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 :)

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”!

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!

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!

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.