Many random thoughts for now. It is always difficult to do something between doing other things so a  post can be behind the times. I am still upset about our self serving senate. How can they push for the tax breaks for the smallest group of citizens and hold hostage everything else to get something that benefits such a small group of people. Some people say they need these tax breaks to create jobs or stimulate our economy. Personal income tax on the super rich is not going to stop job creation unless they our using this as motiviation to do something with their corporations, but really: that ain't the reason. Job creation is done by corporations and businesses having a reason to create them, ie a robust econnomy. Until we get a better economy they are not going to just create jobs. So giving into the pressure of a group of senators who probably fit into this income tax bracket is just political crap.

We need to give real tax breaks to endeavors that spur economic growth. There are a few measures and tax breaks out there for now, but they are not strong enough. Corporations AND small businesses should be given incentitves to create new industries and new products. Especially products we can export. We need to create a balance of trade by producing again, not by putting tariffs on other countries goods.

Right now Wall Street lobbies our Congress to get laws passed to benefit Wall Street. This self serving attitude is not good for business. Congress needs to stay away from programs and lobbyists that do not benefit the country at large.

I always struggle with the concept of lobbyists. Are they evil, are they productive, who do they benefit, do they push legislation forward, and other questions always bang around in my head everytime I hear the term. Our Congress needs to step back from them at this time though and take a real hard look at what this country needs. I think most people agree lobbyists add size to any legislation because they make sure the interests of the industries or groups they represent are protected.

Another road block to our Congress being able to produce effective legislation is most known from the phrase "all politics is local". This is a real benefit to the country in many cases, but with the self serving Congress we have had over the last few decades it is a major problem. Okay how do you explain this thought. Rather difficult, but here goes. We divided our legislative branch into two sections, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some of the thinking behind this is to create equal representation of the people by having the House represent the population differences. A state with a large population would get better representation of all its needs at the national level, but to balance the government so that only a few populus states would get all the national benefits the Senate was created with equal representation from each state. Or everyone would be equally representated in the House and each state would be equally representated in the Senate. This was created to create balance in how Congress as a whole would like at national issues. Both Houses of Congress would have to agree to pass a bill. Basic 7th/8th grade government info.

The issue becomes what happens when other factors get involved. A Congressman can represent his/her constituency only when their time is spent on issues that affect their constituency. Once lobbyists started becoming a new type of constituency Congress becomes pulled into too many directions. What happens, well Congress men and women are people, they will grativate towards the group most helping them: lobbyists. I am not just talking about money for campaigning, (but this is an issue) however, rather their ability to work day to day with Congress basically bypassing the true constituency of Congress the people of the country. Even if lobbyists were not allowed to give a penny to help someone get elected they way the system is set up today they would still have much more influence on Congress than they should because of the proximty and day to day contact they have with Congress. What does this do. well the obvious Congress relies on these groups for information and support in planning and producing legislation. So legislation is long, unresponsive to the full needs of the people, cumbersome, unproductive and I could go on forever with basically a ton of words to say unprodutive to the well being of the country.

Trying to tie this together. Sometimes I get into the idea that all lobbyists should be banned forever, which is an extreme reaction to a solvable problem. But for now I will tackle that issue another day. The issue for now is obvious, but eludes me as to why we don't get it done. The people need to hold Congress accountable for their actions, however, for some reason 98% of this country let this go by like it doesn't matter. Some people may say it doesn't, they say why do I care if someone who makes more money than me gets a tax break and well here goes what seems to be a contradiction: it doesn't. What matters is the fact that the Senate held hostage the political process of the greater good of the country to benefit such a small part of the population. The fact that they got away with it is more scarier than most Americans seem to understand. Basically everything Congress is suppose to do was thrown out the window so a very small group of people will benefit more than the rest of the country. Yes everyone else got a tax break too, but what is more important which is getting our economy started again was not even addressed in all these negotiations, the President succumbed so he could get a small victory with unemployment benefits and the middle class tax break, but even his victory is small compared to the loss of the greater good of our country. I am not referring to the rich vs poor issue etc,but how lobbyists and small benefactors have taken representation away from the people.

Sooner or later the people need to realize their needs should come first or you can forget about every sacrifice every soldier has made defending our ideals. And most people won't like me saying that, but it is the truth. People died defending freedom and our democracy, but we give it up at home so easy.

I want to talk more about the unemployment situation in another post.

Christmas shows

I am thinking about the holidays and the shows that come on TV. Just a quick thought even though many reference Santa Claus only one comes to mind that actually references scripture. You think about the Grinch, Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer, Elf, etc and there is no true mention of why we have Christmas. There are some minor videos produced by Christian organizations that reference the why of Christmas, but of all the commercial shows only the Charlie Brown Christmas special speaks to the reason of the season. Just another reason why the true meaning of Christmas gets lost.
The radio stations play tons of so called Christmas music, but really they are just commercial songs that reference winter or Santa Claus. True Christmas music is played very little.
Something to think about when you wonder why there is so much crass commercialism around right now.

I want to get started. First thought is pretty obvious when you think about it. Wall Street is no longer the most capitalistic organization on planet earth. Digest that.

I believe in capitalism, I feel a free market is a wonderful thing. I am just tired of Wall Street holding our economy and our government hostage to get what it wants. Most people in America tend to forget that capitalism is an economic theory/process and democracy is a type of government and they are not one and the same. In fact at times they can be at odds with each other. This is not bad, but you have to separate them from each other to make sure you are doing what is the best for the people which is what our government is set up to do( see constitution). And what is in the best interest of the economy.

I tend to keep to myself some so I don't always hear every opinion, however, of those that I do it is shocking to me that people cannot separate the different interests of wall street and a government of the people. Too many people tend to lump the idea that what is good for capitalism is good for democracy and yes that works backwards too.

I believe America became great partly because of a strong business presence. I want to be rich. Having well made material possessions and financial security aren't necessarily bad things. I encourage businesses to be successful and grow. And if they become multi-national huge conglomerates well more power to them. Right now in our country we need growing businesses. Wall Street is not encouraging this and by its actions is discouraging business growth. People need to step back and really understand that because Wall Street making millions doesn't mean the country is prospering economically.

Today printed in the Dallas Morning News but originally from the NY Times & AP, there was a quote I will get to in a second that most Americans would consider a flippant remark to a reporter's question. The actual quote was a quick retort, but what is important to note about it was how true it can be. We tend to be very short sighted in our country, Wall Street spends more time worrying about stock price than how the business is actually doing or more importantly what it needs to do and what it can do to be long term successful. If we don't refocus our economic engine and thought process this flippant quote will be way too prophetic. Basically the Chinese government created an award to counter the Nobel Peace prize being awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. They wanted to refocus attention to their goals etc. and an award offiicial for the "Confucius Peace Prize" after some questioning about Liu "retorted "in 500 years you will see history is on our side."

Now some of this is taken out of context and you may be wondering how this connects. First connection is the obvious that more and more we are having to deal with the competitive threat from China. And if they succeed they are a totally different government and society than we are so we don't want them being successful. See the Liu story overall to get the why. The second connection is they are as a society, government, and economy all on the same page. It does help to have centralized control of everything to do this, but this isn't necessarily the best approach for humanity. (Remember we fought wars about this starting with one in the 1770's.) We do not want this, but how do we compete when we ourselves create competing interests within our country. Well first; competing interests if allowed to let the best ideas rise will become stronger than centralized and controlled processes. So the connection is Wall Street is stopping us from going forward economically by refusing to invest in business, new industries, but rather making millions on the volatility in the market. It is stagnating our growth by holding onto assets for its immediate profits rather than thinking long term and what is funny is Wall Street is shooting its own foot in the long run and I am not talking 500 years either, a few decades at most.

Okay I said no negativity as part of the intro to this blog so I am not saying people who spend time in school, working their way up and understanding the intricacies of modern trading are bad people. I am hoping to get these well educated people to sit back and use their resources to look at what businesses are good for America going forward. Look to find where are the true growth industries of the future and redirect trading dollars into investment dollars. Yes they won't make multi-millions on a daily basis, but they still will make multi-millions. Wall Street has totally lost connection with investing in the future of this country. Wall Street is not inherently bad, it is currently detrimental to the economic future of this country. It can change. Basically quit worrying about government policies and worry about what you get paid to do which is invest, analyze, and grow business. Public policy will change on its own with success. A government of the people will support an economy that benefits them. Right now with the separation of wealth in our country, the long term unemployment problem, the lack of growth in small businesses so no new wealth is created, and other economic trials we are going through needs to be addressed by our government. As long as Wall Street tries to create policy to benefit itself and therefore fight what is needed to right our ship then the Chinese official will be more prophetic than we want him to be and it won't take 500 years.

So here is the "sunshine and daffodils" (thanks GAC)  portion of this post. Alternative energy should no longer be considered some fruity hippy way of living. Basically it represents some of the best opportunities to grow our country. Also desalinization processes are also productive. Both these types of investments yield many positives. Most people will think the first is because it will help our environment, forget it, that is a side benefit. These are viable industries that can produce jobs, lower our trade imbalance, and eventually create new industries which carries forward economic growth.

One reason we won WWII because oil was cheap and we controlled its production and supply. Unfortunately that is no longer the case. If we want to grow our future we are going to need to create energy sources that are inexpensive and not subject to geopolitical volatility. I don't care if EXXON and CHEVRON do it, or someone else, but someone needs to redirect our entire energy policy to prosper and protect our nation.And going forward we may need multiple sources of energy to achieve this goal. So what, the more we create the more we benefit.

As long as our economy is strong we can continue to show the rest of the world why democracy is the best type of government and that treating people with respect is what God wanted us to do so 500 years from now we will see what history has to say.
Okay I am going to stop for now, more posts that take these thoughts further sometime in the future, postings will be random based on when I have time. And of course other ideas etc will also be forthcoming.

Play with your kids, spend time, they need it and they love you.

Education will be another hot topic for me.

Introduction

Welcome to one of the millions of blogs you can read. I have for years debated about writing down my thoughts and ideas, but never created a blog or anything else to follow up. I finally gave in to the temptation to just spit it all out. The tone of this blog will hopefully be pretty interesting and the postings at times will be random. One thing I want to do is be positive or at least present ideas that I consider solutions to many of the problems this country faces going forward. At this time many people are angry with the direction our country is headed. And the debate about what to do is pretty intense. I hope to use this to try to keep a level head, present solutions that probably others have also mentioned etc but with my take (some maybe original you never know), and at times talk about how great life can be. I call this Dallas area opinion because I live in the Dallas area and yes some of the posts will be about life around here. There is a local sports caster that uses the phrase "sunshine and daffodils" when he wants to be positive about a local team. So I will try to have that attitude with my posts. If you actually decide to read a few posts you may find it hard to determine if I am right wing, left wing, liberal, conservative or moderate. I feel too many people rely on labels and not look at the best idea. Also I have differing opinions on what is liberal and conservative than most. And yes I am going to get started on democrats and republicans because neither is representing the people of this country well. Too many trite phrases, old worn out ideas, and nothing productive is coming from either party. And this is sad. I will be discussing ideas not based on established ideas of what is left and right, but ideas based on well,,, new ideas or adapted ideas. One final thought before I sooner or later start my random posts. I am going to make reference to a particular individual that because I reference him (again with people labeling) some may say I agree with all his opinions etc. Well I probably will with some of them, but I am who I am. The individual unfortunately blew his brains out a year or so ago and if you actually read his work over time you can't say you didn't see it coming. I don't believe in a person taking their own life or any life so I don't condone the act just understand it. Anyway he was the creator of something called gonzo journalism and I always enjoyed reading his material. I bring him up because gonzo journalism to me can be considered the father of modern blogging in an indirect way. You may not agree or see the connections, but I think some credit to rambling thought in modern America via the blog should be given to the creator of quick thinking fast posts of an immediate interpretation of what a person sees in life. Its a wonderfully chilly morning in Dallas, Texas today, have a good one.