"The most significant threat to our national security is our debt," Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 27, 2010


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Please sir (ma’am) may I have more regulation

Some thoughts on the front leading/running democrat (aka “the harridan”); her mickey mouse pal in New York city;  and her gang of Luddite government do-nothings as they advise the citizenry about innovation, convenience, cost savings and safety.

Let’s just use this medallion taxi v. Uber deal:
·         Cost.  If you prefer to pay more in a medallion cab, we say – go for it.  Why not?  American government agencies and the businesses they regulate are based on the principle of paying more for less when it comes to their output, products and services

·         Convenience.  Many of us prefer to stand in the road with our arm extended; waving; yelling; making any gesture needed to draw the attention of empty medallion cabs driving by, ignoring us, avoiding eye contact.  This activity becomes even more fun if it’s raining, or snowing or just late at night.   For those so inclined – stick with it.  We don’t see why you would choose to hail a Uber cab from inside and see when you will be picked up and how much the ride will cost

·         Review of drivers and their vehicles.  Here we can’t even offer the alternative for the governments beloved medallion cab operators.  You see we’ve never seen a user commentary compiled on our phones for the government regulated operators.  But, hey, that’s ok.  After all – it’s a government program.  They aren’t going to do anything with your reviews, comments and suggestions if you bothered to make them

·         Safety.  If you feel safer in a medallion cab, use it

·         Feedback.  If you have found the medallion cab companies are open to your comments and suggestions, keep using them.  We don’t know of any usable form of feedback with them or their government “regulators” but perhaps you do.  If so, please share the apps you use to access and comment upon government services

·         Ability to communicate with the driver.  Many medallion taxi cab users don’t seem to value this communication factor, do they?  So please, we encourage this group to stick with the bizarre outfits and strange languages; hairdos and dress.  Or our favorite – the driver who endlessly speaks to his extended family in mumbo-jumbo speak while driving us, hopefully, to our destination which he never acknowledged

·         Cleanliness, appearance, reliance of vehicle.  Some of us just prefer to get into those 1990 and 1990 vintage medallion cabs.  You know the ones with frayed everything and non-working gauges and indicators; sticky seats.  The ones where you hope no part of your skin touches anything
Mrs. Clinton, of course, chooses not to travel in government regulated taxi cabs.  We say – she shouldn’t.  No way those beautiful yellow and orange K-mart styled suits or outfits or whatever you call that attire she uses to dress up for her staged outings should be despoiled even more in a medallion taxi cab.  Ditto for bozo in New York.
There is nothing more backward; more non-technological; more inefficient; more inept; more high cost/low output in America than the many government products and services brought to you by extremely high paid “public servants” who proudly claim membership in outfits with these initials – AFSCME, NEA, AFT, NTEU, AFGE, AFL-CIO, SEIU and NFFE.  And we also know this – the harridan and the bozo will both catch a lot of votes from this gang.  Why not?  It's easy work – high pay – no output expectations.  They know where their bread is buttered.  But still, we wonder, does this gang Uber?
Hey, we just had an idea.  Why don’t we let the VA take over all health care in the US?  Or put the IRS buffoon in charge of border control? 
Last comment – do you know that to this day – July 28, 2015, the yellow cabs in NYC do not have a working phone app?  How many phone apps have you seen for government services?
Please ma’am may I have more government?

Friday, July 24, 2015

In his own words - Curt Flood (1938 - 1997)

 
 
From his obituary in the NYTimes, January 21, 1997,  "Flood never was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. But to Marvin Miller, who served as executive director of the players union during Flood's legal fight, it hardly matters.  ''There is no Hall of Fame for people like Curt,'' Miller said." 

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Why is the media so upset over one man?

This is off the charts.

Nine out of ten media regurgitators are going nuts.  Crazy.  Over one guy.  Even the yappers at Fox are turning on this one guy.  Why?
What can one person with a point of view and the accessibility to very big megaphones have in store for the poor media types that they have turned on this guy with such passion?  What do they see that many of us don’t?  This is one guy doing supposedly what we are supposed to do when it’s time to run for public office –
·         Speak your mind
·         Point out the problems
·         Talk about your solutions
·         If you’ve got some real accomplishments, mention them
Are the media folks all upset because he doesn’t do it within their self defined acceptable boundaries?  If so where does it say you have to perform within their definitions?
Are the media folks all upset because he has little or no respect for them?  If so where does it say you have to have any respect for them?
Is he going too far in explaining in simple terms – language and words that anyone can grasp the meaning of – what is really going on?  At least how he has experienced it and seen it and participated in it?  If so isn’t that what we expect of someone?  Tell it like it is at least from his point of view?
There is something very bizarre about all this upset if all this one man is doing is making things up – not telling it like it is – camouflaging his comments – picking his/her audiences carefully – avoiding certain topics that may be troublesome – blandishing his/her own resume with lots of made up nonsense – putting a happy face on a track record of failure – cavorting around with gobs of cash she has collected from the very people she claims to be the source and cause of all the problems ever known to mankind.
Oh, if you do that the media doesn’t get upset at all.  They want to coronate you.  Treat you like royalty.  Maybe that is what they want – a silly queen with not a lick of common sense or any record of accomplishment – and a wardrobe closet filled with Kmart style outfits.   And gobs of cash from very, very rich people with agendas.   But we still ask – why would they want such a person?  What is going on here?
But we all know the answer don’t we?  It is as plain to see as the noses on their faces.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Seeking democratic solutions to fundamental problems

Asking the Greek electorate to vote on stringent fiscal and monetary disciplines to solve their insolvency and other financial woes is a version of gallows humor.  It would be akin to asking the members of SEIU and AFSCME; NEA and AFT to vote on reducing their ranks; their paychecks; their benefits; their pensions to balance the budgets of the all the unmanageable Chicago, Cook county and state of Illinois governance operations.  Their solution is simple – raise taxes.  Or wallow in the mess because they know the courts have no backbone to declare them bankrupt and tally up the assets for distribution to creditors.

Or, think of it this way.  Next time the US Army is asked to perform a mission involving danger, disruption and death – let’s put it to a vote.  Each soldier can vote to go or not go.  Participate or stay in the barracks.  If enough say no – mission cancelled.  The logic of why certain tasks cannot be democratically decided is a large part of the rationale of both President Franklin Roosevelt and labor organizer and AFL-CIO leader George Meany’s opposition to government employee unionization.
There is no such rational or logical thinking that supports a governance system that asks for a democratic vote on fundamental matters.
The Greeks have already said – we don’t want to be responsible.  We are undisciplined children who want what we want now and we will yell, scream, throw tantrums and otherwise howl and wail until we get our way.  We choose deficits and debt.  It works just fine for us.  We don’t believe we are on the road to destruction because someone (Germany) has always been there to bail us out.   We know if we holler loud enough and hold out long enough our lackadaisical way of life and naked self importance will continue.
In America we call this Greek way of thinking – “collective bargaining” by government employee unions and politicians with the American taxpayer playing the role of the Germans.  Well, not quite.  In Europe, the Germans could, at least, say no.  In America the taxpayer doesn’t get that opportunity.  Democracy and government of, by and for the people stops at the well secured doorway to the government employee union hall.
Who do you think is twisting the arm of the Germans to go along, once again, with the childlike behavior of the Greeks?
Hint:  his middle name is Hussein; her middle name is Rodham.  They are Greeks in disguise minus the good looks, lengthy traditions and appealing cuisine.  Neither has the common sense most homo sapiens receive at birth or develop shortly thereafter with some guidance and discipline.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Debt and ignorance

When TheFundamentals converses with others and listens,  debt still comes up as the single biggest issue/problem/destroyer.  Something else comes up a lot and it is not as easy to describe as debt.  It is not as tangible as debt.  It does not have the track record of consistent and predictable destruction that debt does.

The one word to capture this other issue/problem is ignorance.  A growing consensus now recognizes that our destruction is not from outside but it is based right here – in our homeland.  Ignorance is just a tad more complex to describe.  It is also very politically incorrect.
America still has a lot of smart, energetic and accomplished citizens.  Just as always.  We also have a lot of well read and well informed citizens.  Just as always.  We have scientists working on understanding the very makeup of our being in order to detect those otherwise undetectable but dangerous mutations and infections that cause us to die young and suffer painful ailments.  Other technologists seek entirely different ways of doing things.  Cars that drive themselves; that detect impending collisions and take evasive action without human intervention.  Innovation is all around us.  Everything we do is changing.  Everything except for government.  Government defines change as “expansion.”  More of the same.  More people.  More money.
Most know that Google or Visa or Amazon or other well run data management companies could readily solve America’s illegal immigrant problem.  Something our federal government will never solve.  But not one politician ever mentions this solution.  Now, that is ignorance.  Just as politicians don’t mention debt – they also don’t mention anything new or out of the ordinary to solve problems that are solvable.  Mostly because they don’t think that way – because if they did they wouldn’t be politicians.
Ignorance has one accomplice; one ally; one buddy who never rests.  That associate; that enabler of ignorance is propaganda.  In America most propaganda flows from the Hollywood media which is much larger than that designation suggests.  The Hollywood media is the entire democrat party; a good portion of the republican party; all the known media outlets – Fox, Comcast/NBC, CBS, PBS, Disney/ESPN/ABC and just about every remaining newspaper in America.  It also includes lawyers and lobbyists;  Wall street; all the Warren Buffett’s of our homeland meaning those elevated successful 1%’ers who make a fortune off the public deficits and debt and, of course, our many layers of government and all their tens of millions of hangers – on.
And then we come to the voters.  Mitt Romney touched upon the ignorance of a lot of America’s voters and promptly got slammed for it.  Donald Trump is experiencing a similar thrashing for suggesting that Mexico has been sending it social and economic problems as well as its sociopaths and criminals to America with their best wishes for decades.  Think about that – Donald is thrashed for speaking the truth by the very same media outlets which daily carry video of drug wars; drug cartels and lawlessness in living color; live action – just miles away from our porous border. 
This is ignorance.  Mexico is clearly a problem.  Lying about it for some ill-advised purpose is the classic definition of propaganda.
But there are voters who don’t care.  They choose ignorance.  We choose to admit them and enfranchise them.  Think about that – we choose to be governed by the ignorant – both voters as well as those whom they elect.
History has never known anything that can be described as a smart government.  Today, our government exists because of debt and ignorance (yes, with a hefty assist from propaganda.)  Here is the irony.  Debt and ignorance will also bring about its downfall.  We are in the midst of that event right now.  Ultimate irony?  These voters and politicians?  Too ignorant to realize it is happening J.
The fight for independence never ends.

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

A brief reminder


Deficits = Debt = Destruction

There are many ways to experience deficits.  But a few are popping up with great regularity and not just here at home.  The really big ways to get in on the deficit building trend are:
  • Build a welfare state, and
  • Build a massive unionized government payroll with generous employee benefits, and particularly really generous pensions
In other words just keep electing bad politicians and keep letting them hire unneeded useless bureaucrats (redundant, we know) to double and triple burden your economy; your business community; your education efforts and your population.   All in the name of the greater good or some such propagandistic crap.
It all comes down to bad government.  Our world is overwhelmed by bad government.  But mostly, just here, at home.
You may notice that many of the bad governments are “democracies.”  Or, “republics.”  Elected politicians pursuing “life” “liberty” and the “pursuit of happiness.”  Mostly for themselves, of course.  Every one of them using someone else’s dime.
Not a one of them, anywhere, but mostly here at home will talk about it much less propose doing something about it.  Therefore, we offer this brief reminder:
deficits = debt = destruction