Yes, the book has been written now goes like this…
To defeat thy enemy,
You must speak the cleanest water as poison so thy enemy shall not drink from it.
Then, only the poison water shall you point as good and you shall receive many thanks for it.
…
Personally, I do not care if the President is Black, White or Purple or From Kenya, Russia or China. He is the current President and holds the shape of the future in his hands and you don’t normally get more than one chance to get it right so for yourself and kids sake, all had better wish him success for it as it is your own success or failure. I have said the same for the last two Presidents.
I can only guess that many of you placing comments on net blogs are the same folks that were paying all the attention to the Monica Lewinsky matter.
And while your attention was focused on that meaningless set of facts, Congress was busy “repealing the Glass-Steagall Act” that enabled the Banks to trash this country in less than 9 years. To show how effective this is… most of you still do not understand or know that this really happened or what the act was created for. What was the term Reagan used… oh… smoke and mirrors.
Shame on you that are not much more than a bunch of sheep to be herded.
You do not have to be collage educated to be educated. I guess it is easier to let the talking heads on the Radio and TV think for you.
But do they really point to the clean water? Don’t ask me to drink from the same troth as you.
For many years I have listened to Wal-Mart preach to me about a more efficient distribution system and cutting out the middle man retailing. About 2 years ago they finally sold me but more on that later…
Here is what I can tell you about the company in my lifetime.
Its founder, Sam Walton, believed in the Made In The USA label as a motto of his life at his stores.
After going to a publicly held company and his death, when he was considered to be one of the richest Americans, the store grew very fast using the tax incentive system of many locals to forgive/for-stow taxes in order to invite company’s to land their business with them. The problem being, the locals not only gave up the tax revenue but increased their costs as new water/sewer systems had to be created and road improvements to accommodate the traffic of the new store. At the same time the stores put a strain on existing small business (who got no tax break) putting most of them out-of-business and thus a loss of tax revenue both income and property.
A more Efficient Distribution System was another name for such a large retailer to determine the price of what would be paid instead of the maker of the product. This had no bearing on the cost of the product to the consumer unless there was local completion for the product.
Examples:
A national and worldwide producer such as Coka-Cola would not want to loose the tremendous visibility for their product in all those stores so they give-in. etc…
A maker of light switches signs a contract to produce switches 24/7 without working anyone overtime for say… $1.03 each but wal-mart says they would pay $0.99 for the same with only one catch… They are buying all the product, they could not work folks overtime to manufacture for other retailers. The effect of this is to guarantee a price far into the future at the same time as taking a large chunk of the product off the market thus increasing the cost for everyone else.
Now keep in mind I do not dislike Wal-Mart, just these type of practices and Wal-Mart does not have a monopoly on these practices as others have learned from them and execute them very well. Lowes comes first in my mind.
Ever wonder who was behind those state initiatives to raise the state minimum wage in only certain states in some 2008 elections?
Wal-Mart was. It was a means to increase the cost to competitors where Wal-Mart was already paying more than minimum wage (to steal talent from best competitors). These were made irrelevant by the raising the federal minimum wage that superseded the states wages by the Democratic Congress elected in the same.
Wal-Mart has been losing Album and Movie sales to the internet recently and have bought several company’s to try to make its own online audio and video retailer and all attempts have failed. They just trashed the company’s and still can not figure this out.
Hey… that’s just business in this unregulated capitalist society.
Yes brick and mortar CO’s always have to loose some serious money before they learn the game. It is because on the internet, they have more competitors so if you are going to play the game of “Monopoly”, you will lose. Its a new game in town called “equal” and its found on the internet. So now we can only go so far on price… it now comes back to service where it was to begin with.
So now Wal-Mart, you sold me. I no longer have any local independent businesses to purchase from. And you do not have a monopoly on goods from China.
I can get goods from China on my own and save even more ! Lots-a-luck-to-ya, The internet is a more efficient distribution system. Perhaps you should buy Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and Time Warner to create a monopoly on the internet.
Yes the FCC turned its head and allowed the Comcast Universal Merger but what is the real interest behind the scenes?
Content Delivery Companies (aka Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon) realized some time ago that they are a “PIPE PROVIDER”. Meaning that they were the pipe to get the content. Not being satisfied with that, they wanted to own the content they were providing since they had a monopoly of delivery to a specific geographic area.
So in order to fund this new monopoly mission, they had increased rates and rate configurations to “make a killing” and spend those profits on buying the content they were providing.
Now to anyone who argues for free markets, this is corporate subsidies in action.
How?
Comcast argued for years that if they did not package channels they way they do, Disney and other channels would fail as nobody would pay for them. Well isn’t that what free markets do?
So if nobody would pay for Japanese Golf Spoke in Spanish I have to pay for it to watch the NFL?
Enough said on that.
So now that Comcast Universal and Time Warner owns most of the content that will be provided to any and all subscribers (this would include NEWS & Movies/Entertainment), Do you really trust these company’s with their track record.
Even Ted Turner who started this process got screwed by Time Warner in their deal as there is just to much money in this and whenever there is to much money in it, the average joe takes the hit for it. In other words, it is far from a win-win situation.
That being said, who could possibley stand-up to one of these giants for competition as they control the pipe and you must go through them to make any money on your content and I’m sure your rate will be higher than theirs and a higher cost to the subscriber if you can make it that far.
So now what?
Enter the internet. Providers can be anywhere in the world and can provide content on demand anytime you want it but with one big hitch.
Comcast and Time Warner have nearly as much control of the Internet it provides the same customers. They “choke off/limit speed/quality of service that makes streaming video a problem for those that would use it more than a few times a week.
While Comcast and Time Warner have been so busy buying content, a Big deal is inevitable now with Verizon if they are to compete. For the record, Verizon has spent much of their profits on infrastructure in the form of fiber optics to deliver the best internet and TV experience available. I personally have other issues with the company but the for-mentioned is valid.
So, the only hope is for the Internet to open the gates of content to allow content other than what is owned by the pipe providers to be seen. We can see the beginning of this now with YouTube and others.
Problem here is will the pipe providers (Comcast, Time Warner,Verzion) have control of the largest open interface the world has yet to see.
Now that Comcast has the content they want, they wish to kill any measure that would restrict them from giving poor service to anyone that would compete with them via the internet that they also provide to the same customers. So the FCC’s “Net Neutrality rules” and PBS are on assault by the Comcast lobbyist and Congressional Republicans under the premise of budget cuts.
The Iranian government has succeeded in stopping decent from its citizens, but only for now. This issue is sure to be revisited soon enough. Most likely, just before or after next elections if not sooner.
This is a quest for freedom of the best kind. No military could impose such a grand change. For it to be real and work for those that fight for it, it must come from the bottom up!
If you were to think about how the face of the middle east would change from such an event, it really becomes more complicated than first makes the eye as many dealings we have with neighboring countries that are not commonly known about aid in the form of military hardware, intelligence and are big cost to the taxpayer, keeping oil shipping lanes open for us and the rest of the world (try adding that cost to the price of gas/oil).
Most likely the Iranians are not likely to try again to regain their government unless the government blinks or provokes them or a model for success is provided to them. What role should the U.S. play? Can we help them without making a mess if they do not succeed. Could we afford that?
Several times the U.S. Government promised to help those who would overthrow their governments in the middle east. Twice in Iraq once in Afganistan and broke all promises. This created US trained Osama Binladen and my guess would be that if the US had to do it over again it would not have broke its promise.
If Egypt or Syria were to fall at the hand of its own people, surely Saudi Arabia and the rest of the middle east would be doing what no military or economic sanction could do.
Of course this is part of what they told us the Iraq war was to do and look at the cost of that. And to boot those folks are not sure if they want the democracy we left them with. Would it not have been cheaper in money and blood if we had kept our original promise in the first place.
One of the most important reasons those in the region have a unfavorable opinions of us is the way company’s here act in those lands and the people see it as a extension of our government because they do not have free markets there and we constantly go to their defense when those same company’s get in trouble over there for doing things they would not be allowed to do over here! So with all the broken promises, why should any of them trust us?
The very big question for us in the U.S. is “will we truly stand for our ideals” or only the ideals of our largest corporations.
Tread Softly and Keep your morals intact.
Revolution is coming to a country near you very soon ! The internet is going to change everything !
Seems that there is a bit of maneuvering on these Bush era tax break extensions. It seems there is common ground that a deal can be made.
The Republicans do not want this on their plate when they take office and the Democrats want to deal for benefits for the unemployed while they can so the lame duck congress will take the hit if there is one to take.
While I do not advocate raising taxes on anyone without a eminent good reason… Lets look at what all the tax breaks have done in the last 11 years.
A Little tax break for folks earning under 200,000 a year and the two (count’m 2) wholesale checks given to taxpayers in the tune of 300 to 600 in cash each that we had to borrow from China and India to be able to deliver adding to the budget deficit. (gee I thought the republicans were spend thrifty and pay-as-you-go?)
So here is the CBO (congressional budget office) data on the effects of the cuts.
It shows that as the cuts and checks came into effect, revenue was up but the GDP and relationship to the GDP came down so your money and property basically became worth less and goods cost more.
Also keep in mind that increases in revenue are mostly from government spending on the war in Iraq and Afganistan as the military goods needed, keeps many jobs and tax revenue going for the country. If not for those wars, this chart would look much worse.
It does scare me what happens when these wars end. There is so much mis-information about them that it is no wonder the public is so confused.
So I am sorry, they can not make a case for cutting taxes to me. Cut taxes after you figure out how to spend thrifty. Otherwise you are just adding to the problem.
A case can be made that the price of oil/energy is the largest effect of any good in the economy and the U.S. strength as far as national security and cost and taxes for it are concerned.
These tax breaks have cost the public much more than they have benefited from them but in a hidden way. What did Ronald Reagan call that…. ” SMOKE AND MIRRORS”. Funny I should bring up that name as Reagan. While he is credited for the largest tax break in history, also passes one of the largest tax increases in history just two years later.
They do not tell you that they couldn’t work and it was the tax increase that led the nation to a great GDP, jobs and revenue.
At least Reagan was a “compromiser”, not something I can say about those in office now and about to take office.
Republicans, who shut themselves out of the process, have no more complaint as they will be in charge of future spending. Yes it was the minority that kept most good legislation from having any chance and most of us did not hear about it as they kept us all focused on health care.
In the art of winning an election, the first things you will hear from them are what the voters said on election day (so they can do what they want instead of what the electorate wants) and as always that message that they craft will be wrong as it is about Jobs and the Economy NOT what I expect them to say Budget cuts and Un-tie the Hands of Business (deregulation and tax relief)
It appears the Republicans have not only swept the US Seats but all of the state seats (at least in my local area).
So what have we to look forward to:
1: Cutting the funds on the regulator and oversight arms of the government so Companies can do what they want regardless of the law. the FDA, EPA and others will not have the funds to enforce the law. So we can look forward to poison food, air and water probably coming from foreign sources!
2: Further deregulation of the financial , health-care, insurance
3: Continued tax breaks for the Corporate world and incentives to move operations overseas brought to you in the name of JOBS.
4: Assaults on Unions, OSHA and safety in the workplace in the form of HIGH COST and RED TAPE.
It seems the public has not learned from the deregulation of the Banks and Wall Street in 1999 and the lack of proper regulation in the deep sea oil drilling regulation that did not exists do to the Republicans in the late 90’s so we will call them back to finish the job they started.
I for one now support the idea of giving neither party a majority and vote Independent so they have to work together to do anything!
