Where are the great leaders like Thomas Jefferson today?

Thomas Jefferson had a storied past, accomplishing more in his life than most of us dare to dream.  Many years after his death, John F Kennedy said the following when he had a dinner in the white  House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: "This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone."

Here are some great quotes from Thomas Jefferson.

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe ." -- Thomas Jefferson 

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -- Thomas Jefferson

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." -- Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the  labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson said in 1802: "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow  private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

An economics lesson in Socialism

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.
It could not be any simpler than that.

Bar Stool Economics -- pretty funny

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100 and if they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.)

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." So drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free...but what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'.  They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33.  But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each
end up being paid to drink his beer.
  So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:  
  The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before...and the first four continued to drink for free.  But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"
  "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!"
  "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
  "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him.  But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction.  Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

For those who understand, no explanation is needed..
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Working HARD to balance the budget

I just got this on eMail -- my comments at the end in red.

MAKES MORE SENSE WITH THE ZEROS GONE. . . .

Ok, folks! You math wizards! Do the math!
Having worked with other people’s money my whole life, even I have had difficulty relating to the recent fiasco when trillions of dollars are being discussed. This is the best analysis I have seen, which most people should be able to understand and hopefully recognize the seriousness of the problem. What banker would loan more money to the Jones family?

Federal Budget 101

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let’s put the 2011
federal budget into perspective:

• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Let’s remove eight zeros from each of these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385

So in effect last month Congress, or in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget. What family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?
It is a start, although hardly a solution.
Now after years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt on its credit card (which is the equivalent of the national debt). You would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it does not. Neither does Congress. The root of the debt problem is that the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent there to bring home the bacon to their own home state.
To effect budget change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching orders. 

It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it now. In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the possibility of going into rehab."

It is really a joke what our government elected officials are "doing" to solve this problem.  Come on! We owe $142,710, only make $21,700 per year and decide to cancel HBO & Cinemax!  We are giving our kids a terrible mess that may never be cleaned up!

Why is Congress "Special"???!!!

This is from an eMail that is being passed around -- I can't agree more that we need to put a stop to this ridiculous behavior.

"This is an idea that we should address.

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
 
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
"

2012 Presidential Campaign

It is really amazing how BAD most of the candidates are and the sitting President.  The Republican Candidates seem to be suffering from the same thing that Obama has which is that they can't lead and can't make tough decisions.  They all say whatever the crowd wants to hear.  Bachman actually said that if she is elected President, gas prices will be below $2.  Doesn't that sound like High School when Sally is running against Joe and Sally promises everyone a cupcake if she wins and Joe says that there will be NO MORE HOMEWORK under his watch as President.

What is wrong with this picture is that main stream media (MSM) panders to these clowns and has gone out of their way to ignore the one candidate willing to say the tough things and willing to make the touch decisions -- sorta like real leadership.  Listen to this clip from Jon Stewart show that highlights what a complete joke MSM is making of Ron Paul and how they are completely ignoring his candidacy.  If this wasn't so ridiculous and so scary, the following clip would be scary:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-15-2011/indecision-2012---corn-polled-edition---ron-paul---the-top-tier

It is clear by this clip and the total lack of coverage that MSM is actually afraid of Ron Paul.  It's easy to see why because he is the only person right now willing to even try to lead.  The rest want to follow whatever special interests are paying their bills!

When will the transfer of money to banks end!

This is a great series of blogs about what has happened over the past 3 years with the banking system and federal reserve.  To put it simply, imagine that you had a friend who would loan you huge amounts of money at zero interest and then agree to borrow the money back from you at 3% interest?  It wouldn't take a genious to make a bunch of money, would it.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/guest-post-congressional-research-service-confirms-big-banks-borrowed-cash-for-next-to-nothing-then-lent-it-back-to-the-federal-government-at-much-higher-rates.html?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

What has happened in the past 3 years is really deplorable.  The thing that everyone needs to realize is that this is NOT a Republican or Democrat issue.  Unfortunately, the whole system is messed up and Ds & Rs are guilty of not doing what needs to be done to preserve and protect the American way of life.  As a lifelong capitalist, I can say that the things that have been done are so anticapatilist that it is ridiculous.