The true heros and Kings who we should honor

Did you know that 13 American soldiers have died in Afganistan since June 25th (the date that Michael Jackson died)? Have you heard any of their names reported on the media? Did any of them get a parade through LA and 1.5 million people trying to get tickets their memorial? If you ask me, all of these, and every other wounded soldier, are far more brave and important to our country then Michael Jackson.

1st Lieutenant Brian N. Bradshaw

Private 1st Class Peter K. Cross

Private Steven T. Drees

Sergeant Terry J. Lunch

Lance Corporal Charles S. Sharp

Private 1st Class Justin A. Casillas

Private 1st Class Aaron E. Fairbairn

Petty Officer 2nd Class Tony Michael Randolph

And 5 more who's names have not been released because they died only yesterday.

These are the true heros and the true Kings.

Been a while!

Wow, I haven't blogged in a long time. I guess life got in the way. I have held a lot in so hopefully I will begin blogging again very soon.

AIG, Bailouts and Blame

Every time someone in government mentions AIG I really just want to go postal. Tim "Turbo Tax" Geithner said today in a congressional hearing that he wants the government to have more control over AIG. President Obama later clarified in his Presidential News Conference and said that he simply wants an FDIC type system that would apply to insurance and other companies such as AIG. His exact words were something along the lines of being able to take over any company that has the potential to bring our financial system to its knees.

He also took the opportunity to blame the outrage over the bones on "those evil wall street guys". Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that anyone working for AIG deserves anything, especially those in upper, upper management who essentially drove the company into the ground. That's exactly why AIG should have been allowed to fail, go into chapter 11 and be reorganized/restructured. But it wasn't, so here we are. I fully blame President Bush and the democratically controlled congress for that moronic move. Strings should have been attached to that money right up front. Look at what has happened with the bailout money for the auto companies and for Citigroup. As soon as the government attached strings to the money, GM, Chrysler and Citigroup all went from being in dire need to being able to do just fine without it, literally overnight! When you don't make it easy for a company to fail (by giving them a bailout) then they are forced to face the tough reality of making some changes or facing a difficult fate.

The thing that bothers me the most is the fact that he acted like himself and his entire administration were completely oblivious to the fact that HIS most recent bailout bill included specific language that ALLOWED the AIG executives to keep their bonuses. Actually, it may be completely true that neither him, nor anyone in his administration knew a thing about that specific language. That's because congress rammed one of the largest spending bills ever right down the throats of the American people in record time because things were just so bad that we couldn't even give 48 hours, 2 whole days promised by Obama, for people to read the bill. Maybe had we been given those 48 hours, someone in his administration would have been allowed to read the bill and maybe, just maybe, he would have caught that language. All I really wish is that someone in congress would stand up and say, "You know what, we screwed up. We passed a bill that had way too much in it and no one could have read it in the time we allowed and WE SCRWED UP." Now I don't think anyone in congress will actually be man (or woman) enough to do that. But that's my wish.

Lastly, I really wish that the President would quit blaming past president, the past administration, the republicans in congress. Didn't he want to be bi-partisan? Do you really want to work with someone right after they blame you for causing it? Blaming Bush and the past is not going to do anything.

Some Interesting Statistics

Wow, what a week it's been. No shortage of amazing and stupid (some amazingly stupid things too) that our government has done this week.

Now this first statistic is a bit crazy. I tried to verify it myself, but of course none of the government websites that are supposed to be for increased accountability will actually tell you how much money has gone where. You get some excuse about it taking time to actually get reports back from how much money has gone to various locations. Of course there will always be some sort of excuse. The "greater accountability" is just a smoke screen to make you feel better, a placebo of sorts So here's my first statistic. $44 billion of bailout money has gone to U.S. companies or entities. Here's the scary part, $62 billion has gone overseas. Now I urge you to not just take those as fact, I got those statistics from a TV commentary, so take it's accuracy with a grain of salt. However the fact that ANY money has gone overseas is wrong, let alone the majority of it. It goes against everything we were told this bill was for and would do.

Now AIG, wow, what a mess that has become this past week. AIG should have never been "bailed out" in the first place. The government should have never bailed anyone out. It's not the governments job to bail any company out. The government has now rewarded numerous companies for taking bad risks and basically running their companies into the ground. I've heard many congress people say that the capitalistic system doesn't work and the fact is that the government has not allowed it to work. For capitalism to work, companies have to be allowed to fail. That's the whole point. If you run your company well, make smart decisions, don't take crazy risks, your company will usually be fine. But if you make bad decisions, pay outrageous bonuses and take crazy risks, then of course your company should fail. That is unless the government steps in and gives you money for making bad decisions.

I've got a better idea, we should have given the bailout money to companies doing WELL! Think about it, take the companies that are doing very well, and give them the money. Reward them for making wise decisions. Give them money to expand and grow, hire more people, build new buildings. I bet that would have done far more for the economy then saving what was failing. But then again, the government started this mess way back in 1977 with the Community Reinvestment Act. Yes, I think that this mess started back in 1977. In a nutshell, the CRA was legislation that basically forced banks to give loans (usually sub-prime, arm, zero down) to people who couldn't really afford them. Since then, the law has been tweaked and changed forcing these banks to risk more and more. Now that the bubble has popped, the government acts as if they've done nothing to cause the problem and they are the only ones who can fix it. Let me ask you this, if a doctor was making you more sick because he didn't really know what he was doing, wouldn't you eventually stop going back to him? Maybe get a second opinion? I sure would! So why do we keep going back to the same people who over 30 years ago put this whole mess in motion? Look at this chart of foreclosures.

The red is conventional mortgages, green is VA and purple is FHA. This chart proves that government bailout and assistance DOES NOT WORK. Yes, conventional mortgages did rise a bit in the 80's, but it has stayed relatively flat while loans that were only obtained with assistance from the government have gone through the roof! So I only ask you this, should we really be trusting the government to bail us out? Really?

Dig a little deeper

A few weeks ago I heard about a move that the Obama administration made to move the US Census out of the commerce department and into the White House. Now, on the surface, one might say, "no big deal." That was actually my response at first too. What's the big deal, they're just counting people anyways, right? Listen to this and I'll see if I can't convince you that it could actually be a bigger deal then one might realize.

The National Center on Family Homelessness released a report on Tuesday estimating that 1.5 million american kids went through some sort of homelessness in 2005-2006. The only problem with that statistic? It's only off by 1.17 million children. Yes, 1.17 million. And not under, it's over. In reality, there were only 330,000 children who experienced TRUE homelessness in 2005-2006. That's a massive difference. The difference comes from how the National Center on Family Homelessness defines "homeless" and how the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines homeless. The National Center includes in the definition of homeless any kids who stayed with a friend or family member or even stayed in a private shelter. Whereas the Department of Housing and Urban Development defines homeless as literally homeless (not having any place to stay).

Now again, why does this make a big deal? Well, the feds send money to the states to help pay for education of the "homeless" kids. So, if you can skew the results by over a million kids, that means a WHOLE lot more money goes to the states when in reality, they shouldn't be getting that money. So how does this tie into the census? I'm glad you asked!

Now that the census reports directly to the White House, they no longer have to get congressional approval to change policies (such as how thing are defined) which means that the White House can define things however they want and they don't even have to make it public that they want to change it. Is this the reason the Obama administration moved the census? There is no evidence that points directly to it, but at the same time, there's no real good evidence that points to it being a good move either.

So that's my take on the census. I don't see how it's a good idea that census report directly to the White House. It only means less transparency and accountability (2 things this administration promised more of).

Health Care

I read an article stating that the USA rates behind 5 other industrialized nations. The report was done by the Business Roundtable. The Business Roundtable represents CEOs of major companies. According to the report, Americans spend $1,928 per capita in 2006, about 2.5 times more then other industrialized nations. The report then goes on to say that even though we're spending so much more for our healthcare, we're not any healthier then the other nations. In fact we're less healthy!

Now I agree that health care is too expensive, but the one thing that this report didn't mention is that the U.S. leads the world in healthcare innovation. One thing about innovation is that it is VERY expensive. According to the Economic Report of the President:2004, since 1975 more Americans have won the Nobel Prize in medicine then all other countries combined. It also goes on to say that through 1993, 79% of the "biotech" drugs "used for nondiagnostic purposes" came from the USA. Then through 2002, 80% of the worlds top-selling drugs were produced by companies in the U.S.

The second problem I have with our healthcare system are the lawyers and politicians. I've heard some physicians say that as much as 70% of their costs are related to the bureaucratic and legal hoops that they have to jump through. The amount of insurance they have to cary because of frivolous lawsuits is staggering. Over the years, as the politicians have become increasingly involved with healthcare, the quality has gone down and the expense has gone up. Do we really want them to nationalize our healthcare system?

*Stats courtesy of U.S. News, Business Roundtable, Economic Report of the President:2004

The Beginning

First off, I want to give credit where credit is due. The name of this blog came from Glenn Beck's segment called "Edge of Insanity" where he discusses some issues in our country that can literally make your blood boil and your head explode.

My plan with this blog is to vent some of my opinions on political and other issues with our government and country. I'm not much of a writer so this is mostly for myself, so if you happen to read this, I hope you enjoy.