The Smoke Break

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We’re Aren’t As Stupid As You Think, Mr. President

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In his Saturday message, President Obama said that the people who attended his townhall meetings in California this week “weren’t as concerned about the news of the day in Washington as they were about the very real and serious challenges their families face every day”.

Perhaps he was following Nancy Pelosi’s lead and addressing illegal immigrants who don’t speak English well or at all, or perhaps it is merely testament to the depth of the financial mess in California, created in part by taking care of all those illegal immigrants, but the “ordinary Americans” with whom I speak on a daily basis are extremely concerned about what’s going on in Washington.  They watch the spiraling debt, the dropping Dow, past and future generations of good money being thrown after bad; they watch those who should be most concerned about the mess they have created spending their time lobbing self-perceived pithy comments at radio hosts and television commentators or making hurtful jokes, and alternately shake their heads in amazement or shudder in revulsion.

The “ordinary Americans” with whom I speak on a daily basis know full well that what goes on in Washington holds grave ramifications for not only this, our beloved country, but for them, as individuals.  They understand that it is impossible to spend money that you don’t have to pay off debts you don’t need to incur, they understand that government involvement in private business is socialism, they understand that hamstringing those who own companies by ever-increasing taxes on their incomes and unionizing their businesses spells death to free enterprise, personal choice, and everything upon which this country was founded.  They understand that our sovereignty is threatened by the President’s enchantment with the U.N., and that our safety is threatened by a foreign policy that even – shamefully – the Ayatollah Khamenei rightly derides, saying, “They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven’t seen any change.”

Yet President Obama continues to dare to carry on campaigning about fixing the “fiscal mess” he and the Congress critters inheirited – from themselves.  He expects to send the deficit to some $9.3 trillion in 10 years yet cut it in half in what he euphamistically now refers to as his “first term”.

We, the “ordinary Americans”, watch and we listen, and then we, the “ordinary Americans”, hope and we pray that the gods help us all and give us the time we need to vote this kind of audacity out with a thorough house cleaning in Washington.

Acorn Strikes (Out) Again

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A meekly-titled little grassroots organization called the “Connecticut Working Families Party” decided to organize an innocent little “tour” of the homes of AIG executives.

Yeah, right.  Wanna buy another bridge to nowhere?

This turned out to be just another cover for ACORN and the implications are as horrifying as Congress moving to pass tax laws to punish people for mistakes they, themselves, made.  That is, they would be horrifying to an honest person.

Hotair has the story and the links.  Follow them.  Ironically, turnabout is fair play and some of the wankers – they could only pull together some 40 people and they ended up in an organic grocery store, stunned to learn the people there talk to the “evil” AIG folks all the time…and like them – have had their pictures posted by an outraged blogger.  Wonder how they’ll enjoy their public humiliation?

Didn’t any of them bother to read about exactly who is left working at AIG?  It’s not the people who created the mess that is now being cleaned up.  I know that seems to be a small fact being ignored by just about everyone but it’s an important one.  All of this “retribution” is now misdirected and even, in the actions of the Congress critters setting up a 90-100% tax on those bonuses, arguably illegal.

Focus, people.  Focus. Our country is about to collapse in a heap of phantom money and multiple generations-worth of debt, the dollar is just this side of being a joke on the global market, business as we know it stands to collapse under union pressure for paybacks from the administration, and you are worried about a few people getting paid to straighten out some of the mess created by our government and some long-gone financial traders?

Oh Come, All Ye Sheeple (The Truth About “Card Checks”)

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Do you believe that in this life you get what you give?  Do you believe in the individual power of your Constitutionally-defined-as-inalienable rights?  Do you appreciate the opportunity to reap the rewards of your own efforts?  Do you want to be able to choose where you work and choose among opportunities provided by your employer?

Or do you believe that you give only as much as you get?  Do you feel that just because you were born the world owes you a living?  Do you feel that those who are smarter or are willing to work harder have the responsibility to take care of you?  Do you think that anyone who’s done well must automatically share, must give you everything you want?  And give it without question?

If you are of the latter mindset, the administration is working very hard to prepare a place in a gulag called Hope & Change just for you.  But if you are of the former, then it is important you understand just what is happening with the “Employee Free Choice Act”, aka “card check”.

There are some who would like you to think this is just some silly little fight between the unions and the government’s favorite whipping boy, Big Bad Business.  But that’s because they stand to profit from your ignorance.  The reality is that, unbelievably and shamefully, this is one very big fight for the freedoms upon which this country was founded.

What’s the “card check” all about?  Well, in a nutshell, it boils down to this:

  • A majority of employees sign “cards” in public that say they want union representation
  • Government arbitration can be called in by either the union or the business owner to define the new union agreement after 90 days of negotiations (with binding arbitration after 120 days)

Let’s look at both of these more closely.  Doesn’t sound like a big deal to just sign your name to a card in public, does it?  In fact, in today’s business climate, I’d venture to guess that maybe some of you are picturing yourself as some kind of blinged-out Norma Rae, eh?  But what if you think your employer is a fair one and treats you well and you don’t want to sign a card?  Or what if you aren’t sure if you should sign a card and then find yourself being pulled aside at work and being called at home by coworkers asking you to go along with them and sign the card?  What if you find flyers in your home mailbox telling you that you need to sign the card?  What if you find flyers on your desk or in your locker at work telling you that you should sign the card?  What if you get emails at work or to your personal email address telling you that you should sign the card?  What if your spouse or children are asked about you signing the card?  What if someone from the union pulls you aside at work every day to talk to you about your decision?  What if someone from the union calls you at home every day to talk to you about your decision?  What if someone from the union threatens you or your family or even your family’s pet(s) if you don’t sign the card?  Even worse, what if those threats become reality?

This is the ace the unions are hiding up their sleeve.  They understand that public humiliation – and personal threats or even criminal acts if they deem them necessary – go a lot farther than appealing to people’s reasoning and intellect.  Particularly when their choice is not readily embraced.  They are counting on you – yes, YOU – to be a nice little sheep and go quietly along with the herd if you work for any profitable company upon which they’ve set their sights.  No matter how big or how small the company, no matter how equitably you, the employee, the worker, may think you are treated by your employer, the union organizers – like the government with all its bailouts – will insist they can take better care of you.  But what they won’t tell you is that more union members means more dues – which are mandatory, by the way, even if you choose to not join a union in states that do not have “right to work” laws.  And those dues pouring into the union coffers means more money for those who run the organizations (Jimmy Hoffa and his pals didn’t amass their personal fortunes by doing hands-on skilled trades work).  What they don’t want you to see is that unions are really no better in terms of wasting your money than is the government.

Today, if 30% or more employees sign a card indicating they want union representation, the National Labor Relations Board is called in to verify and then conduct a secret ballot election.  This allows people to vote their conscience, which is not always readily voiced in front of coworkers or their employer.  Such privacy of choice is considered a long-standing, fundamental right, dating back to 1892 here yet originating in ancient Greece and Rome.

Arbitration is a whole ‘nother game and the part of the proposed legislation that contains the most real potential for damage to American businesses.  When employees come to a majority decision to unionize, they must work out a contract with their employer.  This spells out everything, including the types of jobs, how much each one pays, the hours each one works, the amount of time off to which each one is entitled, how and when overtime is scheduled and paid, etc.  The union is going to hold out for the most pay for the least amount of time spent working, the business owner is going to want to spend as little as possible.  There will be times when a business owner who is already treating their employees fairly is going to be told by the union that they aren’t giving their employees enough.  And the business owner, who understands the community in which they and their employees live and the climate for the future of their business, is going to stand firm.

At the first possible opportunity, here is where our bailout buddies, the government, will be called to step in.  And without any insight into the distinct and unique reasons a particular business does well in a particular environment, bureaucrats (being paid by your tax dollars, mind you) are going to settle things.  More often than not, they will “split the difference” and it will end up costing the business owner a great deal of money.  In some cases, so much money that they will have no choice but to close down.

And all those “wonderful” union jobs will go bye-bye.

Can’t say as how I would blame the business owner.  Would you?

It’s difficult enough to make a profit these days, but it will be even more so when a business owner – seeing the Big Picture – no longer has the freedom to assign its employees to roles that they know are appropriate, both for the growth of the business and the individual growth of that employee.  That’s because unions have this little thing called “seniority”, so it’s no longer a matter of the best person for the job getting the job.  Instead the job goes to the person who’s next in line for a promotion.  Even if they’re a bumbling idiot.  This practice is extremely discouraging to morale and it is one of the biggest reasons that the smartest and most fair-minded individuals vote against unionization.  “People see this as a huge power shift in labor-management relations,” said Steven Law, a chief of staff for the Department of Labor under President George W. Bush who runs the chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative, which expects to spend $20 million fighting EFCA this year. “This is a complete and radical rewriting of labor laws to effectively remove any employer control over the workplace and put it in the hands of the unions.”

And what about labor union corruption?  Hmmmm…let me count the ways.

  • How about Communication Workers of America union bosses posting nonunion AT&T employees’ social security numbers on a public bulletin board?
  • How about a federal complaint that impeached Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s chief of staff, John Harris, had suggested to a service employees official that the union should help make Blagojevich the president of Change to Win, a federation of seven unions that broke away from the A.F.L.-C.I.O.?
  • How about when the Democrats took a majority in Congress in 2007, the only office they wanted to cut back on was the one engaged in union oversight?  An office, by the way, that helped get convictions for 775 corrupt union officials and court-ordered restitution to union members of over $70 million in dues.
  • How about the director of the Laborers’ New England Region Organizing Fund awaiting trial on one count of labor conspiracy for allegedly accepting cash, liquor, rental cars and gift certificates from an undercover FBI agent posing as a contractor looking for business in Rhode Island?  Two others were also indicted.
  • How about the UAW losing $23 million in the past five years as it tries to manage a multibillion-dollar pension plan crisis because they continue to own and operate a $33 million lakeside retreat in Michigan, complete with a $6.4 million designer golf course?  (The UAW, of course, being the union representing American auto workers at GM, Chrysler, and Ford and therefore, in the case of GM and Chrysler, the indirect recipients of bailout money – our hard-earned tax dollars – in the form of continued union dues from its members.)

I could spend days documenting problems like these, but the point should be clear.  Unions no longer serve anyone except themselves.  If you still have doubts, ponder these hypocrisies:

  • On March 10, 2009, James P. Hoffa, the current president of the Teamsters, asked, “Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?”  After having been elected by members of the Teamsters Union 3 times – by secret ballot.  And just 3 days before the 20th anniversary of the settlement of the Justice Department’s racketeering lawsuit against the Teamsters, filed in response to what the judge in the case called a “sordid career of corruption and involvement with criminal elements and corrupt practices.”  A settlement that included direct election of union officials – by secret ballot.
  • The constitution of the Teamsters Union calls for its convention delegates, elections of officers (and candidates may not appear at the polls), committees, and even the president’s concerns about an issue,  to all be voted on by secret ballot.  Strikes and acceptance of offers by employers are also voted on by secret ballot.
  • The constitution of the UAW (United Auto Workers) requires election of local officers by secret ballot, and uses it during trials of members for violations.
  • The constitution of the Service Employees International Union uses secret ballots, too.

Now ask yourself the million-dollar question:  if unions recognize the necessity and the validity of secret ballots, why do they want to deny it to you?

Like most things in life these days, it’s not about fairness for workers any more, it’s only about money.  For them.  Money they feel they are now owed by the government for having spent the union dues of their members to elect President Obama and many Congress critters.  And power.  A chance to garner more power than they have been given to date.

In other words, it’s payback time, folks.  A quick search reveals that the Obama campaign received $8.1 million in contributions from union PACs through July 2008.  The SEIU had given $13.53 million by October 2008 and spent some $3.16 million opposing Senator John McCain.  Some of the backdoor tactics to solicit union donations to help fund the Democratic National Convention were reported by the LA Times in August 2008.  And union endorsements of his candidacy did not come without strings.  The unions expected something in return and they are reeling back in the fishing line and asking for it now.  That something is your freedom to vote by secret ballot and the right of the free market to operate freely.

The unfortunate reality for the Congress critters and President Obama can be found in a recent Rasmussen survey which shows a majority of Americans, regardless political party affiliation, still believe voting in private (secret ballots) are the best way to determine unionization.  And the unfortunate reality for labor is that only 9% of non-union workers are at all interested in joining a union, and a clearly large majority of union members believe secret ballots are fair.  But the unions aren’t going down without a fight and are already starting their strong-arm tactics against Congress critters who do or may oppose their efforts.

Even President Obama’s beloved lapdog, the United Nations…or is it the other way around?  Sorry, I digress….  Even the U.N. International Labor Office continues to advocate the secret ballot as being the best measure of workers’ wishes for union representation, stating “Secret and direct voting is certainly a democratic process and cannot be criticized as such.”

If ever there was a time to stand up and voice our wishes for freedom to those we have elected to represent us in government, it is now.  It is imperative that this time “we the people” make ourselves heard loud and clear in defense of our freedom to vote in secret and our right of free association.

The alternative is to go quietly to the slaughter.

Credit Unions Aren’t Immune, Either

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While the spotlight has been on the commercial banks and their smoke and mirror mortgage activities, it has been presumed that credit unions, those staid little non-profit kinda-banks, have been functioning with a bit more common sense and therefore credit union members were more protected from the financial meltdowns. 

Apparently not, grasshopper.

It’s been reported that federal regulators have seized control of U.S. Central Federal Credit Union in Lenexa, Kansas and Western Corporate (WesCorp) Federal Credit Union of San Dimas, California, due to an “unacceptably high concentration of risk” found during a financial “stress test”, due to their carrying the bulk of mortgage-backed securities.

U.S. Central received an inside $1 billion bailout in January (part of a $7 billion industry-maintained insurance fund) but it is unclear if more will be needed.

U.S. Central has 26 corporate credit union members and says it provides settlement services to 100 percent of corporate credit unions and 93 percent of all U.S. credit unions, while WesCorp based in San Dimas, California, has approximately 1,100 retail credit union members.

Because these two organizations are effectively the “credit union for credit unions”,  this will mean higher premiums levied on retail credit unions they service.  And you can bet that will trickle down and translate into higher fees coming for credit union members.

Nerobama Bowls While Washington Burns

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Sometimes you just have to put it out there in plain English.  In my book, few do it better than Glenn Beck.  What he had to say yesterday about his “One Thing” should be easily understood by even the littlest of we, the “little people”, and should, frankly, scare the bejesus out of anyone who’s not been paying much attention to the news.  I find it wasteful to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, so watch for yourself:

 

Chalk Another One Up For Putin

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Regardless why it’s finally happened, it has been announced that the annual spring slaughter of baby seals in the northern White Sea region has been scrapped after Vladimir Putin condemned the clubbing of baby seals for their fur as a “bloody trade”. 

As the EU continues to consider a ban on seal products, this year’s Canadian seal “hunt” has already started with 200 grey seal pups being beaten to death with wooden bats on Hay Island  (2,000 would have died except that this year – at last – there were no buyers.)  The main “hunt” begins in just 2 days.  Taking place over a period of just 2-3 months and with deaths numbering hundreds of thousands, it is the largest single slaughter of mammals in the world.  Its cruelty has been well-documented for over 100 years and should be legendary yet…it continues.  Matthew Scully has written eloquently yet plainly about it (here and here and here).  And here is an excerpt of notes from one eye-witness to last year’s activities in Newfoundland:

“One seal tried desperately to crawl away, leaving a sickening trail of blood behind her on the ice.  For agonizing moments, we watched from our helicopter as she slowly dragged herself toward the water. Finally, the sealers reached the still-struggling pup. Without missing a beat, they impaled her on a steel hook, dragged her across the ice, and pulled her up onto their boat. A sealer threw her body onto a pile of about 50 dead and dying seals, then casually reached for a club and smashed her skull.

Another seal pup that had been shot but not killed was hooked and dragged across the ice while still conscious. The pup was tossed callously onto a pile of dead seals in a boat. Moments later, we saw the seal pup moving amidst the carcasses.

One wounded seal struggled as she was stabbed with a boat hook. Seeing that she was still alive, the sealer stopped and clubbed her ineffectively with a wooden pole – an illegal weapon.

Yet another seal was shot and injured but, as blood poured from him, managed to make it to the edge of the ice, where he disappeared into the water. Though a part of me cheered inside when he evaded the hunters, I know all too well that he will almost surely bleed to death slowly – just one of the countless thousands of wounded seals who endure this fate each year.”

Independent veterinarians have condemned this hunt as cruel, even though the “hunters” knew at the time they were being watched.  And even worse than the overall cruelty involved in beating helpless babies to death is a fact no one likes to have bantied about:  as many as 42% of those battered babies are skinned alive. 

Already heavily-subsidized by the Canadian government (indirectly through such things as grants and numerous unrepaid loans to processing plants and heavy marketing aimed at the European fashion industry), the truth is that it would cost little to end it right now.

But apparently even the Russians now have at least more sense, if not heart, than the Canadian Prime Minister and the Canadian Department of Fisheries.

Peeling Back The TARP Layers

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A couple of days I ago, I wrote about my disgust with AIG’s bailout money going towards employee bonuses.  Because like most fair-minded Americans, rewarding failure is the last thing I want to see done with my hard-earned tax dollars.

But after yesterday’s embarrassingly ridiculous and hypocritical show at the House Financial Services subcommittee hearing, more facts are coming to light.  And not just facts about how much how many knew about these bonus agreements and when they knew it, but instead quiet little facts.  Like that those AIG employees who led the company down the credit-default swap path are no longer employed by AIG.  That those who remain in the Financial Services Division are there simply to clean up the mess and, in order to keep their expertise so the job could be done with all due expediency, AIG agreed last spring to pay retention bonuses.  (Tim Geithner, are you paying attention yet?)

Not really an unreasonable business move, considering the circumstances.  So while I still find the whole mess hard to stomach, I think it’s time to focus the blame with more accuracy. 

In this case, blame is more properly placed on the hypocritical Congress critters.  Not only for their haste to throw the TARP over the mess they created with Wall Street, but for continuing to stick their noses where they don’t belong.  The truth is that AIG could have been allowed to go into bankruptcy and the same work would still be occurring to clean up their Financial Services Division.  But then – and what they don’t want to become common knowledge – there would be a good chance that AIG would be unable to pay third parties – European Banks in particular, and the Congress critters would have had to bail them out, too; something that would have caused yet more and different concern among American citizens.  So by bailing out AIG, not only could they hide bailout monies going to the European banks, but companies like Goldman Sachs could refuse direct payment of bailout money,  also collecting it via AIG.

Far more expedient to keep the focus on all those AIG retention bonuses and televise smoke & mirrors shows from the halls of Congress.  Easier to point the finger, spewing wrath and spittle in self-righteous indignation while desperately praying the American people will stay on the bandwagon and keep looking out the windows instead of noticing who’s really the guilty driver here.

This brings my thoughts back around to all those words of “transparency”.  The honeymoon isn’t even over but already it means as little to this administration as it has to those in the past.  And it means even less to the mainstream media, who simply pander to ratings and cater to this administration’s approval, instead of providing all known facts about issues.

Disillusionment is always dangerous to the status quo.  Those Congress critters should, indeed, be very, very afraid.

A TARP Is A Covering

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I don’t believe in coincidence, so as more and more comes to light about the use of TARP monies to pay bonuses to people who failed to do their job properly in the first place, it sure seems as if someone knew what they were doing when they came up with the acronym. 

But, like a big, blue, plastic tarp, this one can also be lifted so folks can peer at what’s hidden underneath.  And so far, though not really surprisingly, what it’s hiding ain’t a pretty sight.

We’re seeing nonstop, outraged news stories about AIG all over the media and today a televised Senate hearing with Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG telling a House Financial Services subcommittee what’s being done about these abuses of taxpayer money and trust.  The anger of those questioning him is almost believable – except when you remember that most voted for TARP and it included these bonus provisions.  And it wasn’t some mysterious surprise to the administration, either.  Something I’m sure they’d all very much like to keep under under cover. 

The AP is reporting today that Fannie Mae is also paying out retention bonuses with TARP monies, and Freddie Mac isn’t far behind in paying them out, too.  The federal regulators think it’s a jolly good idea because this is all about “human assets”; no weasel words as yet from the administration, of course.  But lots of other folks are beginning to notice.

In contrast, Hewlett Packard, listed at #14 on the Fortune 500’s 2008  list and reporting first quarter net profits of $1.9 billion, is slashing salaries but apparently not slashing executive bonuses.  Hardest hit – with a sum total 15% pay cut coming for U.S. and Puerto Rican employees in the month of April – are the “human assets” of recently acquired Electronic Data Systems (EDS), that quiet innovator in information technology services where people are the company’s primary resource.

Sure, in all cases shareholders deserve a decent return on their investment.  But I have to ask, now one voice among a growing chorus, just how much is enough?  When it is the employees who sweat and labor (salaried folks working overtime without pay) to manifest and to validate a company’s reputation, aren’t they considered a stakeholder in the company and worth more, really, than someone who simply tosses the appropriate weasel words at analysts and the media?  How do executives justify multi-million dollar bonuses when that money comes directly out of the paychecks of the company’s employees or, in the case of AIG and Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, out of the pockets of tax-paying citizens? 

I don’t believe this bonus problem is solved by unions – we don’t need another bloodsucking leach pulling money from our paychecks just so they can use it to romp around looking important – but when most “little people” invest in mutual funds and 401ks, perhaps it would behoove them to choose to invest in companies that are run in some semblance of fairness to all parts of it.  Perhaps it is time that the small investor consider how they would feel if their paycheck was being reduced simply in order to give it to the shareholders and executives, even when the company was turning a profit.  I’m guessing that the majority of them would consider such a situation unfair and so choose to not invest in that company.  If they are given the opportunity, perhaps they should read the voting ballots sent to them for the boards of directors of companies in which they own stock and look at it as if they were the owner of that company (which they are) and don’t let someone cast their vote in proxy when all it’s doing is perpetuating unfairness.

This – not government handouts – is the ground zero change that must take place.  A shift in the collective mindset.  Not just tossing the Congress critters who demonstrate so aptly the corrupting influence of power, but also tossing out anyone in any business who shows the same greedy stripes.  Level the playing field a little bit, so to speak, starting from the ground up both by investing wisely in companies who make their profits by being fair to all and by voting at the ballot box.

Who Is Un-American?

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Nancy Pelosi went on the record last Saturday night with a group that included illegal immigrants, telling them that she thinks they are “very, very patriotic” and that the current enforcement of United States immigration laws is “un-American”.

Really?

Again, I have to ask:  just what part of “ILLEGAL” is so difficult to understand?  Surely, as Mrs. Pelosi said, illegal immigrants are “very special people”, however, I get no warm and fuzzies with them taking “responsibility for our country’s future” by breaking its laws the moment they set foot in this country.  Such “specialness” is by definition deliberately and intentionally criminal and needs to be treated as such.

Yes, indeed, something needs to change.

And I believe it’s the Speaker of the House, not our immigration laws.

Of Weasels & Cajones

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Kausfiles.com posted a little rant yesterday about Obama needing cajones when it comes to getting his administration properly staffed.  In a nutshell, they claim the President is obsessed with avoiding having to deal with any kind of negative press (as demonstrated by the continued adolescent whining about Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer, et al).

‘Tis true, of course, and it plays out on a daily basis with the continued fawning of the mainstream media over some perceived “novelty” of the new administration (a rare, notable, and interesting exception that the love affair is fading can be seen here).  However, I believe the administration’s inability to find someone “worthy” of appointment begs a far greater question:  Is there no one involved in politics who has real morals and ethics and obeys the law?  The resumes of potential appointees like Daschle, who failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes, should be tossed into the circular file; Geithner should never have been allowed oversight of every penny provided by taxpayers after his own failure to pay tens of thousands of dollars in taxes and his role in the meltdown on Wall Street.  Even the President cannot lay claim to honesty what with the now conveniently-forgotten questions about his campaign contributions, and his wife’s $195,000 raise at the University of Chicago Hospital when he became a Senator (and promptly obtained a million-dollar earmark for a pavillion there; interestingly her job and that of the other “executives” were eliminated due to “budget concerns”, shortly after she had tendered her early January resignation).

But I digress.  Corruption in the DNA of political critters seems to be mandatory criteria for membership in the club.  And while it may, indeed, be hypocritical for the President to conveniently insist on hiring responsible and ethical people, that he cannot succeed in doing so after 2 months in office should be a big wake up call for everyone who reads about these never-ending vetting failures and the sound of silence echoing throughout the corridors of the Treasury Department. 

For far too long we have paid our elected representatives (perhaps too) well and in some strange way have elevated them to a sort of pedestal, believing that by doing so they magically obtain a level of vision and intelligence not accessible to the common man.  Being inherently creatures of convenience and very narrow focus we have chosen to forget that they serve to represent us, their job is to represent our basic and collective interests,  which are really little more than keeping our country – and therefore us – safe from harm.  They don’t know – they cannot know – what is best for us, each individual.  My wants from this journey we call life is probably far different than those of you who are reading this blog.  Yet the government’s primary role is simply to allow us to pursue those wants, through the inalienable freedom that basically means doing so pretty much as we wish, s0 long as we don’t harm one another in the process.  We send those critters to Congress to make sure that is the case.

And we’ve ended up here.  For all the world like little deer in the headlights as the “best and brightest” have managed to collapse the world as we’ve known it with their oh-so-clever “models” that, in fact, bear little to no semblance to reality.  We have laws and rules and regulations up the yin-yang, and see hands out to get something for nothing everywhere we look.  We have millions of sheep-like followers and so few real leaders (no, Barack Obama is no leader; he is simply a good orater and that doesn’t count, particularly when nothing of any sense or valid purpose is found in the words).  I’ve heard it said that honest people want nothing to do with government, and the more I watch what goes on there, I can’t say as I can find much fault with such an assumption. 

We really need to start all over again.  Toss every critter out of Washington and toss probably most every one of them out of the state legislatures, too; trim down government spending to the truest, most basic needs and then allow those who know how to lead to lead.  Everyone else follows or or at least gets out of the way.  The Tea Parties springing up all over the country are, in my opinion, a very good sign.  It means that people are starting to pay attention and starting to at least become angry over the selfishness that pervades our government – but I believe, however, that we must also see this as a mirror of the overall collective American mindset.  As individuals we must also return to the basics, each one reclaiming morals and ethics and choosing to deliberately perform to the best of their abilities.  All the while with the understanding that doing so is no guarantee of equal material reward, only that we are guaranteed the opportunity to pursue it while demonstrating fairness in our dealings with one another – from family to neighbors to coworkers to employees to shareholders. 

This is what I call cajones from the ground up.  Not the ground-up cajones that we let run things today.