Why do we do what we do??? Part 4

My dear friends and readers,

Just yesterday I heard a "talking head" (a woman) saying that in her opinion we should do away with Social Security.

I almost dropped my teeth out..(and I don't have false teeth...)

We have all heard about the small businesses telling most of the people who work for them that they (employers) don't need to pay retirement benefits BECAUSE THE EMPLOYEES ALL GET SOCIAL SECURITY! If that's true, and how many millions of Americans have been treated this way for so many years, why then does the tea party'ers want to do away with Social Security?

Don't they realize that without that social security safety net no one could afford to take ANY job unless retirement benefits (such as 401Ks or even simple IRAs) were offered...and that will wind up costing the small businesses MUCH MORE than they now pay into S.S..

Of course it's not true that no one will ever take a job like that. There are always desperate people, but I believe that those days are fast ending....either we'll have forced retirement payments as well as health care...I know how popular that will be....if S.S. is ever dissolved.

The other alternative is almost too terrible to mention, but I will since some of you guys haven't a clue what I'm talking about.

That is a revolution, anarchy, rioting, destroying property (all the things that people who actually have nice things dread.)

I'm not threatening.

Some of my friends are quick to take offense and say that I am threatening them with this scenario. To the contrary....but as I discussed previously, when our social system breaks down, or is destroyed by well meaning "tea party'ers " or whoever, poor people will get hungry, and and the missions and soup kitchens will soon be over loaded. Many will be sleeping under bridges, and in card board boxes....since they can't afford houses...even rentals. Maybe not immediately, but soon crime will start dramatically rising...overwhelming the police forces. Hungry people will start stealing food. That's when rioting begins. Hungry Americans will eventually get angry.

Then our government will be in the position of many middle eastern dictators. We will start shooting our own people. And in the case of our country, the people will start shooting back.

Even poor people in this country have some kind of weapons....

Again, I'm not threatening, just predicting what will happen when Social Security and welfare are cut off to make the small businesses and the tea party happy.

Even Thomas Jefferson realized this was a possibility, " a little revolution....now and then..."

We have progressed way down the road. We must realize that the people have paid into social security....if the government has stolen that money and spent it elsewhere, the government must pay back.....MUST! It is a contract with the American people that must never be violated.

I personally don't know why these tea party'ers don't realize this. What do they think the people who are depending on this social system will do?

Don't they have any family that receives Social Security? I find that hard to believe.

On another note, why is it that the ACLU is going to sue Florida for it's stand on illegal immigration? Don't they realize that illegal aliens are working at some kind of jobs, which is why they are here in the first place? Since it's jobs we need, just maybe it would be prudent to ship a few millions of these illegals back across our borders making more jobs available for those citizens who need work. I don't want to say "Americans" because technically, central americans and Mexicans are AMERICANS too, just not United States Citizens.

Our government still wants to play politics with these people. Make no mistake, the Dems want more Hispanic voters, since they overwhelmingly vote Democrat, while the GOP has finally realized their mistake (because it was President Bush who first had the opportunity to stop illegal human traffic and did nothing) now that they see where these potential voters are headed.

I could almost laugh, if I weren't crying so hard.

By the way, when will we finally get the idea that every dollar paid in wages must have Social Security paid on it. No more limit on the high end. If you make $100,000 or more a year, you must pay social security on that whole amount. That new process alone will go a long way to building up the s.s. fund....and also the government must pay back the amount that it has raided for years.

We will again be solvent. This isn't the fault of the system....it is the fault of the government stealing OUR money.

That's enough to make me angry...I hope it does you, too.!!!

Thanks for listening

HSD

Why do we do what we do, Part #3

Well, folks, I hope you have started back at my very first blog and are now up on the power curve of my thoughts. As I write this, the stock markets (world wide) are crashing and ours is obliged to do the same.

The people may not have to power to make the hard changes politically to drag jobs back to our shores, but they do know that they are losing their hard earned retirement money and savings as the markets keep on diving. Sad to say I am right in there with them. What little my family has saved is slowly swirling down the drain. We have two choices, sweat it out and hold what you've got, or SELL, SELL, SELL....the latter is usually the worst thing to do, but I fully understand if panic sets in. IN fact, by having a small stash of cash in you accounts, the time to buy is usually after the smoke clears and the markets bottom out.

I hope that you guys have put a good deal of your savings into treasury strips (small parts of Treasury bonds) or at least into blue chip bond funds, which, while they will fluctuate in price on a daily basis, if held to maturity, will pay off. Good luck if you haven't done this.

Unfortunately, most stock brokers have forgotten the basic principals of their craft.

I call to mind the pyramid of investing. The bottom (the broadest (and largest) base, should have to most secure and safest investments, then on top the most risky and smallest part of your investments. Most financial "experts" have totally forgotten about this.

All NASD licensed registered reps. are taught that they MUST do what is in the investor's best interest...and to stay within their (the customer's) risk tolerance. But in actuality, they (brokers) usually want the investor to risk a larger portion of their accounts (be that a retirement acct.or basic stock purchase acct.) that will give a higher yield (while at the same time involve considerably more risk). Sad to say, We Americans are the world's worst investors and savers.

We usually wait until the last possible minute to start saving and therefore are almost forced into risker investments to reach their investment goals. My advice is to stick with the fundamentals and don't get greedy. Start saving with your first paying job....even cutting grass. Put some small portion aside.....you'll be glad you did.

Also, as the investor gets older, their ability to re-gain or re-earn losses in investments is reduced, therefore they should be investing in more and more secure investments. These probably won't be as exciting, but are far more likely to be there when needed. Every few years every investor should (I could say,"MUST") reevaluate their investments to determine if the investments are still within their new more conservative risk tolerance. There are lot of smart investors that almost never do this.

If you haven't read my first two blogs, I highly recommend you to check them out, and just possibly you will have a greater understanding of why we are in a financial crisis and at least one idea of how we could get out of this.

My best to you all.

HSD

Why do we do what we do? Part 2

OMG! It turns out that there is another "Economics 101" by another Hal.

So let's set the story straight, if not for me then for the "other Hal". I am Hal Dumas (please note my email address). I live in Lincoln, NE. I have had a lot of "world experience" that is, traveled all over the world, served in the U.S. Navy (22 years) , been a farmer (winter wheat and fruit trees), Licensed as an NASD registered rep. (that means stock broker). I worked at NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA. for about 3 AND A HALF YEARS as a "contract" mission controller for Pioneer Deep Space Project, and observed Halley's Comets, attended several colleges, including De Anza in Cupertino, CA, and graduated from Doane College in 1995, GPA 3.58...

This information should separate me from any other "Hal" who wants to discuss economics, and where we (as a country) are headed, or might be headed.

Now back to "Why do we do what we do" Part 2.

BY the way, I have noticed after rereading my first blog that there are a few type-o's which I apologize for...I will try to keep them to a very minimum.

So here we are.....15-20 million Americans looking for work, and some of us taking lousy minimum wage jobs just to pay the mortgages and feed our families. Many people who have been collecting unemployment until it ran out have "dropped off the charts" because they no longer collect government unemployment, but are still collecting food stamps, or in the case of some Nebraskans, sleeping in their cars under Lincoln's overpasses (viaducts) and standing in food lines at our missions. These people, for the most part, are not being counted as unemployed.

Not to mention the folks young and old that have simply moved in with relatives....some are young people who move back in with mom and dad, but also there are parents who are moving with their children...It works both ways. It depends on who has the jobs.

All the while the "experts" the "talking heads" are saying this is temporary. Basing their ideas on previous recessions that only lasted a few years. But guess what, this isn't the same. This is due to the fact that we have simply allowed too many manufacturing jobs to be sent overseas. There aren't enough jobs.

Hello, ivory tower, you need to go visit the people under the over passes, those standing in food lines....there are millions of people out here hurting economically. You need to do your own shopping for groceries to see just how much inflation we really do have.

Several years ago I (a 30 years GOP type) realized that the GOP wasn't my friend, and unless I was rich AND an entrepreneur they didn't give a whisker about me and mine. So in the last elections, I voted for our now President Obama, who I thought was smart and would actually figure out what we needed to do as a country to recover from this land slide of unemployment and bad economics.

The problem with this is that his ideas are based on those "talking heads" and advisers who keep saying this is temporary, and that we can spend our way out of this. Sorry, Mr. President, we have too many unemployed, too many underemployed and government projects all have to come to an end.

What we need is private industry jobs that will last for years. The question is,"How do we get those jobs."

Remember I said before, the brainwashers have been saying all along,"Those jobs are gone forever."

Only an overall look at the foreign manufacturers building cars here tells us that those jobs really can come back to our shores.

Now, to digress a little. You might , by now, be thinking ,"So what." A bunch of blue collars out of work. How does that effect me? Well, it might interest you to know that there are many people who really don't want to start their own business. They don't want to take the risks involved in going into massive debt to start a little business of their own. And there are millions of them out here.

My own father went bankrupt twice and basically struggled all his life to "be independent."

He really couldn't bring himself to work for someone else after WW II. So his family (and he) suffered.

I am not slamming entrepreneurs, they really are great. People who started Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook all are great...and they (for the most part) pay their employees well. Unfortunately they are the exception. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses (hiring millions) want the cheapest labor they can get. They don't want to pay benefits, because if an employee gets sick, they simply go find another out of work sucker who will work hard for near starvation wages.

It is really sad when those employers are looked at by the government (and of course the talking heads) as the salvation of America because they do hire people. A lot of those hires are due to turnovers. Does the government really think that starvation wages are a good thing? We are more and more becoming an nation of UNDER-employed people.

By the way unemployment and underemployment lead to many other social ills. Higher stress levels and frustration means more family violence, crimes like robbery and theft, and of course more people turning to drugs out of desperation. Our children are not being supervised because Mom and Dad are both working two jobs trying to maintain what little standard of living they have.

This is not a pretty picture, not to mention the reality and possibility of our welfare/social system breaking down and rioting, anarchy, chaos taking over if our people are hungry AND ANGRY, as mentioned by the Mayor of NYC....or was it the Governor? I forget which.

Woe to America if this happens.

SO it is important that we really really look for a way out of this steep downhill "slippery sloop we have gotten ourselves on.

HERE'S A WORKABLE SOLUTION

I am sorry that for all the brainpower in this country so few people have any real ideas on how to solve the problem. Part of this is that they have also been "brainwashed" by the slogans," Those jobs are gone forever" and "Americans don't really want to work."

It time to take drastic action, It's time to think outside of the box.....and like Obama said at the U.N. general assembly, make the hard choices.

WE have asked American industry repeatedly to bring back jobs. To re-open factories....but they won't do this voluntarily. They are making too much money having the Chinese (and others) work for cheap labor. And even changing EPA regulations isn't going to work.

We have seen that foreign companies can come here, deal with OUR regulations, and still manufacture cars. No, we must have a tremendous change in policy that affects ALL importers, but especially the American corporations that manufacture outside our borders. They have enjoyed having their corporate offices in this great country with good roads, good electricity, clean water, basically great infrastructure, while paying themselves huge salaries.

Obama (or our next President, if he loses) must (notice I said MUST!) announce that we are in an National Economic Emergency, thereby giving him (the President) the temporary powers to change policy.

By the way, policy change is cheap. Not a lot of tax dollars are required to change policy.

He must require that ALL imports have 50% manufacture here in the U.S. by American workers. This isn't going to stop us doing business with other countries. It isn't isolationism.

AND it will work....just look at BMW, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, etc. etc. They have made it work.

I know this will cause a huge outcry from all those companies that have for years closed factories, put Americans out of work, but it has to be done. Too few decent jobs mean too few Americans can purchase the stuff we import....that in itself should get their attention.

The benefits are obvious. New construction of new factories, rehab. of old factories will give a huge boost to the construction industry. This alone will employ many thousands of Americans for the many years into the future. As factories open, millions of Americans will find reasonable jobs, at reasonable wages and benefits. As these people collect their wages they will also pay taxes in to the system....instead of collecting unemployment (or other social benefits such as welfare.)

They will start to buy homes again, boosting our crushed real estate market. Banks will have confidence to loan money again since jobs are plentiful and risk to lenders is lowered.

Once again, the American dream will become a possibility, not just a nightmare.

Of course there will be the nay-sayers. But as this new policy begins to succeed they will fade away. Well, maybe not all the nay-sayers. Some people make a living being nay-sayers. For them, I hope they can find work in some nice food service industry, perhaps McDonald's.

Will there be fries with that B.S.? I can only hope..

Last of all, we need to stop lying to the American people. Our politicians have rigged the statistics of inflation and unemployment so that we do not get a true picture. If we did we would all be much more upset than we are now. We need to take the borrowing of government out of huge funds like Social Security. This is the safety net that so many Americans are depending on, since, after all they work for so many small businesses that pay no benefits like retirement or healthcare Ins., and if they had no Social Security we'd soon be swamped with welfare (which is directly supported by our tax dollars. At least Social Security has had people paying into that system. Oh, and by the way, we should stop putting a limit on how much S.S. taxes we collect. If someone makes $200,000 per year, they should pay S.S. on the entire amount. Now, I think it's capped at a little over $100,000 of income per years. This change would in the long run make a huge difference in the solvency of this system. And of course, we can't allow some groups (like the Postal Service and Congress for example) not to pay into the system.

I welcome anyone's comments....and suggestions. There must be at least a few thousand other ideas on how to save our economy.

Thanks for listening.

HSD

Why do we do what we do?

You guys must know by now that the whole economics mess has been brought on by.....wait for it.....our selves...at least by our government, our corporations, and worst of all by our own greed.

30 years ago we started importing Japanese cars in mass. As time went on, other corporations said,"Hey, we can get stuff made in foreign countries cheaper than here...sooooo let's close our factory and (while keeping our corporate offices here) move manufacturing to (where ever) ,

Taiwan, Thailand, and of course China.

This worked pretty well for a while. Ever factory that closed said to it's laid off workers, "Just go down the street, and you'll find another factory job..." and at first this worked. (More on this later)

Also we started talking about "Free Trade" which sounded really good to most of us...since the very definition says that we can sell our products without barriers just as other countries can sell things here (without barriers). Only most other countries didn't want a two way street. They wanted to sell here, but not compete with our products in their economy.

Many countries got really creative in finding obscure ways to block our products. Japan is one of the most resourceful at finding ways to block our products, especially ag products.

Our country (for the most part) has been very lame in forcing "free trade" issues.

For example, the V.A.T. tax (value added tax) has been around forever. Basically it says that imported products must compete with our products and therefore we'll make them more expensive so our products are cheaper.

So basically we (U.S.) being the consumer nation, allowed trade even though it wasn't free or fair for our products. AND in addition the corporations discovered that not only did they save huge amounts of money in lower labor costs, but also most of these "third world" countries had little or no environmental protection and their manufacturing practices went on nearly forever dumping toxic waste into the ground, rivers and of course the ocean like there was no tomorrow...and pretty much there is "no tomorrow" in many cases because people are getting sick and the food (like fish) are contaminated. Great! Right? But what do we care? It's not going to affect OUR fish...our food... or is it? (More on this later)

Now back to the laid off workers. At first, most workers either took early retirement or....they found nice factory jobs with fair pay and some benefits elsewhere. But gradually, nevy gradually, those "nice" fair paying jobs with benefits got scarcer and scarcer.

All the while, our government kept saying we need to retrain workers to compete. Only as we trained workers in electronics, those jobs were soon shipped over seas too. Some were able to go into I.T. jobs, and some institutions began teaching and training "software engineers" who aren't really engineers. Most wouldn't be able to do simple calculus or work with physics like a traditional engineer actually does. And of course there were lots of design engineering jobs still around....so the real engineers found very good jobs...with very good benefits.

As an Engineer myself, I am NOT slamming engineers (or ever "Microsoft Engineers" who maintain our computers and software) There is a place for all of those....and I'm very glad that THEY at least are mostly employed and doing well.

Then when jobs started getting really tight, the "talking heads" came out with the old (mostly bull-s--t) slogans like "Those jobs are gone forever." and "American don't really want to work."

Oh, my...That really P.O.ed a lot of honest hard working Americans off. But what are you going to do. Suck it up and keep looking for work.

This situation really benefited one group of people above all others. It benefited the really small businesses. They got the pick of the litter for employees. Hungry people desperately looking for work, often willing to work for little or nothing....with NO BENEFITS, often part time and/or temporary labor. The more people who were laid off the easier it has been for these businesses to find super over-qualified workers to man their businesses. Probably the worst offenders are the "Gas and Shop" type stores that want to pay just above minimum wage (and NO Benefits) to their workers, while they themselves (the owners usually of more than one store) get rich from their profits. Oh, and by the way, they are the first to squawk when the government "intrudes" in stuff like environmental issues...

So now here we are, years later, and we have reached the tipping point about five years ago, where there are too few jobs and too many workers. And we are still hearing Americans don't want to work....

BUT WAIT! BMW, Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and Kia all have factories here in our country. They are hiring (shock, shock) Americans to build approximately 50% of the cars sold here by these countries. Of course they aren't paying UAW wages, but they do seem to be paying fair wages and some benefits. Imagine that! And they are apparently making a profit.

AND, and this is going to really slay all of you, these foreign corporations are doing business with all OUR REGULATIONS that all the American companies keep saying they can't do business because of.

Well, I'll be damned!!! Maybe Americans really do want to work, and maybe all those jobs that were NEVER COMING BACK are actually coming back.

Now here is the funny part. There are literally hundreds (no, more like thousands ) of talking heads (by the way they are all making handsome salaries) that haven't a clue about how to get our economy going again. I have waited and waited and it's like the 800 pound gorilla in the room...no one wants to touch this "third rail" . But there are a couple of very good ideas that are out here that would work, once we stop saying this crap about Americans don't want to work and jobs that are never coming back.

If you believe these you are brainwashed, plain and simple.

Americans do want to work but in order to exist in this country (if you don't want to live in cardboard boxes and flattened beer cans for houses) then you must have a sufficient income to pay for the mortgages, food, energy so that your family can live reasonably well...save for a future retirement and college for your kids, etc. etc.

The Mayor of New York has already told us what might happen if the United States were to breakdown into anarchy and chaos. Hungry Americans on a rampage wouldn't be a pretty sight.

We really really don't want to go there.

Now later.