JUST SOME POSTS

I have been working on this one for a LONG time. I have studied and analyzed for hours. It is time to get something in print! I know my detractors think I just spout off figures and find facts to support my thoughts and ideas. Wrong lizard breath! I actually do research on every post I do here (or in my life) that involves facts and figures to be found. I come to my opinions AFTER research. Sure, I go in with ideas and sometimes even hopes of what I will find. However, I have sometimes found that my ideas are not supported. Rather than scream and cry or stick my head in the sand I change my opinion or ideas. Such is life. This post is one concerning one of those "facts" that gets thrown out every so often - that cutting taxes raises (or lowers) government revenues. It amazes me that people have such steadfast and positive thoughts and opinions on this one. Most either believe it is a definite raising of revenue or a definite cutting of revenue. I can tell you after hours, a...

I almost hate to do this one for fear of running off people that don't want serious posts, or get bored with the same subject; but I feel I have to. My last post went into the problem we have in this country with finances, specifically government finances. There are way too many people in this country that believe the government can just spend money whenever and on whatever they want (including a lot of politicians!). I won't redo that post. If you care, you can go look yourself. This post however is going to be similar. I am gravely concerned about our national debt. Mostly because the spending/budgeting by the government seems to be ignoring it. The U.S. national debt now stands at over 14 TRILLION dollars! 14 Trillion! Our GDP (gross domestic product - the combined value of all goods and services of an economy) is about 14 Trillion dollars. So, the U.S. owes as much as it produces. Now this is not as much as is earns - but produces. Compare this to an individual that owe...

This is a reprint of a post I did back in November of 2007. With the political landscape of today it is even more relevant. I am reading The Columbia History of the World right now (maybe that explains the lack of whimsy - 1100 pages plus written in textbook form) I am reading now about the Roman empire/republic. I came to a passage that almost shocked me with it's relevance to my thoughts of today. Here it is: (and I quote giving all rights to the book) Rome ceded more easily to the demand for citizenship because her supply of citizen soldiers had continued to dwindle, and her mob of citizens without property, to grow. Of the attempts to reverse these changes the most famous were those of the Gracchi brothers in 133 and 123. Relyng on bourgeouis support, they advocated extension of citizenship to the allies, resettlement of small farmers on public land (hitherto rented to senators at minimal rates) resumption of colonization, and provision of grain at less than market rates to...

This is one that has been brewing in me for a while. You can hardly hear a discussion or debate about taxes nowadays without hearing someone talking about taxing the rich. Our problems would be over if we could just get those rich people to pay their taxes - right? I have done some research on who does and does not pay taxes in the U.S. Here are the results: I just saw this headline relating to 2007: Top 1% of income earners pay 40.4% of taxes. You got that? For the tax year of 2007 - the top 1% of taxpayers paid over 40% of the total income taxes. FYI - that is more than the lower 95% paid! 1% of the population paid more than 95% of the population. (the other roughly 20% of taxes were paid by the 4% from 95% - 99%. Now, these folks did earn over 22% of the income. (they are the highest 1% after all) But, even making 22.8% of the income, you wouldn't think would require them to pay over 40% of the taxes, would you? (another tidbit - to reach this top 1% leve...