passed the house of representatives regarding a Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (HR 2749). Sounds innocent enough, eh? Who wouldn't like that? Probably un-Americans I guess. Yet, what does this bill do? Well, the newsletter continues:
Wow! That's quite a payload hidden in that trojan horse! An anti-business payload. Anti-business means fewer businesses and fewer jobs. I'm sure the USA needs fewer jobs in the current recession we are now enduring. The newsletter continues:
Just amazing. The Natural Solution Foundation (www.healthfreedomusa.org) is an organization leading the way against these different viri that are attempting to consume more and more of the freedom of this great country of ours.
Anything else? Does the above sound like any other pressing legislation we're all recently aware? Of course... health care reform. Yet another bill jammed down the throats of the people of the USA. With my words about pathology and viri in this blog entry, I suggest to you that the transmission agent of the pathogen is health care reform. The object of health care reform isn't to get people healthy and keep them healthy, but to put the systems in place to control the people. Because, if you control their health care, you can control the people. This is the reason why it's becoming an o.k. thing for the administration say it's alright to transform the reform structure (from it's original proposals possibly dropping a public option) because many of the controlling systems they are talking about will still be installed. Health care reform that modifies the government in any way (in structure or action) is nothing but a virus aimed at the people.
Anything else? Are there other pending legislations that promise sweeping change of one form that also has a trojan horse payload? Y-e-e-e-p. What else is there a lot of talk? Cap and Trade. Basically, if I were to summarize Cap-and-Trade, I'd say if Cap-and-Trade was enacted, the rest of the USA would be receiving the methods by which the State of California regulates things that effect the environment of California. Still sounds innocent enough. What you're not being told is, just as we have progressive income taxes that increase according to the level of income received, the rates that the consumer will pay for their electricity will also escalate if you use more than what you are told you can use. It's not like buying extra rolls of toilet paper at normal toilet paper prices. If you use the sheets prescribed you, then the first sheets are normal price.. say... a penny a sheet. But, if you use more than you are supposed to use, you are charged 2 cents each for the first few extra, then maybe 5 cents for the next few extra, and then more and more as the volume above normal is violated. Ultimately, this results in energy-rationing and brown outs. Yeah! That sounds like something we all would like. The controls put in place by Cap and Trade are never emphasized, we only hear the results that effects our pocketbooks and wallets. There is major teeth in the Cap and Trade bill that will extend even more control over the lives of the USA public. The Cap and Trade virus must be stopped as well in the US Sentate.
Control the health, control the energy, control the people, via fast moving legislative bills.
The people that voted President Obama into office, voted primarily for anti-GWBush reasons, not because they wanted THIS kind of controlling change.
- Main Entry: pa·thol·o·gy
- Function: noun
- Inflected Form(s): plural pa·thol·o·gies
- Etymology: New Latin pathologia & Middle French pathologie, from Greek pathologia study of the emotions, from path- + -logia -logy
- Date: 1611
- the study of the essential nature of diseases and especially of the structural and functional changes produced by them
- something abnormal: a : the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular disease b : deviation from propriety or from an assumed normal state of something nonliving or nonmaterial c : deviation giving rise to social ills
- Main Entry: vi·rus
- Function: noun
- Inflected Form(s): plural vi·rus·es
- Etymology: Latin, venom, poisonous emanation; akin to Greek ios poison, Sanskrit viṣa; in senses 2 & 4, from New Latin, from Latin
- Date: 1599
- archaic : venom 1
- the causative agent of an infectious disease b : any of a large group of submicroscopic infective agents that are regarded either as extremely simple microorganisms or as extremely complex molecules, that typically contain a protein coat surrounding an RNA or DNA core of genetic material but no semipermeable membrane, that are capable of growth and multiplication only in living cells, and that cause various important diseases in humans, lower animals, or plants; also : filterable virus c : a disease or illness caused by a virus
- something that poisons the mind or soul
- a computer program that is usually hidden within another seemingly innocuous program and that produces copies of itself and inserts them into other programs and usually performs a malicious action (as destroying data)
Basically, if I were to draw a parallell relation for you, fluid dynamics is to a rushing river as pathology is to virus / viri. Pathology is all about *how* viri cause infections.
A virus (a pathogen [causative agent] by definiton) occurs in this world in many different ways. We are mostly aware of two different kinds of viri, biological viri and electronic viri.
They both share similar characteristics. They are both pathogens that require help from a transmission agent (to spread the virus) and a host body to infect and multiply. For biological viri, the transmission agents can be mosquitoes, feces, sneezing, coughing, and other measures of lack of hygiene to spread a bad poisonous microscopic bug from one host to another. For electronic viri, the transmission agent is primarily of two varieties that start with the poor habit / behavior of a decision by the person using his/her computer. They open a piece of email they shouldn't or they surf to a web page they weren't knowing they should stay away, etc. By opening the infected object, they willfully open up the door to computer infection. For some viri, this is the only way they can infect other computers. For other viri classified as "worms", they have the smarts of a specific kind of payload to run their own programing in the host and to self-propagate across networks looking for computer security vulnerabilities.
E-hoaxes, we've all received them, are a special kind of social virus. They normally prey upon well-intentioned people wanting to spread the word about overly good things of blessings or overly bad things of destruction to their friends. The e-hoax relies upon the good intentions of one person wanting to save/warn his/her friends of whatever it is they need to spread the word. Never mind that it's about free food from Applebees, money from Microsoft after forwarding email messages, free computers from Apple or Hewlet Packard, etc, etc, etc .. or they refer to a sheriff or deputy about someone attacking innocent people, or they warn of receiving email messages with certain subject lines that indicate something in the email might wipe out everything on your hard drive, etc. In either case, it requires people to feel the need to help their friends, so they pass the social virus (e-hoax) onto their friends never knowing they have been infected by evidence of forwarding the e-hoax to others. Even if the payload isn't destructive, it still is a virus by the way it is passed around by the infected hosts especially since it robbed the time of the infected/sympathetic host from doing something more productive.
In any of the cases (biological or electronic viri) the host never suspects impending infection and doesn't plan on a fight to happen within it's own host body that will drain it's own life resources from the host.
Viri, for the most part, are all trojan horses. What's a trojan horse? A trojan horse is a object that presents itself as one thing usually friendly, in order to gain favor and access of it's target, yet carries a payload of destruction to be used on the same target. Regardless of whether it's a biological host that gets infected with influenza, acquired immune deficiency system, a sexually transmitted disease, a bacterial infection, etc. the infection is real and it lessens the strength of the host until it's out of the host system.
E-viri isn't quite so devastating (normally). Though if proper measures to keep watch and keep a system sterile of e-viri aren't working properly, important data can be lost forever, or even transmitted to other systems without having detected the informational security leak and loss.
Another thing that seems to be characteristic of both kinds of viri is the speed at which it is transmitted from host to host. This is the reason why the centers for disease control plot the speed at which different pathogens are spread around the world. As well as the way that different anti-virus software companies keep track of how quickly new e-viri are discovered with the proper anti-virus patch send out to the users of their anti-virus engines.
So, what do we have? A fast moving pathogen that is disguised as something it's not with the sole task of host infection, host reorganization, and host destruction. Tell me, what else does that last bold phrase describe? That's right, modern legislation.
How many legislative bills lately have been rammed through the US Congress without proper review? What is the payload of those pieces of legislation? Do any of them create governmental agencies? Do any of them expand the power of the agencies over the people? You bet they do! Here's an example.
Over the weekend, I received a health alert from a mailing list about a bill that has passed the house of representatives regarding a Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (HR 2749). Sounds innocent enough, eh? Who wouldn't like that? Probably un-Americans I guess. Yet, what does this bill do? Well, the newsletter continues:
- Typical of all Obama legislation, this fascist act was hurried through Congress too quickly for any lawmaker to read it (assuming any of those dolts would have bothered to try).
- The farm controls mandated by this law would usher in complete government control of the food supply, and ultimately the end of organic foods. Why? Because it would give the FDA complete power to impose one-size-fits-all regulations on ALL food producers -- including independent farmers.
- And because this bill also limits the amount of recourse food producers have in the courts, this means that the FDA will be able to snuff out all the foods this agency (and the influential lobbyists at whose behest this agency tends to act) it wants.
- That's right: in one fell swoop, the Obama Administration is about to do away with all of pesky little state struggles being waged against organic farms and dairies, and win the war with one gigantic, fascist law.
Wow! That's quite a payload hidden in that trojan horse! An anti-business payload. Anti-business means fewer businesses and fewer jobs. I'm sure the USA needs fewer jobs in the current recession we are now enduring. The newsletter continues:
- But since it would impose all manner of standards that would be impossible or unaffordable for small, organic farms to meet, the bill sentences organic farmers to death by paper cuts.
- And those farmers guilty of even the most minor infraction of the many new regulations will feel the entire weight of the federal government crashing down upon them -- fines in the millions of dollars, and prison terms up to a staggering eight years.
- The bill would even require ALL food producers to register with the FDA... for the hefty sum of $1,000!
Just amazing. The Natural Solution Foundation (www.healthfreedomusa.org) is an organization leading the way against these different viri that are attempting to consume more and more of the freedom of this great country of ours.
Anything else? Does the above sound like any other pressing legislation we're all recently aware? Of course... health care reform. Yet another bill jammed down the throats of the people of the USA. With my words about pathology and viri in this blog entry, I suggest to you that the transmission agent of the pathogen is health care reform. The object of health care reform isn't to get people healthy and keep them healthy, but to put the systems in place to control the people. Because, if you control their health care, you can control the people. This is the reason why it's becoming an o.k. thing for the administration say it's alright to transform the reform structure (from it's original proposals possibly dropping a public option) because many of the controlling systems they are talking about will still be installed. Health care reform that modifies the government in any way (in structure or action) is nothing but a virus aimed at the people.
Anything else? Are there other pending legislations that promise sweeping change of one form that also has a trojan horse payload? Y-e-e-e-p. What else is there a lot of talk? Cap and Trade. Basically, if I were to summarize Cap-and-Trade, I'd say if Cap-and-Trade was enacted, the rest of the USA would be receiving the methods by which the State of California regulates things that effect the environment of California. Still sounds innocent enough. What you're not being told is, just as we have progressive income taxes that increase according to the level of income received, the rates that the consumer will pay for their electricity will also escalate if you use more than what you are told you can use. It's not like buying extra rolls of toilet paper at normal toilet paper prices. If you use the sheets prescribed you, then the first sheets are normal price.. say... a penny a sheet. But, if you use more than you are supposed to use, you are charged 2 cents each for the first few extra, then maybe 5 cents for the next few extra, and then more and more as the volume above normal is violated. Ultimately, this results in energy-rationing and brown outs. Yeah! That sounds like something we all would like. The controls put in place by Cap and Trade are never emphasized, we only hear the results that effects our pocketbooks and wallets. There is major teeth in the Cap and Trade bill that will extend even more control over the lives of the USA public. The Cap and Trade virus must be stopped as well in the US Sentate.
Control the health, control the energy, control the people, via fast moving legislative bills.
The people that voted President Obama into office, voted primarily for anti-GWBush reasons, not because they wanted THIS kind of controlling change.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Parental rights: embarrass the kids (when appropriate)
Heh, heh, heh .. I've waited a while for this Verizon commercial to get uploaded to Youtube. It is currently one of my very favorites. It expresses the pure right that a parent has to embarrass their own children. Enjoy!
Heh, heh, heh... I just love this commercial. Good commercials are noteworthy and fun to watch and have a message beyond the product being sold! In this Verizon commercial, the parents are getting immense joy over doing things that (in today's pop culture) are traditionally performed by the youth (posting to daughter's Facebook wall and tweeting on Twitter.com about 'sitting on the patio') to their kids complete and utter em-BARE-ASS-ment.
You see, over the years and years of raising kids, children occupy the place in the hearts of the parents (simultaneously) as burden, entertainment, and joy. Though it's not fun to wipe their butts and noses, taking them to the doctor / hospital / clinic, or watching them wipe out when they try to ride a bicycle without training wheels ... all of those trying times are all paid back when parents exercise their optional parental rights to embarrass the children they so lovingly cared for over the years.
Years of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into the successful raising of the little beasties and there comes an appropriate time when parents get a bit of retribution when they can embarrass the daylights out of their kids... somehow. Just like a the kind of play in American football that is considered a trick play (like a Statue of Liberty play) that if done too often, is easy to defend, but if done infrequently, is very sweet when it catches the defending team off guard. The parental right of embarrassing the kids is probably best played very very very very infrequently when they are very young (which is probably not a good idea at all before they emotionally can take the embarrassment). As they progress through teenagerhood, you want to embarrass them more frequently (which.. really would feel sweet at that age ... which the Verizon commercial above has) but probably better reserved for times when they are about to jump into times of adulthood. Like during their wedding shower, wedding rehearsal party, baby shower, bachelor/bachelorette party, etc, etc, etc. The parents have easily dozens of stories they can tell at the right time to shine the light of embarrassment upon their kids when the parents have an audience of strangers that know their kids and want to hear of these tales of things they either said or did when they were young.
I've two stories from my oldest daughter I'll share. Both of them are from the time in her life when she was somewhere around kindergarten age (give or take a year or two.. she's a sharp kid) some... 16-17 years ago or so. Since I mentioned the American Football play the 'Statue of Liberty Play' .. this story involves just that, the Statue of Liberty (SoL). We were talking of the national monument when the topic of the tablets that the SoL holds in her left arm. She said she had learned what the words on the tablets said. When we asked her, she said that the words were... "Give me your tired, your poor, and stupid".... heh, heh, heh... Eventually, I'll have an occasion to use that. I've been saving that one for quite a while.
The other story had her riding in her car seat in the back seat when her mother was driving through the countryside with farms on each side of them. Her mother asked her what the large black and white animals on that farm over there was. She replied .. "cows mom." When her mother asked her if they were boy or girl cows, she said "those are girl cows mom." She said "very good." "How do you know those are girl cows?" She made the "I'm disgusted sound" by the clicking noise made with the end of the tongue and the front of the upper part of the mouth against the teeth, then said... "Mom, those are girl cows because they have gutters!" ... heh, heh, heh.. priceless. Cows with (g)utters are girl cows.
For many years now, my oldest reminds me ... "Dad .. you need to be good to us kids. Because we'll be the ones choosing your nursing home (if you're good) or your cardboard box (if your bad) when you get old."
Heh, heh, heh... I just love this commercial. Good commercials are noteworthy and fun to watch and have a message beyond the product being sold! In this Verizon commercial, the parents are getting immense joy over doing things that (in today's pop culture) are traditionally performed by the youth (posting to daughter's Facebook wall and tweeting on Twitter.com about 'sitting on the patio') to their kids complete and utter em-BARE-ASS-ment.
You see, over the years and years of raising kids, children occupy the place in the hearts of the parents (simultaneously) as burden, entertainment, and joy. Though it's not fun to wipe their butts and noses, taking them to the doctor / hospital / clinic, or watching them wipe out when they try to ride a bicycle without training wheels ... all of those trying times are all paid back when parents exercise their optional parental rights to embarrass the children they so lovingly cared for over the years.
Years of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into the successful raising of the little beasties and there comes an appropriate time when parents get a bit of retribution when they can embarrass the daylights out of their kids... somehow. Just like a the kind of play in American football that is considered a trick play (like a Statue of Liberty play) that if done too often, is easy to defend, but if done infrequently, is very sweet when it catches the defending team off guard. The parental right of embarrassing the kids is probably best played very very very very infrequently when they are very young (which is probably not a good idea at all before they emotionally can take the embarrassment). As they progress through teenagerhood, you want to embarrass them more frequently (which.. really would feel sweet at that age ... which the Verizon commercial above has) but probably better reserved for times when they are about to jump into times of adulthood. Like during their wedding shower, wedding rehearsal party, baby shower, bachelor/bachelorette party, etc, etc, etc. The parents have easily dozens of stories they can tell at the right time to shine the light of embarrassment upon their kids when the parents have an audience of strangers that know their kids and want to hear of these tales of things they either said or did when they were young.
I've two stories from my oldest daughter I'll share. Both of them are from the time in her life when she was somewhere around kindergarten age (give or take a year or two.. she's a sharp kid) some... 16-17 years ago or so. Since I mentioned the American Football play the 'Statue of Liberty Play' .. this story involves just that, the Statue of Liberty (SoL). We were talking of the national monument when the topic of the tablets that the SoL holds in her left arm. She said she had learned what the words on the tablets said. When we asked her, she said that the words were... "Give me your tired, your poor, and stupid".... heh, heh, heh... Eventually, I'll have an occasion to use that. I've been saving that one for quite a while.
The other story had her riding in her car seat in the back seat when her mother was driving through the countryside with farms on each side of them. Her mother asked her what the large black and white animals on that farm over there was. She replied .. "cows mom." When her mother asked her if they were boy or girl cows, she said "those are girl cows mom." She said "very good." "How do you know those are girl cows?" She made the "I'm disgusted sound" by the clicking noise made with the end of the tongue and the front of the upper part of the mouth against the teeth, then said... "Mom, those are girl cows because they have gutters!" ... heh, heh, heh.. priceless. Cows with (g)utters are girl cows.
For many years now, my oldest reminds me ... "Dad .. you need to be good to us kids. Because we'll be the ones choosing your nursing home (if you're good) or your cardboard box (if your bad) when you get old."
Prez Obama's NYT Op-Ed 08-16-2009
President Obama wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times about the need for Health Reform. Which, to me, doesn't say a whole lot. There wasn't anything new in it. It was kinda like listening to the old Charlie Brown cartoon adults that sound like waa-waa'd french horns as heard by the Peanuts children. The Op-Ed can be found easily by going to:
http://tr.im/wuRt
We all know we need some kind of health care reform. We all agree on that. The big thing is how much the U.S. Gov't needs to be involved in the health care process. Near the top of the Op-Ed is four paragraphs that is the summary of why health care needs reformed. They read like this:
To me, points #2 & #3, should be something that should be re-engineered anyway for existing programs. That should be a no brainer. Companies that are in business are challenged constantly as to how to make more and more profit by making things more efficient by reducing waste. Gov't has no incentive to make things more efficient to reduce waste. There seems to be a notion, in the gov't ranks, that the money they spend is the gov'ts money. No... it's not, it's the people's money. It's the people that fund the gov't. The only gov't product that is sold to the people is US Postage Stamps.
The fine-tuning of Medicare/Medicaid should be an ongoing process. It shouldn't take (at least I don't imagine it should) a move of the US Congress to change the rules/regulations to tighten the efficiencies of these programs. Medicare is a Fed Gov't program... there should be a CEO (or equivalent) of Medicare that can make these kinds of decisions. Medicaid is a different beast. It's a blend of Fed, State, and Local gov't monies to get different things done. I'm not exactly sure where the different sandbox lines are drawn that enumerate where the different sandboxes lie.
As far as #1 and #4 goes, I think that health care insurance/plans should be more accessible by anybody wanting it. The insurance companies, because they are motivated by profit, have to receive enough in premiums in order to make money so that they can keep their employees paid and not have to reduce their work force. I've already written about 'obscene profits' in an earlier blog posting. So I'll not write about it again. The 'real honest thinking' blog had a very good article about 'Health Insurance Company Profits' at: http://tr.im/wuWs that is a must read for anyone wanting to learn more about that and to get a little bit of education about the difference between *profit* and *profit margins*.
I think that ultimately, when we talk about guaranteeing health insurance / health care to anyone, there are really two issues. Is health care a right? Are people guaranteed a fundamental right to health care? If yes, then that'd mean that regardless of condition, because health care is administered by one person serving the next, then to say that health care is a *right* that'd say that the serving health care providers have no choice to sacrifice/use their time to serving others. It'd be a mandate to enslave the health care providers in the health care profession to do what they do. They wouldn't have the privilege to say NO because health care is a right and not a privilege. So, no... Health Care isn't a right. It's a privilege.
Since health care isn't a right (everybody gets it regardless of health), the next thing is cost of health care so that when it's obtained, a premium price isn't paid to obtain it. What are the things that drives up the cost of health care at the doctor's office level? Well, let's list a few: malpractice insurance, malpractice litigation, employee payroll and benefits, rent on building, utilities, laboratory equipment and testing, drugs, medical equipment, medical supplies, office supplies, and maybe a few other things. Of these things, several of these items are fairly constant and can be about the same kind of charges each month to the doctor's office/clinic. The ones that aren't about the same from month to month is malpractice insurance costs, malpractice litigation, medical equipment, medical supplies, and to a certain extent laboratory equipment and testing. All of these amounts are items that potentially get more expensive as time goes (especially for the things related to increases in technology) and we can't change that. People live longer now because of the medical advances brought through technological increases (which is also increases in good pharmaceuticals too). Some of the more elaborate pieces of equipment of technology used in doctors offices is directly related to the needs to keep malpractice costs low. Order extra tests, so the Dr can CHA (cover his/her ass), so that malpractice can't be levied to a Dr/Clinic. The tests cost money to provide CHA services. The suit-happy public, that sees a Dr/Clinic as source of income, then brings a lawsuit to bring their payday to them.
So, it comes back to the lawsuit happy public. For the Dr's that are trying to do the right thing and trying to provide a good and honorable service to the community, they should be able to stay in business and their business not cost an arm and a leg, plus a few more arms and legs, plus more body parts of more people than should cost to be reasonable. For the Dr/Clinic's that are in it soley to see how much $$$ they can rake in, and are only marginal at their health care (like Dr Frank Burns of M*A*S*H) they probably should be raked over the coals. But, instead of persecuting them at the legal level, let their review happen at a medical board level which also has the teeth to take assets of the business away. Keep it out of the courts.
For the lawsuit happy public... well... I say let's get the tort (tort is a system for compensating wrongs and harm done by one party to another's person, property or other protected interests (e.g. reputation, under libel and slander laws) system reformed. Instead of a person/patient being rewarded $1.5 million for *whatever* (which is also the also all the stupid lawsuits that result in all of the warning stickers placed on product... like hot liquids can burn from a coffee cup, cruise control isn't auto-pilot in Winnebago's, etc), they definitely should receive less. Everytime that someone is paid millions of dollars in a malpractice claim of wrong doing, or hot liquid spilled in a lap, or a Winnebago crashed because they set it to cruis-control and then walked to the back to make lunch (in a moving vehicle), the company that pays out .. will eventually have to charge more from existing customers to get the money back. The small person, will always end up paying the costs of the uber wrong they is brought to the legal system. It also doesn't help that the legal fees collected by the lawyers that bring the wrongful/harmful claim is usually around 33% of the amount collected from the wining lawsuit. So, if someone is wrongfully *burned* in their lap from hot coffee, and the court awards the plaintiff $1.5 million, then the winning lawyer/law firm gets a cool $500,000. That's just once a big award is declared in court. Now multiply that times the thousands and thousands of times it's happened, and you have a lot of lawyers are incented to find the different injuries and malpractices happening all around them. Ever hear of the term .. Ambulance Chaser? Well, this is the modern version of ambulance chasing.
Technology.. will march on. As it marches, it'll get more expensive. Wrongful suits, don't need to happen at the rate it happens now. Take the incentive away from these mega dollar lawsuits and health care costs will go down.
http://tr.im/wuRt
We all know we need some kind of health care reform. We all agree on that. The big thing is how much the U.S. Gov't needs to be involved in the health care process. Near the top of the Op-Ed is four paragraphs that is the summary of why health care needs reformed. They read like this:
- First, if you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of high-quality, affordable coverage for yourself and your family — coverage that will stay with you whether you move, change your job or lose your job.
- Second, reform will finally bring skyrocketing health care costs under control, which will mean real savings for families, businesses and our government. We’ll cut hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and inefficiency in federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid and in unwarranted subsidies to insurance companies that do nothing to improve care and everything to improve their profits.
- Third, by making Medicare more efficient, we’ll be able to ensure that more tax dollars go directly to caring for seniors instead of enriching insurance companies. This will not only help provide today’s seniors with the benefits they’ve been promised; it will also ensure the long-term health of Medicare for tomorrow’s seniors. And our reforms will also reduce the amount our seniors pay for their prescription drugs.
- Lastly, reform will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable. A 2007 national survey actually shows that insurance companies discriminated against more than 12 million Americans in the previous three years because they had a pre-existing illness or condition. The companies either refused to cover the person, refused to cover a specific illness or condition or charged a higher premium.
[kinda sounds like the federal law for 'Cobra' to extend benefits beyond employment (for an extra fee).. partly. I've always thought that the Cobra exectution was a little expensive, it's meant to keep the gap of health insurance filled until the next job is found to get covered by the next job's group health.]
[waste an inefficiency ... well, when it comes to waste and inefficiency, the gov't seems to be a real expert at over spending, over wasting, and over inefficiency. I'd center the discovery and repair of waste and inefficiency centered around Medicare/Medicaid fraud. Get those dollars back first before anything else is done.]
[heh, heh, heh.. to me this says... all the money wasted .. we still need to spend! By making money more efficient, it justifies spending more at the level of gov't.]
[yeah.. health care/insurance should be as easy to buy as it is to get car insurance. Heck, I can get car insurance from AAA, AARP, The Hartford, Progressive, Online, Offline, in an office, off the street, etc. I can buy car, home, truck, boat, renters insurance from a lizzard. Why can't is this not available to me for health care/insurance?]
To me, points #2 & #3, should be something that should be re-engineered anyway for existing programs. That should be a no brainer. Companies that are in business are challenged constantly as to how to make more and more profit by making things more efficient by reducing waste. Gov't has no incentive to make things more efficient to reduce waste. There seems to be a notion, in the gov't ranks, that the money they spend is the gov'ts money. No... it's not, it's the people's money. It's the people that fund the gov't. The only gov't product that is sold to the people is US Postage Stamps.
The fine-tuning of Medicare/Medicaid should be an ongoing process. It shouldn't take (at least I don't imagine it should) a move of the US Congress to change the rules/regulations to tighten the efficiencies of these programs. Medicare is a Fed Gov't program... there should be a CEO (or equivalent) of Medicare that can make these kinds of decisions. Medicaid is a different beast. It's a blend of Fed, State, and Local gov't monies to get different things done. I'm not exactly sure where the different sandbox lines are drawn that enumerate where the different sandboxes lie.
As far as #1 and #4 goes, I think that health care insurance/plans should be more accessible by anybody wanting it. The insurance companies, because they are motivated by profit, have to receive enough in premiums in order to make money so that they can keep their employees paid and not have to reduce their work force. I've already written about 'obscene profits' in an earlier blog posting. So I'll not write about it again. The 'real honest thinking' blog had a very good article about 'Health Insurance Company Profits' at: http://tr.im/wuWs that is a must read for anyone wanting to learn more about that and to get a little bit of education about the difference between *profit* and *profit margins*.
I think that ultimately, when we talk about guaranteeing health insurance / health care to anyone, there are really two issues. Is health care a right? Are people guaranteed a fundamental right to health care? If yes, then that'd mean that regardless of condition, because health care is administered by one person serving the next, then to say that health care is a *right* that'd say that the serving health care providers have no choice to sacrifice/use their time to serving others. It'd be a mandate to enslave the health care providers in the health care profession to do what they do. They wouldn't have the privilege to say NO because health care is a right and not a privilege. So, no... Health Care isn't a right. It's a privilege.
Since health care isn't a right (everybody gets it regardless of health), the next thing is cost of health care so that when it's obtained, a premium price isn't paid to obtain it. What are the things that drives up the cost of health care at the doctor's office level? Well, let's list a few: malpractice insurance, malpractice litigation, employee payroll and benefits, rent on building, utilities, laboratory equipment and testing, drugs, medical equipment, medical supplies, office supplies, and maybe a few other things. Of these things, several of these items are fairly constant and can be about the same kind of charges each month to the doctor's office/clinic. The ones that aren't about the same from month to month is malpractice insurance costs, malpractice litigation, medical equipment, medical supplies, and to a certain extent laboratory equipment and testing. All of these amounts are items that potentially get more expensive as time goes (especially for the things related to increases in technology) and we can't change that. People live longer now because of the medical advances brought through technological increases (which is also increases in good pharmaceuticals too). Some of the more elaborate pieces of equipment of technology used in doctors offices is directly related to the needs to keep malpractice costs low. Order extra tests, so the Dr can CHA (cover his/her ass), so that malpractice can't be levied to a Dr/Clinic. The tests cost money to provide CHA services. The suit-happy public, that sees a Dr/Clinic as source of income, then brings a lawsuit to bring their payday to them.
So, it comes back to the lawsuit happy public. For the Dr's that are trying to do the right thing and trying to provide a good and honorable service to the community, they should be able to stay in business and their business not cost an arm and a leg, plus a few more arms and legs, plus more body parts of more people than should cost to be reasonable. For the Dr/Clinic's that are in it soley to see how much $$$ they can rake in, and are only marginal at their health care (like Dr Frank Burns of M*A*S*H) they probably should be raked over the coals. But, instead of persecuting them at the legal level, let their review happen at a medical board level which also has the teeth to take assets of the business away. Keep it out of the courts.
For the lawsuit happy public... well... I say let's get the tort (tort is a system for compensating wrongs and harm done by one party to another's person, property or other protected interests (e.g. reputation, under libel and slander laws) system reformed. Instead of a person/patient being rewarded $1.5 million for *whatever* (which is also the also all the stupid lawsuits that result in all of the warning stickers placed on product... like hot liquids can burn from a coffee cup, cruise control isn't auto-pilot in Winnebago's, etc), they definitely should receive less. Everytime that someone is paid millions of dollars in a malpractice claim of wrong doing, or hot liquid spilled in a lap, or a Winnebago crashed because they set it to cruis-control and then walked to the back to make lunch (in a moving vehicle), the company that pays out .. will eventually have to charge more from existing customers to get the money back. The small person, will always end up paying the costs of the uber wrong they is brought to the legal system. It also doesn't help that the legal fees collected by the lawyers that bring the wrongful/harmful claim is usually around 33% of the amount collected from the wining lawsuit. So, if someone is wrongfully *burned* in their lap from hot coffee, and the court awards the plaintiff $1.5 million, then the winning lawyer/law firm gets a cool $500,000. That's just once a big award is declared in court. Now multiply that times the thousands and thousands of times it's happened, and you have a lot of lawyers are incented to find the different injuries and malpractices happening all around them. Ever hear of the term .. Ambulance Chaser? Well, this is the modern version of ambulance chasing.
Technology.. will march on. As it marches, it'll get more expensive. Wrongful suits, don't need to happen at the rate it happens now. Take the incentive away from these mega dollar lawsuits and health care costs will go down.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Government Efficiencies and Postage
Ok.. anybody.. I want to know something that the government does as efficiently as the private sector. Anybody? Anything?
Is there anything the government does that costs less, has great value, and is run at such an efficient level that we want more of that governmental action? I think there's only a few things that they do anyway: have a military that breaks things and kills people (regardless of the cost that is what they are supposed to do), they collect revenue (through taxes and fees), they make legislative bills (of all kinds of pork..lately), they push postal service mail around the country.
Now, I don't know if we want a private sector business breaking things and killing people .. but there is other things the military does that assists this country. Usually it's assisting in times of disaster or some kind of policing patrol. Face it, the military is a good policing agent. And even though the price tag for the military is up there in the billions of dollars per year, there is probably room for efficiencies .. somewhere. I have to say I like the military regardless of how much it costs. Spending less is better... preferably.
Collecting revenue, well .. the IRS really is good at what they do as well. Though I imagine if they really wanted to cut costs, I'd vote the IRS out and replace income to the government with a flat/fair tax that is collected at the cash registers. Thus eliminating the need to fill out income tax forms to double tax the people of their money by taxing them when they make it.. and taxing them when they spend it. Take the cost of *taxation* out of the paychecks.. (no federal income tax taken out, no FICA, no other federal taxes) .. and boost the economy by everybody having more $$ to spend. Then, all of the products, because they no longer have a taxation element built into it, are all lowered by about 22-23% in cost at the cash register. A loaf of bread which might have cost $1 .. now costs $0.78. Then, when the loaf of bread is bought, a tax on the purchase of the bread (23%) is added back to the cost of the bread .. making it the same $1 used when buying the bread. The difference, the government gets all it's money, and we get more of the paycheck. The downside woudld be... a bunch of IRS workers would probably not have jobs, and a bunch of tax preparers not have jobs because there is no tax forms to fill out for the federal level of taxation. It's all collected from the merchant and electronically. Highly efficient.
Legislative bills... well.. this is something that those in government just seem to thrive in doing. It's also something that I don't think I want a private business doing either. I wouldn't mind if private citizens (not professional politicians) did this and bring some common sense back to the legislatures. The laws they write aren't so much about what you can and can't do (like rules a parent would lay down) but what money is spent on which pork project where. If there's an efficiency to be had, I'd say, if a bill can't be written on 5 pages of paper, then it's too verbose and should be filed in the circular waste recepticle. My rule would be, if you can't take the new bill and put it in front of a 6th grader and have him/her read it to make sense of what it says and he/she not be able to tell you what it says .. then it's too damn complicated. Toss it out. Yes, I think civilians can make this simpler. I think to write everything so as not to create any loopholes of law is a terrible way to write. Documents have a spirit of understanding about them. And as long as the spirit of that document is true, then it shouldn't matter that the words in it are only a few pages long. Everybody will be able to understand it written in plain English. Not everything needs to be written as if only lawyers can understand it. The laws of the people and by the people should be able to be read and understood easily by the people it governs. Period.
Pushing postal service mail ... we all know that the USPS isn't the only delivery service around. We also have FedEx and UPS (and a few others). Two fine organizations that I believe are amazingly efficient and are running in the black (profit) whereas the USPS (though I like the fact that a letter still costs less than $0.50 to send from coast to coast) they aren't exactly the most efficient organization in town. Back in 1997 I moved from east central Illinois to Indianapolis to start a job. Eventually, my family would catch up with me in a few months after housing arrangements had been made and after I had been in the new job for a while making good money. On one of the days, both daughters put a postcard into the same USPS box at the same time. I received the first one in two days... and the second one in .. .uhhhhhh.. what was it?... oh yeah... 3 weeks! Holy Cow! I have no idea how that happened. They were in the same tray (I guess) and taken from the street mail box @ the post office at the same time. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a day later or two would be bad enough... but 3 weeks? Crimeny! Oh well, this is not a new revelation to about anybody regarding the USPS efficiency and the private businesses FedEx and UPS. Even our President talked about it lately...
Sooo... there you have it. Now, I don't think our President was saying the USPS is a big crappy organization. The fact remains, private sector business is engineered to be efficient and to make a profit in order to stay in business. Governmental organizations aren't like that. They don't have to be efficient. And they don't have to make a profit to remain in business.
I'll also say, and I've said this for many many years, that when it comes time to raise the cost of postage .. round it up to the next $0.10 or $0.25 and always *bank* the difference into an account to gain interest. That way, if people are pay a little extra, then a little extra is saved .. a few pennies at a time ... and that account just grows and grows and grows! And when it comes time for the next postage increase.. keep the postage amount the same.. just lower the difference between what is collected per ounce and what goes into the savings pot. Let's say that an ounce cost $0.50 .. which is 6 cents more than now. Everyone pay the 50 cents per ounce and the government save the 6 cents. This happen a million times a day in the postal offices, walmarts, and anyplace else that sells postage, it'll increase quite a bit over time. Then, next year when postage goes up... instead of saving 6 cents per ounce to the bank... save only 4 cents per ounce... still.. people will still get their postage at 50 cents per ounce. Not as much will be saved.. but nonetheless.. it still will get put aside accumulating interest. The year after, instead of banking 4 cents per ounce, maybe it goes down to 2 cents per ounce. When we hit zero change.. it's time to up the postal charge to the next dime upwards or the next quarter. Always banking the difference between the postal ounce rate and the postal charged rate. Brilliant, eh? Eventually, this account could be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge pile of money that can be used to do other things.
I don't really think there is anything that the government really does well with incredible efficiency that has the people of the United States of America begging for more government.
Is there anything the government does that costs less, has great value, and is run at such an efficient level that we want more of that governmental action? I think there's only a few things that they do anyway: have a military that breaks things and kills people (regardless of the cost that is what they are supposed to do), they collect revenue (through taxes and fees), they make legislative bills (of all kinds of pork..lately), they push postal service mail around the country.
Now, I don't know if we want a private sector business breaking things and killing people .. but there is other things the military does that assists this country. Usually it's assisting in times of disaster or some kind of policing patrol. Face it, the military is a good policing agent. And even though the price tag for the military is up there in the billions of dollars per year, there is probably room for efficiencies .. somewhere. I have to say I like the military regardless of how much it costs. Spending less is better... preferably.
Collecting revenue, well .. the IRS really is good at what they do as well. Though I imagine if they really wanted to cut costs, I'd vote the IRS out and replace income to the government with a flat/fair tax that is collected at the cash registers. Thus eliminating the need to fill out income tax forms to double tax the people of their money by taxing them when they make it.. and taxing them when they spend it. Take the cost of *taxation* out of the paychecks.. (no federal income tax taken out, no FICA, no other federal taxes) .. and boost the economy by everybody having more $$ to spend. Then, all of the products, because they no longer have a taxation element built into it, are all lowered by about 22-23% in cost at the cash register. A loaf of bread which might have cost $1 .. now costs $0.78. Then, when the loaf of bread is bought, a tax on the purchase of the bread (23%) is added back to the cost of the bread .. making it the same $1 used when buying the bread. The difference, the government gets all it's money, and we get more of the paycheck. The downside woudld be... a bunch of IRS workers would probably not have jobs, and a bunch of tax preparers not have jobs because there is no tax forms to fill out for the federal level of taxation. It's all collected from the merchant and electronically. Highly efficient.
Legislative bills... well.. this is something that those in government just seem to thrive in doing. It's also something that I don't think I want a private business doing either. I wouldn't mind if private citizens (not professional politicians) did this and bring some common sense back to the legislatures. The laws they write aren't so much about what you can and can't do (like rules a parent would lay down) but what money is spent on which pork project where. If there's an efficiency to be had, I'd say, if a bill can't be written on 5 pages of paper, then it's too verbose and should be filed in the circular waste recepticle. My rule would be, if you can't take the new bill and put it in front of a 6th grader and have him/her read it to make sense of what it says and he/she not be able to tell you what it says .. then it's too damn complicated. Toss it out. Yes, I think civilians can make this simpler. I think to write everything so as not to create any loopholes of law is a terrible way to write. Documents have a spirit of understanding about them. And as long as the spirit of that document is true, then it shouldn't matter that the words in it are only a few pages long. Everybody will be able to understand it written in plain English. Not everything needs to be written as if only lawyers can understand it. The laws of the people and by the people should be able to be read and understood easily by the people it governs. Period.
Pushing postal service mail ... we all know that the USPS isn't the only delivery service around. We also have FedEx and UPS (and a few others). Two fine organizations that I believe are amazingly efficient and are running in the black (profit) whereas the USPS (though I like the fact that a letter still costs less than $0.50 to send from coast to coast) they aren't exactly the most efficient organization in town. Back in 1997 I moved from east central Illinois to Indianapolis to start a job. Eventually, my family would catch up with me in a few months after housing arrangements had been made and after I had been in the new job for a while making good money. On one of the days, both daughters put a postcard into the same USPS box at the same time. I received the first one in two days... and the second one in .. .uhhhhhh.. what was it?... oh yeah... 3 weeks! Holy Cow! I have no idea how that happened. They were in the same tray (I guess) and taken from the street mail box @ the post office at the same time. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a day later or two would be bad enough... but 3 weeks? Crimeny! Oh well, this is not a new revelation to about anybody regarding the USPS efficiency and the private businesses FedEx and UPS. Even our President talked about it lately...
Sooo... there you have it. Now, I don't think our President was saying the USPS is a big crappy organization. The fact remains, private sector business is engineered to be efficient and to make a profit in order to stay in business. Governmental organizations aren't like that. They don't have to be efficient. And they don't have to make a profit to remain in business.
I'll also say, and I've said this for many many years, that when it comes time to raise the cost of postage .. round it up to the next $0.10 or $0.25 and always *bank* the difference into an account to gain interest. That way, if people are pay a little extra, then a little extra is saved .. a few pennies at a time ... and that account just grows and grows and grows! And when it comes time for the next postage increase.. keep the postage amount the same.. just lower the difference between what is collected per ounce and what goes into the savings pot. Let's say that an ounce cost $0.50 .. which is 6 cents more than now. Everyone pay the 50 cents per ounce and the government save the 6 cents. This happen a million times a day in the postal offices, walmarts, and anyplace else that sells postage, it'll increase quite a bit over time. Then, next year when postage goes up... instead of saving 6 cents per ounce to the bank... save only 4 cents per ounce... still.. people will still get their postage at 50 cents per ounce. Not as much will be saved.. but nonetheless.. it still will get put aside accumulating interest. The year after, instead of banking 4 cents per ounce, maybe it goes down to 2 cents per ounce. When we hit zero change.. it's time to up the postal charge to the next dime upwards or the next quarter. Always banking the difference between the postal ounce rate and the postal charged rate. Brilliant, eh? Eventually, this account could be a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge pile of money that can be used to do other things.
I don't really think there is anything that the government really does well with incredible efficiency that has the people of the United States of America begging for more government.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Crystal ball about Cash for Clunkers
Ok folks. Soooooo... what's going on here? Do you think that whole 'Cash for Clunkers' ($4C) program has a predecessor? Any similarities with things in the past we've recently experienced? I think so. Let's see if you see so too.
$4C was a program that was created with the ultimate goal of getting old cars (beaters with heaters) off the roads (that normally get lousy gas economy) and replace them with cars of a more efficient nature. Sounds reasonable on the surface. I mean, when we have gasoline that see-saws back and forth between $2.25 - $3.00 and sometimes jumps above to tango with $4.00 for a while, who wouldn't want a car that will help save money when going to the pump. So, the focus is ... 'use less gasoline' .. 'lower our dependence on foreign oil supplies' ...'save money at the pump' ... that's the goal.
When $4C was developed, the US government wasn't *officially* the owner of a couple of major car companies. Now it is. So, you'd think that this would help US / domestic car sales, which I'm sure over the last week or so, it's been brisker than normal and for quite some time. Which, is something I can't complain about.
I'm not happy about cars getting crushed or otherwise rendered un-operable when they could still be used for something good. Here's a youtube video showing a 4-minute death to what looks like a perfectly good Volvo. They certainly didn't put this Volvo out of it's gas-guzzling misery in a quick fashion. It looked like torture to me.
For families than can't afford a good used beater with a heater that is good transportation that'll take them to the grocery store, school, or work. Usually the beaters with heaters that I've owned, have had inexpensive liability insurance, wasn't a complete gas hog, and typically were fairly easy to repair. When a battery, water pump, belt, starter, alternator, tune-up, spark plug wires, distributor cap, disk brake pads, etc, etc, etc.. were needed.. the few dollars needed was easily acquired and used to get the parts to bring the car back to working order. One thing is for sure, all the beaters with heaters I've ever had never had a monthly car payment. Just gasoline, oil, insurance, and maintenance costs... period.
Fast forward to a time when the economy is suffering under a Bear Market Cycle (previous blog entry about Market History Cycles) when money is tight, people are losing jobs, and people are struggling for each and every dime they have because it just might have to go to essentials like groceries, gasoline, medicine, etc. Things are not rosy what so ever. Along comes a program that essentially gives people money and entices them to trade in their beaters with heaters to obtain something that's definitely not a beater .. and likely has a good heater .. and is improved in the miles per gallon department (which the minimum requirement is a savings of 4 miles per gallon improvement from the clunker to the new car [used cars are inelligible]) as well.
During this struggling economic time, people have been avoiding acquiring more debt and have been generally saving more for the rainy day. Yet, this is a program that is too tempting for many to pass up. When deal is done, and they qualify for the $3500-$4500 rebate, they shake the sales managers hand, and they likely walk away with a shiny new car.... and a monthly payment that they didn't have before. Who knew that was going to happen?
Now, when they were previously getting by on gasoline, insurance, and maintenance costs .. though they'll pay less in gasoline (assuming they drive the same amount or less), their insurance will no longer be inexpensive liability insurance.. they'll have to have full coverage with comprehensive... which is significantly more expensive. They'll have to pay a monthly car payment instead of monthly maintenance costs. Some months, there might not have been any maintenance costs. And some months there might have been quite a few. Just depends. With a new car, though maintenance is probably covered in the warranty, they'll now have a monthly payment whether they like it or not. If the car is running fine (or not).. for the next 48-72 months there will be a payment that they are likely not used to be paying. Generally, though people were able to get their new cars, could the cars really be afforded when income is dragging down more and more.
Sound familiar anyone? How about the whole sub-prime mortgage fiasco that started this whole economic mess. People couldn't afford houses though it was thought that everybody had a right to have a house whether they could afford it or not. These loans, for those that had a pulse, were given the mortgage in order to *get them in the house* .. not because they earned it. What happened to make them miss their payments? Ohhh.. yeah... they became unemployed because the economic market has been going sideways for a few years now. Their life somehow had a life change... and they weren't able to obtain a replacement j-o-b to make up the difference between the old well paying job.. and new job that pays significantly less. People generally won't go on a strict rice-n-beans diet and riding bicycles to save money, because they think they are too good to sacrifice and save money in order to get by. So.. they continue to spend, spend, spend and their house payments fall behind. After all, it's only the guy next door that has his house taken away.. "not me". What happened after they *proved* they couldn't keep up payments on the house on these sub-prime loans? Eventually, they lose their house in foreclosure.
So, is the $4C program that big of a help? I really doubt it. It is serving to be a temporary stimulus to the car dealers as they are reaping in the benefits of sales that haven't been there for a couple years. This is kinda like a modern-day version of the Prodigal Son that took half of rich-dad's money and whooped up his lifestyle with many a friend as long as his stash of cash was abundant to fund frequent parties. Once the prodigals' money ran out, all of his party friends abandoned him and he went back to dad ... broke. I think, once this program runs out, the sales will fall off a cliff (as before) and the lack of stimulus to the car dealerships will have run it's course of prosperity. Once the dealerships are back to bare-bones cash-flow, they'll start reducing their staff to contribute further to the slower economic time with less people employed.
If cars could be given away without cost to anyone, that'd be one thing. With the debt that the nation takes on for everyone that gets a $4C car, this is a tab that the American people will have to pay (when it comes to the rebate received). Not to mention, since the economy is still going sideways (or down.. it's truly not turned UP yet as signs of recovery show a slowing of the recession.. but not a ceasing of it) .. there will be more companies that will be laying off more employees. And there won't be a list of those that bought in the $4C program in order for their jobs to be preserved because it's important that they always are able to pay their payments. No, the employment axe will fall many many more times, cutting those out that have $4C cars and some that don't. Those families that are adddled with a $4C car and no job .. will probably help to contribute to a new loan crisis of bad paper much like the sub-prime mortgage crisis was.
Plus the advent that the next $2 billion is about to be dumped into a $4C to make it possible that people can continue this streak of stimulus spending.. will bring more people into this program that will potentially be bitten by the economic bug putting themselves into an economic bind .. contributing to the $4C bad-paper loan crisis.
I suppose there are some car companies (at least I think I recall a commercial) that will pick up the payments for your car if you find yourself unemployed and can't make the payments -or- maybe they'll take the car back if it's purchased within a year and unemployment occurs. In neither case, people still don't get to keep their cars if unemployment is still their status and they aren't able to make payments for the duration of the loan. Either the car company will make the payment or the car is given up in collateral. I can't imagine someone putting their house up for collateral when they buy a car. I suppose some have done that in order to get the $4C car. I hope, for their sakes, that their jobs remain preserved because not only could they possibly lose a car, but a home as well when things go bad when they weren't looking forward to think of the possibility.
Do I want these loans to fail... eventually? No. I want prosperity for all. I want an abundance of money for everyone. However, in this current market time, money isn't flowing freely around to everyone. There will be those that go without money. If they bought a $4C car, I hope that their money supply isn't squelched. This could really cause another cascading failure upon the different financial institutions puttng people in very difficult situations.
$4C was a program that was created with the ultimate goal of getting old cars (beaters with heaters) off the roads (that normally get lousy gas economy) and replace them with cars of a more efficient nature. Sounds reasonable on the surface. I mean, when we have gasoline that see-saws back and forth between $2.25 - $3.00 and sometimes jumps above to tango with $4.00 for a while, who wouldn't want a car that will help save money when going to the pump. So, the focus is ... 'use less gasoline' .. 'lower our dependence on foreign oil supplies' ...'save money at the pump' ... that's the goal.
When $4C was developed, the US government wasn't *officially* the owner of a couple of major car companies. Now it is. So, you'd think that this would help US / domestic car sales, which I'm sure over the last week or so, it's been brisker than normal and for quite some time. Which, is something I can't complain about.
I'm not happy about cars getting crushed or otherwise rendered un-operable when they could still be used for something good. Here's a youtube video showing a 4-minute death to what looks like a perfectly good Volvo. They certainly didn't put this Volvo out of it's gas-guzzling misery in a quick fashion. It looked like torture to me.
For families than can't afford a good used beater with a heater that is good transportation that'll take them to the grocery store, school, or work. Usually the beaters with heaters that I've owned, have had inexpensive liability insurance, wasn't a complete gas hog, and typically were fairly easy to repair. When a battery, water pump, belt, starter, alternator, tune-up, spark plug wires, distributor cap, disk brake pads, etc, etc, etc.. were needed.. the few dollars needed was easily acquired and used to get the parts to bring the car back to working order. One thing is for sure, all the beaters with heaters I've ever had never had a monthly car payment. Just gasoline, oil, insurance, and maintenance costs... period.
Fast forward to a time when the economy is suffering under a Bear Market Cycle (previous blog entry about Market History Cycles) when money is tight, people are losing jobs, and people are struggling for each and every dime they have because it just might have to go to essentials like groceries, gasoline, medicine, etc. Things are not rosy what so ever. Along comes a program that essentially gives people money and entices them to trade in their beaters with heaters to obtain something that's definitely not a beater .. and likely has a good heater .. and is improved in the miles per gallon department (which the minimum requirement is a savings of 4 miles per gallon improvement from the clunker to the new car [used cars are inelligible]) as well.
During this struggling economic time, people have been avoiding acquiring more debt and have been generally saving more for the rainy day. Yet, this is a program that is too tempting for many to pass up. When deal is done, and they qualify for the $3500-$4500 rebate, they shake the sales managers hand, and they likely walk away with a shiny new car.... and a monthly payment that they didn't have before. Who knew that was going to happen?
Now, when they were previously getting by on gasoline, insurance, and maintenance costs .. though they'll pay less in gasoline (assuming they drive the same amount or less), their insurance will no longer be inexpensive liability insurance.. they'll have to have full coverage with comprehensive... which is significantly more expensive. They'll have to pay a monthly car payment instead of monthly maintenance costs. Some months, there might not have been any maintenance costs. And some months there might have been quite a few. Just depends. With a new car, though maintenance is probably covered in the warranty, they'll now have a monthly payment whether they like it or not. If the car is running fine (or not).. for the next 48-72 months there will be a payment that they are likely not used to be paying. Generally, though people were able to get their new cars, could the cars really be afforded when income is dragging down more and more.
Sound familiar anyone? How about the whole sub-prime mortgage fiasco that started this whole economic mess. People couldn't afford houses though it was thought that everybody had a right to have a house whether they could afford it or not. These loans, for those that had a pulse, were given the mortgage in order to *get them in the house* .. not because they earned it. What happened to make them miss their payments? Ohhh.. yeah... they became unemployed because the economic market has been going sideways for a few years now. Their life somehow had a life change... and they weren't able to obtain a replacement j-o-b to make up the difference between the old well paying job.. and new job that pays significantly less. People generally won't go on a strict rice-n-beans diet and riding bicycles to save money, because they think they are too good to sacrifice and save money in order to get by. So.. they continue to spend, spend, spend and their house payments fall behind. After all, it's only the guy next door that has his house taken away.. "not me". What happened after they *proved* they couldn't keep up payments on the house on these sub-prime loans? Eventually, they lose their house in foreclosure.
So, is the $4C program that big of a help? I really doubt it. It is serving to be a temporary stimulus to the car dealers as they are reaping in the benefits of sales that haven't been there for a couple years. This is kinda like a modern-day version of the Prodigal Son that took half of rich-dad's money and whooped up his lifestyle with many a friend as long as his stash of cash was abundant to fund frequent parties. Once the prodigals' money ran out, all of his party friends abandoned him and he went back to dad ... broke. I think, once this program runs out, the sales will fall off a cliff (as before) and the lack of stimulus to the car dealerships will have run it's course of prosperity. Once the dealerships are back to bare-bones cash-flow, they'll start reducing their staff to contribute further to the slower economic time with less people employed.
If cars could be given away without cost to anyone, that'd be one thing. With the debt that the nation takes on for everyone that gets a $4C car, this is a tab that the American people will have to pay (when it comes to the rebate received). Not to mention, since the economy is still going sideways (or down.. it's truly not turned UP yet as signs of recovery show a slowing of the recession.. but not a ceasing of it) .. there will be more companies that will be laying off more employees. And there won't be a list of those that bought in the $4C program in order for their jobs to be preserved because it's important that they always are able to pay their payments. No, the employment axe will fall many many more times, cutting those out that have $4C cars and some that don't. Those families that are adddled with a $4C car and no job .. will probably help to contribute to a new loan crisis of bad paper much like the sub-prime mortgage crisis was.
Plus the advent that the next $2 billion is about to be dumped into a $4C to make it possible that people can continue this streak of stimulus spending.. will bring more people into this program that will potentially be bitten by the economic bug putting themselves into an economic bind .. contributing to the $4C bad-paper loan crisis.
I suppose there are some car companies (at least I think I recall a commercial) that will pick up the payments for your car if you find yourself unemployed and can't make the payments -or- maybe they'll take the car back if it's purchased within a year and unemployment occurs. In neither case, people still don't get to keep their cars if unemployment is still their status and they aren't able to make payments for the duration of the loan. Either the car company will make the payment or the car is given up in collateral. I can't imagine someone putting their house up for collateral when they buy a car. I suppose some have done that in order to get the $4C car. I hope, for their sakes, that their jobs remain preserved because not only could they possibly lose a car, but a home as well when things go bad when they weren't looking forward to think of the possibility.
Do I want these loans to fail... eventually? No. I want prosperity for all. I want an abundance of money for everyone. However, in this current market time, money isn't flowing freely around to everyone. There will be those that go without money. If they bought a $4C car, I hope that their money supply isn't squelched. This could really cause another cascading failure upon the different financial institutions puttng people in very difficult situations.
Keeping the subject, Good etiquette, and Joe the Plumber
I remember, a long time ago in a galaxy far away, when I was the member of a mailing list for several years there was a netiquette (interNET etiquette) document that had guidelines for engaging in conversation from one member to the other using the form of a mailing list.
This list was a list of guidelines to promote a healthy exchange of words. It was not meant to stifle or censor anyone. It was there in place to define the sandbox that we all could play in.
This was a list of guidelines that was generated back when people used dial-up modem to connect at a whopping 1200-2400-4800-9600-32k baud (whoooooo-eeeeee.. dang that's fast) using a Wyse 60 dumb terminal when it was really quite taboo to post pictures and other multimedia in the messages as not everybody had a faster modem to download the attachments *and* it also was possible that not everybody had a machine that could really handle attachments. So, we had rules to keep the fluff to a minimum so that the words posted would all count for well and not be a waste of time for those reading it. You never had a post that was a 95% from a previous message by someone and a reply that said "yes" as the only new and original words. It defined the sandbox we all played in. We called it ...
Internet Etiquette... or Netiquette
I think these are good guidelines that people would be good to abide by as it promotes respectability among others that don't necessarily think the same way as themselves. Now, for the reason of saving some space, some Netiquette Points have one or more paragraphs explaining them that I might cut out from this blog as it is a point that really isn't relative to conversations these days. If this is so.. you'll see a --snip-- beside the point.
Of the guidelines below, they are listed from #1 - #13 and then there are *other considerations* that are listed from A - G. I think that everything below is good general rules for debate.
The one that I see below that is violated the most is usually the 'other guideline E'. Where it talks about 'are you posting an opinion on the topic?' -or- 'have you become the topic?' I've written about opinions before in my blog about 'Judge and Judging' so you should have an idea of how I think on the matter.
The way I see the dominant media culture these days, is that they can't KEEP TO THE SUBJECT (topic). Back in the days of the mailing list, when there was a particular passionate subject being discussed, eventually tempers would flare and bad words would come out, and people would start to insult the *person* that has a different opinion and attempt to put them in a darker light because ... simply... they have ran out of intelligent arguments to debate the other position. They either run out of facts, ideas, notions, etc, etc, etc... they get desperate and they then feel a need to somehow bring the other messenger down because they can't combat the point given with something real, tangible, and with great flair and understanding to bring others into their corner.
The person attempting to put the others into a bad light, willfully make the other people the subject matter of the topic. Which takes the subject off of it's focus. When this happens, the moderators would have to step in, slap the person(s) on the mailing list with a warning and tell them their error that they've gone off topic and are making this a venomous argument wanting to combat the person and not the persons ideas. To be formally followed with apologies.
The same thing happens with the dominant media culture. How many times have they personally attacked those that are giving their opinions? They don't do a good job at refuting the opinions, but they sure want you to know that that person is a no-gooder type person. They'll do anything to cast a bad light upon the object of their disdain. They'll say they drive gas-guzzling cars, eat trans fat foods, expel too much flatulence helping cause a warmer climate, etc, etc, etc. These people, to the dominant media culture are the lightening rods of society. Their thoughts and ideas are not often thought of critically and dissected for anything good therein. Their ideas are normally shown to be 'stupid' and 'ridiculous' and 'full of hate'. By doing this, they show their own ignorance and lack of knowledge in the subject.
Personally, I think something good can be said about *anyone*. Maybe not much good (sometimes), but some good can be said for *everyone*. When the dominant media culture completely demonizes a person (or group of people) you know they are engaging in the same kind of activity. They can't argue logically (present debateful points against) so they must do what they can to tear the others down. If they can't bring the message down, then they feel the need to persecute the messenger.
A perfect example of the dominant media and someone that became a lightening rod literally overnight is Joe the Plumber of Ohio. A regular guy in Ohio tossing a football around in his yard when the Obama campaign came through. Eventually Obama himself came up to Joe and was given an opportunity to ask a question and then comment. Well, the rest is history. Joe the Plumber became an enemy of the dominant media culture (and the Obama campaign). The lightening bolts would surely follow sometime soon. Yep... it wasn't long before we learned about a lien on Joe's house (Joe learned of it too then). Joe's past marital life, etc. We also learned that there were un-authorized accesses into Joe's driver's record in the State of Ohio. It didn't take long before the dominant media culture had proverbially given Joe an informational examination of proctological depths. This should never happen. Joe should never have become the subject of the matter. Joes words and thoughts.. yes. Joe and his family... no. All because, what Joe said couldn't really have any real tangible arguments levied in opposing manner. The dominant media couldn't dissect Sen. Obama's words and just let them slide... so they had to discount and tear down everything humanly discoverable about Joe the Plumber.
The dominant media doesn't understand why their ratings are falling like a petrified turd in a swimming pool. Or why their like-minded newspapers have readership that is in the tank as well and might be about to go out of business. It's because of their behavior that the people of the USA that see this kind of activity and choose not to engage to choose the wares of the dominant media culture. Viewer ship goes down coupled with fewer readers. For them, they think it's a noble thing to tear down the different lightning rods that they just love to throw lightening bolts at all the time. To them, if the lightning rods didn't exist, they'd be free to think, say, and publish anything.
End of tyle ....
For your reading pleasure (if that is possible) this is the sandbox of Netiquette that we used for several years as the guidelines for conversation.
This document isn't an attempt to squelch the expression of the different discussions of the mailing list. These guidelines are not meant to suppress good, honest, and healthy discussions and questions. Rather, they are here to promote harmony and unity among all subscribers. If a
discussion deviates outside one or more of these guidelines then the parties involved should move that discussion off this list.
Mailing List Netiquette
(This has been turned into a rant section. Do you have an email pet peeve that you see on the mailing list involving netiquette? Send it in.)
1. Does the post you're sending have "attachments"? --snip--
2. Is the post that you've sent "unbalanced" between the "old" message posted by someone else) exchange the "new" words you've added? --snip--
3. Have you captured more of the original post than is necessary?
If the first original word of your response isn't on the first page of your post, you've got a problem. Don't quote someone else's entire post to reply to it. Simply copy the relevant parts. Many mailers have a function that will automatically copy the entire post putting in the ">"s for you. Use this function with caution, and if you do use it, delete the irrelevant lines. It's annoying to have to page down about 4 times before you can read any fresh material. It also takes up precious disk space because it makes your post larger.
[modern note: disk space isn't the problem these days. More disk space can be found on a USB flash drive and carried in your pocket than can be found on dozens of machines back then easily. The problem now a days is people don't think critically enough about the material previously viewed, read, or otherwise digested to know how to snip the important parts out so that not everything is being fully regurgitated back in a reply. Editing skills play a large part in this.]
4. Is the title of your post consistent with the subject therein?
5. Is your signature file longer than six (4-6) lines long?
6. Would you say it to the person's face or at church sanctuary or fellowship hall?
If not, don't say it on the mailing list.
7. Are you angry?
If the primary motivation for the post is vindication or revenge, cool off first. Go kick a file cabinet, bite a sock, grab a hamburger and french fries and chocolate milk shake, eat some ice cream, have a cup of coffee, and maybe even pray before you reply.
8. Is the other guy flaunting his ignorance?
Even when someone else's argument is stupid, to tell them so rarely causes them to change their mind. Instead, they can often become defensive and flood the list with even more stupid arguments. So don't inflict that on the rest of us. The only thing worse than a stupid
argument is the defense of a stupid argument.
9. Has the message been spell-checked for errors?
Sometimes, the thought-finger coordination doesn't produce perfectly spelled documents sent to the list. We've all endured our share of typographical errors in reading and writing. Is there a spell checking function built into the emailing program? Or could the document be produced and then checked by invoking an spelling utility? It might be in your best interest to find out. Spelling errors imply that the composer may seem to be ... "not smart." I realize, that in all cases this isn't possible. But I can only think that correcting the spelling errors by re-reading the message before resending it can only help. I've heard that a good way to do that is to read the document from bottom to top while reading left to right. That might make you look
harder at what was just written so you might not miss anything.
10. Is the subject line relevant? --snip--
11. Keep subject lines up-to-date. --snip--
12. Does your posting mention Hitler? Nazis?
Godwin's Law: When Hitler or Nazis are brought up in a thread, it has been going on too long.
If someone compares you to Nazis, Pedophiles, or some other repulsive form of human being, you've won the argument, because they have nothing rational left to say. Leave it at that....
13. Does your post repeatedly bash another's opinions, integrity, or intelligence?
Such an action may result in an internalization of directed shame. We're all born in sin. And shaped in iniquity. And saved by grace. We don't need someone else (other than ourselves) heaping words that cause bad feelings. In a world that is constantly picking and tearing down common people with relentless fervor, do we need others of like interests to do the same?
Does the casting down of another's belief system put you on the pedestal of a prizefighter that's just gone for the kill? If you said it and later realized your error, would you willing and able to gather enough humility to apologize to that person and others on the mailing list?
Pastors would quote scripture saying "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." In this case, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the fingers type." A man is defiled by what proceeds out of his mouth. Does the potential poisonous post you're about to submit reveal something that might show an inner condition of the heart that needs more attention than the submission of the post?
-------------------------other considerations-------------------------
A. Does your post contain WORDS that are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
Caution should be used when posting in ALL CAPS because it is commonly equated to SHOUTING very loudly. Many folks can be offended by CONSTANT or ABUSE OF CAPITAL LETTERS in a MESSAGE because of its STRONG EMPHASIS.
If you want to emphasize words in a sentence. Maybe you should try using double-quote marks "like this" to draw attention, or maybe asterisks *like this*, or possibly even underscores _like this_.
There are times when writing in a CAPITAL LETTERS may be appropriate. If you need to find out how it would sound, write the message with the choice words in CAPITAL LETTERS. Then read it back to yourself. If the words or phase that is EMPHASIZED by the capital letters sounds a little peculiar when you repeat the CAPITALIZATION at a "shouted level" in your mind, it's probably too strong of an emphasis and you need to choose a different way to *emphasize* words without _shouting_ at the other members.
B. Are you monopolizing the conversation by posting too much?
Instead of replying at length to each message in a thread, compile your replies into one post. This forces you to think about such things as structure and reasoned argument as you pull together the many lines of thought in a thread. It is also much more pleasant to read.
C. Are you writing to the list, or just agreeing with the sender?
If the main message of your post is to say "Amen!" or "I agree totally," please send the post privately. Readers don't usually do a tally to see how many people agree with a particular point of view. The point of posting to the mailing list is to add to a discussion, blessing people on the list, or other reasons of member edification. Sending a post that quotes someone else at length and then just saying "Amen" at the bottom does not add to the discussion. It merely adds volume to the list. If you want the person to know you support them, tell them so in private mail.
If you feel an "Amen!" is absolutely necessary, please include something fresh as to how the previous post blessed you, effected you, caused you to think more deeply about something.
D. Has someone else already said what you want to say?
Read all the posts from mailing list (at least with the subject you want to reply to) before you reply. It's nice to be the first to offer a suggestion, or make a reply, or ask a question in response to a post, but because we are all from different parts of the world and we don't all get mail at the same time it is impossible to always be first. Make sure someone hasn't beaten you to the punch, and if they have, keep quiet and just follow along in the thread until you CAN add something unique.
E. Are you posting an opinion on a topic, or have you become the topic?
F. Are you being disruptive?
G. Has the discussion ground to a halt?
Sometimes, a discussion reaches the point where it is clear that neither person is going to convince the other. It is often best, in these instances, to bow out gracefully.
This list was a list of guidelines to promote a healthy exchange of words. It was not meant to stifle or censor anyone. It was there in place to define the sandbox that we all could play in.
This was a list of guidelines that was generated back when people used dial-up modem to connect at a whopping 1200-2400-4800-9600-32k baud (whoooooo-eeeeee.. dang that's fast) using a Wyse 60 dumb terminal when it was really quite taboo to post pictures and other multimedia in the messages as not everybody had a faster modem to download the attachments *and* it also was possible that not everybody had a machine that could really handle attachments. So, we had rules to keep the fluff to a minimum so that the words posted would all count for well and not be a waste of time for those reading it. You never had a post that was a 95% from a previous message by someone and a reply that said "yes" as the only new and original words. It defined the sandbox we all played in. We called it ...
Internet Etiquette... or Netiquette
I think these are good guidelines that people would be good to abide by as it promotes respectability among others that don't necessarily think the same way as themselves. Now, for the reason of saving some space, some Netiquette Points have one or more paragraphs explaining them that I might cut out from this blog as it is a point that really isn't relative to conversations these days. If this is so.. you'll see a --snip-- beside the point.
Of the guidelines below, they are listed from #1 - #13 and then there are *other considerations* that are listed from A - G. I think that everything below is good general rules for debate.
The one that I see below that is violated the most is usually the 'other guideline E'. Where it talks about 'are you posting an opinion on the topic?' -or- 'have you become the topic?' I've written about opinions before in my blog about 'Judge and Judging' so you should have an idea of how I think on the matter.
The way I see the dominant media culture these days, is that they can't KEEP TO THE SUBJECT (topic). Back in the days of the mailing list, when there was a particular passionate subject being discussed, eventually tempers would flare and bad words would come out, and people would start to insult the *person* that has a different opinion and attempt to put them in a darker light because ... simply... they have ran out of intelligent arguments to debate the other position. They either run out of facts, ideas, notions, etc, etc, etc... they get desperate and they then feel a need to somehow bring the other messenger down because they can't combat the point given with something real, tangible, and with great flair and understanding to bring others into their corner.
The person attempting to put the others into a bad light, willfully make the other people the subject matter of the topic. Which takes the subject off of it's focus. When this happens, the moderators would have to step in, slap the person(s) on the mailing list with a warning and tell them their error that they've gone off topic and are making this a venomous argument wanting to combat the person and not the persons ideas. To be formally followed with apologies.
The same thing happens with the dominant media culture. How many times have they personally attacked those that are giving their opinions? They don't do a good job at refuting the opinions, but they sure want you to know that that person is a no-gooder type person. They'll do anything to cast a bad light upon the object of their disdain. They'll say they drive gas-guzzling cars, eat trans fat foods, expel too much flatulence helping cause a warmer climate, etc, etc, etc. These people, to the dominant media culture are the lightening rods of society. Their thoughts and ideas are not often thought of critically and dissected for anything good therein. Their ideas are normally shown to be 'stupid' and 'ridiculous' and 'full of hate'. By doing this, they show their own ignorance and lack of knowledge in the subject.
Personally, I think something good can be said about *anyone*. Maybe not much good (sometimes), but some good can be said for *everyone*. When the dominant media culture completely demonizes a person (or group of people) you know they are engaging in the same kind of activity. They can't argue logically (present debateful points against) so they must do what they can to tear the others down. If they can't bring the message down, then they feel the need to persecute the messenger.
A perfect example of the dominant media and someone that became a lightening rod literally overnight is Joe the Plumber of Ohio. A regular guy in Ohio tossing a football around in his yard when the Obama campaign came through. Eventually Obama himself came up to Joe and was given an opportunity to ask a question and then comment. Well, the rest is history. Joe the Plumber became an enemy of the dominant media culture (and the Obama campaign). The lightening bolts would surely follow sometime soon. Yep... it wasn't long before we learned about a lien on Joe's house (Joe learned of it too then). Joe's past marital life, etc. We also learned that there were un-authorized accesses into Joe's driver's record in the State of Ohio. It didn't take long before the dominant media culture had proverbially given Joe an informational examination of proctological depths. This should never happen. Joe should never have become the subject of the matter. Joes words and thoughts.. yes. Joe and his family... no. All because, what Joe said couldn't really have any real tangible arguments levied in opposing manner. The dominant media couldn't dissect Sen. Obama's words and just let them slide... so they had to discount and tear down everything humanly discoverable about Joe the Plumber.
The dominant media doesn't understand why their ratings are falling like a petrified turd in a swimming pool. Or why their like-minded newspapers have readership that is in the tank as well and might be about to go out of business. It's because of their behavior that the people of the USA that see this kind of activity and choose not to engage to choose the wares of the dominant media culture. Viewer ship goes down coupled with fewer readers. For them, they think it's a noble thing to tear down the different lightning rods that they just love to throw lightening bolts at all the time. To them, if the lightning rods didn't exist, they'd be free to think, say, and publish anything.
End of tyle ....
For your reading pleasure (if that is possible) this is the sandbox of Netiquette that we used for several years as the guidelines for conversation.
A Word about Netiquette (InterNET Etiquette)
This document isn't an attempt to squelch the expression of the different discussions of the mailing list. These guidelines are not meant to suppress good, honest, and healthy discussions and questions. Rather, they are here to promote harmony and unity among all subscribers. If a
discussion deviates outside one or more of these guidelines then the parties involved should move that discussion off this list.
Mailing List Netiquette
(This has been turned into a rant section. Do you have an email pet peeve that you see on the mailing list involving netiquette? Send it in.)
1. Does the post you're sending have "attachments"? --snip--
2. Is the post that you've sent "unbalanced" between the "old" message posted by someone else) exchange the "new" words you've added? --snip--
3. Have you captured more of the original post than is necessary?
If the first original word of your response isn't on the first page of your post, you've got a problem. Don't quote someone else's entire post to reply to it. Simply copy the relevant parts. Many mailers have a function that will automatically copy the entire post putting in the ">"s for you. Use this function with caution, and if you do use it, delete the irrelevant lines. It's annoying to have to page down about 4 times before you can read any fresh material. It also takes up precious disk space because it makes your post larger.
[modern note: disk space isn't the problem these days. More disk space can be found on a USB flash drive and carried in your pocket than can be found on dozens of machines back then easily. The problem now a days is people don't think critically enough about the material previously viewed, read, or otherwise digested to know how to snip the important parts out so that not everything is being fully regurgitated back in a reply. Editing skills play a large part in this.]
4. Is the title of your post consistent with the subject therein?
5. Is your signature file longer than six (4-6) lines long?
6. Would you say it to the person's face or at church sanctuary or fellowship hall?
If not, don't say it on the mailing list.
7. Are you angry?
If the primary motivation for the post is vindication or revenge, cool off first. Go kick a file cabinet, bite a sock, grab a hamburger and french fries and chocolate milk shake, eat some ice cream, have a cup of coffee, and maybe even pray before you reply.
8. Is the other guy flaunting his ignorance?
Even when someone else's argument is stupid, to tell them so rarely causes them to change their mind. Instead, they can often become defensive and flood the list with even more stupid arguments. So don't inflict that on the rest of us. The only thing worse than a stupid
argument is the defense of a stupid argument.
9. Has the message been spell-checked for errors?
Sometimes, the thought-finger coordination doesn't produce perfectly spelled documents sent to the list. We've all endured our share of typographical errors in reading and writing. Is there a spell checking function built into the emailing program? Or could the document be produced and then checked by invoking an spelling utility? It might be in your best interest to find out. Spelling errors imply that the composer may seem to be ... "not smart." I realize, that in all cases this isn't possible. But I can only think that correcting the spelling errors by re-reading the message before resending it can only help. I've heard that a good way to do that is to read the document from bottom to top while reading left to right. That might make you look
harder at what was just written so you might not miss anything.
10. Is the subject line relevant? --snip--
11. Keep subject lines up-to-date. --snip--
12. Does your posting mention Hitler? Nazis?
Godwin's Law: When Hitler or Nazis are brought up in a thread, it has been going on too long.
If someone compares you to Nazis, Pedophiles, or some other repulsive form of human being, you've won the argument, because they have nothing rational left to say. Leave it at that....
13. Does your post repeatedly bash another's opinions, integrity, or intelligence?
Such an action may result in an internalization of directed shame. We're all born in sin. And shaped in iniquity. And saved by grace. We don't need someone else (other than ourselves) heaping words that cause bad feelings. In a world that is constantly picking and tearing down common people with relentless fervor, do we need others of like interests to do the same?
Does the casting down of another's belief system put you on the pedestal of a prizefighter that's just gone for the kill? If you said it and later realized your error, would you willing and able to gather enough humility to apologize to that person and others on the mailing list?
Pastors would quote scripture saying "Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." In this case, "Out of the abundance of the heart, the fingers type." A man is defiled by what proceeds out of his mouth. Does the potential poisonous post you're about to submit reveal something that might show an inner condition of the heart that needs more attention than the submission of the post?
-------------------------other considerations-------------------------
A. Does your post contain WORDS that are in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
Caution should be used when posting in ALL CAPS because it is commonly equated to SHOUTING very loudly. Many folks can be offended by CONSTANT or ABUSE OF CAPITAL LETTERS in a MESSAGE because of its STRONG EMPHASIS.
If you want to emphasize words in a sentence. Maybe you should try using double-quote marks "like this" to draw attention, or maybe asterisks *like this*, or possibly even underscores _like this_.
There are times when writing in a CAPITAL LETTERS may be appropriate. If you need to find out how it would sound, write the message with the choice words in CAPITAL LETTERS. Then read it back to yourself. If the words or phase that is EMPHASIZED by the capital letters sounds a little peculiar when you repeat the CAPITALIZATION at a "shouted level" in your mind, it's probably too strong of an emphasis and you need to choose a different way to *emphasize* words without _shouting_ at the other members.
B. Are you monopolizing the conversation by posting too much?
Instead of replying at length to each message in a thread, compile your replies into one post. This forces you to think about such things as structure and reasoned argument as you pull together the many lines of thought in a thread. It is also much more pleasant to read.
C. Are you writing to the list, or just agreeing with the sender?
If the main message of your post is to say "Amen!" or "I agree totally," please send the post privately. Readers don't usually do a tally to see how many people agree with a particular point of view. The point of posting to the mailing list is to add to a discussion, blessing people on the list, or other reasons of member edification. Sending a post that quotes someone else at length and then just saying "Amen" at the bottom does not add to the discussion. It merely adds volume to the list. If you want the person to know you support them, tell them so in private mail.
If you feel an "Amen!" is absolutely necessary, please include something fresh as to how the previous post blessed you, effected you, caused you to think more deeply about something.
D. Has someone else already said what you want to say?
Read all the posts from mailing list (at least with the subject you want to reply to) before you reply. It's nice to be the first to offer a suggestion, or make a reply, or ask a question in response to a post, but because we are all from different parts of the world and we don't all get mail at the same time it is impossible to always be first. Make sure someone hasn't beaten you to the punch, and if they have, keep quiet and just follow along in the thread until you CAN add something unique.
E. Are you posting an opinion on a topic, or have you become the topic?
F. Are you being disruptive?
G. Has the discussion ground to a halt?
Sometimes, a discussion reaches the point where it is clear that neither person is going to convince the other. It is often best, in these instances, to bow out gracefully.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Video: Health Care vids from NotSoSure.org
Ya know .. the notion of something working flawlessly to help people has a real noble sound to it. Like the current health care debate. I mean, nobody wants others to be sick and dying. And nobody wants anybody to be sick and dying for an extended period of time. Anything to help others get better and get them off of that road of un-health is what we all want, eh?
Here's a couple of videos from the fellows at notsosure.org.
The first video is about how Gov't run health care would be if we were to compare it to a Gov't run restaurant. How it'd operate, the decisions it makes, the way it handles it's customers. The thing I find astounding about the health care debate is that the gov't is trying to make a one-size-fits-all set of plans that will work for all. This country of ours, is not a one-size-fits-all country. We are individuals. We have our own minds and thoughts and ideas. To force everyone into the same health care shoebox, will force restrictions and regulations in a way we've not seen before in the civilian public that people won't like.
The second video is about 'Testing Gov't Run Health Care'. Which I say.. "Hey.. let's all look to the Veterans Administration. What do the vets think about it? The ones that are healthy.. what are their opinions? The ones that are chronically sick/injured .. what do they think?" Imagine a system similar to the Veterans Administration series of hospitals / clinics / doctors / nurses / technicians / etc that is 1000x or 10,000x larger? The little problems of the VA system will likely (when similarly implemented) will become problems that are 10,000x or 100,000x worse because these problems were never solved when the set of people that are solved is relatively small in comparison.
Here's a couple of videos from the fellows at notsosure.org.
The first video is about how Gov't run health care would be if we were to compare it to a Gov't run restaurant. How it'd operate, the decisions it makes, the way it handles it's customers. The thing I find astounding about the health care debate is that the gov't is trying to make a one-size-fits-all set of plans that will work for all. This country of ours, is not a one-size-fits-all country. We are individuals. We have our own minds and thoughts and ideas. To force everyone into the same health care shoebox, will force restrictions and regulations in a way we've not seen before in the civilian public that people won't like.
The second video is about 'Testing Gov't Run Health Care'. Which I say.. "Hey.. let's all look to the Veterans Administration. What do the vets think about it? The ones that are healthy.. what are their opinions? The ones that are chronically sick/injured .. what do they think?" Imagine a system similar to the Veterans Administration series of hospitals / clinics / doctors / nurses / technicians / etc that is 1000x or 10,000x larger? The little problems of the VA system will likely (when similarly implemented) will become problems that are 10,000x or 100,000x worse because these problems were never solved when the set of people that are solved is relatively small in comparison.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Market Cycle History 101
By now, I hope that everybody realizes that the market (stock market) cycles of the economy has a cyclic flow. In order for us to learn about what is happening *now*, we need to discover historical cycles to understand what is the potential.
O.k... basic terms. There are two animals that describe the current market (stock market). Those two animals are BEAR and BULL. They are used as a symbol of contrast because, when either of them attack an enemy, they have distinctly different ways of dealing with the object of their attention.
A BEAR will knock his enemy to the ground. Thusly, when there is recessionary times, or economists might call it a 'time of correction' as different investment vehicles get overbought and need to adjusted back downward for all of the over purchasing .. this is called a BEAR MARKET. During a BEAR MARKET time of the economy, money is tight and doesn't flow easily. Unemployment figures rise. People lose houses in foreclosure. People take jobs that they'd normally not take because it's better to have a job as a Whopper Slopper than to not have a job at all. People will struggle to make ends meet. People will do what is required to get by to the next day. In a BEAR MARKET, the stock market will have it's time of up's and downs. When you look at the chart of a bear market, you'll see that the market makes no distinctive growth over years but makes a bunch of market W's (where the shape of the letter W is how the market goes... sometimes the ending part of the W is higher than the beginning point, and sometimes it's lower) where during the time of the BEAR MARKET.. the market likely goes sideways with no real growth or decline over the time of a BEAR MARKET. If it grows during this time, the recessions therein will likely gobble up much of the growth pretty swiftly.
Conversely, a BULL will toss the enemy into the air. Thusly, when there is times of prosperity, times when money flows pretty freely from the market and businesses therein, this is called a BULL MARKET as it increases over time. Higher prices, higher-volume, etc. During a BULL MARKET, money does flow around quite easily. Unemployment is considerably rare. People are employed in the field of their choice. People will likely be buying houses. People will be enjoying the fruits of labor. The stock market, during a BULL MARKET, will have times of progressive prosperity where money is made for an extended period of time. Yes there will be times of correction where money is lost, for the most part, it'll readjust higher than what is lost during the cycle of a BEAR MARKET.
Now, the history of the market goes back more than a century. Market cycles seem to be in ranges of years from between 16-18 years at a time. For one cycle.. it's one kind of market. For the next cycle, it is another. For our education, we'll start history around the time of the Great Depression (back to the 1930's).
From 1930 - 1948 (18 years) it's regarded as a BEAR market.
From 1948 - 1966 (18 years) it's regarded as a BULL market.
From 1966 - 1982 (16 years) it's regarded as a BEAR market.
From 1982 - 2000 (18 years) it's regarded as a BULL market.
From 2000 - ????? (16 - 18 years) a BEAR market.
So.. let's ask a question:
Q: What cycle are we currently in during 2009 and about how far into the cycle are we?
A: We are in a BEAR MARKET (a market that will go sideways, with no great gains of sustained growth). And we are likely to be in this mode for the next 7-9 years if cycles hold to their historical performance.
Does that mean people won't make money in the stock market to gain back the 30-40-50% the lost as it crashed in the latter half of 2008? I'd say, if they have the mentality of 'buy-and-hold' .. no, I don't expect they'll make any real money back from their investments until the next 7-9 years is over. It'll go up some, and down some, and up some, and down some... over and over.. but never an ever increasing basis to call it real growth.
During this time, jobs are going to mostly be going sideways as well. There will be short periods of time in it that there is some job growth. Yet, when business starts hurting (which is where 70-80% of all the jobs are located), the biggest expense to a profit is employment costs. And the largest cost to employment is the wage/salary of the employee. To preserve a profit (which is the whole reason to be in business) jobs will be eliminated. Sound familiar to what's happening today. Businesses that lose money, don't stay in business. When business can't sustain themselves, they close their doors. If the doors to a business closes, then everybody loses. If a business can continue to operate, with reduced number of employees, as painful as that sounds .. less employees and still in business is better than a business wipeout where all lose that is touched by the business.
Now, those on Wall Street are always considered to be 'Perma-BULLS', to them the market is always, or most always, or generally always looking towards growth. Which, is perfect for Wall Street because if they are looking for growth all the time, it's easier to get people to spend their money on investments in order to sell a growing investment. Never listen to the Perma-BULLS as they'll never tell you what you need to hear. They are only interested in your money and taking it. There are also people that are on the Perma-BULL side that should also never be listened to as well. These are people that are ultra-positive about trying to put forth the image of an ever-increasing economic time is... people in politics trying to promote that prosperity is soon coming because of their policies. Doesn't matter the political party in office. They'll always say things are getting better when they are in office. And things were worse under the previous fellows office. Reality is, in BEAR MARKET times (like we've been in for the last 9 years), the economy ebbs and flows according to the *now* of the time. There will be upturns/prosperity.. and there will be downturns/recession. In the current BEAR MARKET... we are experiencing a little of the bull currently.. with an upturn in the market for the last 5 months (since March 2009 .. now the beginning of August 2009). Normally, in an economic time of BEAR MARKET correction.. the bull swings normally last between 150-160 days (give or take a few days) before the market dips back down to form the last 'V' portion that makes up the last half of a 'W' (a 'W' as in the way the market would look on graph paper if you mapped out what it looks like... a letter 'W' with a *high point* followed by a slide down.. then an climb up to a point that will likely not be as high as the point of origin .. followed by another slide down and another climb back up. We normally think of a W as two V's of market activity put together side-by-side). Right now, this is where we are at. The top of a mid-bear rally before we perform a slide that will likely last a few more months.
This is why, we hear economists say that the economy is looking better.. b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but, the political party in power says that jobs might not come back until the end of this year or next year. That's because they know that the last part of this particular 'bear-market rallying *W*' has not happened yet. It's liable to go deeper (than the original dip that ended in March 2009.. maybe down to 4000 or lower) and last longer before it comes back up. Still, even if it comes back up, we have several years left in a BEAR MARKET before we get into times of prosperity.
In times when money is tight, the government should NEVER do anything to get in the way of a business making loads and loads of profit. If the government taxes business then that takes from profit. If profit goes down farther and farther. More people lose employment because a business is in the business to generate a profit. The more profit, the more the business person will want to hire more people to bring into their system to make more profit. Everybody wins! The less profit, the measures the business owner/manager has to do in order to keep a profit. Even at the expense of terminating positions of employment.
Personally, just as the sub-prime home loan started this cascade of economic failure, I wouldn't be too surprised to see the same kind of economic crisis happen with folks that are considered to be in the "rich" class of people and their mansions start to become bad real estate paper as well with foreclosures hitting their homes as well. If they used credit to buy their houses, and their cash flow is almost as tight as it is for the little guy out there, I kinda expect the same kind of mortgage crisis to hit the financial institutions with houses that have a value of more than $1M or more as foreclosures begin to rise on those that have such as well. I know this sounds gloomy, but if this happens, I expect to start hearing about it sometime in the 4th quarter of 2009. If it does, then it'll fuel a longer recessionary time where the market goes into a bearish nature longer than the last few months did when it started sliding back in the end of 2008 until March 2009.
[END NOTE: ... there's a mentality that people have a j-o-b. They'll say: "That's *my* job." No, I beg to differ with those that express that notion. The job is the employers position. You might be the one performing it at the time. To say that you have a *job*, implies you have possession and control of the *job*. And that if the job is taken from you, you are a victim from wicked hands of the employer removing it from your possession. The reality is, the position is free to come- and go- as the employer sees fit as long as the existence and performance of said job contributes to the profitability of the business. Once the job/position becomes un-profitable, then it's up to the business owner to eliminate the job/position in order to restore profitability. ]
O.k... basic terms. There are two animals that describe the current market (stock market). Those two animals are BEAR and BULL. They are used as a symbol of contrast because, when either of them attack an enemy, they have distinctly different ways of dealing with the object of their attention.
A BEAR will knock his enemy to the ground. Thusly, when there is recessionary times, or economists might call it a 'time of correction' as different investment vehicles get overbought and need to adjusted back downward for all of the over purchasing .. this is called a BEAR MARKET. During a BEAR MARKET time of the economy, money is tight and doesn't flow easily. Unemployment figures rise. People lose houses in foreclosure. People take jobs that they'd normally not take because it's better to have a job as a Whopper Slopper than to not have a job at all. People will struggle to make ends meet. People will do what is required to get by to the next day. In a BEAR MARKET, the stock market will have it's time of up's and downs. When you look at the chart of a bear market, you'll see that the market makes no distinctive growth over years but makes a bunch of market W's (where the shape of the letter W is how the market goes... sometimes the ending part of the W is higher than the beginning point, and sometimes it's lower) where during the time of the BEAR MARKET.. the market likely goes sideways with no real growth or decline over the time of a BEAR MARKET. If it grows during this time, the recessions therein will likely gobble up much of the growth pretty swiftly.
Conversely, a BULL will toss the enemy into the air. Thusly, when there is times of prosperity, times when money flows pretty freely from the market and businesses therein, this is called a BULL MARKET as it increases over time. Higher prices, higher-volume, etc. During a BULL MARKET, money does flow around quite easily. Unemployment is considerably rare. People are employed in the field of their choice. People will likely be buying houses. People will be enjoying the fruits of labor. The stock market, during a BULL MARKET, will have times of progressive prosperity where money is made for an extended period of time. Yes there will be times of correction where money is lost, for the most part, it'll readjust higher than what is lost during the cycle of a BEAR MARKET.
Now, the history of the market goes back more than a century. Market cycles seem to be in ranges of years from between 16-18 years at a time. For one cycle.. it's one kind of market. For the next cycle, it is another. For our education, we'll start history around the time of the Great Depression (back to the 1930's).
From 1930 - 1948 (18 years) it's regarded as a BEAR market.
From 1948 - 1966 (18 years) it's regarded as a BULL market.
From 1966 - 1982 (16 years) it's regarded as a BEAR market.
From 1982 - 2000 (18 years) it's regarded as a BULL market.
From 2000 - ????? (16 - 18 years) a BEAR market.
So.. let's ask a question:
Q: What cycle are we currently in during 2009 and about how far into the cycle are we?
A: We are in a BEAR MARKET (a market that will go sideways, with no great gains of sustained growth). And we are likely to be in this mode for the next 7-9 years if cycles hold to their historical performance.
Does that mean people won't make money in the stock market to gain back the 30-40-50% the lost as it crashed in the latter half of 2008? I'd say, if they have the mentality of 'buy-and-hold' .. no, I don't expect they'll make any real money back from their investments until the next 7-9 years is over. It'll go up some, and down some, and up some, and down some... over and over.. but never an ever increasing basis to call it real growth.
During this time, jobs are going to mostly be going sideways as well. There will be short periods of time in it that there is some job growth. Yet, when business starts hurting (which is where 70-80% of all the jobs are located), the biggest expense to a profit is employment costs. And the largest cost to employment is the wage/salary of the employee. To preserve a profit (which is the whole reason to be in business) jobs will be eliminated. Sound familiar to what's happening today. Businesses that lose money, don't stay in business. When business can't sustain themselves, they close their doors. If the doors to a business closes, then everybody loses. If a business can continue to operate, with reduced number of employees, as painful as that sounds .. less employees and still in business is better than a business wipeout where all lose that is touched by the business.
Now, those on Wall Street are always considered to be 'Perma-BULLS', to them the market is always, or most always, or generally always looking towards growth. Which, is perfect for Wall Street because if they are looking for growth all the time, it's easier to get people to spend their money on investments in order to sell a growing investment. Never listen to the Perma-BULLS as they'll never tell you what you need to hear. They are only interested in your money and taking it. There are also people that are on the Perma-BULL side that should also never be listened to as well. These are people that are ultra-positive about trying to put forth the image of an ever-increasing economic time is... people in politics trying to promote that prosperity is soon coming because of their policies. Doesn't matter the political party in office. They'll always say things are getting better when they are in office. And things were worse under the previous fellows office. Reality is, in BEAR MARKET times (like we've been in for the last 9 years), the economy ebbs and flows according to the *now* of the time. There will be upturns/prosperity.. and there will be downturns/recession. In the current BEAR MARKET... we are experiencing a little of the bull currently.. with an upturn in the market for the last 5 months (since March 2009 .. now the beginning of August 2009). Normally, in an economic time of BEAR MARKET correction.. the bull swings normally last between 150-160 days (give or take a few days) before the market dips back down to form the last 'V' portion that makes up the last half of a 'W' (a 'W' as in the way the market would look on graph paper if you mapped out what it looks like... a letter 'W' with a *high point* followed by a slide down.. then an climb up to a point that will likely not be as high as the point of origin .. followed by another slide down and another climb back up. We normally think of a W as two V's of market activity put together side-by-side). Right now, this is where we are at. The top of a mid-bear rally before we perform a slide that will likely last a few more months.
This is why, we hear economists say that the economy is looking better.. b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but, the political party in power says that jobs might not come back until the end of this year or next year. That's because they know that the last part of this particular 'bear-market rallying *W*' has not happened yet. It's liable to go deeper (than the original dip that ended in March 2009.. maybe down to 4000 or lower) and last longer before it comes back up. Still, even if it comes back up, we have several years left in a BEAR MARKET before we get into times of prosperity.
In times when money is tight, the government should NEVER do anything to get in the way of a business making loads and loads of profit. If the government taxes business then that takes from profit. If profit goes down farther and farther. More people lose employment because a business is in the business to generate a profit. The more profit, the more the business person will want to hire more people to bring into their system to make more profit. Everybody wins! The less profit, the measures the business owner/manager has to do in order to keep a profit. Even at the expense of terminating positions of employment.
Personally, just as the sub-prime home loan started this cascade of economic failure, I wouldn't be too surprised to see the same kind of economic crisis happen with folks that are considered to be in the "rich" class of people and their mansions start to become bad real estate paper as well with foreclosures hitting their homes as well. If they used credit to buy their houses, and their cash flow is almost as tight as it is for the little guy out there, I kinda expect the same kind of mortgage crisis to hit the financial institutions with houses that have a value of more than $1M or more as foreclosures begin to rise on those that have such as well. I know this sounds gloomy, but if this happens, I expect to start hearing about it sometime in the 4th quarter of 2009. If it does, then it'll fuel a longer recessionary time where the market goes into a bearish nature longer than the last few months did when it started sliding back in the end of 2008 until March 2009.
[END NOTE: ... there's a mentality that people have a j-o-b. They'll say: "That's *my* job." No, I beg to differ with those that express that notion. The job is the employers position. You might be the one performing it at the time. To say that you have a *job*, implies you have possession and control of the *job*. And that if the job is taken from you, you are a victim from wicked hands of the employer removing it from your possession. The reality is, the position is free to come- and go- as the employer sees fit as long as the existence and performance of said job contributes to the profitability of the business. Once the job/position becomes un-profitable, then it's up to the business owner to eliminate the job/position in order to restore profitability. ]
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