Tag: Advice

WHO’S MINDING YOU!

Escaping the ‘nanny-state’!

whos minding you

This is the forth article in the ‘Who’s Minding’ series. For the first three parts read Who’s Minding the Bank?, Who’s Minding the Market?,  and  Who’s Minding the Food?

I’ve got no strings

To hold me down

To make me fret

Or make me frown

I had strings

But now I’m free

There are no strings on me–  song I’ve Got No Strings by Dickie Jones, 1940

Everyone has an agenda. Some are obvious, are some subtle, and some are hidden and secretive.  Except in the most rare of cases, the person pulling the strings wants what’s best for themselves above all else. Sometimes what’s good for them is also good for everyone else,  and sometimes it’s unashamedly mercenary.  Without question, the two thousand plus billionaires of the world wield great power over the average person.  They are the modern kings of today’s world, and they are playing a Game of Kings to stake out their own little section of the world to rule.  They are the tops of the pyramid, the kings of the hill.  Next in line are the millionaires and multi-millionaires. They too have great power over the lives of the average person.  Independent, hard working people come next. At the very bottom of the pyramid are the wretched dregs of society. People who have either giving up on trying to better themselves, and are dependent upon social welfare programs and the kindness of strangers to survive.

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If you are fortunate enough to live in the United States of America,  then you are blessed indeed. The USA is a land of limitless opportunities, and built upon the tenants of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Since the nation was founded 243 years ago, it has been the target of powerful people who want to subvert and destroy our great nation. For parts of the nineteenth and all of the twentieth centuries,  the Democratic National Committee has been trying to remake the USA and destroy the Christian country created by the Founding Fathers.  Democrat is indeed the new communist as the liberal left slinks further  and further towards radical socialist agendas and establishing a permanent power over the average citizen. In their new vision of America, we the people will be dependent on the government from cradle to grave.  They will slander and attempt to destroy anyone who dares to oppose them.

Our nation and its government is BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE.  There is nothing wrong with wealth. There is nothing wrong with success. We live in a capitalist society and our economy grows through consumerism.   If people are buying, selling, and trading, there are jobs being created.  What is wrong is when a government tries to enslave all its citizens and destroy the means of creating wealth while raising taxes and killing jobs. This is what Barack Hussein Obama II was in the process of doing, and what Hillary Rodham Clinton would have continued had she been elected.  Fortunately,  there was a very powerful patriot, billionaire Donald J. Trump who was willing to fight to save our nation from those who were willing to save it.  Trump’s love for our nation exceeds that of any president in our lifetime, even greater than Ronald Reagan. Fortunately, WE THE PEOPLE banded together in such force to elect this great man to the highest office. Donald J. Trump has been insulted, slandered, belittled, and bashed by all those who oppose him. The liberals are losing, and they know it!

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  • Billionaires control our world.
  • They control our banks.
  • They control our economy and industry.
  • They control our food.
  • They control our media.
  • They control our communications and social networks.

They control so many aspects of our lives, but they can only control us if we allow them.  All of the media, communications, and social networks THEY created can also benefit US if we take the time to navigate the sea of lies and misinformation that powerful LEFTIST billionaires are imposing upon us.  Every wealth group from the ultra-poor to the mega-rich can be divided into two main camps, the left (liberal) and the right (conservative). There are also two other smaller subgroups that are far dangerous to our nation. The centralist, who can flip-flop on issues at the drop of a hat, and the anarchist who wants no government of any kind and doesn’t care about politics at all.  Both of these groups are products of the post-modern school of thought which claims there is no right or wrong.

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In God We Trust!

There was a reason that Madalyn Murray O’Hair fought hard to ban studying the Bible in public schools in 1963. She was a militant feminist, communist, and atheist who founded the group American Atheists.  She  claimed that religion was “a crutch” and an “irrational reliance on superstitions and supernatural nonsense”.  In reality this was all part of a greater plan. The USA was founded as a Christian nation, and by removing the study of the Bible from public schools, O’Hair was sowing the seeds for the destruction of the US.  Without God, there is no USA. 

Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance. – Psalm 33:12

There is a difference between religion and spirituality, just as there is a difference between morals and ethics. Unfortunately few take the time to learn the distinction.  Spirituality is a belief in God, and the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things. Religion is a system of rules and doctrines.  This is why Jesus said in James 1:27 “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. ”   

There is no such thing as a moral atheist because morals are based on Biblical absolutes whereas situational ethics are fluid and can change with the individual or situation. Good can be bad and bad can be good  in the mind of post modernists. God is good ALWAYS and when you eliminate the study of the Bible, you erode the moral backbone of the nation.  If something is legal, it is not unethical. If it were unethical, it would be illegal. Immoral is always immoral, whether it is legal or not. So the word of God is not a ‘controlling’ force, but a guiding factor which is for our benefit.  Warning us about destructive behaviors is not HATE, it is truly being done  for our benefit so that we may life a healthy, happy, and productive life.  The only time I’ve ever seen happy atheists are when they were insulting Christians.

The bottom line is that there are many forces in this world that are trying to control us, even up to and including the point of a gun.  The power we give these earthly forces over us is an illusion we allow them, one that we can shatter at any time. WE THE PEOPLE have the real power, and if God is with us, who can stand against us? As always, I wish you success and happiness!  

Who’s Minding the Food?

Junkfood junkies!

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“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.” ― Orson Welles

The Standard American Diet is about 2,200 calories per day, with 50% of calories from carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 35% fat. It is very different from those of our forefathers.  

Since the start of the industrial revolution, the everyday lifestyle of mankind has changed in many ways.  When the United States was founded in 1776, the vast majority of its citizens lived in an agrarian society. We farmed and grew our own food, or worked for those that did. Once industry took hold, and large cities began to spring up, we shifted to a largely metropolitan society. In 1870, almost 50 percent of the U.S. population was employed in agriculture, today it is less than 2%. Farming is neither glamorous, nor easy. 

This shift has resulted in a two-fold negative lifestyle impact on the people in our nation:

One – We must buy processed and preserved food from supermarkets.

Two– We no longer endure the physical labor needed to burn off the calories in the food we eat.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”– words of Jesus Christ from  Matthew 7:9-11 NIV

We in the USA may take it for granted because our nation has never known long-term widespread famine, or food shortages, but food is perhaps the greatest way to control a country. Laws ,economics, and education  may restrict your life in a myriad of ways, but cut off your food and water long enough and you’ll die. Poison the food supply, and you slowly sicken, weaken and given enough time, kill the people who eat it.  All food is made of up to three components: Fats, proteins, and carbohydrates (carbs for short).  Carbohydrates are just the scientific word for sugar, and comes in two forms, complex and simple. Simple carbohydrates are made up of just one or two sugar molecules. As such, it doesn’t take much for your body to break them down and absorb them (as glucose) into the bloodstream. For this reason, simple carbohydrates raise blood sugar much faster and usually higher than complex carbohydrates.

According to a study printed in The BMJ (formally called The British Medical Journal) in an average American diet,  about 57.9% of the daily caloric intake of about 2200 kcals is coming from ultra-processed foods, 9.4% from processed foods, 2.9% from processed culinary ingredients. Only a mere  29.6% (less than a third) of our food intake is from unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

There are more than 38,000 processed food products on grocery shelves in the US. This includes the so-called ultra -processed foods which accounts for 90% of the added sugar in the Standard American Diet .  Additionally the majority of these items contain chemical additives, dyes, and preservatives that are unhealthy to say the least. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) often takes the place of refined sugar, but is far worse. The human body can’t process this artificial sugar made by converting starch into fructose. HFCS has been added to many products to ‘make them taste better’. Whenever you see ‘new improved’ on a box, automatically think added sugars and fat. Any calories you consume that you don’t burn off daily are stored in your body as fat.

 The Standard American Diet is SAD indeed.

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Feed The World?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock your entire life, it should come as no surprise to you that billionaires (and to a lesser extent multi-millionaires) control the world. They are the modern day equivalents of kings, and world domination is a game of kings. As such, these contemporary would-be rulers reign over almost every aspect of our lives. They may not officially own the country, but they do control either the food supply, or the distribution chains for it. (I’m not even going to get into restaurant chains. Americans may be eating-out more than ever, but restaurants are still just a luxury, not a necessity.)

Of the 38,000 processed foods on the shelves in food stores, more often than not we go for a trusted name-brand. All of the major supermarket chains have an in-house brand that’s comparable or sometimes superior to the national brand. They may even have similar packaging and be placed side-by-side on the shelf.  Many of these knock-offs or, no-frills alternatives are manufactured by the same exact factories as the recognized brand.  All of the official brands in the world are owned by just ten corporations as shown in this infographic from Oxfam.   

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Additionally most supermarkets stock all major brands. There are few exceptions such as the Trader Joe chain which stocks nearly 95% of their store brand instead. Trader Joe is an American company which specializes in organic health foods.  Their groceries are top-notch, and cost a few pennies more. You get what you pay for. The top-selling supermarket company in the world is Kroger.

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Top 10 Supermarket Companies in 2018

(Sales in billions)

  • The Kroger Co., $105.10
  • Albertsons, $57.39
  • Royal Ahold Delhaize USA, $43.20
  • Publix Super Markets, $34.56
  • Aldi, $25.86
  • H-E-B Grocery, $21.94
  • Neighborhood Market/Marketside (Walmart), $17.04
  • Wakefen/ShopRite, $16.30
  • Whole Foods Market (Amazon), $15.40
  • Southeastern Grocers, $10.63

We are what we eat!

There are countless diet cooks, cook books, and health books in print and on line, yet two out of three Americans are overweight.  This is senseless!  Food is necessary for life, but not everything we are able to eat is good for us. Sometimes it’s a matter of the ingredients, other times it is portion size. The times of day and the frequency of which we eat can also play a part. Some people eat to live while others live to eat. Of all the addictions in the world, food addiction is the worst because you need to eat to live. Junkfood may taste wonderful, but all things in moderation. The quality of life of a morbidly obese person is far diminished from that of a person leading a healthy, active lifestyle. The bottom line is that health is far more important than wealth if you want to live a successful and happy life.   No one can force you the eat healthier, that decision rest sole with you. As always I wish you success and happiness!

Who’s Minding The Market?

Is the game rigged?

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‘The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.’ —Brian Tracy

You’ve probably heard the old cliché ‘the rich get richer while the poor stay poor (or get poorer)’. Although this truism  is often used by the media as a way of stirring up class warfare, it would be more accurate to say, ‘you get what you pay for.’  Success expert and motivational speaker Brain Tracy often remarks that the real reason people are poor is because they haven’t decided to be rich. The truth hurts, but facts are facts. Facts may offend, but facts are incontrovertible, transcendent of whomever says them. Rich people didn’t get rich by making poor people poor, for the most part, they did it by fearlessly investing their money somewhere. 

Knowledge is power

There is a lot of fake news out there, and our society has never been more plugged in and connected. Unfortunately there is a big difference between reading something and understanding it. Not every bit of information being relayed to you is for your benefit. Some information like advertising contains subliminal messages to entice you to purchase their product. Is that flashy new model automobile really that much better than the car you own, or than the dozen other advertisements from other car companies all of which claim to be the best and most reliable on the road? At the end of the day, you can only drive as fast as the posted speed limit, and few people are impressed by your car for very long, if ever. A 17-year old Hyundai Accent that still runs will get you to work just as fast as a brand new one.

Subliminal messages appear in just about every piece of information presented to you. It is a hidden suggestion in the content intended to sway your opinion to their side of the issue.  Someone is pulling your strings, and you won’t even know it unless you learn to read between the lines.  The poor are exploited by the rich because the rich have power, and the poor lack it.

Money is power

Financial freedom is one example of power that the rich have. When you have enough money, you can do anything and go anywhere.  With the possible exception of the nouveau riche, all rich and successful people invest in the stock market. Poor people do not invest in the stock market for a variety of reasons.

  • The most overused excuse is that they lack money. The reality is that they waste money on junk.
  • The next excuse is that they don’t want to lose their money. The reality is your money is gone the moment you spend it on any consumable item. Try getting your money back for the pack of cigarettes you smoked.
  • Stocks are very expensive.  Amazon may sell in excess of $1860 a share, but there are literally thousands of ‘penny stocks’ that cost less than a pack of smokes or even a can of soda.
  • They don’t understand it. That is a valid excuse. A fool and their money are soon parted. However, it is a limitation which can be easily overcome by study and time. Leaders are readers!

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“It’s my own desire

It’s my own remorse

Help me to decide

Help me make the most Of freedom and of pleasure

Nothing ever lasts forever

Everybody wants to rule the world.”   – song Everybody wants to rule the world by Tears for Fears (1985)

Power is power

The rich have knowledge, money, and power. This allows them to control various aspects of our lives.  Some rich people like President Donald J. Trump root for the common man and want every citizen to achieve whatever goals and dreams they aspire to. Others like Bernie Sanders want to control every aspect of our lives from cradle to grave. To warped frustrated old men like Sanders, we are not people, we are cattle. Unfortunately many young mush-heads believe the socialist garbage being spooned down their throats. America is a great nation because of Christianity and capitalism.  No nation on Earth is perfect, but the USA is the greatest bastion of freedom, liberty, and opportunity in the world, and there are powerful men that are working hard to change that. The current generation, known as millennials, are the first generation born in the USA not to be richer than their parents.  They were duped and manipulated by misinformation, fake news, liberal teachers, and mass media.

Is the stock market being gamed?

All media outlets are ultimately owned  by the rich, and they can use these media outlets to influence the thoughts and behaviors of the masses.  If a financial expert on a top news program  suddenly proclaims that the bull market is nearly over, some people panic and sell their shares because the price drops. A short while later, the stock rebounds to new heights. Not only has the skittish investor  lost on their initial investment, but they also missed out on potential gains had they held on to their shares.  An important book to read on this topic is Unshakeable by Tony Robbins. It is impossible to ‘time the market’ and a wise investor knows that bull markets are around long, and bear markets only last a short while. The key is to stay the course. The market is not rigged, but there is some level of manipulation being used against unseasoned investors to exploit their fears. As Warren Buffet would say, ‘when everyone’s selling, he’s buying’.

Facebook Stock is currently trading at $178.28 as of  April 18th 2019. The 52 week high was $218.62 and the low was $123.02. If you panicked and sold it at $123, you would have missed a nearly 50% gain. If you sold at $218, you could have locked in any gains you made, and reinvested it at a later time buying something else, or buying shares at the current $178 price in the hopes of future gains. If you had bought Facebook in 2012 at its IPO of $38, you would have made out like a bandit in either case. Imagine how the people feel who sold their shares a week after the IPO when the stock plunged to about $26 per share and so-called experts were calling it a bad investment! Better yet, imagine if you had brought AMAZON in 1997 for its IPO at a mere $18 a share. A $10,000 investment in that company alone would have made you a millionaire today.  What you hear about a company on the news may cause you to panic and sell at the wrong time, or encourage you to buy at the wrong time, or worse yet never even buy at all. Past performance is no indication of future performance.

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Inside, OUT!

You may have heard of Insider trading, where sensitive information about a company is clandestinely shared with an individual so that they can gain an advantage over the average investor. This is against the law, MOSTLY. There are exceptions to this rule for certain people, and possibly even ways to theoretically circumvent the laws if you are rich and powerful.

What exactly is insider trading? In order for a person to be considered an ‘insider’ they need to have either a 10% stake in that company, or access to valuable, non-public information about that company.  CEOs, presidents, vice-presidents, and board members  are all considered insiders.  In order to LEGALLY trade on shares  IF YOU ARE AN INSIDER,  these transactions must be properly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and are done with advance filings. It is also illegal to share insider information to protect friends and family members who might own stock in that company.  That’s what happened to Martha Stewart in 2001 when she found out  her friend’s company ImClone’s new cancer drug was being rejected by the FDA, and she suddenly sold all her shares days before the official announcement.   Attempting to save $250,000 landed her in jail. Illegal is still illegal even if you don’t like the law. Had she just waited until news of the rejection of the new drug was publicly aired, she might have taken a little or no loss, avoided jail, and would have been able to write off any losses as a tax credit. Greed can get you in trouble fast.

The bottom line

You will never be able to spend your way into prosperity. The only way to get rich quick is to do it slowly. Rich people run the world, and they got rich because they made the proper choices, took risks, and invested their money. They earned their money the old fashioned way, they worked for it. The good news is that opportunity exists everywhere if you are willing to look for it, and do the work. As always, I wish you success and happiness!

WHO’S MINDING THE BANK?

Whoever controls the money also controls the country!

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In 1913, president Woodrow Wilson pushed though his Federal Reserve Bank enforcing a central banking system upon the country, supposedly for the good of the country. The Bank that Woody built in turn allowed the USA to begin running up a massive federal debt by borrowing huge sums of money to pay for any shortfalls in the federal budget.  As you may have heard, CASH IS KING because cash on hand provides opportunity to seize the moment and clinch the deal. No one benefits by being a day late and a dollar short.  Borrowing money at interest may at times be necessary, but it is never cost effective over the long term because due to the compounding of interest eventually you end up paying two or three times the original price.  The only difference between personal debt and government debt is the scale, but the result is the same. Whenever the interest rate is increased, the ability to repay the debt is decreased.  Until recently, ultra-low interest rates, set by the Federal Reserve to support the economy, allowed lawmakers to borrow without fretting too much about the cost of that debt. But as the economy has strengthened, the Fed has gradually raised rates.

Each time the Fed raises rates, the stock market also reacts negatively. This is because all banks in the USA are required by law to be members of the Federal Reserve Bank.  These local banks then loan out money to consumers,  which they have in turn borrowed from the Fed. This is known as fractional reserve banking.  If the Fed raises rates, all debtors suffer. Local banks have to raise their rates, to recoup the loss. New loans suddenly become more expensive than old loans, and spending drops. If spending drops, the economy slows, businesses close, jobs  are cut, etc. It’s a cumulative effect. Fractional reserve banking is a sort of ponzi scheme in that as a result, approximately 90% of the ‘money’ in the world really doesn’t exist. It’s just debt on paper, an I.O.U.  The only ones growing rich are the owners of the banks.

How do you make money on ZERO?

Short answer, you don’t. Zero means zero. It’s also bait for a trap.

Forget government spending for a second, and let’s go back to basics. (Remember the only real  difference between macro and micro economics is the scale.)

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You receive a credit card offer in the mail offering 0% interest on new purchases and balance transfers for a year, or longer.  For the sake of this hypothetical example, we’ll set the term at two years, no interest, and a credit limit of $20,000. You now have a revolving credit line, and the bank is secretly hoping that habitual use of this line of credit will result in a maxed out card. Let’s assume that on day one, you make a $20,000 purchase on some extravagant item that you can’t afford, but have always wanted.  Now assume that the minimum monthly payment is just 1% of the total balance.  The 1st month you pay $200, the 2nd $198, the 3rd $196 etc. At the end of one year, you still have a balance over $17,729. And you only have 12 more months to pay this off before your 0% offer ends, and the bank starts charging you its normal 22.9% rate on your outstanding balance.  If you could only afford the minimum balance with your current income, you will never be able to pay off this debt in time, and even worse you’ll be getting charged more in interest than you are paying in, so you’ll be enslaved by debt for the rest of your life. The only way to pay off this initial debt in a 24 month period is to make 24 equal monthly payments of $834 and make no new charges. Under that repayment plan, you have a true zero fee loan that the bank makes no money on, and you beat the trap that most people fall prey to.

So how do we pay off the federal debt?

In a nutshell, the same way. We need the Fed to reinstate the zero percent interest rate, and keep it there while we trim all the fat from the federal budget  eliminating any and all unnecessary spending.  

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Who’s the boss?

Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve is a private bank, not owned by the government. It is unique in that it is both public and private, and is independent within the government. As such, it can control our economy for better or worse. Just as nominees appointed by the president to the Supreme Court of the United States can impact our country for decades, so can nominees to the Fed. President Donald Trump may have a golden opportunity to reshape the orientation of the Federal Reserve as several of its board members will be retiring in the near future.  Currently, Trump’s two recent nominees to the central bank, Herman Cain and Stephen Moore, are imperiled by growing resistance from within the president’s own party.   The RINO Republicans are jeopardizing the president’s promise to strengthen our economy, eliminate our national debt, and Make America Great Again by opposing his nominees.  Cain was a former presidential candidate famous for his 9-9-9 tax reform plan and is a big supporter of Trump, as well as a long-time friend.  Herman Cain’s nomination is effectively dead, but that may have been a ploy to get Stephen Moore confirmed instead. Moore is a strong supporter of capitalism, and has stated that the 16th Amendment which created the national income tax was the most evil law passed in the 20th century.   All of this is a moot point is the Democrats should somehow steal the 2020 election, so it is of the utmost importance to stand behind President Trump, now more than ever. As always, I wish you success and happiness!

FAKE NEWS?

‘Q’ the footage!

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(This is the second in a two part series, for part one read EVERYONE’S WATCHING!)

In 1897, Adolph S. Ochs, the owner of The New York Times, created the famous slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” It was a declaration of the newspaper’s intention to report the news impartially. It  still appears on the masthead of the newspaper today.  Print news is dying and many small town newspapers either get absorbed by larger competitors or shutter their doors forever if they fail to find buyers. Every large newspaper still in existence is owned by some billionaire somewhere for reasons both whimsical and nostalgic.  Democrat Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, owns The Washington Post.  Democrat Bill Gates, second richest man owns at least four papers. Warren Buffet, also a Democrat, is the third richest man in the world and owns 30 regional newspapers through his Berkshire Hathaway holding company.  Although using newspapers for obtaining news is rapidly declining , they  still have a significant subscription base as about one in seven adults still read them. Forget newspapers for just one second. EVERY FORM of information distribution be it print, radio, television, film, or internet is ultimately owned by some billionaire, and reflects their personal political, religious, and economic agendas.  

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More people get their news from the internet than newspapers, and television is still the king of media but internet news as a whole is gaining rapidly . These demographics change when you filter out age groups, as most younger Americans get the lion’s share of their news from the internet and through social media platforms such as Twitter, Face book, YouTube and even Snapchat. In 2016 the Pew Research Center released a study showing 89 percent of surveyed college students said they got at least some of their news from social media. The future of the nation lies in its youth. If you can influence children from an early age, you will be able to control their thoughts and manipulate them for the rest of their lives.  We get information from many sources, but it’s up to us to use our cognitive abilities to determine if the news makes sense.

Back in 2012, a viral video produced by Invisible Children blew up on social media. It focused on a barbaric Ugandan warlord named Joseph Kony.  Since the 1990s, Uganda has been engaged in a number of civil wars, the most protracted being a 20 years’ war against Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) .   Joseph Kony makes Idi Amin look like Mickey Mouse in comparison. The video and the group behind it stirred up the youth of the nation with the tagline KONY 2012 and a plea have someone somewhere do something to bring Joseph Kony to justice.  Of course, nothing resulted from the media stunt except that the young social justice warriors found other causes to champion, such as the ice-bucket challenge, or eating Tide Pods.  Turning 18, or even 21 doesn’t make you an adult, it only gives you a legal status. These young adults lack discernment, life-experience,  and enough wisdom to see that although something may have seemed like a ‘good idea at the time’ it truly wasn’t.  They are what Saul Alinsky   referred to as ‘useful idiots’ and are targeted by powerful liberals who ultimately want to destroy the USA and kill the American dream.

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Upper echelon liberals in the DNC (Democratic National Committee) want the best possible lives for themselves while destroying the American dream for the average citizen in the process. They will lie, cheat, steal, and in if they think they can get away with it, even kill in order to gain and retain wealth and power.  One example is  Bill Maher who has publicly rooted for an economic downturn which would destroy the life savings of hard-working American citizens because he believes it’s the best way to cost Trump reelection to the presidency in 2020. The talk show host, comedian, actor, and political commentator’s net worth is $100 million.

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Using the power of the internet and social media platforms, these powerful members of the DNC have been waging a non-stop media war against the rightfully elected US President, Donald J. Trump. They have slandered and libeled him ever since his unprecedented win against Hillary R. Clinton in the 2016 election. The DNC tried to stir up college students to support their platform by comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler, and calling him deranged, arrogant, incompetent, and just an all-out ‘bad man’. They spent two years alleging Russian collusion that was non-existent. When the findings of The MULLER REPOERT were summarized and released, they could not accept the facts, just like they could not accept the election results in 2016.      

 “President Trump is a truly unique leader in American history. He’s a kid from Queens who became an international business leader and made billions by getting things when no one said he could,” –John McLaughlin, Trump’s 2016 campaign pollster

“They told him he couldn’t be president and beat the establishment and he did. For two years the establishment is telling him he can’t do things in Washington and he’s succeeding in spite of them. He never retreats. He doesn’t back up. He’s relentless. He just wins,” ­–John McLaughlin

Facts are facts

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’ is a phrase used on Internet forums to counter the vast range of unverifiable claims made by users. It’s ironic because even when presented with facts, many will question the information. There are verifiable facts that even the brightest college students will ignore. There are kids that don’t even believe the moon landing in 1969 happened, instead choosing to believe it was filmed on a sound stage.  This is one of the reasons that young Americans are embracing the lie of socialism, and  if they are not educated to this folly, one day they might succeed in electing a tyrant intent on destroying the US once and for all. Donald Trump is the only man intent on repairing the damage done by the Obama administration. Had the majority of voting Americans been tricked into electing Clinton instead,  It would have been a continuation of the destruction of our way of life.  To date, Donald Trump has accomplished 289 of his campaign promises in just 20 months.

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Enter Qanon

The left obtains power by silencing and destroying their enemies, but the truth is out there  if you look for it.  The problem is the signal-to-noise ratio, and being able to filter though the mind-blowing amounts of information.

Currently more than 3.7 billion humans use the internet . Each day, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is created. That’s more information than you could process in a lifetime being generated every single day. Half of all the web searches are being done from mobile phones. The most popular search engine is Google, which now processes more than 40,000 searches EVERY second (3.5 billion searches per day)  and accounts for 77% of all the searches conducted.

The Internet has expanded the variety and amount of accessible political information. On the positive side, this may create a more pluralistic form of public debate; on the negative side, greater access to information may lead to selective exposure to ideologically supportive channels. It is possible for a person to create their own virtual echo chamber through search engine optimization and the proper key words.  In other words, if you love Trump, you’ll find sites praising him, and if you hate Trump, you’ll find sites damming him. It is more important to consider not only what is being said, but who is saying it and why.  Consider the source. Both parties have an agenda. Both parties believe in their cause. Only one is right, even though they both believe they are right and the other is wrong. I have said it from day one, I am a conservative Republican, and I fully support President Donald J. Trump and his political agenda of Making America Great Again. I’d also like to see the entire DNC united on a platform, one with nooses and a trap door.  They have conspired and committed treason against this nation, and treason has a death penalty. Just ask Julius and Ethel Rosenberg .  

Since October of 2017 an anonymous online poster code-named ‘Q’ has been dropping cryptic tips and information in various internet chat rooms first in 4-chan, than on 8-chan. Many of these posts invite the reader to examine various articles, images, and tweets which support the claim that Trump has been targeted by members of a ‘Deep State’ which has been trying to destroy the USA in secret. There are many sites and even apps for your smart phone which will allow you to filter through the various Q ‘drops’ and read post made by fellow Q researchers. Donald Trump managed to do with Twitter what Roosevelt did with radio, and what Reagan did with television. He used the medium to directly address the American people.  The internet is far more powerful than newspapers, radio, or even television ever were. The sum total of human knowledge is stored online, and can be directly accessed by anyone with a  wi-fi  capable smartphone. These phones record video and take pictures which can be uploaded by concerned ‘citizen journalists’ in an effort to counter the lies of the left. When Liberals claim Trump had a rally, and no one showed, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of posts of pictures and videos to discount the hoax. Trump was elected by a grassroots movement to reclaim our nation from those who would see it destroyed.  Career criminals have been pillaging the USA for years, and Trump was the only person powerful enough to stand up and fight back.

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Consider this analogy:
Say there is a school yard bully. He terrorizes the smaller and weaker children, beating them up and staling their lunch money  so he can enjoy a free lunch while his victims suffer and starve.  The only true way to defeat the bully is to find a champion willing to stand up for the little guy.  Trump is the champion standing to  those who are trying to transform our nation into a third world socialist nightmare. Trump is a patriot and believes in the American dream.

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The world is run by billionaires and it takes another billionaire to face up to those who would be kings in a game of kings for global domination.  It may be like David vs. Goliath, but if God is with us, who can stand against us? A storm is coming and there has been a ‘Great Awakening’. In order for us to continue to enjoy our economic success, to live our lives in the pursuit of liberty and happiness, America needs to be strong and remain free.  The DNC will do anything and everything it can to steal the 2020 election and undo all the good Trump has accomplished.  If you don’t support Trump, you don’t support the USA, and you don’t belong living in it. America is a nation governed by the people for the people, we have the power to take back our country from those who are willing to destroy it, and despite who we elect to represent us, the real power still rests in us, and our votes. 

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There’s still time to research the facts and dispel the liberal lies, so expand your thinking and get on the right side of history before it’s too late. As always,   I wish you success and happiness.

 

EVERYONE’S WATCHING!

Everyone’s being watched!

EVERYONES WATCHING

(Part one of a two part series)

Megabytes, Gigabytes and Terabytes, oh my…

As you are well aware the home computer boom of the 1980’s culminated with the birth of the internet in 1989. ‘Smartphones’ had been first introduced in 1992, but took fifteen years to evolve into the technological marvel that Steve Jobs demonstrated to a captivated audience  at Macworld 2007 when he introduced the first Apple iPhone.  NTT DoCoMo launched the first 3G network in Japan on October 1, 2001, making videoconferencing and large email attachments possible.   For the roughly the next ten years this rapidly became the telecommunications standard. The iPhone could only have been possible with the 3G Network. Just as the Apple iPhone and many other ‘copycat’ Android smart phones continued to improve, so did the wireless network. By the end of 2010 4G was springing up, and now 5G is being rolled out. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have promised 5G devices for the first half of 2019, while T-Mobile says a nationwide network will launch in 2020. 5G will offer faster data and longer battery life. But network availability will be limited in 2019, and Apple’s iPhone may not support it until 2020. In terms of peak speed, 5G is approximately 20 times faster than 4G. The new technology also offers a minimum peak download speed of 20 Gb/s . When I purchased my first computer in the 1990’s the salesclerk at Radio Shack told me that the 50Mb hard drive would store more data than I could ever use. Now there are media files that are 1Gb or larger, and my computers have Tb hard drives.

The world in the palm of your hand, with a price!

In 1995, 27 satellites were launched into Earth’s orbit by the US government, creating what is now called the GPS constellation. The Global Positioning System (GPS) allows a user’s position, speed, and time to be tracked by the satellites using their equipment.  (The constellation of satellites must have at least 24 to work, but can support up to 30.)  The data is relayed through a ground control network which connects the two.  GPS is used to support land, sea, and airborne navigation, surveying, geophysical exploration, mapping and geodesy, vehicle location systems, farming, transportation systems, and a wide variety of other additional applications. Telecommunication infrastructure applications include network timing and enhanced 911 for cellular users.

All modern smartphones have a built-in  GPS receiver which trilaterates your position using data from at least three GPS satellites and the receiver in your phone.  Whenever you have your cell phone with you, or near you, it can be tracked, and so can you. Now this is nothing to be alarmed by, unless you’re a criminal.  The NSA (National Security Agency) can reportedly even track phones which are turned off.

Whenever you take a picture using the camera on your smartphone, the image is stamped by the GPS receiver with the location coordinates that is hidden in the code of the image. Software can scan the image to retrieve the data.  This is how law enforcement can determine exactly where a photo was taken by examining the geotagging hidden in the exif code .    

WiFi surveillance? WTF!

According to an article posted in The Atlantic in 2016, the human body interacts with the signals produced by WiFi, (Wireless Frequency). By observing disturbances in the WiFi field, the number of people in a room, what they are saying, or even typing on a keyboard can be monitored using sophisticated software. 

The wireless router in your home allows all the WiFi capable devices to connect to the internet or network with each other.  Even homes which do not have computers but have a cable box have WiFi because all cable boxes contain internal WiFi routers that allow the parent company such as XFinity or Spectrum to offer a WiFi guest network.

Most modern electrical meters on your house now use WiFi to transmit electrical usage to utility companies. They study the data and can tell when you are home, sleeping, or watching television by examining the spikes in kilowatt usage.

All new cell phones have the capability of being used as a mobile WiFi hotspot.

There is NO escaping WiFi.

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Who needs a Nikon camera? I have a PHONE!

They say a picture says a thousand words, and anyone who was in school before the internet existed probably had some moment that they wished they had a camera to record some unbelievable or breathtaking event.  Now every smart phone produced since 2007 can record video, audio, or still pictures. With the ability to take pictures and video, as well as to transmit or receive those files via the internet, the smart phone has changed the way we see the world  Using the internet or bluetooth , they can connect to pared items such as spy cams, action cams, and video drones. Events can be recorded and shared. I once attended a music festival in Ohio. Months later while watching a video on Youtube taken at that same festival , I was amused to see myself in the crowd. I never even knew I had been videoed.  

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What? Me worry?

As stated earlier, unless you are actively engaged in criminal activity, or are being stalked by someone wishing to do you harm, there is nothing to worry about, at least here in the USA, for now.  You shouldn’t worry that you are being watched, because no matter where you are, God is always watching. As always I wish you success and happiness!

Check back next week for part two FAKE NEWS?

How DEEP is ‘The Deep State’?

Casting light on the ‘Shadow Government’!

HOW DEEP IS THE SWAMP

(This is the second half of a two part article. For part one, read DATA FACT? )

From the Pony Express to the Super-Information Highway

In the 18th century, newspapers were printed to inform the populace of important events and gossip. Even with the fastest horses, news was weeks, or even months old by the time readers got the story. By the middle of the 19th century the invention of Samuel F.B Morse’s telegraph and Morse code made it possible for news to travel first hundreds, then thousands of miles the very same day it occurred. The first trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1866 making communication with Europe possible without a ocean voyage. The invention of the telephone in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell next made the transmission of sound possible over the wires. About two decades later in the mid 1890s, Guglielmo Marconi developed the first radio. It wasn’t until Christmas Eve 1906 that the first public radio broadcast was sent by Reginald A. Fessenden. Once again, two decades after that John Logie Baird publicly demonstrated the first working television system on January 26th 1926. These last three inventions became the universal standard for widespread news and information dissemination for the next sixty years, up until the invention of the internet in 1989.

Presidential Firsts

  • Rutherford B. Hayes the 19th president was the first president to use a telephone in 1877, He had the first phone installed in the oval office, it’s number was 1.
  • President Calvin Coolidge delivered what is now known as the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Dec. 6, 1923, the first presidential address to be broadcast on the radio.  A later president, Franklin D, Roosevelt addressed Americans thirty times regarding the economy and the war abroad in a series of ‘fireside chats’ from 1933 until his death in 1944.
  • Franklin D, Roosevelt was the first president to appear on television at the opening ceremonies for the World’s Fair on April 30, 1939 in Queens NY.   
  • George H.W. Bush was the first president to use e-mail in 1992, three years after the invention of the internet.
  • On May 18, 2015 Barack Hussein Obama II sent his first tweet from the first Twitter account dedicated exclusively to the U.S. President (@POTUS); his first reply to a tweet directed at him was a tongue-in-cheek exchange with former President Bill Clinton (@billclinton).

Yeah, you read that right, Barack Hussein Obama II was sending tweets on Twitter for over a year and a half while he was still president, yet constantly the media talks about the reckless tweeting done by current US president Donald J. Trump. Double standard anyone?

The importance of draining the swamp

“I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service and of retiring with hands as clean as they are empty.” – Thomas Jefferson to Diodati, 1807.

When the Founding Fathers first started our great nation, they originally viewed the task of leading our country and representing our citizens as a short term obligation. Once their civic duty was completed, they would return to their farms, farming being the chief occupation of most people during our nation’s infancy. Government leadership was never meant to be a long-term, or life-long career. America was crafted by very wise men to be a nation of freedom and liberty, with a government of the people, by the people for the people. It was the opposite of a monarchy, and devoid of tyranny. Since its founding, America has been constantly attacked by various foreign powers intent on extinguishing that light of freedom.

“What if elections were actually useful tools of social control? What if they just provided the populace with meaningless participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes? What if that establishment doesn’t want and doesn’t have the consent of the governed? What if the two-party system were actually a mechanism used to limit so-called public opinion? What if there were more than two sides to every issue, but the two parties wanted to box you in to one of their corners?” – Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey

 We as a nation have solidly locked our political system into a two-party system, split into two factions. The Republicans, AKA the Grand Old Party (GOP), and the Democrats or (DNC) which stands for Democratic National Committee. Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President and was also (unfortunately) the first president to be assassinated in an attempt to alter the balance of power. The 1864 election occurred during the Civil War. In the interest of attempting to unify the nation, Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a DEMOCRAT as his vice-presidential running mate. The war ended on April 9th 1865. Five days later, while President Lincoln was attending a play, he was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth. Booth then shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged,” and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next day, and Booth was hunted down and killed days later. Ever since, both president and vice-president have been from the same political party. There have been 30 assassination attempts on US presidents. Only 4 have succeeded, but that number is still way too high.          

“The fact is that the ghost of John McCain and all of the other big business, Chamber of Commerce-type of Republicans that have been selling out the American people, that’s where the Republican Party needs to reconnect, and they can’t simply rely on the Democrat Party falling apart.”– Michelle Malkin

Who watches the watchmen?

Regardless of whoever has been the legitimately elected president, less prominent officials have been undermining political agendas they disagreed with, and hanging on to power and wealth at the expense of the American people.   Tax-and-spend has been the strategy of the DNC as they punish the  rich, and erode our freedoms one bad  law at a time. For most of the 20th century democrats have been promising to end poverty by enacting more and more government mandated social welfare programs and higher taxes on the ‘greedy rich’ so that they pay their  ‘fair share’ despite the fact that 86% of all the taxes collected are PAID BY THE RICH. Across the aisle, the Republicans have been promising to reduce the size of the government, cutting wasteful spending and ineffective programs. As some members of BOTH parties have their coffers being filled by lobbyists, they have resisted any real change in the current status. There are many elected officials who are nothing but the puppets of powerful private citizens who have billions of dollars at their disposal, like George Soros for one.  The first Washington outsider dedicated to ending the status-quo and Making America Great Again is current President Donald J. Trump.  He was been  slandered by the media and referred to as a lying, mentally ill racist who needs to be imprisoned or impeached. Constant headlines of Russian collusion have been plastered on newspapers and magazines, or discussed on radio, television, or internet news show. Media outlets owned by powerful billionaires who hate Trump.       

The politically-motivated witch hunt against President Trump  has failed to produce any evidence of Russian collusion after two years. Special counsel Robert Mueller has finished his investigation into Russian interference during the 2016 election, and the will be no further indictments. The report proved nothing.  Now Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi  is attempting to cover-up this by saying that she and her fellow Democrats feel that impeaching  Trump would be bad for the country and  ‘He’s just not worth it.’ This is the equivalent of a five-year-old watching someone do something they could never do, and then saying they could do it too, but they just don’t want to.  The DNC couldn’t prove collusion, because the was NO collusion. They can’t impeach President Trump even if they were to successfully frame  him because they don’t have enough votes to do it even if they wanted to.  This entire dog-and-pony show was meant as an attempt to brainwash Americans through the fake news media so that they could regain control of the country.

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Protecting the nation!

“As president the protection of the nation is my highest duty. Yesterday, Congress passed a dangerous resolution that if signed into law would put countless Americans in danger, very grave danger. Congress has the freedom to pass this resolution, and I have the duty to veto it.”

The main reason the DNC is so opposed to the border wall with Mexico is because Trump wants it. In 2006 top democrats voted for a wall. Protecting the people of the USA from all enemies foreign and domestic is the most important task of the government, and anyone attempting to undermine that goal needs to be removed from office. Term limits would be an excellent way to keep alleged members of the secret ‘Shadow Government’ from remaining in power to gain wealth. A dozen republican senators voted against Trump’s wall largely because they hail from states with term limits, because they were RINO republicans. (Republican In Name Only). Trump issued the first veto of his presidency on March 15th 2019 to override the block, ensuring that the wall will be built.

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Remember the USA really is only a two party system.  So pick a party that you can win with was been the mantra of some career politicians. We have a two term limit for the president, we need it for every elected official to prevent the abuse of power. We also need to eliminate their full pension for life compensation, and replace it with  a more reasonable pension plan. The government was never meant to be a retirement home for millionaires.    

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REPUBLICAN SENATORS VOTING AGAINST TRUMP: 
Mitt Romney of Utah, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Mike Lee of Utah, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, Marco Rubio of Florida and Roy Blunt of Missouri.

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For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.– Ephesians 6:12

The Strong Survive

All of the over 2500 billionaires worldwide reached their financial peaks because they fought their way to the top every inch of the way. They are the modern kings of this world. World domination and it’s affects on the geopolitical-socioeconomic fabric of our planet has become a game of kings . Money is power, and when you have more money the some nations, the next goal becomes about bragging rights and ego. Whenever you concentrate that many type-A personalities in a group, the fighting for dominance and leadership will get ugly fast. No bones about it, most of them want to be number one at all costs, and are willing to do anything to achieve that title. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Approximately 10% of all billionaires are deci-billionaires,  having tens of billions, but ONLY TWO are centi-billionaires, having amassed over $100 billion each. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is at the top, having taken the reins of commerce, and Bill Gates of Microsoft has conquered the field of computer software and technology. Both are Americans, both are democrats, and both hate Donald Trump.

The information we see now is all but instant. As billionaires own media outlets, they can influence the information we see, either through editorial guidelines or with computer algorithms which track and limit what we see on news-feeds. They can employ their minions in the government or  the entertainment industry to trash or endorse whatever, or whoever they wish. Discernment and the ability to read ‘between the lines’ is necessary to avoid becoming road kill  on the super information highway during the age of information. Learning to think for yourselves as opposed to  adopting the opinions of the masses are key to becoming successful. Always remember, you are being lied to daily. Someone, somewhere wants to convince you that right is wrong, war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Research what is being told to you, and always consider the source. 

Just like Franklin D, Roosevelt commandeered the radio for his ‘fireside chats’, Donald J. Trump has taken to Twitter to directly address the nation, cutting out the middleman who wants to silence the truth. 

President Donald J Trump is not a perfect man. The only perfect man born in the history of the world was Jesus Christ. God is known for using imperfect men to fulfill his perfect plan for the world. Trump is president because Jesus wants him there. He may not be perfect, but he’s the president our nation needs right now. He is a patriot, and he loves America. As always, I wish you success and happiness.  

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DATA FACT?

What a tangled web we have weaved!

(part one of a two part series)

DATA FACT

Conservative Republican Ronald W. Reagan was the 40th president of the United States. Shortly after taking office on January 20th, 1981, he began his goal of making America great again by implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. Dubbed “Reaganomics”, his supply-side economic policies advocated reducing government spending, economic deregulation, and most importantly tax rate reduction. These measures to spur economic growth were directly responsible for the prosperity seen in the 1980’s.    

One of the most radical changes to society which sprang from ‘the decade of wealth’ was the sudden birth of the home computer. Once a staple of science fiction, the idea of actually owning your own computer became a reality. The earliest practical uses were business applications and word processing, as well as early text based games. Computer technology advanced rapidly. An observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles about every two years, while production costs halved, became known as Moore’s Law.

Many tech savvy individuals experimented with software development to justify the cost of purchasing these very expensive machines. There was no easy way of transferring data although there were some primitive networks for those who knew how to contact and connect to them with a modem. This changed on March 12th 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee dreamed up a system of Information management allowing data to be exchanged by multiple computers over a vast network, which we now refer to as the Internet and the World Wide Web. In 1992, IBM developed the first ‘smartphone’ called the Simon Personal Communicator. Today, thirty years after the birth of the internet, people have the sum total of human knowledge at their fingertips and the world has never been more connected.

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A fist full of dollars

The are many ways to make money or save money using the internet and the world wide web, whole books have been written on it, thousands of them.

There are crowd-fund platforms to help you market your invention, e-banks which promise better interest rates and less fees, sites with personal finance tips and tricks, streaming media to watch or download, market places to buy and sell new or used items, the list goes on. The net is big business!

The magnificent seven

  1. Staying in touch – E-mail and text messages now exceed personal  letters and phone calls.
  2. Making friends – Social media allows us to connect with people we would never have met. InstantCoffeeWisdom has over a hundred followers from sixty countries around the world. My twitter account has over seven hundred followers, dozens of whom I’ve met and interact with. I’m grateful for all my friends and supporters.  
  3. Being creative – There are endless DIY tutorials online to demonstrate and inspire.
  4. Finding help – Got a problem? There’s a website that has an answer or solution.
  5. Learning – Online courses teach you anything if you study and apply yourself.
  6. Media – Nearly everything that’s ever been written, recorded, or filmed, exists somewhere online, usually available for free if you take the time to search for it.
  7. Shopping – E-commerce has changed the way we shop, and in many cases has brought about the death of some prominent chains. Radio Shack, Toys R Us, and Borders Books are all long gone, casualties of online shopping. Someone, somewhere in the world has the exact same, or very similar item for much less, and in some cases with free shipping.  You just need to search for it.

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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Everything I’ve listed so far has been good. The bad part is that with so much information and equal mis-information it’s easy to get the wrong source and end up believing in lies. Not everything online is beneficial, and sometimes digging through the ‘fake news’ to unearth the facts isn’t like finding a needle in a haystack, it’s like trying to find a needle in Kansas! The signal to noise ratio is just that great. Worse yet, certain social media platforms use algorithms to selectively edit what you see. Cookies stored in your computer’s memory record and track your browsing history, and bots customize what you see.

The ugly part of the web can range from annoying to horrific. There are some things online that you do NOT want to see, the stuff of nightmares placed online either as a warning, or because some sick individual wanted to share it because they liked it. What has been seen cannot be unseen, beware! There is an entire ‘dark web’ that’s lying under the surface and is just one misplaced or misguided keystroke away. There are internet ‘trolls’ who live to post hateful and hurtful comments in any post that has a reply field. Whole web pages have been created by cyber-bullies to intimidate and humiliate their victims. People have committed suicide over such personal attacks.There are more scams to trick you into handing over personal info than you can shake a stick at. Black-hat hackers have created so many forms of malware that anti-virus protection is a must on any computer. And then there’s the 800 lb gorilla in the room, PORN. When I was a young boy, porn was sold wrapped in plastic, and not kept on display. XXX theaters were in the seedy part of the city where you were afraid to walk in broad daylight. You had to go way out of your way to obtain smut, and now it’s in nearly every home in America, just a click away.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” – Jeremiah 17:9-10 ESV

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. – Luke 6:45 ESV

The internet is a tool, and like any tool it can be used for good or evil.  Whoever controls the flow of information can control you. Are you being lied to? Do you even realize it? Who is Q? Ponder these questions until next week, and check back for part two, HOW DEEP IS THE DEEP STATE? As always, I wish you success and happiness!

How big is the Federal deficit?

Can the debt ever be repaid?

How big is the federal debt

“A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.” – Alexander Hamilton

The average American doesn’t understand how money, budgets, and debt work at the local level. Personal finances are referred to by economists as ‘microeconomics’. When you start dealing with the finances of nations, your discussing what is known as ‘macroeconomics’. In any case, the underlying principals of income, budgeting, and debt are basically the same, only the scale is different. Savings is always good, and debt is never your best choice. Debt in and of itself is just a tool, but it can quickly spiral out of hand, and you are always spending more money when you go into debt than if you were to pay the full amount upfront in cash. The decision that needs to be greatly mulled-over is the benefits of waiting verses the benefits of instant gratification. 

Going into debt for any reason is never to be taken lightly, and should NEVER be used for trivial pursuits. Sometimes it can be very important to make an purchase in order to establish a platform for future benefits.  On a personal level, an example of this could be purchasing an automobile. There are not many individuals who buy brand new cars outright with cash, though older, used cars might be attainable. In some parts of the USA a car is a necessity. You can’t get to work, or buy groceries because there is no direct public transportation available.  Buying items you really don’t need like the latest video game, or the newest smart phone are examples of foolish debt.

In 1803, the USA doubled in size through a land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. Known as The Louisiana Purchase, this deal was more than the country could afford even at the bargain price of 3¢ per acre, yet it was also an offer that then president Thomas Jefferson could not refuse.  The purchase deal  had to be paid immediately because Napoleon needed the funds for a war with Great Britain.  As a result the US was forced to borrow the funds from two banks in Europe at 6 per cent interest.  It took twenty years to pay back the loan, and cost $8 million in interest fees.  Even after the repayment of the loan in 1823, the USA remained in debt for another twelve years.  On January 1, 1835, president Andrew Jackson paid off the entire national debt. That was the only time in U.S. history that had been accomplished.              

Most nations have national or sovereign debts, and there is nothing wrong with having a debt in many cases. Most creditors don’t worry until the sovereign debt is more than 77 percent of GDP, according to the World Bank. In the fourth quarter of 2018, the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio was 105 percent. That’s the $21.974 trillion U.S. debt as of December 31, 2018, divided by the $20.891 trillion nominal GDP. So the USA is in ‘the danger zone’ where creditors could begin panicking.  This was one of the reason we lost our historical AAA+ credit after the deficit doubled under the Obama administration.  

The national debt is made up of a few things, and is the total of all the bonds held at the Federal Reserve. Money begins and ends with the issuing body. When certain debts are extinguished, so is the money that created them. US Federal reserve notes are based entirely upon debt having been created through the process of fractional reserve banking. In this process, bank notes are printed and then loaned out to be repaid over time with interest. Our money is not based on a gold standard, or backed by any form of precious metals. A dollar is worth a dollar because the US Federal Reserve Bank tells you that it’s worth a dollar. It is a promissory note printed on paper or stamped on a metal coin that is redeemable for an equal amount in goods and services.  For all intents and purposes, a dollar is little more than an I.O.U.  Since all money created has interest attached to it, the amount of debt will always exceed the amount of money  in circulation.

When president Woodrow Wilson created the Federal Reserve Bank by signing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, he created the perfect excuse of widespread spending abuse by the government. If planned government spending exceeded the federal budget, the deficit could be plugged by borrowing the funds from the Federal Reserve Bank, at interest, for the public good.  As a result, the federal deficit was  $25 billion by 1934, and rose to $250 billion by 1945. In 1982, the national debt reached  $1 trillion for the first time.  There has almost always been massive government over-spending which blew the budget. In the past fifty years,  only five years have had balanced federal budgets: 1969 under President Richard Nixon; 1998, 1999 and 2000 under Bill Clinton; and 2001 under George W. Bush.

The worst example of government over-spending occurred during the two terms of the 44th president,  Barack Hussein Obama II , the worst president in history.   On January 20, 2009, when he was sworn in, the debt was $10.626 trillion. On January 20, 2017, when he left, it was $19.947. President Donald J. Trump has been doing his best to slow the out of control spending, and he has been making progress.  It’s going to take time to repair the damage done by the previous administration.

“President Obama has almost doubled our national debt to more than $19 trillion, and growing. And yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.” – Donald J.Trump

The ‘I’ in Team

You earn so much in personal income each year. Your personal income is analogous to the national income from tax revenue.  Your personal budget is like a small scale version of the federal budget. Think of the national debt as you would your personal credit card. It’s the excess that has been borrowed plus interest that has been charged to bridge a spending gap.  If you’re still following along with me in this example, you’re smarter than the average American. 

The nation’s debt limit is similar to the limit your credit card company places on your spending. But there’s one significant difference. Congress is in charge of both its spending and the debt limit. When you max-out your credit card, one of three things happens:

  • You request a limit increase, so that you can continue spending more money than you can afford.
  • You request an addition line of credit, so that you can continue spending more money than you can afford.
  • You stop spending more money than you can afford because no one will extend you additional credit.

On February 9, 2018, President Trump signed a bill suspending the debt ceiling until March 1, 2019. As a result, the limit will be whatever level the debt is on that day. On February 11, 2019, it was $22 trillion. At that level, the U.S. Treasury estimates it will run out of money in September 2019. The debt ceiling is a limit that Congress imposes on how much debt the federal government can carry at any given time. When the ceiling is reached, the U.S. Treasury Department cannot issue any more Treasury bills, bonds, or notes. It can only pay bills as it receives tax revenues. If the revenue isn’t enough, the Treasury Secretary must choose between paying federal employee salaries, Social Security benefits, or the interest on the national debt. Congress created the debt ceiling in the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. In 1974, Congress created the budget process that allows it to control spending. That’s why Congress raises the debt ceiling. Congress must raise the debt ceiling so the United States doesn’t default on its debt. During the last 10 years, Congress increased the debt ceiling 10 times. It raised it four times in 2008 and 2009 alone.

In addition to the current national debt of $22 Trillion, the USA also has additional debt in the form of unfunded obligations, or future services that the country has promised to pay for years in the future. This is an estimated additional $80 trillion, but might be as high as $200 trillion according to some estimates.

According to experts, there are three possible ways to pay off the deficit:

  1. Raise Taxes
  2. Cut Spending
  3. Print more money

Unfortunately, each of these by themselves are all bad ideas.

Raising Taxes

All taxes raised in this country are paid for by the top 40% of wage earners.  So 60% of the workers in our country pay ZERO in federal income tax.  This is why tax cuts are always tax cuts on the wealthy. It’s because only the wealthy are paying taxes, and that’s not fair. When you raise taxes on the wealthy, you stymie economic growth and slow the economy, thus reducing tax revenue.  Consistently over time, the government has collected 17% in tax revenue of the total of the portion of the US economy regardless of the tax rate.

taxovertime

Cutting Spending

When you cut spending there are certain places you can and can’t cut, plus when you do cut some federal program, the beneficiaries of that program are going to have a hissy fit.  50% of the federal budget funds social security and medicate. So you can’t cut that. Salaries of federal employees also can’t be cut, nor can you cut military spending unless you want to weaken the defense of our nation. The only fair way to cut spending here would be to phase out certain programs, and privatize some federal jobs.  The problem with privatizing some jobs is that they are tied into national security,  so only cutting jobs or lowering the starting pay for new hires could reduce costs. Also this would only affect agencies that receive tax dollars to pay bills. Quasi-government agencies like the United States Postal Service would be unaffected (as they were during the recent government shutdown) because they receive no  funding from tax dollars. All of their income is derived from postage sales.            

Printing more money.

When you print more money, you increase the number of  dollars in circulation and create inflation, so the spending power of the dollar is diminished. Also depending on how fast you increase the money supply, you run the risk of galloping or hyper inflation. Galloping inflation is when prices rise 10% each month. Hyper inflation is worse at 50% per month. Now as costs rise, salaries eventually rise to compensate, but any savings you have never increases and is worth less.  Inflation is a tax on savings.

“Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.”– Herbert Hoover

Is there a way out?

According to economics professor Antony Davies there is a way to balance the federal budget within 5 years

1) Cut ALL federal spending 10% NO EXCEPTIONS.

2) Maintain this spending level for 4 years, no increases, and no adjustments for inflation.

At the end of 5 years the budget will be balanced.

If you keep the budget balanced and maintain that fixed level, eventually the economy will grow and the deficit will be paid off in about 80 years.  There are ways to do it faster. The federal government collects $3.3 trillion in revenue and spends $4.3 trillion. So a straightforward way to pay off the debt would be to increase taxes 20% and cut spending 20% to run a $1 trillion surplus. That would pay off the nominal debt in about 15 years, depending on economic growth and interest rates.  Unfortunately both of these seem unlikely.  It is still possible to accomplish, but pie-in-the-sky programs like the Green New Deal proposed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would destroy our economy, as would an expansion of the welfare state, or any move towards socialism. The best way to increase tax revenue would be through a fair tax or flat tax in which EVERY working person pays an EQUAL percentage tax, with no possible deductions or exemptions. Such a tax would drastically raise the taxes on the poorest citizens while dramatically lowering the taxes on the richest.  You could also eliminate the IRS, and reduce government oversight and expenses related to tax collection and processing.  Everyone would pay their fair 10%. In any case, right now we have the right man for the job sitting behind his desk at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C.,  working overtime to Make America Great Again! As always, I wish you success and happiness!

THE BIG PICTURE!

Do you have ALL of the pieces?

(Part one of a two-part series)

The Big Picture

“No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.”– Brian Tracy

As we progress in life, we grow in knowledge and experience and as a result come to understand that things aren’t always as they seem, or aren’t really they way we believe them to be. Adults understand more than children. Teachers understand more than their students, up until the student totally masters the subject and moves on. As long as we have air in our lungs, we still have opportunities to educate ourselves and improve our lives. Knowledge, like money, is power. Just as the rich ‘rule over’ the poor, the smart ‘rule over’ the stupid. The problem is there are more uneducated people in the world than there are educated ones. There are more lazy people then there are industrious. There are more unsuccessful people than successful.

One piece of the puzzle.

Big Picture 1

What if I told you that the photo above was a picture of a priceless work of art, valued at almost a billion dollars.  You’d look at that picture, scratch your head in wonder and confusion, and probably say that only an idiot would pay that, or that you could paint a better picture and deserve the money more.   

America has a free market, capitalist economy. As a result, we have created more wealthy, successful people than any other country in the world.

The American oil magnate John D. Rockefeller became the world’s first confirmed U.S. dollar billionaire in 1916, and still holds the title of history’s wealthiest individual. The majority of billionaires and millionaires in the world are Americans.  

Last month, Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY said a society that allows billionaires to exist while some Americans live in abject poverty is “immoral.”

Becoming rich, educated, and successful doesn’t happen by accident, or overnight. It takes years and hard work.  Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest man on Earth. He started Amazon.com twenty years ago, selling books on the internet, from  his home. He took advantage of the law of supply and demand, and overtime built the powerhouse that his company has become. Simply put, he gave people what they wanted, at a price they were willing to pay, and made a profit doing it.

The second piece of the puzzle.

Big Picture 2

What if I told you that the picture above was the exact same piece of art. Again, you’d probably compare the two, say they were different, that the second was better than the first, and that both were worthless, and that you could do better.

As I stated previously,  There are more uneducated, lazy, unsuccessful people in the world than those who have decided to improve their lives. In some countries, it is impossible to rise above one’s lot in life, and that is why so many foreigners desire to immigrate to America. In the USA, you have opportunities to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, IF you’re willing to work long and hard to achieve those goals.  Unfortunately,  Saul Alinsky’s protégés  have used his playbook to stir up class envy among the poor and uneducated masses, those he refers to as ‘useful idiots’.  The same  Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of NY also stated just hours after getting elected as the youngest  state representative EVER that she was NOT ABLE to afford to pay her rent for a new apartment. According to cheatsheet.com , at 29 years old, the young congress woman’s net worth is under $7,000. She was only making $26,600 annually before being elected and has been paying down college debts. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now receives an annual congressional salary of $174,000.  She was able to bamboozle her constituents to electing her by essentially offering them a free lunch.  If she has no understanding of  microeconomics, is it any wonder she is mystified by macroeconomics?

If you’re unfamiliar with those two terms, very simply put:

  • Microeconomics are personal financial issues such as planning your vacation, budgeting your money , paying your rent, etc.        
  • Macroeconomics are large scale financial issues like how business and even entire countries handle their economies.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio both lobbied long and hard to bring AMAZON to NY. Massive tax-break incentives were offered and as a result, a deal was struck for a proposed location in Long Island City.

aocnoamazon

Days ago,  Jeff Bezos abandoned this proposed plan to build a new AMAZON distribution hub and second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens NY because of opposition created by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  She was enraged that the richest man on the planet was going to receive a $3,000,000,000 tax BREAK to open this new location. A TAX BREAK. He was not getting three billion dollars from the city, he was getting a discount on future tax liabilities!  Yet this buffoon Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez killed the deal by insulting Mr. Bezos, his company, and his employees, and inciting protests.  The new location would have created 26,000 new jobs, with benefits , starting at $15 per hour, and paying up to six-figure salaries.  There is  no estimate on the incalculable  collateral damage to the city’s economy.

aocdumass

 

The BIG Picture!

mona-lisa-67506_640

If you step back far enough  to see THE ENTIRE PICTURE, everything makes sense.  The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci painted in 1503. It’s located in France in the Louvre Museum (since 1797). It’s one of a kind, like the USA.  There are millions of artists in the world, and many of them can work in oil paint, and even reproduce a decent facsimile of the Mona Lisa if they really wanted to.   There are also ‘artists’ that use animal dung, or urine as a medium. And there are dummies who would also pay for such works of ‘art’ produced by so-called ‘artists’.  There is ONLY ONE Mona Lisa, and ONLY ONE America. There are many idiots in the world that hate both, and believe they could produce something ‘better’. President Trump sees the BIG PICTURE and is doing everything that needs to be done to repair the damages done by prior administrations and by career politicians intent on seizing as much power as they can. 

There are also some people who claim to see an ‘even bigger picture’.  There are many conspiracy theories out there that claim unknown, unseen forces are conspiring to destroy the USA, and that these same forces are behind creating THE FED, the massive government debt, and the political smear campaign that is being waged against President Donald J. Trump by various media outlets. I don’t really buy into conspiracy theories, but as comedian George Carlin once said, “you should never underestimate the power  of stupid people   in large groups.”   For those who choose to believe in a ‘BIGGER PICTURE’ I’ll discuss Q Anon, the Illuminati, and other popular conspiracy theories next week in the second half of this article, A GAME OF KINGS. Until then, keep watching the skies! As always, I wish you success and happiness!