I am copying this from an email Rebecca (sister) sent me after getting it from Keith (brother-in-law):

Keith sent this to me, and I second his thoughts and wanted to pass it along verbatim.
Please read and take action! I believe even an email will make a difference!

-Rebecca

PS I have sent 2 of my 3, the House of Rep’s site is down and I WILL BE CHECKING TILL I EMAIL THEM MY THOUGHTS!
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First of all, I am absolutely opposed to the government going even further into debt in order to bailout greedy mortgage lending companies and our fellow Americans that make poor money decisions.  The whole bailout/rescue plan smacks of welfare and only serves to reinforce the same bad behavior/decisions that got the country into this situation in the first place.  This is America, home of the world’s largest and most productive economy!  It didn’t get that way because of government bailouts, but rather as a result of the ingenuity of hardworking Americans.  There is no reason that we can’t come up with a better way.
So I didn’t come up with this idea, but found it out on the internet and think that it is a valid alternative to the bad plan that is being considered by Congress.

1. Email your congressional representatives (if you forgot, or slept through, your high school civics class - every American has three: 2 Senators and 1 Representative).  Follow this link to send them an email: http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.  Tell them that if they vote for this bailout, you will vote against them during the next election.  This worked to stop the bailout plan yesterday and it can work again.
2. After you put your congressional representatives on notice, share with them the pdf document at the end of this post (hint: it is titled: The Common Sense Fix).  It outlines an alternative plan which many economists believe will actually work (Wouldn’t that be a novel concept, listen to an economist that knows something about the economy as opposed to a senator or congressman who only knows how to get elected).  This step is important because if you are not part of the solution you tend to be part of the problem.
3. Send this email, or one like it, to as many people as you know and ask them to contact their congressional representatives, put them on notice, and share with them this alternative plan.
4. Once you have done this, pray that your congressional representatives will be inspired to make the right choice.  ‘Pray for them to resist a spirit of FEAR and to embrace WISDOM. Even if you don’t like them or agree with them, pray for them and tell them you are praying for them. There is a spirit over this problem that must be broken. Also, most of the media personalities are afraid as well and that is affecting their reporting. Pray for fear to be removed from them; they are making this worse.’
   -Dave Ramsey

Just my opinion,
Keith

The Common Sense Fix

Real Heroes Fly

I noted in the news this morning that congressional and senate leaders are attempting to change the bailout legislation to be acceptable to the members of the House that voted, “No,” and defeated the measure yesterday. What gets me is that the President (who sounds seriously sleep deprived) is playing the press game and claiming that innaction is far worse than action and that it is essential for Congress to pass his bill. This is interesting as he has this really odd record of pesistently and consistently being wrong about everything. His insistence that this bill needs to pass and that it is essential doesn’t hold much water (or anything else for that matter) with me as I read and listen to what he has to say. And on top of that, get Nancy Pelossi to pander to the public and I have to tell you, there is only one female politician I dislike more than Hillary Clinton and it is Nancy Pelossi. She and Clinton are made of similar stuff, and Nancy is worse that Hillary. (For the record, on the level of politicians I dislike, Nancy and Hillary are both near the top without regard to gender, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation (or lack thereof), and etc.) Nancy claims that it is the Republicans who are stopping the bill from passing (she didn’t bother to count the number of Democrats who didn’t support the bill) and failed economic policies of this administration. I agree and disagree. Just because you are in a leadership position does not mean you have any more (or for that matter, less) understanding of the situation or how to resolve it. Historically, everything Congress does has a tendency to backfire and most of the successful legislation that has been passed over the years has been passed in spite of Congress and not because of Congress.

Like the President, Congress has gone along with the man too many times and has allowed too much in the way of hand wringing and cries of doom and destruction to be their mantra. As a result, and I believe this will show itself in the coming elections where many of the incumbants will not be re-elected, especially ones who feel they are safe, the People are getting tired of politics as usual. And the sad thing is this is only politics as usual in comparison to the last twenty or so years when, as a nation and a political structure, we are still such babies with little national experience as to not have a significant understanding of the needs that exist for a very long period of time in advance of where we are right now.

AND, when we deal with finances and financial institutions, it is important to note that periods of growth have to be accompanied by periods of financial collapse and failure. The reason is that growth cannot be sustained indefinitely, nor can economists or politicians logically expect it to be sustained for long periods of time. The outcome, whether Wall Street or Congress or the President or investors want it, is a recession and/or depression in the economy. Since the world is basing their economy off the United States (and a serious enough depression will affect the entire world) a depression in the U.S. will affect the rest of the world negatively. Which makes sense that the rest of the world is clamoring for Congress to do something in light of an economic downturn, globally, even though world leaders should know better than to dictate to another country what they should be doing.

With that said, we (e.g. the United States) is very good at dictating to the rest of the world what they should be doing and so I guess it is fair play to have the world return the favor to the United States.

One problem, me thinks, is illustrated in the cargo ships that are being held by Somali pirates who are looking for tens of millions of dollars in ransom money (Russian tanks and supplies to include ammo being shipped to Yemen and being held for $20 million). The international community and especially the United States is telling shipping companies to ensure safety and take precautions. Wise thinkers are claiming that we cannot go back to the days or yore when all ships were equiped with cannons to protect themselves from pirates or marauders since we live in a more enlightened and understanding age. Excepting the fact that much of the cargo going through that region of the world is oil, people who claim that self-defense is stupid especially when pirates or others bent on killing you are involved. We are not so advanced or enlightened or have a greater or broader understanding of the world and people and etc. as to be beyond a need to defend outselves. The difference is not in moral superiority, but in the immediate availability of seeing the outcome through television, online, or in other mediums. When pirates were in books or heard about through letters and you never actually had to see one, then we talk about something completely different.

There are a couple of things, in that light, that simply annoy me. First, a countries statement:

We do not negotiate with terrorists!

And, that same country doing nothing (or next to it) to ensure that terrorists don’t have the chance to accomplish… whatever. No, I am not someone who believes that whatever the President and Congress and the Military complex are doing has done one wit of good for this country. There are too many reports and too many security audits on airplanes and in airports that suggest we are still not safe, just more annoyed and harrassed. More, to state that most of the security concerns are going to be secret and not shared publicly.

One thing I’ve learned is that when someone tells you they are working in your behalf and they won’t tell you how or to what extent, there is a very good possibility that they are not working with your interests in mind.

Real Heroes Fly

UPDATE –

This is a great quote:

“We’re all worried about losing our jobs,” Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., declared in an impassioned speech in support of the bill before the vote. “Most of us say, ‘I want this thing to pass, but I want you to vote for it — not me.’ “

And that is what this boils down to… who wants to keep his or her job? If it wasn’t for the very generous pay packages elected represetatives give themselves, this (probably) wouldn’t be an issue except once you have a great paying job and great benefits you don’t want to give them up.

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The House of Representatives did something right today. In the face of The President and a lot of people clamoring for a bailout, the House defeated it. It didn’t pass. Whether you believe it or not, this is great news.

Real Heroes Fly

Have you turned on a TV or gone to an internet news site? Senator McCain has decided that he will not participate in any presidential debates (especially the one happening this weekend) until Congress gets off their arse and pass some kind of bailout plan into action. In essence, John McCain is showing his stripes and telling America, like G.W., that his opinion is more important than everybody else. The problem with this isn’t that he does or does not have an opinion (necessary in these hard economic times), but that he cahnges that opinion so frequently. One minute he is for a bailout, another he is against it (he started out against it). One minute he will fire everyone who might even be a little responsible for the economic woes of the country, and the next he is praising their virtues and expressing that in a way that implies we are currently being (financially) led by the right people. The only thing McCain hasn’t done is actually show up and present himself as a candidate who is actually capable of leading. All he has done is show that the nature and quality of choices he is willing to make are spontaneous and poor.

Consider that Warren Buffet and his investment firm Birkshire Hathaway decided to invest $5 billion dollars in Goldman Sachs. This is the right kind of bailout. People like Warren Buffet should be leading the foray into bailing out financial firms and mortgage lenders, not the government. Granted, the government is the group that has most of the money and by extension in order to tap into the capital it makes sense that the government spends some of the money they have in investments that will assist in the bailout. In theory this is great and economists (in the United States especially) have been promoting this method of financial security for a lot of years. It was suggested, rather stringently, during the 1930′s (Great Depression) and was used in various ways until World War II and after to maintain a certain market level. The problem, though, is that we are relying too much on government spending to maintain a corporate and investement standard of monetary gain and this is actually a bad thing. The entity with the most money should use that money to fulfill its obligations, but those obligations do not of necessity extend to fixing investment banks or businesses.

One litmus test for government interference, and this is what it is, is: Is the government willing to bail out small businesses when financial solubility is in question? If the answer is, “No,” then to bail out a large multi-national corporation, bank, or institution (as many are today) is equally unacceptable.

And yet, we tacitly accept the notion that if we don’t bail out financial institutions the outcome is that we will head into a recession (at the least) or a depression (at the most). The difference is one lasts months and the other lasts years with the latter resetting the economic structure and cost assessment of goods and services.

The problem with dictating to the American People and to Congress that they need to do something (Palin) or else we will enter a Depression is criminally negligent on the part of the individual doing the speaking. Yes, it is nice that in an election year a somewhat attractive woman made it as the running mate to a man who allows himself to be called a maverick, and who has so wholly adopted that moniker that he not only uses it to refer to himself but also to his running mate; neither of whom actually pass a test on being a maverick, and both of whom have shown a history of only supporting opposite movements when they have no other choice but to support them (Bridge to Nowhere??? Palin supported it first and then changed her stance when her state was going to still get the money, just not for that project; or McCain and just about every issue on the planet). What the Republican candidates are doing, starting with McCain and his pronouncement that he will not be at a presidential debate subtly tells the people he is trying to influence to vote for him to go and do something physically impossible to themselves. Yes. McCain is a hot-headed individual (I can’t wait for that to really show itself on a national stage) who makes rash decisions based on little or no real evidence or premises. The outcome is a man, who is old and has about two and a half seconds more national and leadership experience than Obama, who isn’t fit to lead.

Honestly, I don’t care whether or not he served in the Navy (retired as a Lt. Commander after spending four or five years as a POW). I don’t care if he was an officer. I don’t care if he thinks that somehow, beyond being born on U.S. territory (he is actually questionable on this as he was born in Panama while his dad was stationed there) and at least 35 years old, there are no requirements. Sex, experience in other forms of government or the military, and etc. all mean diddly-squat when it comes to the overall requirements to be president. The most important one (in case you needed to know) is age and I believe I can begin making a rather valid and solid argument that states that too young (in this case under age 35) and too old (I don’t have a model for this one, but I can make one relatively quickly) and the individual being asked to lead does not have the capacity to lead and that the individual also does not posses the necessary flexibility to lead. As a result, we are being asked by Senator McCain who has never been a governor and never led an executive branch, to acquire something he does not have the capacity for and as a result cannot accept him to do.

Does age matter? Yes and No. Yes, because the Constitution says it matters; and No because we have to accept that the opinion of the people will be discerning enough to weigh the ability and history and experience of an individual to best determine whether or not the individual is ready to be presented as a possible leader.

Honestly, I think this year we did it very badly across the board. I didn’t like any of the candidates that presented their names as potential presidents. The system states that we allow the two major parties to then determine which of their candidates will run for President. My opinion is that we have been presented with a whole host of individuals who are not ready to lead and not prepared to lead and don’t have a sufficient understanding of the needs of the country and what is required to move into the future to adaquately lead. The outcome is a choice between an old man and an unknown. I like this choice better than, say, Huckabee and Clinton (or anyone and Clinton); but at this point we have to actually do what Obama has been asking for people to do: Believe and Trust. As a result, I will believe him and I will trust him. I neither believe nor trust McCain.

And why?

Well, he chose a completely unknown individual as his running mate. Palin is a first term governor of Alaska who has done some seemingly shady things since being in office. Granted, she has followed the status quo and done it well to make sure that her constituents have been represented and received appropriations that will benefit first her town (as mayor) and then her state (as governor). The outcome is that she has to be supportive of The Bridge to Nowhere because it meant money for her state and money means additional jobs and incomes for more people and that means more in the way of taxes for the state. It was in her interests to support the bridge; just as its in her interests to claim she was in opposition to the bridge repeating, “Thanks but no thanks,” over and over and over again.

What McCain is saying (and now Palin) is that they are interested in receiving a promotion. The problem is not that they are interested in a promotion, but that they have been very quiet in areas where they need to be vocal, and when they are vocal they repeat the same lies and distortions that have been proven wrong repeatedly. The outcome is that the more I hear about Palin the less I like her and since I don’t get to hear a lot about her (or from her), the less I like what I do hear. Whether or not she is honest or good or upright or possesses Christian values or has any values or is a good leader or is even capable of leading (and, “No,” Governor Palin, telling John McCain that you will be his running mate does not qualify you) are all valid questions for the press and for the people to ask. No one is being allowed to ask those questions.

The outcome is that I didn’t like McCain before. I had troubles accepting him as a candidate (and have had troubles when he’s run in the primaries EVERY TIME HE’S RUN) and now I am told I have to accept Palin, who shares nothing, is held close to the McCain inner-circle, and is not really allowed to campaign on her own. In the end all I can really say, about McCain-Palin is, “Thanks, but no thanks.“

Real Heroes Fly