Shall we take the next step into the next century?

The big election is upon us, people who never voted before are waiting in line for hours to vote early, and the choice has never been more important. I have heard a lot of talk through the years about there being very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Not this time Obama and McCain could not be more different if they tried. The consequences of Americas choice could not be more severe if we make the wrong choice.

Rush Limbaugh Republicans who are addicted to the propaganda on talk/hate radio truly believe that asking wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share of tax's is the first step down the road of socialism. Even after they have watched their 401ks and IRAs melt away they still refuse to acknowledge they have been ripped off by the very people they truly believed were the engine of economic growth. The real howler is that they want to vote for John McCain and lose what ever they have left. Not to worry they will be put out of their misery sooner than they think because under McCain they will have no health insurance and dental insurance will be a fond memory. They will be meeting John McCain in heaven because he does not look like he will survive his first term. Heil Frau Palin.

The Obamites will have their own version of hell to live with as all the different groups of Americans voting for him have very different expectations of what he will deliver. the first item Barack Obama is going to have to deliver is jobs. The economy is slowing fast you can almost hear the tires screeching. The public is going to be scared and angry when the layoffs start and do not stop that includes Joe the Plumber and Joe six pack. They will not care about party policy and economic theory when they are trying to feed their families. Believe me these people are going to be dancing to the music of the man who can give them a job.

The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are expecting a ride up. Unfortunately all they are going to have is more company at the bottom. The kind of socialism Barack Obama is going to be bringing is the New Orleans type where the poor get to live in little trailers provided by the Feds and line up for their food rations everyday. While the contractors and investors have their arms into the trough up to the shoulders. It should be interesting to see how millions of hungry homeless families and indivuals are going to define the word socialism.

Mr. Obama is also going to have to preside over the biggest technological investment and growth in history. We are stepping into a new phase of history and and it can not be stopped or slowed. Since the industrial revolution with the assembly line and the clock on the wall we have multiplied the pace of change with every generation it can not be stopped now.

The choice we face Tuesday November 4Th is to choose to be brought voluntarily into the next century and everything good and bad that is going to bring or we can be dragged in screaming kicking and fighting it. Which will only make it longer and more painful. So when you walk into the voting booth you will be walking into the future or clinging to the past like drowning man. Who ever gets elected hold on tight because the ride is just starting.

Welcome to cash country/or goodbye plastic fandango

Cash is king. That's the word on wall street or it least it is until the hyperinflation from injecting what will turn out to be more than a trillion dollars in to what has become a world economy hits like a heat wave. This is going to be a strange economic depression. Our money will be worth less , but the demand for goods will also be a lot less We already have it all. This is what happens in a cash economy the market really does regulate itself. Because there is no hallucinated wealth [credit] to distort it.

This is the big hole in Johm McCains free market theories. Giving money to individuals or small companies who in turn hand it over to big companies to build everything from houses to malls to office parks based solely on the profit made from building. With nothing more than wishful thinking about the real demand for it is so foolish as to defy belief.

This is the huge irony. In an economy based on consumption all the big multinational corporations hire marketing firms to tell them what the demand for their products. will be in the near and far future. Yet it seems to the marketing gurus that demand will always keep rising so keep it coming. The Hummer is a great example. Why would anyone think that a huge expensive truck that can carry very little would sell like Honda civics. So it was a real shock to GM executives when they ended up with thousands of unsold Hummers.

let us look at two examples of what is happening economically right now. Latino day laborers all over the country are going back home because there is no more work here. All the Starter Castles have been built. There enough people unemployed or under employed that they are doing their own gardening, cooking and cleaning their own houses, and best of all rasing their own children.

Across town banks have hired moving companies to clean out foreclosed houses. It seems shocking but understandable when you think about it. That people who are losing their homes and going bankrupt are probably going to be living in a 2 bedroom apartment and have no room for all the consumer goods they stuffed into a 3500sq ft house not to mention the garage. So these moving companies are taking furniture, electronics and everything else to landfills and burying it.

What a ironic contradiction. The people at the bottom are in a depression just like the 1930s and so are the people in the upper middle class too. The middle class is hanging on because they bought houses and cars they could afford and have some real job skills. Just like in the Great Depression people will have to move to find work. Oh do not worry the rich are still rich, just not as rich.

So in the cash economy it does not matter if you do not have a credit card because you went bankrupt or you have a credit card but you are not using it because you are afraid of going bankrupt the effect is the same. No more economy based on ever increasing consumption, and what an economy it will be.

Here are some of the positive effects. The immigration problem will solve itself. No more work illegale immigrants will go back home. More leisure time. If we are not out spending like drunken sailors on leave and working like Hebrew slaves to pay for it all. Perhaps we will spend more time doing the activities we really enjoy. Reconnect with family and friends since we will not be playing the keeping up with the Jone's game anymore. Oh and the cost of higher eduction will come down to where people can really afford it. Which means more people will be going to or back to college. That is good for the whole country. Perhaps we will even start to manufacture our own trade goods again. What a novel idea.

We are Americans and we have had enough of the positive thinking and attuide propaganda all our lives that we will be able to make lemonade out all these economic lemons we are getting and will continue to get for years to come. Welcome to cash country my Friends. :-)

those orginal recipe chickens are coming home to roost

The wall street meltdown that all the Internet gurus have been predicting for at least two years, and been timing it down to the very day the past year has happened. The drive by media of course just discovered this fresh crisis when Bernake and Paulson started flipping out, and went public with the truth. So now we have the 24/7 CNN death watch on wall street, Fox news Nazis are spinning the whole crisis and blaming it on the liberal congress. Which is a real howler.

There are many people responsible for this mess. The list is long it is filled with faceless federal administrators who should have been overseeing all this . The list also includes the CEOs of the banks and investment houses going broke. Who knew all along the Geo.Bush and real president Dick Cheney would bail them out. While all the wall street royalty are getting golden parachutes and blaming everyone else. So their feelings will not be hurt and they will not have to admit failure. The rest of us are watching our houses become worthless and the real dollar value of our retirement funds melt away. What a cruel irony.

A recent poll states most Americans are oblivious to the wall street melt down. The poll also states that is is because it is to complicated for most Americans to understand. Bullspit. The average American understands very well what is going on, but there is nothing the average American can do about it. Everyone is betting on the next president. People who vote and there are many more each election. Know this is very critical choice.

No matter what you may think or feel about Obama and McCain Americas choice is going to really change the future this time. The real answer is jobs. The republicans say the government can not create jobs. Well the Republican presidents we keep electing have helped send millions of American jobs out of the country. How about putting Americans to work.

When are we as a nation and a culture through our elected Representatives going to make corporations and their God-Almighty CEOs understand they do not run this country. When are we going to stand up and make our elected government put Americans first. That's right, Put the people who live in this country who work and pay tax's and abide by the law first. That is the person we should be voting for.

A couple of side notes: Pollsters complain they are having a hard time judging the accuracy of the polls regarding racism in this country because white people are not honest with the pollsters and do not revel how they really feel. My question is. Is that not what we have been trained to do? How many times have white people seen and felt that they have been victims of reverse racism, and could do nothing about it.

Dick Cheney lost in court. The court decided he can not make up the law as it suits him. That he has to make public all his records as vice-president. His argument was that the vice-president is exempt from the laws that govern the president, because the vice- president is actually the chief of the senate. What has this megalomaniac got to hide?

Geo. Bush not to be out done went to court to fight releasing the visitors logs for the white house. He lost, but again the question screams for an answer. What do these men have to hide? We have a right to know!

and the band played on

The 2008 democratic convention was supposed to be a celebration of 46 years of hard work that made Martin Luther Kings Dream real, the nomination of the first African American president. The funny thing about dreams is they never turn out the way we think they should.

I tuned into the democratic convention quite a few times last week.It was like a birthday party where the guest of honor never shows up. Michelle Obama jetted in gave a speech and jetted out again. Barak appeared for a few minutes on a huge TV screen. He stopped by to pick up his nomination. Next time we see him is at mile high stadium. We were all grateful he could spare us an hour. Is this what MLK would have done?

Back to the convention most of the time there was a large and very talented band playing with appearances by many young and popular singers. The convention was very segregated with people who boogied in the aisles and talked about the quality of the buffets at the hotels. What ever happened to hammering out the partys platform?

The segregation went like this . The rich liberals who were there because they believed in principles and something more than money for nothing , chicks for free. They were not as interesting as what was going on the convention hall itself. There was a huge section of Hilary people who were taking a dose of medicine named Barak Obama and they were not liking it. The most interesting dynamic was the white Barak Obama supporters and the African American supporters. Both sides are crazy for Barack, but both have very different expectations of what he is going to do for them. This was not Chicago 1968 where the feeling was it is the people against the establishment. This is 2008 and the feeling is what is in this for me. Funny how people change.

It is easy to understand why Barak skipped the convention. The Democratic party has become the party of victimolgy. It is the party of many different groups who each have one issue. Gay rights, Black rights and anything else you can think of. I got some news for the Democrats, We won the race everyone has their rights and those rights are fully protected by the law. It is time to move on. Barak knows this and the democrats had better know it or they will keep losing elections.

Now John McCain has picked a VP that I think really represents the ideals of the Republican party. The Republican leadership assumes that the only reason that women voted for Hilary is because she is a woman, and that they are so stupid they will vote for any woman, but being extra clever they made her young and pretty so the stupid men who voted for Hilary will vote for her too. It is beyond the comprhension of the Republicans that people really liked Hilary and felt after 20 years of hard work she deserved to be president.

This is so typical of the republicans. All sizzle and no steak. Short term patching instead of long term solutions, slogans instead of truth. when you see the pictures of John McCain and Sarah Palin together it looks like a promo for a network TV show. Old man and young pretty woman. Right now she is McCains arm candy, but who will turn out to be smart , vibrant and witty. There is only one thing wrong with this pretty picture. This is not TV this is real life.

America is going through tough times and it is going to get worse before it gets better. We need courageous leadership and a real change in the way we live and work in America. It will be interesting to see what happens November 4th. Will it be a subtle shift or a major change?

virtual education the conservative dream

People like to talk about the way it used to be. These people are not always wrong about the past. For the past 4 decades schools have been slowly cutting back on programs for students. Of course this is not the way it is explained. The educational poobahs Have a lot of great new programs to cover up the fact that less education is being provided.

This is happening because of a subtle shift. The idea of public education is a fairly new idea in America. It is only about 150 years old. Public education used to mean the government provided a school and teachers. Your child came and learned, if your child did not learn that was the parents problem and ultimately the students problem.

Over the past four decades and especially Geo Bush's No Child Left Behind law. Schools have now been forced to accept the responsibility for the problem of kids who will not learn. Which is a problem that can only be solved by the student and his family. This in addition to the fact that every student is an individual who is better in some subjects than others. This is a hard fact to accept in an educational system who's mantra is every child can do anything if they try hard enough. I wish that was true. So school districts have tried to implement any program that can be dreamed up so every student can achieve and succeed at something. So we can have equality of outcome.

There is no such reality as equality of outcome. There is only the opportunity to improve yourself and your quality of life, and the lives of your loved ones. It does not matter where you live in the free world this truth does not change.


Let us look into the future. The two biggest expenses for any school district are teacher salaries and the physical infrastructure. Suppose in twenty five years the schools offer all their classes on the Internet. Save a lot of money that way, and deliver the educational product as a efficient and productive system that can be updated quickly and is available to all the people all the time. Sounds good!

What about those people who do not take advantage of the educational service/product being offered by the government free of charge. What happens when we have millions of people who are barely literate? Could these people be the cheap source of labor that will bring manufacturing back to America? We could have are own private Mexico right here. Which means we will also have the gangs, crime and rioting they have there.

There are no easy answers to this problem, It will be interesting to see how this shift in education will play out. This is the fascinating aspect of history. How subtle shifts cause major changes in a society, and what comes next!

the chinese century and you can take it with you

Watching the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics one could only be thoroughly impressed with the Chinese. It was a truly incredible and moving show, but it also showed us a lot about the Chinese we did not know.

There has been a lot written about the 1.3 billion people in china. Our biggest corporations have gambled a lot of time and money to the Chinese market. The old joke was that a billion people would need a lot of deodorant. Ha Ha.

Well after seeing the technology and the huge number of people who all performed flawlessly in the opening ceremony's. It is clear while we have been selling them right guard they have been developing technology way beyond anything we have, and organizing into a country that can meet the goals it sets for itself. It all began in the 1980s when we started building factories in china to build our computers. It would appear that they kept a few computers for themselves. Of course it was the height of American arrogance to think the Chinese would stay our manufacturing slave colony forever.

The 21 century belongs to china. One important reason is her enormous population. It is historical fact that for a country to prosper it needs a large, healthy, and educated population. While America has refused to consider universal care and has dumbed down public education and made Private education so expensive it has turned into a survival of the fittest scenario. The Asisn countries have done the opposite and have prospered. Perhaps instead of figuring out new ways milk every last drop of equity out of anything possible and leave only debt in our wake. We should try putting America back on track with that quaint old fashion idea " Made In America "

On a totally different subject. There has been a subtle population shift in America. As more suburban homes have gone into foreclosure. more and more of these homes have been rented to section 8 people. This has resulted in a rise in crime in what used to be expensive suburban communities. Which has resulted in lowering already falling home prices.

The main motivator in this is the federal section 8 program. Which subsidises 60% of the rent for the poor people in the program. It has the unfortunate effect of putting the local police in position of having to deal with big city crime that never would have occurred if it had not been for a federal program that gave people something they did not earn. It also puts the local school districts in a position where these districts have to deal with problem students, and more of them.

The interesting part is that the federal government has from forced busing to forced integration now to forced housing imposed programs on the states and municipalities. That only move the problems from the inner cities to the suburbs. The question " is this fair to anyone involved and has it worked " This is an issue that is at the heart of the racial problems in this country. Is this they way to solve this problem?

credit crisis/or doing the "Float"

Welcome to the credit crisis.It is the end of a long road that started in the good old days 1960-1970. It all started with the " Float ". The float was the period of time between when a bank borrowed money from the Federal Reserve and than paid it back . This normally a period of 30 days. So what ever money the bank could make in that 30 days was profit made from the " Float ". This what the IRS does with our tax refunds. The IRS keeps the excess tax it collects, Than gives it back later. The " Float works best when a big sum of money is used. That is when you can make a healthy profit. If done right with no risk.

Then came the Plastic age . The ordinary person could get a credit card and have 30 days to pay off the balance and pay no interest. It is a good deal if you can do it. finally the little guy could play the " Float " This worked especially well for small business. If they could buy merchandise and sell it with in 30 days they could pocket the profit. Like all good plans this has a flaw . It is called Reality.

The Reality that over the years Americans have become more dependent on the float for everyday living {gas and groceries}and has found it increasingly difficult to pay off the balance every month. So much for the " Float " . Our good Friends at Visa and Master charge are here to help. You can transfer your balance from the bad old high interest card to the new friendly low interest card. With Friends like these you do not need any enemies.

So it began transferring balances around never actually paying the balance off, always paying interest. Remember this easy wealth building trick. Make interest , do not pay interest, this really works ,at any income level. See it is easy to be a finical advisor . Some brokers will charge 300.00 for that kind of shrewed analysis. Anyway it is not a hard or complicated trick but, With the price of the afore mentioned gas and groceries going up at a dizzying rate. It will be even harder to pull off.

How did it get this way. Think about this, up until the 1980s most of the goods consumed in America were made in America. From industrial to personal goods, This kept a balance. We consumed about as many goods as we manufactured. By the end of the 1970s most corporations were planning on moving the manufacturing out of America, to places where labor was cheap and few if any annoying pollution laws.

The Exodus started and never stopped. helped along by President Clinton when he signed the NAFTA agreement. One can only surmise that Mr. Ross Perot has a hearing defect. That huge sucking sound he heard had been around since 1980. The sound he heard was corporate America rushing to the profit trough.

Long story short. This produced an excess of goods to be purchased. What to do, Americans still had the same amount of money. The path was clear give them more credit. Buy today , pay tomorrow. This has grown to buy now to pay next year. It resulted in people who should have never been given credit were given far to much. Home buyers were forced into paying way to much for homes. The value of the homes was based on a shortage of houses and the belief the price could only go up . So if you wanted in on this bubble you had pay ante up big time.

Well we all know how this whole credit and housing bubble is falling apart. This is one possible result. What if credit was frozen. This would be the great equalizer. Everyone from the lowest wage slave to the top 3% richest Americans depends on the " Float ". If everyone had to pay cash for everything it would slow consumption down and eventually it would come back into balance again. Remember the problem we have now it to many goods chasing to few dollars. This is called Deflation.

To base an economy on consumption was madness that the American government supported with our tax dollars. Corporate America knew this could not last forever, but they wanted to milk it for every nickle of profit possible. So the coming slowdown or depression is really just a leveler to put us back in balance. It is going to be hard . Let us hope we can learn from this and come out smarter. Could be bright new future if handled right. Who can do it McCain or Obama?