Holiday Season

It looks like the Holiday season is upon us. Time to enjoy family, friends, football and fine food. I am looking forward to spending time with my wonderful grandchildren this coming week. A few days off work does a body good. Especially good if it keeps your mind off the economy and the fact that work is experiencing a slight downturn. It'll give me a little time to work on my projects

PEST (post election stress syndrome)

Thank goodness! The election is finally over! Now we can get back to the real world. Well, at least for a little while until the hoopla that will inevitably popup when the inaguration takes place and at least for the first few weeks after the new president takes charge.

Now is the time to get back to the personal problems we all have and our methods of dealing with them. Try to avoid watching all the gloom and doom on the news networks, pick back up your hobbies, if you don't have one, get one. 

It's Iowa weather as usual at it's best this time of year... snow and cold one day, 60 degrees the next, sunshine and 30 Monday, rainy and 50 on Tuesday. This time of the yeat that old saying is really true... "don't like the weather, wait a minute, it'll change!"

Anyway I'm going to try to lighten up a little. I've been told my posts are a little depressing. It's going to be hard but I'll try.

Things to ponder:

Way back in 1787 a Scottish history professor, Alexander Tyler wrote this about the fall of the Athenian Republic, the first real democracy in human history....
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government"
"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury"
"From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who will promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years"
"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"
That was 221 years ago, so we're already 21 years past the average. How much time left do we really have as a free people? Perhaps as someone just said maybe it's "time to cling to our guns and religion!"

power

      Ever notice that almost every elected official, no matter how good and normal they seem to be before assuming their positions, inevitably seem to get absorbed by the machine. With time they become just another cog in the machine. They all become obsessed with power whether they realize it or not.

      It seems that government, no matter if it's city, county, state, or federal becomes an entity that only wants to control everything. Because of the fact they (the politicians) are elected and could be booted out can only have control if you let them, have devised many schemes to accumulate that power. 

      The biggest weapon they have in their arsenal is fear. It is the fear of the unknown, the fear of the market collapsing, the fear of the other party, the fear of government itself is all thrown at a normally apathetic public who mostly just shrugs it's symbolic shoulder and never speaks up until the day it effects them. Government has learned to start by picking on the groups who have the least amount of support to stand up for them. Smokers for instance is one of those groups. Through stories in the news and constant vilification this group became the lowest common denominator which makes it OK to discrimate against them. And that is exactly what they have done in many places like Iowa where it is now illegal to smoke in ANY building the public has access to. It doesn't matter they also took away the property rights of businesses that might want to cater to smokers. It is control.....

      What will be the next target? There's already talk about fat people...... pay by the pound for flying, not giving insurance to people who meet arbitrary guidelines, what's next taxing food by fat content? Then there's religion, there's the books you read, the internet sites you visit, the guns you own. 

   We need to be careful what we idly sit by and let get legislated aginst the American public.

bailout

Anybody else out there uncomfortable with this bailout of money men the president and Congress is trying to ramrod into effect? This is one of the biggest travesties of public trust in recent memory. They are basically wanting to reward irresponsible behavior. People who have squandered huge amounts of capital on risky investments and exorbitant spending; who have lived the lifestyles of the rich and famous; who have rewarded themselves with golden parachutes that would make a third world dictator blush are now coming to Washington, hat in hand, asking to be bailed out. It is not a good idea to blindly accept the notion that this is something that we, the american taxpayer, should accept.

     When you raise a child you do not reward bad behavior- that just encourages irresponsibility, and repeated offenses. You try to make them accept personal responsibility.

      If we reward the irresponsible gamblers in the markets we are in effect punishing the people who were doing the right thing. The banks and lending institutions who did things properly, who didn't just act for greed, will get the wrong message. They should be commended for their ethical behavior and the poorly managed companies should be allowed to sink or swim.

Reasons to write

Well it's the start of another week.

     The news is full of gloom and doom. The politicians are busy calling each other names and accusing each other of everything under the sun.

     But meanwhile in the real world the price of gasoline is too high, the cost of insurance is unrealistic, the pay rates never meet the cost of living; and yet we continue because we're Americans, and Americans believe that as long as we're free we have the opportunity to improve our lot in life. If we lose a job, we can start our own business. If it fails, we pick up the pieces and go on. This is the land of opportunity.

     Enough of these digressions. I need to write, no I like to write, to relieve the stress of life in general. Whe you write you can go anywhere or do anything you'd like. You can be the smartest person you know or a bum. It's all in what you say. If you have a bad day at work- write down how you feel; you'll feel better. Life kicking you while you're down? Express your frustation. Go ahead and write down the good experiences as well. You'll be able to relive the good times anytime you want to review your documentation.

lovely week

Well, it looks like the start of another lovely week. Not only is it time to go back to work, the news is chock full of bad news about the the economy, about lending companies failing, and just general reporting that "we're in a recession", "it's George Bush's fault", "Barrak's the answer", "McCain's the answer", yada, yada, yada... 

     Most people really can't get extremely concerned about the drivel that drools from the TV, radio, internet, and other news sources because they are busy making a living, working day to day, dealing with personal issues, etc.  Believe it or not, most people make up their minds, not from media input but from their own personal experiences. If gas prices go up... there's a problem! If the value of their IRA goes down... there's a problem! If they can't afford health insurance..... they know they're an accident or sickness away from disaster.

      But then again, they know this is America! If you get down, you can get up! Government can change and adapt. (well in theory, anyway) The stock market doesn't always go down, it can (and will) go back up.