Are you sure we can afford Gay Marriage?

Understand, I am not opposed to the concept, but I never see anyone really discuss the financial ramifications of such a change to our laws.

Consider two “benefits” of anyone being able to “marry” anyone.

First, marriage then lets a spouse get health care coverage under many corporate plans.  So simply ”marrying” someone with a major illness such as aids or cancer, will get them covered.  I can imagine people offering to pay Microsoft employees to marry them to enjoy the great benefits.  Of course these people could no longer marry for love and it would disrupt a lot of our traditional society. 

Secondly, let’s imagine what happens to Social Security.  Imagine how many people will make the following deal with old single people.

You marry my grandchild, and I will marry yours!  So now each child will earn a $1500 monthly annuity for life.  Can you imagine how many people will abuse such a system?.

 I submit we should try to keep the original intent , which was to support the family unit.  Specifically such “marriage benefits” shoudl only apply when children are born or adopted into the family unit.

SKYROCKETING GOLD PRICES????

I keep hearing about the price of gold going up.  Yet, I don’t hear about mine collapses, surging demand in jewlery or electronic connectors and the like.

One cannot help but note gold rose 25% in the last year, did your 401k?, your house, your stock portfolio?

You are looking at this from the wrong direction.  Perhaps the price of gold did not actually go up at all.  After all gold is gold and we keep mining more of it.

I submit that in fact what changed is the amount of dollars required to buy that same old ounce of gold went up.  That means the sellers wanted 25% more of those pieces of paper for their ounce of gold.  Doesn’t that mean that in reality the value of your paper went down.?

What could possibly cause your paper or fiat (it is worth a dollar cause they said so by fiat) money to be worth that much less?.  Perhaps it is because more and more people are rejecting the government as credible source of determining the value of fiat money and are seeking an alternative.

So, you must ask what has to happen for me to believe a dollar is worth a dollar again?

For me it is about the government behaving like it is worth something and treating it so.  That means saving it, or at least being frugal with your spending decisions. 

If you think a dollar is going to be worth less tomorrow than today, what do you do?.  You spend it!  Isn’t that what our governement is doing, they are spending it as fast as they can.  So aren’t they in fact sending us a signal to buy gold or even silver?

Obama keeps challenging Tea Party candidates to specifically name a spending program they would like to cut.  IT IS A TRICK QUESTION!  This is because no matter what you name, you will alienate a block of voters he has bought with the program.  The answer needs to be I want to cut everything 33%.  After that I will reevaluate our priorities.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION!

NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION

 

HOPEFULLY THIS COULD BE A THOUGHT PROVING DEBATE!

 

This country was built around a rallying cry “No Taxation without Representation”.

 

Now I believe the new rallying cry should become “NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION”.

 

Fundamentally this country is built on the backs of free market workers and companies who pay taxes.  These taxes pay for our military, teachers, DMV workers, postal workers, bus drivers etc.etc.  While these groups also pay taxes they are simply returning part of the money that was paid originally by the free market workers.

So if we were to rally around “NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION” all citizens who had not yet paid a specified level of taxes would be barred from elected office.  These would be people we could believe had walked a mile in our shoes.  So people who had only worked in public service and never truly competed in the free market would be ineligible to hold office.  For them higher salaries are simple, higher taxes!  Of course, if they had such aspirations they could quit and work 5 years in the public sector.

So you say what about spouses who don’t work?.  Obviously households consist of more than one person.  Clearly a spouse (gay or not) who was part of a free market household would qualify. 

What about military?  Obviously no other form of government service is revered as highly as military service.   Even better the leadership lessons learned here carry over exceptionally well into both the public and private sector.  BUT, I would again submit coming right out of just a military background into public service would be too abrupt.  I still submit that 5 years of private sector experience should be a requisite for public service.

Now for the really difficult question.  What level of public service would you have to perform to qualify for public office?  Should  5 years as a gas station attendant suffice to become a Senator.?  While I embrace the story of every child being told you can grow up to become president, simply getting votes from your peers is not enough.  We need some form of filter to ensure the requisite skills.  Education by itself is not enough.  I submit having to earn a living in a competitive environment should be a required skill set.  

I would propose the filter should be you cannot run for any office that pays more than 15% of the  average of your previous two years income.   So this rule would still enable people to work 5 years at a lower wage and become a career politician.  But they would have to work their way up.  City councils, mayors, state representation first.  Alternatively private sector professionals earning $150k would immediately qualify to run for national office.

Alternatively, owners of large farms or commercial properties could qualify by counting their real estate taxes as part of the qualification. 

 

While this sounds like only successful people would serve, it also means that such people were forfeiting something to go into public service.  I believe the results would be better  than the ones we see now.

 

P.S.  People frequently ask me about term limits.  I am in favor of them, but not for POLITICIANS.  Rather, I believe we should term limit employees of professional lobbying organizations.  Ex public service people should not be allowed to join such organizations for a period equal to their public service record.  If we actually put in term limits on politicians, the newbies would be “prey” for these professional organizations.

What is wrong with “HOPE and CHANGE”

This was a great phrase that elected Barack Obama.  It is what I call a 1st order line.  Meaning it sounds good on the surface the the 2nd order effects are devasting.

Think about this from a business perspective.  Would you want to have your CEO come to a board meeting and say “I HOPE to do better next year”.  Of course not. 

 How about “next years results will “change” from this years results”.  You would show them the door.

 In either case my experience says this type of CEO would be replaced instantly, I know I have seen it happen.

What we really want is a dialog for Americans that replaces the word “hope” with th word “plan”.  Would it not be refreshing to hear “I have a plan” .  Even better unlike jerry Brown who said elect me and I will tell you the plan, a leader simply says here it is. 

 Now the goal of any plan is not to effect “change” but rather to effect improvement.  So let’s learn to challenge the word change with IMPROVEMENT, after all that is what every American should seek.  Improvement in jobs, housing, economy, security,education and even our health.

Until we demand our leaders how us the plan and what measureable improvements will result we should continue to throw them out, just as any comeptent Board of Directors would do. 

Goodbye Barack, Goodbye incumbents of both parties

FIXING AMERICA BLAH BLAH BLAH

There is a never ending diatribe about all the problems America is facing yet noone seems to want to do anything.

Let me say this very clearly, AMERICA is under deep stress, economically, socially and politically.

Just as I once wrote about energy, there is no simple answer or idea that will have enough impact.  We need to EITHER, do everything simultaneously, or literally have another revolution as millions of people and businesses wither away.

So, the way I see it is politicians need to agree on the following framework.  Democrats need to cut social programs.  Republicans need to raise taxes and cut weapons spending.  Just the opposite of what each professes.  In fact, the only thing they seem to agree on is borrowing money from the future.

So here is how it works, for each dollar reduction in social porgrams, meaning specifically social security, obamacare, medicare, food stamps, public service pensions, and union protection delivered by Democrats, the Republicans will offer up a dollar on increased taxes such as vat on overseas built products (surcharge on shipping containers arriving?), increased income taxes, end of bailouts of wallstreet, in fact even undoing the horrible deals under Paulson, ending afghanisatan and Iraq involvments.  both groups need to deliver $1 trillion in reductions or tax increases over the next 5 years.  EACH!!!

Sure it sounds draconian, but the situation is worse.

 Now is the time to DEMAND BETTER. 

Forget HOPE, FACE REALITY. 

 Economic pain always draws interest.  The longer you put off the pain the higher the ultimate price!

Republicans are LOSING IT Again

God I hate writing this.  But the conventional wisdom is that republican politicians are going to have huge election victories this November.  After all the “polls” are all giving consistently positive results, leading talk to even take backt he ouse and Senate.

 I SAY IT IS ALL FOR NAUGHT!  RUBBISH!

 Why, because they are “peaking too early” in the cycle.  The result is goign to creeate complacency amongst constituents when they were energised 60 days ago.  After all they are making it sound like the next election is in the bag.

Even worse, disgusted far left democrats who are angry over Afghanistan, gay rights, who have basically thrown in the towel may get reenergised to vote for the “lesser of two evils”. 

Just a small shift of either or both of the above will lose whatever lead the Republicans think they have. 

At the end of the day, what many of us want is gridlock.  After all that means minimal new spending.  Whether it is mountains of money to bankers, or even bigger mountains to people who hate bankers, most of us just want it to stop.

As far as incumbent backlash goes, sure but I want your incumbent out not mine.  After all it is my incumbent’s job to bring back as much pork as possible and the more seniority the more pork I get.

All I can say to everyone who is in “shock and awe” over this hopey changy thing don’t count your chickens just yet.

Republicans Versus Democrats

I used to be a Republican but no more.  I am not a Democrat either.  The problem is they have become two sides of the same coin.  Basically both simply propose to borrow money from the future to pay for their programs today.

 While democrats have always believed in borrowing to promote a better society, republicans before Nixon were the more financially responsible. 

Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty was simply borrow money to fund welfare.  Fine, that is what democrats do.

But, it was Nixon who decimated the future of our currency by taking it off the gold standard ebabling the ulimited printing we see today.

It was Reagan who financed tax cuts with debt.  Supply side economics is simply “Wimpy” economics from the Popeye cartoons.  Bascially, it is “I will happily take a hamburger today and promise to pay you next tuesday”.  I have tried that in every store I have ever visited and they all laughed me out.  Yet we continue to tolerate politicians who propose this every day.

Here is the reality of what we need to do in America, yet we are past the point of voting for it as it means pain for everyone.  Everyone would prefer to hope a miracle happens and dump it on future generations.  But here goes anyway.

 1.  Eliminate the mortgage interest deduction on home mortgages above $200k.

2.  Cut all city state and federal worker pay 30%.  this needs to be phased in over time, maybe 1% a month for the next 30 months?  There is no doubt there are plenty of people ready to fill these jobs if they quit.

3.  Replace all government pension programs with the Utah Model , i.e. not defined benefit but defined contributions.  the government cannot guarantee returns nor can anyone else.

4.  Raise the Social security age by three months every year in perpetuity.  So in ten years the retirement age will move from 67 to 71.  In 20 years it will be 75 etc.

5.  Create medical liability accounts for illegal visitors who need medical care by their DNA.  Deny citizenship to anyone who has a financial liability for previous medical care.  Once this is settled they are eleigible. Of course if they return home we have no recourse but they can no longer visit again.

 6.  Abolish Obamacare and any other program that proposes to tax someone for not buying something. 

a.  I am still amazed that people 18-35 who don’t normally buy health care because they don’t need it, don’t realize this is designed to tax them mostly!  Like social security this group is getting dumped on ever increasing burdens from the generations above them.  More than anyone else they should be fighting deficit spending.

7.  Change our defense spending strategy to better reflect the world today.  No more big weapons systems.  Rather low cost, highly deployable mass produced weapons at low cost.  Think bees not eagles.

8.  Eliminate unemployment benfits for government workers.  This can be replaced with “maker” jobs.  They can be given exlcusive rights to sell food stuffs or merchandise at locations currently owned by the government.  We all know a hot dog cart can be worth $1.0 million in the right location in NY.  Beaches, parks etc.  Back to the old adage of “Teach a man to Fish”.

9.  Increase incentives for corporations to pay dividends to individuals, by eliminating double taxation.  Basically make dividends tax deductible to the corporation or tax free to the individual. 

10.  No taxes on profits from exports on products built in America.  This means software is taxable unless it is produced in America, not India. 

11.  Oh yeah term limits…Without it Americans will continue to believe all politicians are crooks. After all, they get elected poor and come out rich!

12.  No longer allow unionization of government workers.

Once we do the above list I will provide the next twelve items..