What a Revolting Development This Is…….. 02/16/2012
From the old Life of Riley TV show. Growing up and even into my adult years I did not pay attention to politics. Maybe that was the way of most young people then. All we knew is what we heard on the news and if it did not affect us right then, what did we care. Today, we can’t use that as an excuse, we have the internet, and the decisions politicians made then and the ones they make now do affect us. By not paying attention to what the politicians stand for, we have elected some to office who probably should not have been elected. Or, maybe we think they are all crooked and it is not worth taking the time to vote. Or, we voted for the one promising us the most. We elect people to office, either by voting for them or staying home and not voting at all. President Obama has had over one trillion dollar deficits every year he has been in office and is projecting another one in his proposed budget for this fiscal year. This is not giving President Bush a pass. To my knowledge he never vetoed a single spending bill. President Clinton balanced the budget at the expense of our military, now being outdone by President Obama with the cuts being proposed in his current budget. We have over $15 Trillion (which they all contributed to) in outstanding debt and it keeps going higher. We have the government paying for everything from cell phones to rebates on electric cars, and we know where the government gets its money. We have almost half the people in this country paying very little or no federal income tax and our politicians screaming for the wealthy to pay more. We have more people on food stamps today than ever in our history and we want the government to do more, more, more. The price of fuel is going through the roof and the price of homes continues to fall. Unemployment is touted to be 8.3% like that is a good thing, while the real unemployment is at 15.1%, if you believe any numbers the government puts out. So, where does it stop? Who is to blame? Should we just blame the politicians and keep going on the path we are on? Politicians have two goals. Keep winning elections and hold onto their power. No doubt, they are the ones making and passing all these rules and regulations, but more than anyone else, I think we should blame ourselves for putting them in office and letting them get away with it. We are to blame for letting the news media give us the short attention span news clips and sway our opinion. We are to blame for thinking we will find someone out there, running for office, who has never made a mistake or someone who never smoked pot thirty or forty years ago. We are to blame for letting the news media dig into someone’s past; even though it might not be relevant today and sway our opinion to the candidate they are backing. We are to blame for it all and we can change it if we want a change. We have 435 members in the House of Representatives, 100 in the Senate, the President, Vice President and nine Supreme Court Justices running this country. That’s only 546. Surely in a country as great as America, there are better, more qualified people. I know there are a few good ones in congress, but for most of them it’s time to put them in the unemployment lines. Before the internet, there was not an easy way of doing most research. We had to either take the politicians word or trust what we read in the newspapers or saw on the news. This is not an excuse; it’s just the way it was. No effort was put forth, at least on my part, to do my own research. Now we can sit down and have an email, text or whatever to them within minutes, but don’t stop there, demand an answer. Today, we must not use laziness or I don’t like politics as an excuse. With the internet we can easily do our own fact checking. We don’t have to rely on television or radio talk shows. We can watch their speeches from years past. We can search congressional records and laws they have enacted. We can see where they contradict themselves, and they do this quite often. We can search tax receipts at the federal, state and local levels. We can look at the budgets the President puts forth and compare that to total tax receipts and wonder how they plan to pay for it. We can demand that they put our country back in order. The big question is, will we? The ten year projections mean nothing. They’re just pipe dreams to try and appease the masses. Add Comment This letter was sent to Senator Richard Burr, Senator Kay Hagen and Representative Sue Myrick of North Carolina regarding the National Flood Insurance Program which is due to be reauthorized by the end of September. If you plan to reauthorize the National Flood Insurance Program, I urge you to do so only if the following points are included:
As I stated above, the federal government must begin functioning within a budget. If the points listed above cannot be incorporated, I ask that you NOT sign the extension. Taking a bite out of our wallets: 07/30/2011
 Ever wonder where all your hard-earned money is going? Think about this. If you drive 15,000 miles per year, and your car averages 30 mpg, your fuel cost has increased about 102% since January, 2009. To put it in numbers; regular gasoline averaged $1.84 a gallon according to Consumer Reports on January 26, 2009. Today, July 30, 2011 it averages $3.71 according to AAA. You can do the math. I don’t know about you, but I could use that $935 elsewhere. If you have more than one car, you’re paying even more.  Here they go again, our federal government is thinking of renting out foreclosed homes. Just what we need, the government getting into the landlord business. What makes them think this will work when the tax credits and Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) did not? Billions of taxpayer dollars were set aside for HARP. The eight-thousand dollar tax credit paid for by you and me did get some people buying, but once that program ended, sales dropped again. Some say it only pushed sales into earlier months. Then you have the cash for clunkers bailout. Now our federal government wants to get into the landlord business. What the federal government needs to do is leave it alone and let the market fix itself. It will, only if they will quit meddling in it. I don’t know about all of the elected officials in Washington, but I do know many them have been there thirty or forty years. How can they have any business experience at all if all they have ever done is spend other people’s money, and not very wisely, I might add? They are passing so many regulations these days, how about passing one that limits their stay on a government job. _____________________________________________________________________ On another note…...several months ago, in haste, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) came out with a new ruling. The thought was good, but their planning was terrible. Here was their thought; some homeowners might look at alternative options to a foreclosure such as a short sale. To help protect these homeowners the FTC came up with the Mortgage Assistance Relief Services (MARS). The rule’s intent was to help protect distressed homeowners from mortgage relief scams, but it was so broadly written, in their haste, that it required real estate agents, acting in their licensed capacity to comply when they negotiate with a lender on the terms of a short sale. This rule went into effect in December, 2010. Now, in July, 2011 the FTC has announced they will forbear from enforcing most provisions of MARS against real estate professionals when acting in their licensed capacity. First, this is what happens in big government, they try to fix things and mess it up more. Second, to my understanding, the law is still there. They only said they would not enforce parts of it against real estate agents. Should we TRUST them? Big Government 07/09/2011
I was not in favor of BIG GOVERNMENT stepping in and setting up a do not call list. I think there are better ways of doing things instead of relying on the government as a do all. That’s part of the problem in this country now, but that’s another story for another time. There is a company who calls several times a week regarding credit card services. I don’t know why they call me, because I would NEVER do business with someone like this over the phone. It comes in as a recording and I have to press one to get a human on the line. Here’s where the “Do Not Call” comes in. I have told them not to call. I have taken their company name and phone number (when they didn’t just hang up) and reported it several times, but they continue to call. Is the “Do Not Call” just another example of how inefficient BIG GOVERNMENT” is? Do Economists Ever Look at These Numbers? 07/09/2011
Recent unemployment numbers and consumer price index from Bureau of Labor Statistics. Home sales continue to decline. Energy, food prices and unemployment continue to rise.   Turning Point for Real Estate? 07/06/2011
“Historic Turning Point for Real Estate” - A group of economists and real estate experts were “polled” and they tend to agree that home prices will reach bottom this year. Seems like I heard that last year. Now the are predicting home prices to start increasing. I don’t recall seeing anything in their remarks about why people are not buying. I don’t recall seeing anything about unemployment hitting and remaining at the highest level in years. I have not heard anything about the plan to increase the down payment for buyers to 20%. How do these factors affect the price of homes? I think they will affect it in a big way. Demand for a product is what drives the price. Doesn’t matter if it is homes or widgets. At this time, I don’t see a huge demand. Partly because of unemployment and partly because home prices became outrageous. We had a lot of economists and real estate experts in the early part of this decade. A lot of them thought the market would continue the strong sales we were experiencing. The were wrong then and I think they are wrong now. Biking 06/10/2011
It's a great place to ride a bike. From our house, it is four and one fifth mile round trip. It’s quite and I can hear the doves cooing, the crows crowing and other birds singing. You’ll also see rabbits, squirrels and deer. Hearing the doves early in the morning reminds me of being at my grandmother’s house when I was a kid. My brother and I would go outside to play in the wet morning dewy grass and I can remember the doves. D-Day June 6, 1944 06/06/2011
D-Day - It was only 67 years ago today, the invasion of Normandy. Have we forgotten? Have you ever heard of Dixie Foundry? 06/03/2011
 In my hometown of Cleveland, TN: Before it was Whirlpool; before it was Maytag; before it was Magic Chef', it was Dixie Foundry. Click on the link for a brief history. |
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