Mind Numbing

Now that I am back to the blog I find it mind numbing in some ways trying to figure out what to post about. The sheer magnitude of things that are wrong right now makes it so difficult to find a beginning.

I can see obama is hyping the illegal immigration issue, I am guessing that is simply to distract us from the economy. I am not an economist, I have been doing a lot of reading on the subject though. My hope is to be able to bring you a somewhat informed opinion from an average joe.

My take on the immigration issue is simple, and many won’t like it. I believe the first an foremost thing we need to do is to close the border tight. We need to stop the additional illegals from coming in, it is estimated that 10,000 a day continue to enter. That equals another 1,000,000 every 100 days!

Depending on who you listen to we already have between 11,000,000 and 20,000,000 illegal aliens here.

I say send them home! With the job market the way it is already we need those jobs for Americans. Some say that the illegals do jobs Americans won’t do. All I can say to that is Americans need to toughen up then and act like our forefathers did. I picked fruit and vegetables as a kid, shoveled horse shit, pumped gas, etc…. I did half the crapy jobs out there when I was younger. It motivated me to get a trade so I could make more then minimum wage.

My point is there are already legal means of entry to this country, they are breaking the law and should be deported without question. If you or I break the law we are not just simply forgiven for it, and we are citizens! So why should someone who broke the law to get here have anymore rights then we do? Think about it, they are being extended a right we don’t even have as citizens, a get out of jail free card!

I am not going to get into the costs of having them here because the estimates are wide ranging and the accuracy is in question. But all estimates have it in the billions.

We need to get our own house in order before we open the door to anyone else!

We The People, Are the Problem

Huh, what? What do you mean “we the people” are the problem?

Simply put, we the American people are our biggest problem and our own worst enemy in many ways.

Why would I say that? How much does the average voting age individual know or understand about how our country works, how the economy works, how the government really works? A more important question is how much do you care?

I spend a lot of time reading about these very issues, I know from personal experience much if not all of it is hard to understand. The people involved want it to be hard if not impossible to figure out. By the people involved, I mean the government, their lackeys in the press, the lobbyists, etc…

So to get an understanding of where our country is really at means you have to really want to know, and have to put time into it.

Try this approach and see if it helps you. Start by stopping, stop looking at the issues from the point of democrat or republican. Pick an issues that is near and dear to you because chances are you already have an understanding of that issue. Do a google search on that issue, now with an open mind look at the different sites that discuss that issue. Some of those sites will agree with your point of view, some won’t, try an sift through all of that information for the truth.  That is where the open mind comes in, I have found myself to be wrong on some issues with my preconceived notions. Many of us (myself included), approach a lot of the issues from an emotional stand point, and once we form an opinion are very unwilling to change it.

In sifting through the multitude of pages your search gave you, notice which ones seem to give you more factual information and less propaganda and heart string pulls. Those are the sites you want to bookmark for future reference. I like to deal in facts, when I present facts in an article I usually will verify my data with 3 different sources. When ever possible go to the US Government websites for data, they are usually accurate, not always but 95% of the time they are. Use wikipedia only to find other sources, wikipedia is good for direction on something but the data is more often then you would think, wrong.

The first and most important step is to realize you are not always right, the second is to train yourself to find the information you need, it gets easier the more you do it.

An uninformed or low information voter as many of us are being referred to as is the biggest boon to politicians in modern politics. They know we don’t know, and they use it against us, they also pay people to find heart strings in every issue, they know that works with many of us also. They do their best to personalize an issue for us, a very effective tool for them.

Politicians only benefit by staying in office, that means getting the most people to believe what they are telling you and vote for it. Ask yourself why people get voted out of office and new ones get voted in, yet nothing seems to change in the big picture! It is because we are not armed with the truth, we have the version of the truth that fits the politicians agenda. Wouldn’t you rather have the real facts?

Back Finally

Hello everyone, sorry I have not been posting. I have let personal issues overtake everything. I have realized that the position our country is in is worse then the position I am in with my life. With that said, I will do my best to bring information to this page that helps to inform Americans about the assault on our liberties.

The democrats are doing their best to bring about change that is not in the best interests of America or it’s citizens. And the republicans are just sitting on their hands doing nothing.

So that leaves us “we the people” to do what is necessary to bring our country back to reality and stability.

That Dam Flu

Hope to get back to posting today or tomorrow, caught that flu that is going around. Knocks you on your butt for a little while.

Taxpayers Screwed by “Green Jobs” Again! (part 1)

This post is a re-post from a previous blog I had. I am including this because it shows a pattern of government stupidity with taxpayer dollars. The original article is below. Original post is from Oct 9, 2012.

Assault and BATTERY, on the Taxpayers

Here is another company touted by the Obama Administration as a job creator, he was even there for the grand opening. The company, Compact Power is in Holland, Michigan. It’s parent company is LG Chem of South Korea, they are one of the largest producers of lithium ion batteries in the world.

The 650,000 square foot manufacturing facility had it’s ground breaking ceremony in 2010, it was attended by President Obama. He hailed Michigan as the “North American Battery Capitol” and continued to say to the crowd.

“The workers at this plant are already slated to produce batteries for the new Chevy Volt, learned the other day that they’re also going to be supplying batteries for the new electric Ford Focus as soon as this operation gears up. And that means, by 2012, the batteries that will be manufactured here in Holland, Michigan. So when you buy one of these vehicles, the battery could be stamped —  made in America.”

This plant cost $300,000,000 to build, of that total $150,000,000 of that was a grant from the Department of Energy. So we the tax payers gave them half the cost of the facility for free, grants are not paid back. On top of that the state and local government gave them property tax breaks equaling almost $50,000,000 over the next 15 years, and $2,500,000 in yearly business taxes.

This plant has created 200 jobs so far, so it has cost the taxpayers just to build it $750,000 per job created. On a continuing basis (yearly operations) it will cost the federal, Michigan state and local governments a loss in tax revenue of $5,833,000 for each of the next 15 years. That loss equals $29,167 per year for each job created at the plant. When you consider what each worker will pay in federal, state and local taxes, it’s still a lose, lose for the taxpayer.

Now we come to the most important piece of information on this story so far.

They have not produced a single battery yet!

At this point they (the employees) are on furlough one week a month. And they will be eligible for unemployment benefits. If you are wondering like I was, what have the employees been doing for the past 2 years? Spokesman Randy Boileau for LG Chem in Holland, MI says ” the facility has spent the past two years building infrastructure and conducting pre-production test runs.”

This is where I get confused, the cells are to be manufactured in Korea. They were only to be assembled in the US plant as finished battery packs and modules. How many pre-production test runs do they need to do?

The obvious question that comes to mind for me is this; If you are going to produce battery packs for the Chevy Volt (with no sales history yet), and you have the manufacturing capacity at your Korean facility to gauge the demand, wouldn’t you do that first strictly from a business point of view?

I would think the company would not want to obligate large sums of company funds to a project like this. I say this because the Volt sales are disappointing at best, and the Ford Focus (electric model) was not to be released until December 2011. I also do not understand why the Obama Administration would grant that much in funds for the same reason.

Obama makes it more and more obvious over time that he does not understand business.

The Fiscal Cliff

A new year has started, but it is business as usual in Washington I believe. The Senate got the fiscal cliff bill, also known as the “American Taxpayer Relief Bill of 2012”. My understanding is the Senate received the bill three minutes before voting on it. I am hoping they all are graduates of the Evelyn Wood Speed Reading School, because the bill is 154 pages.

I am going through the bill and the relevant tax code that is affected by it. I will be posting my findings here in multiple parts, please keep checking back.

I don’t know exactly what I will find on close inspection of the bill, but I have a general idea that it is not really going to be in the best interests of the people.