Random Thoughts..

Steele must go! GOP is DEAD!

Thinker — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:50:56 GMT

I have been a registered Republican since I was about 19 or 20 years old and am going to be 48. Over those years there have been some bad choices out there, but this last election year was the biggest joke of them all, putting old man McCain against Obama who had the youth vote. Not only was age and perception against the election, McCain is no Republican, at least not in the real world. I know, they were hoping to move a little to the left, but the sold out and lost the election with a landslide!

Okay, for years they have been expanding the government more like Democrats than Republicans, spend, spend, spend… Many have flaked at family values and at rights to life. Could it get any worse? YEP!

Not only did the GOP give us a joke of an election, but now they have given a joke of a Chairman! Steele does not even appear to know what he believes as he states he is for Choice on abortion rights. Now he clarifies that he thinks the States should decide and it is their “Choice”. Let me see here, abortion is murder and he says he opposes abortion. Should we have the States decide on if Murder is a crime? That is, should we take Murder, someone killing someone else and have it decided at State level? Hmmm. Some States it would be perfectly legal to walk out your door and shoot the first person you see? Maybe only after you purchase a license? I know of no one that would think that was a good idea, but the Chairman of the Republican party thinks it is a good idea to have the States choose about abortion, murdering children!

That should be enough to dump his fanny out on the streets, but no, it gets worse. This person who is Chairman of the Republican party now declares that homosexuality is a matter of nature and not choice! Yep, he is for “Choice” for Murder but not for sexual perversions. This man is a joke for the party and needs to be shown the road.

In the article in the NY Times it says:

“It appears highly unlikely that there would be any serious move to recall Mr. Steele, who is barely two months into a two-year job. The political repercussions of replacing the party’s first African-American chairman would be too severe, several Republican leaders said, and there are no obvious candidates ready to take the job.”

I do not care about the color of a person’s skin nor their ethnicity, but that should not be a thought in kicking is fanny out! The GOP is a sad joke and they continue to prove it. At this time we have a ONE party country as the leaders of both parties are the same.

For me it is over, the GOP has NO VALUES anymore. It is time to throw it in the dumpster where it belongs. It was bad enough this last election and I managed to stay with it, but if this person is not removed from the party leadership within a short time, I have no choice but leave. I will not support a party with a platform that supports murdering babies and is anti-family. While I do not completely agree with absolute free trade, I have hung in there and supported the Republican party for almost thirty years, but it appears it is over and time to register as independent. Maybe if enough people leave they will realize the GOP is dead, have a funeral for it and build a new Party based on values. Yeah, I doubt it too!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/us/politics/13steele.html?ref=politics

It is time for a true Values Party for the next election!

A real stimulus package that would work!

Thinker — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:55:58 GMT

I am beginning to think the terms “Stimulus” and “bail out” will soon be those on most people’s banned word list. There was a cartoon in our local paper a while back that had a sea of people as far as you could see surrounding the Capital with a guy standing with a megaphone asking the question “Is there anyone here NOT looking for a bail out?”. That is about what has happened, it is a new gold rush, but on government money which we do not have. Do you think we have reached a level of stupidity greater than any other in our history when even Porn kings such as Larry Flint as asking for bail outs?

The USA has become a joke among the nations now, it is hard to imagine anyone would look at our country with any thoughts of financial security. But wait, there is more and more and more.. When do we, the consumers, get our own money printing presses? Will they be made in China?

So, at this time, the talk is about another $700 billion ($700,000,000,000) up to $1.2 trillion dollar stimulus package. And for what? Think of the trillions of dollars we do not have that have already been spent and at this time it has done no visible good, they still are spending more.

Stimulus that would work!

Okay, they want to have a Trillion dollar stimulus package. Why not make one that really works for the country and its future. The following idea may not work to shoot up the economy in weeks or even months, but over the next 12-18 months, could provide to provide a great deal of jobs and give us long term stability without just short term solutions requiring even more money to be spent later. Not only does this plan help us in a relative short term, but also helps to pay for it over the years through new manufacturing sector.

Okay, the plan is simply to invest into what people claim this country has going for it, innovation! They plan to throw away 1,000 billion dollars. Let’s break that up into 900 $1 billion dollar grants and another 100 $1 billion dollar grants.

The first 900 grants will be awarded to companies or individuals who come up with a substantial (no $2 products, must be something that can make a substantial impact on exports) product or products that currently do not exist and are desirable globally. The person or company that has a winning product will be granted $1 billion dollars to spend based on their winning business plan to keep the company solvent, manufacturing and distributing the product for at least five years. Of course, for the business plan to win, it would be evaluated on many different fronts including global marketability of the product(s).

There is another catch to obtain a grant (this should be a condition for any government loan or grant of any kind) , the company shall not ever be able to be sold to a foreign entity. In addition, they cannot outsource any of their work or materials which are available domestically. This guarantees the company will be producing domestically and never allow jobs or production to move outside the nation. One other limitation is that they should be required to pay their employees at least say $20 per hour to afford them some livable wage. The wage minimum should also be automatically adjusted annually for cost of living so it rises with inflation.

Just imagine if even half of those succeed and we have 450 new domestic businesses that manufacture and export products to a world market. And those businesses will always be domestic!

What about the other 100 grants? I would have those go to domestic energy. Perhaps 50 new billion dollar geothermal plants, another say 25 billion dollar solar farms and the rest for other alternative forms of energy production and distribution. It may even be desirable to put a few of those grants to work for companies who will produce new forms of solar cells to drop the cost of production to make them a resource for export. With that small investment it could make huge step toward energy independence!

What does a billion dollars buy?

When you think about it, how big of business could you build with a billion dollars? If you broke that up over ten years time, you still have $100 million dollars per year to keep your company growing and moving globally.

With that kind of money you should be able to have a large workforce of quality people that are not being hammered with hardships. There should be enough money to pay them a good wage giving them and their families a decent quality of life. Remember, those employees are consumers as they will be consuming.

Just look around and see the size of businesses that are trying to be sold right now for under $100 million. There are national retails stores chains going for less than that. What about all those old manufacturing plants that were closed when greedy corporations decided to move manufacturing overseas? You would think those plants would be available for chump change which would provide a great startup area for a new billion dollar manufacturing company…

The long term

So far, I really do not hear any long term solutions. The government is spending trillions but it does not seem to be going anywhere. Their long term plan is, they will come up with that later…

Here is a long term plan that works for everyone. Innovation opens great export markets, building a new manufacturing sector in the USA which provides us long term jobs and cuts the trade deficits. It also gives back some patriotic pride where people can be proud to work for an all American company without fear of losing their jobs to overseas workers.

Yes, this plan takes a little while to get moving, but just the gesture of the plan moving forward in the media would generate confidence back into the economy and make people have hope that the USA can once again become a producing not just a consumer!

Do you really want to see the next 100 years of tax revenue thrown away in failing stimulus plans or put America back to work as a producer once again?

Monopoly Money, sure, let’s print more!

Thinker — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:34:03 GMT

I know many see a financial crises here in the USA, and there are different answers, but have they chose the correct ones?

First, I believe most of our current issues would have been solved but our government place a rate limit on any loans of 7%-9% nation wide. This would have made it possible for those with buying homes who have been hit by high interest rates to continue to pay off those loans and not lose their homes. This would have been at zero cost to the tax payer. That was not government's solution…

The total now is estimated now at.. wait for it… wait for it.. $8.5 Trillion! Hmm.. Kind of dwarfs all the fears of the IRAQ military funding costs, you know the ones that everyone said were so out of control and that we need to pull our troops out immediately, leaving that country completely destabilized because we could not afford it. Looks like they were looking in the wrong place..

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/26/MNVN14C8QR.DTL

Where is all that money coming from? Try this one that was mentioned today:

“The Federal Reserve and the Treasury announced $800 billion in new lending programs on Tuesday, sending a message that they would print as much money as needed to revive the nation’s crippled banking system.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/business/economy/26fed.html?bl&ex=1227848400&en=5a50becfbe5bac73&ei=5087%0A

http://caps.fool.com/blogs/viewpost.aspx?bpid=113309&t=01001019292467236494

Maybe that will be the next hot item at Wal*Marts around the nation, your own money printing press!

Can this government get more dysfunctional? Yep, just wait and see as we enter into Hyper Inflation and it costs you $100,000 for a loaf of bread! What will that home be worth then? Opps, retire-what-funds? Yeah, all those Baby Boomers heading for retirement as our government guts out those retire funds. On top of this there was mention a few days ago that over half the medical doctors in this country and burned out and are thinking of quitting. Yo, Baby Boomers, maybe you should retire in 2020 or beyond and be sure not to get sick…

It is funny, with all this garbage flying around as the elite rich clean out any funds this country does have, we do not hear much about the financial tsunami that is suppose to hit soon as the Baby Boomers retire and claim Social Security. What ever happened with that? Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the biggest financial storms to hit us?

Someone better get some sense in this country before it is too late! Good thing I am a Christian, this might be scary otherwise…

Quick, Get your money while supplies last!

Thinker — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:57:13 GMT

More and more bailouts! Does this stupidity every stop? Someone, quick, pinch me, this really is not happening right? Come on, this has to be a nightmare! The word of the day kids is “Trillion”, that is “$1,000,000,000,000”. Yep, we are quickly heading to reach eleven of those in debt. That is more than $33,000 per living USA citizen. If you are a family of five, your household debt run up by the government will soon be, over $166,000! Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over right? NOT!

Since we have a GDP of about $14,000,000,000,000 (14 trillion), that would mean it would take almost the entire GDP to pay off the debt.

Back in September our government approved a $25,000,000,0000 ($25 billion) bailout of the auto industry and now they say it is not enough. GM is burning over $2 billion per month. How do you deal with those kinds of numbers?

How much money does it cost to build an auto manufacture anyways? Those numbers are not millions, but billions! If you want to throw money we do not have around, how about giving $25 billion to Tesla Motors and seeing how an auto manufacture can really fly while making our transportation section no longer dependent on fossil fuels?

http://www.autonews.com/article/20081106/COPY/311069882/-1/ANA03

Let us see here, just this year we have wasted billions in stimulus checks, then close to a trillion dollars to bail out the financial sector, now we are talking billions more for the auto industry, then the airline industry will probably raise their heads again what for more billions and then who? It reminds me of the old Susan Powers diet mantra “Stop the Insanity”! It seems only in the USA do we reward inept businesses who are completely unable to run their businesses in the black with more money to continue their failed business practices…

Seriously, I know there are a lot of jobs at stake, but why bail out companies that have spent the last few years continuing to ignore the market and pump out fossil fuel hunger vehicles? How about putting the money into an drop-in engine, drive train electric conversion company where they produce a drop-in replacement for many of the current vehicle models that will make the hydrogen/electric hybrids? There are a lot of people who would upgrade their current fossil fuel hungry engines with new hydrogen / electric models that could be charged up at home. Just think of what that would do to the oil prices…

The problem is that our government seems to think there is money somewhere when the pockets are already empty just like most people’s gas gauges. How does more money for failed companies who refuse to listen to the market and change, make any sense? Maybe it is time for them to close their doors and make way for new manufactures to step up and take the lead!

Just look at how hard it is to release a new model of a vehicle. With all the regulation and safety concerns, it takes years along with a fortune to produce anything. I am all for safety, but when it takes years to get a vehicle to market in these days, it is time to rethink this to a reasonable level. We need to get this down to a maximum of three to six months for new models to be ready to roll. They people are ready to move into a new world of electric / hydrogen based vehicles but the manufactures are too busy dumping out more fossil fuel based vehicles. Maybe we should just kick those companies to the side and start over.

At what point do you get a clue?

Thinker — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:04:11 GMT

Today, I spotted an article that gives a clue of who really wants Obama for our president:

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17419

Yep, Hamas Palestinians are making calls for Obama to help get him elected…

Add to this France’s Sarkozy’s comments on Obama:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031943.html

Then there is the supporters of Obama such as Jesse Jackson in this post on Jewish Chronicle:

http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=10765

The article quoting Jackson as saying :

“Decades of putting Israel’s interests first would end,” he said. “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades would lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.”

This is just another link in Jesse Jackson’s racist views of the Jewish people. This is yet another person Obama now has to step back from, such as his racist anti-American pastor, A.C.O.R.N and …. the listing continues to grow.

At least now Obama’s wife is saying she is proud of American, I guess now that she plans on being in the White House, she has a reason to be proud of this nation instead of slamming it along with their pastor of 22 years!

Yeah, I know, I thought the last post was going to be my last political post about this election, but I saw the article about the Palestinians making calls for Obama and thought I would share :)

Obama or McCain? Really, voting for him?

Thinker — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 17:58:08 GMT

As probably the last post I will make on this election, it looks like another fun filled election with the only resort to vote for Mr. "None of the above". I personally do not feel either candidate listed is responsible nor worth to run this country.

Yes, I will give that McCain did an awesome job for his nation in his military service, but the job he did on his first wife, the job he did in the Keaton Five and the job he does in flip-flopping (sometimes within minutes) is a disservice to this country. Anyone who has a temper that they cannot control should not be in a place of authority.

Obama just seems to say a lot for actually saying nothing much of substance unless it is empty promises. His history with his racist, anti-America pastor for 22 years along with the fact that his own wife disrespected this nation with her remark that this was the "first time" she was proud of this nation instantly removes him from my vote regardless of what promises he makes or what he "says' he stands for. Obama also wants to keep late term partial birth abortion, which is the most evil thing this nation has every allowed as a people. When you deliver a baby at term, all but the head and then proceed to suck its brains out, you are flat out evil and no good can dwell in you. A leader of this nation should not support such horrible murders in the name of gaining votes. It is not an issue of the mother's life or any other excuse at this point, the mother cannot be harmed by allowing the head to come out!

There is another issue that many overlook. The president himself is not the one that rules this country, he actually has a little role and often his main power is in the veto. The real power is in the congress which is currently being held hostage by people who should have never even been in a position of authority. If you do not agree, just look over the last 20 years at what has gone on in this nation's politics. It is time for change, but that goes for congress as well.

For the Economy?

Now, as for the economy, I am still in a pickle with the choices as I do not feel either will really help out much. I do like the idea of McCain's to buy out a bunch of the failed mortgages though as it will help people keep their homes and not drive all the home prices down in their area. I think a forced interest rate limitation of at the most 9.99% for all home loans would also work to keep most people in their homes and not cost the government (tax payers) anything.

I think our entire government needs to be chastised for what has happened in our economy and for ever even bringing us to this point, not to mention this insane spending on bailouts, throwing money everywhere that we do not even have. Come on people, we are they wealthiest nation on the planet? Not! We are the biggest loser, it would take almost the entire GDP to bail us out of this debt! That’s not wealth, it is bondage!

Here is the rub though, we elected all these people who have destroyed our nation…

For Businesses and Taxes?

For business though, which would be better. McCain is for tax cuts and Obama is for tax hikes. Yes, Obama claims it is only a tax on the rich (like himself), but you know this is not true. As business people we all should know by now that a tax hike is paid by everyone not just those they target. One of the first basics of business is that if your cost goes up you must raise your prices to cover those increases unless it will damage your business and even at those times, you might have to anyway. It is simple, if you raise taxes on the wealthy, they will trickle down to everyone. Likewise, if you raise taxes against the poor, they will trickle up since they will not have as much money to purchases goods and services and again everyone pays.

I have heard people spew about how the wealthy pay so much of the tax burden of this country and the poorer people pay nothing. You have got to be kidding me, how much does everyone pay every time they buy a produce or service that will end up in tax. It is not called a tax, but it still is as that part will go to pay tax anyway. There was one man running in the primaries who I actually liked because he was so obvious in so many things, even in things like pandering, but at least he told the truth on a business environment and tried to get out in the open this problem of taxes on business and the wealthy as driving more businesses away and hurting our economy.

So, it is simple, a tax hike is a tax hike for everyone, it does not matter the target of the tax.

For Healthcare?

What about health care? My first question is “why” do we need it. The truth is our medical system is out of touch with reality. The prices are so far off the map that most people pay what the services are really worth with the deductibles and co-pays. For example, take the price of a typical major operation with someone on a decent health plan. They will probably have to pay 10%-20% of that bill. That is probably what they bill should be in the first play. If we had true healthcare reform, most people would not need any health care coverage and could pay their way.

It looks like we do not have much of a choice in this election, you either choose mandated healthcare or mandated healthcare. Where is the options here? Okay, so Obama says he will put in an escape clause for small businesses, but for how long? A mandate is a mandate and things will change. Same goes for McCain’s poor plan that taxes those plans and then gives back $5,000 to help out, yeah right. In today’s world, when a mandate comes out on healthcare, those costs are going to jump and jump high, they current prices will seem like the good old days pretty soon. And with all the baby-boomer starting to retire and need healthcare, all I can say is goodbye wallet!

At the end of the day, this is a bad election for everyone of every class except for the blood sucking medical world who will enjoy all the new found profits! When your country is based on capitalism and the people have lost morals and ethics, then you end up in this mess. Just remember, we have elected the failed congress and failed presidents and it looks like it will continue :(

There is another thing I have noticed viewing some of the posts people have made about this election, it is amazing how many people actually listen to and embrace all that negative campaign garbage. You hear comments that “Obama is a Arab”, “not another 4 years of Bush”, “McCain is a war-lord”, etc. It surprises me people are foolish enough to believe any of this dribble. The masses shock me as I thought more people had one or two.. Thoughts that is!

None of the above is the only sensible choice I can see. Yes, it will not matter this year, but it sure would be nice if the majority vote was for a write-in “None of the above”!

Chevy Volt – Coming age of rechargeables?

Thinker — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:25:04 GMT

GM is planning on producing the Chevy Volt in late 2010 (if they can stay in business until then). The car is a electric/gas hybrid, but will come with a household plug to be able to charge the battery. By charging the battery, you are supposed to achieve up to 40 miles before the gas motor engages to charge the batteries to power the vehicle. The thought is that many people will travel less than 40 miles per day, thus allowing for zero gas usage.

For more information see:

http://wot.motortrend.com/ 6285981/green/volt-watch-gm-gives-details-on-plug-in-hybrids-battery

There are some interesting posts in the comments on that page. Some try to calculate the cost of 40 miles, which if the battery is dead, it would take about 16 KWH (in my area about $0.09 per KWH or $1.44 for a full charge). There are people who battle saying that it is not enough of a savings to justify the price vehicle (I doubt the price remains that high after the first year or so) and others argue about the issues that it is still pulling power plants that can be fossil fuels. Many seem to miss the point.

The point of having a vehicle that will use primarily electricity or hydrogen (which we all know is easily created with electricity) is not price, nor directly saving the world from fossil fuels, but it is moving the transportation industry to a form of energy that can be derived from many different sources.

Think about this, what if tomorrow we came up with a way to generate massive amounts of electricity at little cost. How would that change the transportation industry or our use of fossil fuels? Very little since most vehicles on the roads consume fossil fuels and can run on nothing else and you cannot generate fossil fuels from electricity. This is the hook keeping use bound to fossil fuels.

If all the vehicles move to some form of electricity drive, then we can use power from many different technologies which include green sources. If new forms of generation come along, it is only a flip of the switch and everyone is using that new power without any changes. As it is, we are bound to fossil fuels.

For an example, we know that diesel can be used to cause less pollution, but it does not matter as most vehicles on the road today cannot use diesel, but it could be used for power generation and pump that power out to electric vehicles.

Another aspect to electric or hydrogen based power is that we can control the consumption of fossil fuels to the power plants which should be much more energy efficient than the motors in all those vehicles on the road. We could get a lot more bang for the barrel than pumping into vehicles.

Add on to this the reduction or at least control of pollution. Large metro areas could have zero emissions from transportation. Finally, clean air in big cities! The pollution would be controlled in the area of the power plant and emission standards could be in place to massively reduce pollution generated by transportation.

There is also the advantage of simply buying a few solar panels or a wind generator and using them to augment your power consumption. Some who are already off the grid can plug in and go!

While the Chevy Volt is only the first step in a considerable latter, it is at least a step. I personally feel that the auto industry should have been required to have at least 50% of their production line, electric/hydrogen and move us into the future now. Surely the “world” market for these kinds of vehicles could jump our auto industry to the lead once again!

I like one of the comments that maybe the should drop the gas motor and just double the battery size, an 80 mile commuter vehicle could be a big bread winner!

Barrel prices down, what about the pump?

Thinker — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:20:58 GMT

I sure get tired of these games. Here oil prices have been dropping like like a rock as far as barrel prices are concerned, but what about the pump? Just tonight, I looked again and the price per gallon is $3.30. This is pure rip off, but hey, that is nothing new!

So, lets go back in history a bit and take a look. Here is an article from 2005 when prices had climbed to near $60 per barrel (yes, I know ours is around $70, but that should not make this much of a difference):

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/21/ Business/Price_of_oil_nears_60.shtml

Yep, the nationwide average was $2.13 per gallon at near $60. Here is another article from 2005 where prices where at $55 per barrel:

http://www.boston.com/business/markets/ articles/2005/03/10/crude_briefly_tops_55_a_barrel/

Yep, that is $2.00 per gallon and they were worried it would hit $2.10 per gallon.

And gas is current $3.30 why? Oh yeah, pure greed.

That reminds me of yet another campaign line I am tired of hearing, “we must cut or demand for oil”. Okay, let us look at this for a minute. This is coming from millionaires who are running for President of the USA, who have managed to arrive at their speaking engagement on a jet, wasting more fuel that many lowly people, being shuffled around in big fancy limos, burning millions of $$$ in campaign funds, and they are asking “us” to cut back? Come on, its called “being a leader” for a reason!

Raise Taxes? On who?

Thinker — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:47:40 GMT

Browsing around yesterday, I came across this article on CNN about the Joe the Plumber junk, I mean the guy turned out not to even have a license and still all this talk.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/ 10/16/joe.plumber/index.html

It really all comes down to raising taxes. Yes, I have heard the dribble about 95% of the people getting a tax break not a tax raise, but you want to know a secret? It is a JOKE! Yep, a joke and it is on the poorer people of the nation. It ALWAYS is on the poorer people and not the rich. It does not matter how much you raise taxes on who, it is ALWAYS on the poorer people!!!

Okay, let me explain for those who do not get the picture. Let us say that I have a business and all of the sudden a price hike happens to the materials I use to make my product. Do I just eat that price hike and see the product at the same price? NO! You raise the price of the product to compensate!

So, with that frame of reference, what happens when the rich get hit with a tax hike, do they just eat it and make less money? Come on, you cannot really be that gullible can you? They will increase products and services (or those that they are in power of) to compensate and the consumer then ends up paying for the hike. Imagine if every product or service in this nation did not have an embedded tax in the retail price how low it would be… Here is another thought to ponder, how much are you (assuming you are not part of the rich elite) really paying in taxes when you include the embedded tax on top of sales tax, income tax, personal property tax, local tax, tax, tax, tax…

I get tired hearing all this garbage the the top (x) percent of people pay 85% of all the taxes and the poor pay nothing. Yes, they pay the taxes, but where do they get the money to pay them? From the poorer people who buy all their products and services!

It is some kind of fantasy that anyone will take from the rich and give to the poor, it is just taking from the poor and then increasing the taking on the poor!

Stop the insanity! Instead of seeking more tax hikes on the rich, lets focus on getting the lower end of the table to earn more money to be able to afford to live so at least they do not have to worry about food on the table or a roof over their heads and maybe have enough left over to enjoy a decent size TV to enjoy some of the basics of life!

Here it comes, yep it is time! Lets get the minimum wage in this country to $25 per hour! Before you faint, let us look at a matter. Fuel prices have tripled in a few short years. Price for cooling oil has tripled in the last two years. When I went to buy some flour it had doubled in price and even a bag of potato chips have doubled, that is more than 100% inflation, but wage has hardly moved.

Here in Oregon, minimum wage will be $8.40 per hour come January 2009. That is a gross of about $1,450 per month before taxes, SSI, etc. By the time they get it home, you are talking about probably $1,100 per month to live on. Let us see here, rent in any safe place to live will be $750 minimum per month. Then there is utilities and transportation to get you back on the forth to work. Opps, at this point you have zero left over to live on. You had better hope you are married on both of you have fulltime jobs to be able to have money for food.

I have heard people say that minimum wage is only for those entry level jobs and that it is not supposed to be for the general employment force. Most businesses are working hard to keep their costs as low as they can and minimum wage is the bar. While you can go no lower than that, many business try to keep it close to or just a dollar or two above. That is not a living wage. Even at $25 per hour in today’s economy, it is not much of a living wage.

You want to help the lower classes, get minimum wage up and give the people working capital to live on and purchase those products and services. It will help everyone evolved and will ensure that the rich end up paying their share.

Netflix Gets Starz!

Thinker — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:58:58 GMT

Well, it looks like my thoughts about Netflix just been improved (had some hard feelings with slow shipments and losing a week worth of service a while back: http://reflectedthought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2008/08/18/Netflix-I-am-not-so-happy-anymore.aspx ).

Netflix has made a deal with Starz! for 2,500 movies to be listed under their “Watch Instantly” streaming video on demand system. While Netflix had 12,000 titles listed in the “Watch Instantly” section, much of them were older shows or really, really lame shows. With this deal, Netflix has 1,000 of these new titles available now and the other 1,500 are supposed to be added soon. Also, was mentioned watching Starz! through live streaming at no extra cost (not available yet, but supposed to be soon).

After a quick browse of new releases in the “Watch Instantly” section and it is obvious the Starz! titles have arrived. There are quite a number of main stream titles. There should be plenty to watch when you have the time. Also, they have TV Series available. Miss an episode of CSI last year? They seem to have all CSI (prior to this year) available for instant view.

For our house, we have an old DEL laptop with S-Video output which we use in the living room to watch Netflix “Watch Instantly” titles. There have been a few quirks with bandwidth using wireless, but that issue will be solved shortly as I ordered some Cat 5 cable and will be hard wiring the LAN into the living room which should give us plenty of bandwidth.

Cost is not bad, a good older laptop, $80 on eBay, Cat 5 cable $13, audio patch cord $5. If you are not interested in having a usable computer pumping out the video, you can purchase either the Roku standalone Netflix viewer for $99 or the LG Network Blu-ray Dsic Player for $399.

For those that are not aware, you can get a membership to Netflix with unlimited “Watch Instantly” and have 1 DVD shipped out at a time on top of it for only $8.99 per month!

Tattered And Torn Country..

Thinker — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 09:20:14 GMT

As the flag to the right appears to be a bit tattered and torn, slowly falling apart at the seams, so to our wonderful USA has become tattered and torn, and we also appear to be falling apart at the seams. Why does this happen, what is the cause?

Perhaps it is out of neglect, those that we have appointed to watch over our treasured land have fallen to sleep and no longer pay attention to the signs of stress or the needs to be repaired to weather what we must go through over the years ahead to provide a land of freedom and plenty for all. It is hard to understand though, as we all can see the signs of wear, those points of stress where we seem to want to divide. It is there in plain sight, just as the flag to the right, which waves above a city in clear view, so are the issues that want to tare our country apart.

In the end of the day, we all only have our selves to blame. They problems have existed for decades and only increase year after year. Now we stand at a precipitous point in American history. Our great country has fought and stood strong throughout the centuries, but now it seems our values have fallen, corruption rules, controls grow and greed governs.

Where are the source of these dark thoughts that I ponder? Well, I have witnessed how the ethics and morals of our nation have ebbed and flowed over the last couple of decades, but especially over the last year or two. It is like the people are sleep walking and no longer pay attention to anything.

About an hour ago, I finished watching the first Presidential debate. I find it hard to believe that a country such as ours, which has been the beacon of light to the nations around the world for more than 200 years have come to the point that we would have these two candidates to select from for the leader of this great nation. These men do not seem to be worthy of even running for the office the clamor to obtain, let alone to actually be in that office. Can you really say in your heart that these two are the best we have in this nation of over 300 million people?

Maybe, it was our complacency as the issues streamed before us, or perhaps some have just been blind or fallen to sleep and did not see, nor possibly even wanted to see. For far too long citizens have swept the dirty deeds of elected officials under the carpet for one reason or another and now we all pay the price.

Where is the heart and soul of this great nation? Where is the passion of patriotism that once graced our nation as a mighty flood? Where have all the citizens gone? They are obviously not voting, they are not running for office, they clearly are not standing against the tidal waves of corruption and moral ineptness.

Slap the person next to you, we all need to wake up from this nightmare! You know, with a little effort and a little time and a lot of caring, that flag can be fixed and fly once again, complete and whole, so could this nation if people would leave their hedonistic lifestyles and think of something more than themselves! Stand firm against greed and corruption, stand firm against injustice, be the people this nation once was full of and heal the land!

Paper, Plastic or neither?

Thinker — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 07:47:03 GMT

It is really getting insane around this country lately. Now there is the battle over the bag! With all the woes that our nation is undergoing, is it really the time to FORCE everyone away from plastic grocery bags?

When the plastic bag came along, I thought it was great. Here we have a device that can hold more than my old paper bags without ripping along with the added bonus that if something spills in the bag, it would stay in the bag, cool! Yes, there is an issue that the bags do not stand up like paper and when you get home you may find some of your groceries scatter around the back of your vehicle, but this was a trivial problem.

Now it seems, everyone is calling the plastic bag one of the most evil things on the planet (or at least they make it sound that way). Just recently, some of our stores in our State of Oregon, have decided to kill off the old plastic bag and some have even decided to charge for each bag unless you have your own cloth bags. Have you noticed those people that come up to the counter with those dirty nasty looking bags?

I do not like cloth or paper bags! Why? First, if something spills, in the bag, it is all over the vehicle. Next, I would have to wash the cloth bags, using more water and detergents as they get pretty nasty looking quickly. Then you have the problem of making sure you have them with you, just another pain to live with.

Plastic bags get more than one use in my house, they end up with trash in them and typically, cat littler. Of course, they are used to pack lunch to work, store loose items around the house and a host of other uses. Now, instead of have these bags paid for by the price I pay for the groceries, I now have to buy them in addition to the groceries and take the chance that I do not get flogged for using them.

I would think that those who are concerned about the plastic bags, should maybe take on diapers or possibly that hard plastic that seems be bound all over just about any product you buy lately. How about when you buy scissors and they are incased in this huge flat plastic that requires scissors to get into? It is a joke how much plastic is used wrapped around products to prevent them from being stolen along with making the product visible.

For me, I will just boycott any stores that force people to give up plastic bags until they all have the policy, at which time, I guess I will have to bite the bullet and make sure my wife does all the shopping so I do not deal with them anymore ;)

Simple solutions for elected officials!

Thinker — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 07:52:21 GMT

There are a number of elected government officials that seem to care more about their pockets and those of their friends than the good of our nation. This trend appears to have been going for many years now. Government officials and large corporations seem to be running everything, at the cost of our nation they claim to support.

Let is take a snapshot of our country at the moment. Once we were a nation of producers and now we have become a nation of consumers. In the past we actually had a manufacturing sector and now we have an Import sector with huge trade deficits. How did this come about? Is it just a global society and we need to figure new technologies to stay in the game?

The answer is obvious, large corporations and elected officials have sold our nation down the river. Their interests not based on the good for this nation. We have large corporations such as Wal-Mart that side with businesses in other nations to attach and destroy companies in the USA all in the name of making a buck (one reason I have not stepped inside a Wal-mart store in over four years now). I do not know if they are are just greedy to the point of turning stupid or if they really do not care which nation they are based in, this new world of International global friendly companies seem to live in the gray area.

Whenever you talk about our economy and the loss of jobs due to shipping those manufacturing companies or technologies out of our nation, there are those that raise their banners shouting “Protectionism”. Well, yes, there should be protection for our jobs and our economy and that should come from the White House all the way down, anything else is putting out country up for sale to the lowest bidder.

Look at just energy over the last ten years. We had Enron and their corruption that took good power plants off the grid for supposed maintenance only to drive the prices up with the word “Shortage”. Some people had their electric bills double, triple and at times even go much higher. It is fraud, but what do you think of the so called Oil shortage now, do you really think oil is three to four times more valuable now than four years ago? No, it is yet another case of fraud. We have huge energy resources in this country, but the public is duped into believing we should not touch them. In another decade fossil fuels will have little market value and probably be going for $0.50-$1.00 per barrel as we no longer need it for transportation or electricity generation.

These are just a few examples of how our nation is being governed by a select few who do not have this nation’s interests at heart. These elected officials and large corporations will sell out just about anyone for a buck. They are beasts that have no ethics and only survive to feed on greed.

Another example is from the local area where I was born and raised out here in Oregon. Many years ago, we were primarily supported by the timber industry. In the early days they did not manage forest correctly and we have mountains with the ugly clear cutting scars to prove it. But those days where long past when a group of people wanted to kill of the timber industry in our area and got the worthless spotted owl on the protection list and told everyone that we needed to leave the forests alone for those little worthless owls. If they were really concerned they should have captured them all and threw them into a zoo.

Well, that little owl got enough people’s attention that our government sold out the timber industry in trade for regular payments from the Federal government to help make up the loss of timber revenue. So much for the interests of the Timber industry and all those tens of thousands of employees, this little ugly owl was more important than all of them.

It has been many years since those days and now the Federal government is ending those payments and all these counties and scrambling for some way to even stay running. Guess they should have not sold out the timber industry and force the closure of all those mills. Wake up call – TIMBER is a renewable resource!

Back on Point to the Solution

One of the primary problems I see, is that the people in charge do not have an investment in what is good for an area or the nation. It does not matter to them if times are good or bad, if good the claim it was because of them and if bad they claim it was due to everyone and everything else. We need more accountability!

Here is a wild thought for a possible solution to this problem. How about we make sure they have a vested interest in the success of the area they control? We could start with salary. How about making elected officials salary equal to the average salary for the area they control? That could hurt their pocket books.

Even if their salary is in direct relationship to the local economy, they still have all their revenue from books, conferences, speaking fees, etc., not to mention they may already have a great wealth before they take office. That could be easily fixed by requiring all their assets to be on hold for the term they are in office other than their salary. In addition, they should be barred from speaking fees and the like, while they are in office.

I have heard people say that you would not have anyone wanting to run for office if they were paid the average salary. I am not sure that is true, to me it seems like public offices should be more honor than money making. It does not matter what the person would make in the public sector, let them “Server” the country or not run.

The main point here is that officials should have some concern about the area they control and we need a method that will keep them on track with accountability.

Ghostbusters – Rebooted (1984 again?)

Thinker — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:27:38 GMT

Who said Hollywood does not have new ideas? Oh, I guess they don’t or we are heading for a time warp. Ghostbusters may be coming to a theater near your over the next couple of years.

Back in 1984, you were hard pressed to find people that did not know the theme song to Ghostbusters and most of the youth had seen the movie. If that where not enough, there was a video game put out for the Commodore 64 computer (yeah, those nice little machines you hooked up to your TVs ;) ).

For me, the squeal pretty much stunk. Some thought it was funny, but I thought it was no where near the mark of the first.

I just hope they stay with the original cast!

http://www.variety.com/VR1117991624.html

http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/celebrity/news/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=9485415

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-ghostbusters3writers,0,4036136.story

Four eared Cat and Two Head Turtles...

Thinker — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 09:13:12 GMT

You never know what you will find on the Internet anymore :)