Archive for the Politics Category
Not long ago I wrote a post called Where are the Republicans? Well I think I found one and as I might have expected a real Republican is actually a Libertarian with an R next to his name. The name of the man I hope can be our next President is Congressman Ron Paul and he is at least in name a Republican. I would like you to take a look at Ron Paul's track record in congress.
- He has never voted to raise taxes.
- He has never voted for an unbalanced budget.
- He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership.
- He has never voted to raise congressional pay.
- He has never taken a government-paid junket.
- He has never voted to increase the power of the executive branch.
- He voted against the Patriot Act.
- He voted against regulating the Internet.
- He voted against the Iraq war.
- He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program.
- He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. treasury every year.
 Now unlike many bloggers I am not about to tell you how to think, what to support or even who to vote for. What I do want to request that you do is simply listen to Ron Paul's message and hear what he has to say. Ron has been in government a long time and is probably the ONLY congressmen in the US today who can say and PROVE he has never voted to raise taxes even once or that he has NEVER voted for an unbalanced budget.
To me this warrants at least looking at. Ron is unfortunately not being embraced by the media at all (surprise there right) and has had to pull out all the stops to even be included in the Republican debates. It is ashame to me that more people have not heard his words because when they do, he resonates with them.
For instance did you know that according to a poll of people who watched the Republican debates that Ron Paul won more then one of them so far? Shocking no? Check out these Youtube Videos for more on that,
So here is what I would like to ask you as my reader to do.
1. Take a bit of time, look at Ron Paul's Website and see if you like what he has to say
2. Watch this video - Ron Paul : Stop Dreaming
3. Make up your own mind but if you like what Ron has to say, register as a Republican even if you are a hard core Democrat. Look at it this way Ron supports most of the "liberal" concepts as they relate to PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and is more likely to put an end to the Iraq war then Hillery or Obama.
I just want people to be aware of Ron Paul and that you do have a choice. It is not Democrat A or B against Republican A or B which is what we are led to believe. The Democrats said they would put a stop to the war in Iraq, agree or not they promised to and America elected them, then they did not do it.
Immigration Reform was rammed down our throats by both Democrats and Republicans! 80% of "conservatives" were opposed to the bill but get this so were 68% of "liberals" yet it took shutting down the Senate phone system to kill that terrible bill.
The reality is simple…
We vote for Democrats, they promise to tax the rich and not the poor and control spending. The result they Tax everyone more (rich, middle class and poor) and still spend more money and still spend more then we have and make government bigger.
So then we vote for Republicans and you guessed it, they promise to cut taxes for everyone and reduce spending and give us a smaller government. The result they Tax everyone more (rich, middle class and poor) and still spend more money and still spend more then we have and make government bigger
In other words the only thing that changes is the SPIN we get on the tax code, the law and the economy. The end result is the same, we all pay more, the freedoms we hold dear are eroded further and we site around and argue about things from a partisan stand point. In other words we are nothing but pawns for the majority of our politicians, R or D matters not!
Most Americans in my view really want the same things.
- Less Tax
- More Freedom
- Smaller Government
- Secure Borders
- To Stay Out of Peoples Business
My personal opinion is of all the candidates the only one who has a track record of always doing those things is Ron Paul. So he gets my endorsement, all I ask you to do is learn about his message then decide for yourself. If you do deside to support him, tell people by email, phone or face to face.
To quote Ron, "Freedom is popular", we just need to let people know that this time around we actually have the ability to choose freedom,
~ Jack Spirko
Technorati Tags: ron paul, hillery clinton, barock obama, libertarian, republican, democrat, elections, president, iraq, war, war in iraq
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For the last few months when it comes to housing and lending all it seems the media wants to talk about is "sub prime lending" and paint the picture that it is the reason there are so many foreclosures in America today and they correctly state there are more foreclosures today then any other time. Yet what gets left out? First that "A Paper" or conventional mortgages are also at an all time high for foreclosures just like Sub Prime loans are. Second, that in 2002 we were also at an "all time high" just there was other news to talk about so no one bothered with it.
So what do I think the real problem is? Well the title might lead you to believe I am blaming "House Hunters", yet more accurately I think that the T.V. show called House Hunters is not so much the problem as it is a looking glass directly into the problem.
First let me say my wife and I truly enjoy watching this show together, it is a great way to understand property values across the country and what makes people buy and what turns them off. We actually DVR episodes of the show we are going to miss and watch them later. So don't see me as being negative toward the show.
To help you understand the problem I am about to point out let me first explain what this show is about in case you have not seen it. Each episode highlights a couple or individual's search for a home. You watch these folks tour three houses, see what they like and don't like about each one and then they pick one to make an offer on. The finale is always what the house looks like a few months after move in and the couple has "made it their own".
Here is where the issue is and I believe it directly explains why our nation is watching people loose houses and have a hard time selling them as well. I would say about 30% of the episodes are established professionals looking for bigger homes, these people are clearly highly paid and sitting on lots of equity. They tend to buy something that they eye as a long term investment or "final dream home". Most of them seem to be not getting over their heads.
Now let's talk about the other 70%, they are young first or second time buyers. The show always tells you what they do for a living (such as Doug works for the phone company and Tammy is a pre school teacher). You look at the way they carry themselves, the way they talk and how they dress and you quickly are able to realize the household income of these people is generally between 60-120K with most floating in the 80-90K region. Hence they are not poor by any means yet they are also not rich, if you think a family of 4 making 100K is "rich" stop reading my blog now, never come back cause it is not for you, you will just never get it.
Let's look at it this way 100K household income is gross about 8300 a month. That equates to about 5800 in total take home after the Government gets theirs in all fashions, State, Federal and the scam ponzi scheme that is social security. Now hopefully money is going into a 401K, IRA or something like that which will further deplete it. Yet lets be optimistic and say to pay all home expenses a couple making 100K between them is netting about 5500 a month for all living and pleasure expenses. Now as I continue please understand I would place far more of these people in the 80K range then the 100K range I am being optimistic to prove a point.
During these shows I watch these young couples in their early to late 20's walk these huge homes and all I can accurately describe the majority of what they do is bitch. Such as,
- "I don't know if this room is big enough for Kelsie" [Kelsie is 4 and the room is 12×13]
- "I really don't like this carpet" [The carpet is a neutral tone and brand new]
- "This closet is not big enough" [That was a 6×8 master closet]
Oh and it goes on! You really have to watch the show to get a feel for how much whiney complaints these young buyers are making and what is the price range they tend to be looking in? Try 250-500K and many of them are well into the 400-500K range. Now some shows are in high cost areas but many are in places like Nashville TN, Austin TX, or Atlanta GA which are hardly on par with San Fransisco or Boston Mass. Let's really look at the money here, call the average purchase 350K [I am being conservative, on the show it is higher] and with taxes, insurance and mortgages a good rough estimate for a mortgage at 30 years is 1% of the cost of the home, with high taxes it is higher but again let's be conservative. So average cost a month for a 350K house is 3500.00 a month. Remember, Doug and Tammy make about 5500 take home so after just paying their mortgage they now are down to 2K a month!
This is happening all over the country and it is NOT because you have to pay that much. It is because young singles and young couples are expecting to immediately have what their parents have. Not that long ago a young couple would stay in a small apartment and save up, then buy a first starter home, improve it, acquire equity and then sell it off to buy something better for a long term family home. Dad would build up the place over time, with small improvements and by the time the kids were in high school they had a pool, a picket fence and the American Dream. At least for those that worked hard and were smart with money that is how it happened.
Now the kids of these very families are going out with the view that they are "entitled" to the type of home they grew up in. Mom and Dad always paid the bills, so it stands to reason they can too. So Tammies and Dougs all across our nations go and bitch about homes their parents never dreamed of owning at 25 and buy more then they can afford.
Here are some more examples right off the show
- Couple is going to get married and start a family soon, they are worried about buying in the "best school district". These idiots also bought a huge SUV to "carry the kids around in". Moron and Moronet seemed clueless that before the first kid was old enough to go to the first soccer game that SUV would have 150K miles on it and have been traded in long ago. Likewise they could have bought smart and improved a home to sell for profit and move to the "best school district" [or perhaps JUST A REAL GOOD ONE] when the kids were actually old enough for it to matter.
- Another couple "needed" a basement. Why, they had dogs who needed their own room! Yep, dogs who needed their own room and for the dogs to have a room upstairs "didn't make sense". What!
- Here is my favorite, a young mother was afraid her daughters toys would be "visible from down stairs, because the layout of the home let you see into the bonus room from downstairs". Now the two kids were like 2 and 4 so I would have been more concerned with SEEING THE KIDS then hiding their toys from visitors. This particular couple the guy was a blue collar worker, made I would guess 50K year and mom, "stayed at home with the girls". They bought a 2700 SF home for 260K, nice place with four bedrooms and a finished basement. Well worth the cost, yet run the guys income against it! It should make you shiver to think about how close to bankruptcy this home puts them from day one. Yet the bimbo of a mom has a play room with a door to hide all those toys.
With all of this can you not see why so many families are loosing homes today? I make a very good living, I have one kid not two and I have never spent over 200K on a home. We live in a very nice home and I certainly could afford to purchase a 300-400K place by this point in my life. I have chosen instead to be almost debt free, send my son to college with out a single student loan and take vacations with out using a credit card.
Now as a true Libertarian I am totally OK with you spending money that you don't have and suffering the consequences of doing so. Just when the chickens come home to roost, don't cry to me and don't blame the mortgage companies. The mortgage companies by the way that are REQUIRED BY LAW to give you any loan you qualify for and ask for.
~ Jack Spirko
Technorati Tags: mortgage, sub prime loans, sub prime mortgage, adjustable rate mortgage, house hunters, real estate, investing, money management, home budgeting, saving money, buying a home
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First off anyone that knows me knows I am an economic conservative. I am actually far more Libertarian then Republican or Democrat and I think socialized medicine has the potential to be one of the biggest messes to ever happen to the U.S. when the morons actually do it. Yet we must ask ourselves why there is such a push for this disaster we seem to be getting closer to. There must be a reason, I believe the picture below sums it up.
 Look at that picture ain't the little gal cute. That is a baby Gorilla lying in a HUMAN INTENSIVE CARE facility! Where at you ask? In Germany! The very bastion of socialism and they have a baby Gorilla on life support to save her little life. I'm sorry but this makes no sense to me! It is a monkey, not a man and regardless of your religious beliefs on evolution or the lack there of a monkey does not equate to a human, yet here we have a monkey taking up a infant life support facility for a human.
So just how does this relate to U.S. Health Care? Let me ask you don't you think the morons in this nation would do the same thing? Rush a baby Gorilla to the hospital while a child suffers? Of course they would and do you honestly think there is not a child in Germany that needs that facility more then the monkey does! We have to ask ourselves as a society where are our priorities? What is really important to us and why does our system suck in the first place?
Let me say I am against full government take over of insurance and I am even questioning "Insurance" for health purposes in the first place at this point in my life. You see not long ago there was no health insurance and what did that cause? Wide spread death? A total lack of health care? Or perhaps tons of people suffering because of a shortage of Doctors? The answer is no, no and no.
What is actually caused was affordable health care and a competitive system where hospitals, doctors and drug makers had to COMPETE for business. What the health insurance business has done is grow their own parasites that feed off insurance money and keep finding new ways to bill the system for more and more money. All the drug makers, medical equipment manufactures and treatment facilities are guilty of this.
Here is one first hand example. When for a period of time my family had no insurance my son had a nasty foot injury with swelling of the tendon of the top of the foot, we took him to a doctor to see what could be done. The guy gave him a shot and a prescription which we paid cash for along with the visit, all it all it was under a hundred bucks including the prescription. Why we offered to pay cash and said we had no insurance. The final recommendation was, stay off it for two weeks, use some crutches and give the body time to heal itself. So where was the problem? This all happened AFTER we told the Doc we had no insurance. Looking at the way we dressed and all the guy just figured we had a nice fat policy to lute.
So the first recommendation was to take my boy down to the "labs" and have two different scans done of the foot. One was your typical "cat scan" and the other I can't remember. Want to bet the cost of those was well over a grand? Yet the second we told the guy we had no insurance his decent human nature took over. We were clear we would pay for these scans if they were needed, our son was more important then money. However, Mr. Doctor stated, "No, I just figured it was a good idea to be sure I wasn't missing anything with the X-ray and my exam. Just go home, use the crutches a few weeks and give it time to heal, it will be fine. If you don't see some improvement after a week, let me know but I seriously doubt that will be the case".
Now I invite you to again look this monkey above on a life support system! Really let all of this sink in! In the U.S. people are extorted for one drug after another, the doctors, hospitals and drug companies suck money from the insurance companies like leaches and in Germany a baby Gorilla is on life support in a human hospital in the intensive care ward!
So how would I fix the problem? The problem is huge and I have no easy answers but here are some starting points.
1. The drug companies are the biggest villains there are! If any cost control is to be done, start there. Specifically with maintenance drugs! The actual cost to produce medication is quite low and margins on many are in the thousands of percent. I don't again suggest pushing them into "not for profit" status but some control must be enacted.
2. The government is the next villain! Part of why the drug companies charge so much for their products is the 9 Plus Billion dollars it takes to get a new drug approved. Now we need good testing, good safety, etc. Yet does it make sense to anyone that it would cost 9 Billion to get the next great aspirin approved? This process must be streamlined and cut down, hell a billion buys a lot of testing! The other side is the costs cut MUST be returned to the consumer.
3. The Doctors that give in to the drug sales reps that hound them day and night and do things like send them to conferences in Hawaii and Sweden (expenses paid of course) get a lot of the blame too. They way they order tons of tests in the name of "defensive medicine" when what it really does is increase the profit margin of their practices. The way many prescribe antibiotics for virus like the cold and the flu when they know 100% that antibiotics kill bacteria not viruses. Doctors are yet another parasite feeding at the pig trough of the insurance slush fund! Oh yea and the way the prescribe over the counter medicine so Medicaid sucking leaches can get things like tylenol and robitussin at tax payer expense! Yep, I have first hand knowledge of things like a lady who smoked two packs a day getting tylenol on Medicaid because she "could not afford it out of pocket" and wanted to "get it covered on Medicaid" oh but she could afford the 8 dollar a day habit of smoking. What did the doc do? Wrote the script and of course you guessed it Medicaid paid for the office visit which was also not necessary she only came to get the 4 dollars worth of tylenol for FREE! Nice huh, that cost you and I over 100 dollars, by the way!
4. You and I get a lot of blame too! How many people eat a handful of pills a day and half are to counter the effects of the other pills? Somewhere along the way you need to ask about the real need for everything a doctor tells you to take. Specifically long term medications! I dare you to go to a doctor anywhere in the U.S. with a problem and not leave with prescription. You don't always need a drug, realize that and well, "just say no", some times.
5. The insurance business gets some blame but less then everyone else. Why? They are the ones being bilked here! Bilked by hospitals charging 4 times for one thing, bilked by Doctors ordering useless tests and bilked by big pharm that keeps making new drugs just so people don't go to generic meds once that patent wears off the older stuff. The insurance companies need to PUT PRESSURE where it belongs! On the Doctors, Drug Companies and Hospitals not on Joe who is told his blood pressure is not high enough yet for his plan to cover his meds!
So what solutions can you offer to this issue? Clearly the Health Care system here is screwed up but do you really want the government that can't seem to do anything right to get directly involved? Do you really want something like Hillary Care or Michale Moore's Solution of being like the "utopia" of Cuba? I sure don't but we need to do something apparently one thing Moore is right about is that prisoners in Gitmo get better health care then many Americans, so apparently does a baby monkey in Germany which seems to of abandoned the concept of Darwinism.
~ Jack
Technorati Tags: hillary clinton, michale moore, health insurance, gorilla, intensive care, drug companies, hospitals, doctors, medical testing
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OK this is honestly my first political post and I may get hammered for it as republicans are not in vogue at the time. To me though it is because we (the average guy republicans) are just as mad as the most left leaning democrat at our own party at this time.
Let me be clear on one thing before I go on, I am not really a republican because I don’t give a damn what anyone does in their personal life so long as it does not harm others. So if you want to for instance marry your gay life partner my view is go ahead why do I care, in my view the government does not belong in the marriage business anyway. Marriage is between two people and god not two people and a congressmen or governor anyway.
Most accurately I am a libertarian, which if you know anything about libertarianism you know that means I hate taxes and want them all cut. I think poor people pay to much tax and rich people pay to much tax. Tax the rich to give to the poor is completely asinine in my opinion and does far more harm then good. Libertarians want less government all around, we want the government out of peoples business and expect people to solve their own problems, not wait for the government to help them out.
Now a lot of people ask me why I tend to vote republican, my answer is simply because most of what I just laid out is what the republican party is supposed to stand for. Republicans are supposed to cut taxes and cut spending, instead they spend more and give small income tax cuts and then back end you with other taxes. They are supposed to be for less government then turn around and create bigger government then the democrats have.
Now what is my alternative, vote democrat? Really? The democrats that look me strait in the face, promise to spend more and raise taxes and keep their word! No thanks, not this boy, I ain’t giving up my guns or my right to hunt and fish nor do I wish to cowtow to the world over global warming with Kyoto (which would just be a crippling global tax on America)
What I want to know is where the republicans have gone? Who are we going to get as a republican nominee for president? McCain? Want to know what he thinks you better ask him now the guy flip flops enough to make John Kerry look like a rock! Romney? Seems like the great conservative hope at the moment right? No dice go to YouTube and watch him debate Ted Kennedy in 1992, it is hard to tell which one is the democrat! Rudy? The guy is a leader and he has star power but how can the great republican hope be a guy who is willing to trample the 2nd amendment and is for socialized medicine?
I am just fed up with every politician on the planet! I think the best think every American could do is throw away any hope in your party be you an elephant or donkey. What I think we need to do on both sides of the isle is fire all of them in the primaries! Problem is we don’t care enough as a population. We don’t vote in primaries! Fire them in March folks, it may be the only hope the republican party has left! Hell you guys that vote democrat could benefit from the same process!
Who knows if the jerks on both sides of the isle continue to screw us with taxes, screw up immigration law and generaly ignore what the average American wants, perhaps one day the libertarian party can actually make a run of it? Honestly if you see a real difference between the republican and democrat sides of the senate and house today (with a few individual exceptions) you are only kidding yourself. The modus operandi for both sides is clear, screw over the people, grow government and tax everyone as much as you can. The only thing that changes it the method by which it is done.
So where are the real Republicans? The ones that actually stand for what the party claims to stand for? Hell for that matter where are the real democrats? I think if Franklin Roselvelt, Teddy Roselvelt, Ike Eisenhower and Abe Lincoln went to Washington today, they would all take turns beating the hell out of just about every damn senator and congressmen we have today! I am sure Teddy would be fully utilizing that "big stick" he always used to talk about!
~Jack
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OK, well two days ago I was kind of taking a sarcastic dig at global warming and posted some shots of my Dogs playing in the snow here is TEXAS.
Well imagine my surprise when this morning a story from SEO Blackhat came across my rss reader about Global Warming. Turns out there is a contest going on for who can rank highest for GlobalWarming awareness2007. At least I think spelled that way, many times in an SEO contest a unsual word or spelling is used so the field is level with all the contestants.
Since I don't want to compete in this and since Quadzilla did such a good job of slamming the great myth of Global Warming I just figured I would help him out with a little link juice and posting his story in my blog. Seriously if you are concerned about Global Warming, eat an ice cream cone folks and you will feel better. If that does not work read Quads post on Global Warming.
~ Jack Spirko
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Well despite what Al Gore (whom I call Al bore) says Global Warming doesn't seem to be much of a problem. Today we had snow here in Dallas, something that is not all that common especially during a period where our planet is supposed to be warming "beyond control". Anyway I digress, I decided to pull out the camera and take a few shots of our dogs enjoying the snow.
First here is our black lab mix, Blackie (I know original name right) checking out our deck. Blacking likes the snow and it is pretty hard to get him back in the house until he gets really cold. Note the tongue, he likes to eat the snowflakes.
Next is our siberian husky, Lakota. As you might imagine a Texas snow fall is a rare treat for him. When we live up in Pennsylvania he used to build "nests" in the snow. I have never seen this dog ever look "cold" even when it got below zero.
Now what is even better is we are expecting more snow and or freezing rain on Saturday. We also had a pretty good ice storm on Sunday and Monday. So my question is how long until some "expert" in on TV talking about a new ice age.
~ Jack Spirko
Technorati Tags: global warming, snow, texas, al gore, husky, dogs, weather
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