How close are we to a World War?

In October of 1962 I read an article that asked the question; how close are we to war?  I was in the military at the time and I can tell you we were pretty damn close to a shooting war on three fronts.  There was of course The Cuban Missile standoff, at the same time a cat and mouse game was going on under the sea with Russia and the United States both playing a dangerous game of chess with highly armed nuclear submarines at times coming just yards from each other provoking and dodging.  Then there was a battle brewing in Viet Nam after the French pulled out.  The U.S. backed a South Korean named Ngo Dinh Diem who was not much more than a thug who had eliminated his rivals on his way to president.  The world at the time called for a nationwide Korean election but the U.S. was afraid the communists would win and fought to hold the election in just the South.  The resulting unrest in the North eventually led to a shooting war that as we all know involved losing thousands of American Troops. 

If I were to be asked the same question today I would have to say once again we are involved in the potential for  war on four fronts; Of course Afghanistan where we are totally involved but I can’t call it a war because in a war both sides are trying to eliminate each other.  In the case of Afghanistan our troops have one hand tied behind their back due to constrictions placed on them by both the Bush and Obama administrations and the Karzi regime regarding collateral damage.  Plus we have already told the enemy that we are leaving whether we win or lose.  Once again the U.S. for whatever reason has backed a thug who has little support of his people. 

The second front is Israel; it will only be a short while before the Arab Nations surrounding Israel decide that they can win against the smaller country.  By the way, aren’t we helping arm Egypt with tanks and F-16’s, a nation run by the Islamic Brotherhood who has sworn to remove Israel from the map?

The third front is Syria which will lead eventually to Iran; the U.S. is really in a pickle here as Russia has chosen to back the Syrian regime with weapons and supplies.  The only way the United States can win these conflicts is to actually be allowed to use the weapons at our disposal and fight to win.  These do not necessarily have to be nuclear arms as we have a huge arsenal of conventional weapons in our armory.  We just have to make our enemy understand we are in to win and will not hold back our military once engaged.   Our M.O. has been to hit and run in these engagements never to go for all out victory.  To the eyes of our enemy Americans have no stomach for war and will soon tire of the conflict.   Have we the people of the greatest nation ever become so weak that we are going to allow America to become a lesser nation who depends on others for survival?

I know I mentioned a fourth front, to most it is obviously Korea the most bellicose of the four.  In my opinion North Korea will saber rattle till the cows come home but will not attack in force until we are totally engaged in other parts of the world and stretched to the limit.  They may cause a ruckus on the border but China will hold them back until they consider we are so weak from the attrition of war that we can be gobbled up easily.  All this time our longtime Cold War enemy Russia sits and watches and waits. 

It is my opinion that without strong and decisive leadership in Washington we are being led into a world class trap that will be hard to get out of.  The United States must lead from the front and not allow the weaker nations of Europe to dictate our survival.

That’s my opinion, what’s yours?

When the government gets involved

When the government gets involved it tends to overkill whatever it is responding to.  When legislation is passed by Congress it then has to go to a team of regulators that create regulation to backup the laws passed.  The regulators look into every aspect of compliance and basically guess at what the result of the law will be on society as it is implemented.  Many times there are unintended consequences to these laws that have an adverse affect on the populace and do more damage than the good that was intended. 

A good example is prohibition, prohibition was suppose to bring families back together by closing the gin mills that husbands often visited on their way home from work.  It actually caused chaos thru-out the country and did more damage than good.  It proved that you can’t legislate morality, it has to be taught in the home first and foremost and that old habits are hard to break.

Another example is as Marisa Manley wrote in 1996 “Welfare laws are supposed to help the poor, yet as Charles Murray and others have documented, welfare establishes powerful, perverse incentives for families to break up, since mothers lose government money if a father is present. The poverty rate among families with a single head of household is 600 percent higher than families with two heads of household. Infant mortality is much higher among single-head-of-household families, too.”  Do you think the government planned it to be this way or is this just another example of overkill from government?
Read more from Manley: http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/why-laws-backfire/#ixzz2PYYfL0po

Another case of overkill was the arrest and confinement of the Japanese Americans during the war.  These families were uprooted from their homes and businesses in a massive sweep to rid our country of subversives.  These were law abiding citizens of the United States no different from Italians, Germans or even the Irish yet they were removed from society forcibly and many lost everything they had built up over their entire lives as they were put in internment camps by the very country they loved and supported. 

Now we have possibly largest case of overkill by the government so far as they take over the worlds greatest healthcare system.  Their intentions are supposedly good but the ultimate result is yet to be determined, so far our cost for medical insurance has skyrocketed forcing many businesses to trim their employee roster or switch them to part time to avoid the over 20,000 new regulations that have come from Washington so far.        

I remember a case of overcharging in the military when it was discovered a $14 toilet seat cost $230, this was the result of the cost to do business with the government. It was due to the massive amount of paperwork and the specs that had to be followed because of the regulations involved.  Instead of just sending a simple purchase order to a supplier to buy  toilet seats these bureaucrats felt the need to design their own.

In my opinion when government gets involved in domestic affairs things go badly.

That’s my opinion what’s yours?

How does the Federal Government earn money?

What creates revenue for the Federal Government? 

When you tax or overburden the small business community with regulations you stifle the creation of jobs which in turn lowers the income through employment tax.  Picking up the slack through additional tax on those who create jobs further depletes investment and again lowers revenue. 

When the government lowers the burden on investors and small business jobs make a comeback and it increases the revenue collected by the government.  Kennedy and Reagan both proved this by lowering taxes and creating jobs during their respective administrations.

As of today we have no sign that this administration understands this principle lesson.  There are over 20,000 new regulations coming out of Washington just for Obama-Care alone.  This is creating an over burden situation on the job creators which lowers the possibility of an increased employment picture.  Small to medium businesses create 75 to 80% of the jobs in America yet there is no small business package that is readily available to help them through these hard times.  The Green Energy program that has been supported by this administration has been wrought with corruption and failure.

They can tax us out of capitalism and create a European semi socialist style of economy without firing a shot and that’s exactly what they are doing.

Happy Easter

May the Easter Bunny fill your basket with love and happiness.

This is a day to thank +God for sharing his loving son so that we may follow in his footsteps and learn true happiness.

Korea

Let’s solve the Korean problem once and for all.  Using our stealth technology we could load the planes with millions of flyers written in Korean showing pictures of what life in the south is like and follow it up with thousands of battery operated radios tuned to South Korea and to a Radio Free Europe style broadcast and music.  Show pictures of lit up cities and wonderful work places where everyday people make livable wages.  Best of all over the palace and Army headquarters drop pictures of the 1^st strike should they get out of line and show targets on every barracks for the military, their nuclear facilities, their shipyards and the palace.  Make the common soldier aware of our capabilities.  A million man Army means nothing if they’re incapacitated.  A little reminder can sometimes go a lot farther than an idle threat.

How long will America exist as we know it?

Can we survive economically and continue to be the Super Power of the world? Can we maintain the lifestyle we are accustomed to?  I think a lot of us are beginning to wonder if we can ever go back to our prosperous, safe environment.  This is going to require real leadership from our elite chosen few and frankly I think too many of them are living in their own little utopia and have no idea what’s really going on out here in the real world.   Once a politician goes to Washington they become sheltered into the Washington world & never to have to worry personally again.  Their retirement is set, their medical is set all they have to worry about is getting elected again.  Folks at home get a little pork now and then to keep them satisfied and they hear how their representative is working hundreds of hours in their behalf. 

Who will be the next leader to break the cycle of the Nanny state?  Who will tell us the truth about what we really need to do and how will they convince the people who are reaping the benefit of the Grand Nanny that their path for America is unsustainable?   What politician on the horizon has the gift and the guts to go it alone to bring this country back to the reality of our serious situation?
Maybe the answer is to cut short the sessions of Congress in Washington and have them forced to live in the communities they came from.  Having constant access to our legislators would be a real step forward.  The Lobbyists would not have the gang to drop in on every other day and the trips to the golf course would be limited.  Representation is an honor and yet it seems we work to satisfy these few rather than the other way around.  With shorter sessions there would be less time for them to showboat and they would be forced to act rather than posture for position.  Committee’s could be handled by teleconference with buttons that go directly to a central point registering their votes and these would be displayed on the big screen in real time so all America could witness each transaction.  Of course defense items would be handled in secret. 

I’m not trying to pretend that I have all the answers, I just want to get the ball rolling back up the hill before it hits bottom.

That’s what I think, what would you like to happen?
Don

Who should have guns?

Today I would like to ask a question and hopefully get a few answers.  We’ve had some horrific shootings in the last couple of years and there has been a cry for gun control.  We all agree crazies shouldn’t own guns, right?  We all agree the criminals shouldn’t have gun rights, right?  We all agree that when guns are in a home they should be secure from children, right?

Let us say the Feinstein gets her way totally and all guns are taken away from those who have used them safely for the last 235 years.  There are only so many registered weapons in the United States and those would be the first to go , right?  Hunters would have to go to an Armory to check out their weapons in order to go hunting.  Someone has to pay for this, the guns won’t stay safely locked up unless they are under 24 hour guard, right?  Now millions of guns are already on the black market and in the streets of the U.S. , right?  These guns are going to become more and more valuable as time goes on, soon the drug cartels will be smuggling guns into the U.S. instead of out, right? 

My question is; now that you have no way to protect your family against the criminals and crazies who will still have their guns from the streets, and you have turned your cheek as long as you could as they rob you and your family blind, Will this be the safer and saner America you’re looking for?

What's happened to America the beautiful?

As I sit here and reflect on the week past I find myself with a feeling of remorse.  I have always considered myself fairly intelligent in regards to the ways of government, military protocol and commonsense.  I see none of these attributes in our present administration and the sickness is spreading to the military and other branches of government.  The terrible blast from a mishandled mortar round and our Senator from Nevada trying to blame this accident on the Sequester, the shooting at Camp Lejeune and the egotistical manner in which our boy wonder, the one with all the worldly experience, has now told the Israelis and Palestinians exactly what they needed to do.  Our guy who has never soiled his hands in anything but Chicago politics and can’t seem to solve our own problems here at home is now off spreading the wealth of his great knowledge abroad.  The Senate has passed a bill that they know will go nowhere as has the House of Representatives.  Instead of our President leading the negotiation with Congress he’s off creating more chaos.  If he leads he may actually have to take the blame for an error in judgment and he couldn’t stand for that.

Let’s look back a generation when another boy wonder Jimmy Carter threw our one ally in the Middle East, the Shaw of Iran under the bus and allowed the Khomeini regime to become entrenched in Iran.  We have been under siege since and they have grown stronger in the area spreading their sick Stone Age message through-out the entire region.  Meddling with this region when you don’t have a clue to what changes may affect the outcome is dangerous to say the least.  At least the meddling with our economy and our healthcare can be reversed with one intelligent election not swayed by lies and corruption.  We can now see the wonderful change in Egypt with the election of the Muslim Brotherhood and their vow to erase Israel from the map.  We are so impressed with President Morsi we are giving them F-16’s, tanks and Billions of dollars to hire the army to do the job. 

Our Presidents seemingly desire to turn America into a European utopia is going to backfire on those who are reaping the benefit right now.  Those who are the takers not the providers will soon see there is nothing left to take.  This country was built on the power of the people and to create that power our fore fathers handed us a Constitution that guaranteed us certain rites.  The advent of the professional politician has created an elite governing body that puts its own needs above those of the working class.  The last move is to take our rites to bear arms away just as they did in Eastern Europe, Russia and areas of South America.  This makes the people subservient to the government rather than as our government was designed to be subservient to the will of the people.  Yes in my estimation it has been a sad week and looking ahead I see more and more dysfunctional process to come. 

Those are my views, what are yours?

Semper Fi

This has been a sad week for Northern Nevada, seven of America’s finest young men were killed in an accident at the Hawthorne, Nevada Ammunition Storage facility.  Our hearts go out to the families of these Marines killed and to those who love them.  Every day our Marines risk life and limb for our security, the training they go through can be just as dangerous.  Semper Fi Marines, God bless you and hold you close and thank you for your service.

Don

What do you think is best for America

In your mind what is the most important thing effecting  our lives right now?

For many the answer will be health care, others the deficit, unemployment and still others is our involvement in Afghanistan.   In your estimation what are our elected politicians doing about the most important thing you have listed as number one? 

In my mind the answer to all of the above is full employment, stop and think about it, what does it mean when we have what the government calls full employment:  When you have everyone who wants to work working, the tax rolls bring in maximum revenue.  It means corporations are making a profit and family owned establishments who hire more employees than any other form employer are doing well, the outflow of cash from the government in the form of unemployment and welfare dependency are reduced significantly.  We don’t need more laws and regulations, to stay competitive companies are forced to include a form of healthcare for their employees and the income revenue that is based on the taxes coming into the government is increased tremendously.  A country like the United States is much less vulnerable when the economy is at it highest. 

How do we achieve this full employment?  It starts with money, ever since the banks have been forced to live in the world of new regulations and restrictions things have turned for the worse, we seem to sometimes forget that we are a capitalistic country.  These laws though well intended have had a reverse affect on business.  A businessperson normally starts with a concept, in the past he would talk to his bankers, selling them on the wisdom of his plan.  The bankers would do a risk management assessment of the plan and put a value on his idea and if they agreed it was worthy they would loan against it.  In the 60’s and 70’s the idea of the venture capitalist became the rage.  Now that the Venture Capitalist have pulled in their horns and the banks are wary because of so many new regulations, capitalization  money for new business has pretty much dried up.  In the heart of this last recession long established businesses that required flooring (loans against inventory) such as appliance companies, furniture stores and auto dealerships found themselves between a rock and a hard place due to increased equity requirements.  Many of these firms just closed their doors leaving many unemployed.

The government controls the reins on our financial recovery, if they loosen up regulations and offer tax incentives for hiring, the employers of the country would respond positively.  Many corporations are sitting on large sums of money but are afraid of the onset of Obama-care and new taxes that will require capital to survive.  I think a good government program would start with the big cities by offering extremely lucrative long term tax relief for businesses who bring manufacturing jobs back to America.  Many of the these cities have an abundance of vacant properties they could put up to encourage new investment.  It’s a double win whenever a new job is provided, first the person becomes a tax payer and secondly they’re off unemployment.  They go from being a burden on the State to an income provider for the State. If unions are to survive they need to partner with these new businesses and instead of adversarial attacks they need to become employment providers again a double win.  The Union gains membership and these companies have a long range source of workers.  

That’s what I think, what are your ideas?

Benghazi

Hi my name is Don and I guess you could call me a redneck. I live in Nevada in a rural area where we live by a code of common sense. No one could survive long in the high desert without using common sense. With that said here are a few common sense items I’d like your opinion on.

Why should we care about Benghazi? Libya is a mess at this time. There are armed militia’s running around and in control of neighborhoods, not States just different blocks. Can you imagine Los Angeles with armed gangs controlling neighborhoods? Whoops wrong choice of cities, L.A. does have armed gangs controlling different areas of the city. Let’s get back to Libya, just like in Afghanistan during the Russian incursion we armed the rebels with sophisticated weapons, anti tank guns, anti aircraft missiles and so on. When the Russians left we didn’t pay attention to Afghanistan and the rebels became the Taliban who in turn allowed the little group known as Al-Qaida to build training camps for the destruction of the western world. You all remember September 11, 2001. Well in the battle to free Libya from Kaddafi’s hold we did the same thing, we armed the rebels and now have little control over what they do. Gee this is starting to sound like Syria, scary isn’t it? We never seem to learn from our mistakes in the Middle East, did we really just give Egypt F-16 fighters?

Getting back to Libya; it is imperative that we keep an eye on these armed militia’s to make sure we don’t create another Afghanistan. We need a strong hand in the area that can mentally combat these lawless groups out of fear of reprisal. What did we do when we needed a General Patton, we appointed a woman to the job of ambassador to Libya. Now let me ask you this, how much do the radical Muslims of the world respect women? She may be a wonderful choice for England, Ireland or Scotland but Libya? Am I mistaking or are women the people they stone to death for having the audacity to get raped, are these the people who are kept from an education and forced to live their lives in a Burka behind a thick veil? Are these the people that are not allowed to speak to a man unless he is a relative? Isn’t this just another great foreign affairs blunder. So now we have Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya and Syria very well armed in a state of anarchy and hating Americans, I’ll bet Israel is loving this especially the F-16’s flying over Egypt. The same Egypt that is now controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Are you confused yet?

If you look at a map of the world Israel is surrounded by Muslin nations who have vowed to wipe her off the face of the planet. She is the size of a medium size lake here in the United States yet Israel with one move can muster more fear in the Arab world than we can, only because she doesn’t threaten, she reacts. The Arabs understand consequences and we are only as good as our reputation and lately our reputation among nations of the world isn’t so great. The attitude of cut and run we have shown for the last decade or so shows that the American people don’t have the stomach for war and the Arab world knows it. Why should we send our kids to war and then not finish what we went off to do. How many Americans have died for nothing because we have become a nation of appeasement rather than the Super Power of old. We have many who say we should keep our nose out of the world affairs rather than lead. Why when we have had the power to control the destiny of world, we cannot even control the price of oil.

Getting back to Benghazi; We cannot afford to turn away from the problems of the Middle East and hide under the table. It’s in our best interest is to stay firm on our commitments of self protection. One way we can do this is by reducing the amount of oil imported from these areas there-by reducing the income being funneled to those who threaten us. We see what appeasement has done in North Korea. Their military is equipped with Nukes and now rockets with the ability to hit our soil. In decades past the C.I.A. would just do a covert hit on a subject and that would be the end of it. Congress took away that power years ago and now only the President with the use of drones has that ability but only for smalltime terrorists. With so many failures in foreign policy over the years it’s hard to stay on topic. Our goal should be first and foremost the protection of our citizens and our way of life. To do either we have to maintain our right to the title of Super Power, just a few years ago we were the one and only Super Power left standing now we are in a race with China to see who will control the world monetary fund. As China builds its military to Super Power status we are reducing ours to that of the European nations, and do you think Russia is idly standing by? God help us.

That’s just my thoughts, what are yours?

Debt or Deficit it's all bad

Hi my name is Don and I guess you could call me a redneck. I live in Nevada in a rural area where we live by a code of common sense. No one could survive long in the high desert without using common sense. With that said here are a few common sense items I’d like your opinion on.

Simple math for my simple mind.  We all have heard about the national debt and the national deficit, what is the difference between them?  First of all the deficit is the difference between the amount of money we are spending compared to the amount of revenue we have coming in.  A good personal example is: if you have a net monthly income of $1,000.  And you have rent of $500 a car payment of $350 and a grocery bill of $350 you have a deficit of $200 per month.  The only way you get by is to put the groceries on a credit card and go in deeper debt each month.  Now you have to add the amount of the payment on the credit card and the interest you are paying, this will increase your deficit each month.  To figure the debt that you owe you would have to take into account the deficit from the previous years and add it to the amount you are spending today.  The government has been doing this for years and has amassed a debt of $17,000,000,000,000. that’s trillion.  If we had to pay this today it would mean that every person including babies would have to pay over $55,700  each.  This is figured at the level of people in America today at 305,000,000 souls.   When you figure out that only a very small percentage of the citizens pay the biggest portion of taxes that it will require to pay this debt down, it becomes an impossible task.  The easiest way to improve is to increase revenue through increased taxable income via less unemployment.  This happens when you make it easier for business to increase revenue by reducing the amount of regulation and tax burden.  This creates more jobs and increases the amount of revenue the government takes in, a point both Kennedy and Reagan proved during their administrations.  We are not doing this, this administration believes that if we just increase the taxes on those who create jobs it will take care of itself.  WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.  All this is doing is slowing our economic recovery.  Right now businesses are trying to figure out how they are going to maintain the level of employment they have at present, not how they are going to increase jobs.  The regulations in Obama-care alone are making companies consider moving some of their people to part time positions.  

I was told the other day by email that the reason people are not making more comments on this blog is that they don’t want their identity noted.  This is easy to get around, you can type your comment at the end of each article and then choose anonymous if you want, all that it will require is that you type the code in the box provided and hit publish.  I would appreciate just a first name and city added to your comments.  Every day our readership has increased and it would be nice to know what your thoughts are.

That’s my thoughts, what are yours?