It seems kind of interesting that so many heads of American companies consistently complain that the government is incapable of running any program well. As for those in the healthcare industry their latest mantra is the government offering health care would put the companies in a position of poor advantage. They feel the government should not be a competitor in the market place because it could drive many operations out of business. The problem as I see it is these companies fear the market competition of a government plan that will insure people who the healthcare industry will not insure and does wall off from insurance coverage with their extreme rates. These companies are not receiving money from those not covered so why should they worry about the government providing for a market share they do not wish to serve in the first place. Perhaps it the greed of the industry that needs to make those who can pay the extreme rates happy to pay because they can instead of becoming one of many who cannot afford or obtain coverage. What we need is a government plan that can set the price of coverage so the poorest and sickest can afford it. If such a program is created the competition will come from new companies created to provide healthcare and coverage for healthcare at a rate that will be competitive with the government program. For those in the healthcare industry let it be known that greed is short term but being smart and running your business that way is long term.

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The easy task that is doled out to special friends or the tasks that are designed to give someone that extra spark on their annual review are often referred to as shooting fish in a barrel. The expression, shooting fish is a barrel, implies the task is easy and the outcome is guaranteed. With fish already in a barrel it can not take much effort or thought to pull out the old hand gun and blast away. Why even a blind man could accomplish such a task without any assistance. There is perhaps a bit of a draw back to this task as there are with many of those seemingly simple tasks. The problem is that 99% of the people shooting fish in a barrel stand too near the barrel and shoot into the opening at the top using a forty five degree angel. That means even if the fish are shot the bullets will come through the side of barrel making a mess bit not creating a real problem. The real problem is when a bullet hits a barrel stay and comes out at ninety degrees from the firing point. That would be just about where the foot of the shooter would be located. Based on this case it is probably imperative that every future task be viewed with a greater degree of importance. This approach will lessen the chance that you will someday have to go back to the boss and explain how you shot yourself in the foot.

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There is an expression that the pen is mightier than the sword which in many instances has proven to be an accurate observation. The sword was the basic force of power for several thousand years. It was the tool that stood for power and when necessary did its damage to capture or retain the power of or for its owner. Over time the pen, when put to paper with the appropriate information, could direct the power of the sword as a single force or as a collective force capable of building the largest of armies. As time moved forward the pen became an even stronger force as it was capable of informing the citizens of any state as to the happenings within or external to their state. It was the information provided by the pen that caused the fall of governments and allowed the changing of the guard within them. Today the image provided via the cell phone is the tool of governmental downfall. The image on the cell phone transmission is immediate and is not centralized. That means the citizens have the power to tell each other, via visual image, what is happening in their country at the moment. This is as pure as information gets because there is no middle man to put a spin on the contents of the image being broadcast. Iran and the other governments of the world have learned a severe lesson from the recent Iranian riots. It almost seems Jeffersonian that the citizens con combat the government with out striking a physical blow.

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The U.S. is starting to fully beef up the protection at the Mexican border. It is still a far cry from what it should be and will most likely remain that way for the next several years. The weakness in this area is greatly due to the poor border security support provided by the Mexican government. They want the U.S. to foot the bill for the security other wise they will continue in their lack luster way. Insiders in the Mexican government have indicated that any protection to the border they would provide would only benefit the U.S. Their feelings is that terrorists have no reason to attack anywhere in Mexico. As for the drug wars they feel that any spill over into the U.S. is because we provide a strong market for drugs. Their conclusion is that if the U.S. wants them to participate in greater security at the border the U.S. should pay for the service. They might feel different if we slow the vehicle traffic into and out of Mexico to a crawl for several weeks and see if they feel that their help will accelerate the process.

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The present time frame for China to start its space exploration is in 2011. The intent is to start off with a series of space missions similar to the U.S. missions in the 1960s. The difference is the Chinese will have the technology of the last fifty years behind them which will make the missions easier and most likely faster. Landing a manned Chinese space craft on the Moon by 2020 is the stated goal. During this same period the U.S. is planning to run a program to establish a manned base on the Moon. We now come up to the big question of who gets ownership of what on this and other heavenly bodies and is that point when first landing is made. This may become the new age version of a combined California gold rush and the Kansas and Nebraska land grab. It is obvious we and the Chinese are going for the minerals rights as well as the ability to set up a base for future galactic explorations. There is no doubt the U.S. is making the same move for the same reasons. To that end the question of the day becomes: Not if but when will the new space race start and how will these newly conquered and perhaps settled heavenly bodies be lawfully and peacefully shared.

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I think that most everyone has experienced a day when absolutely nothing goes as it should. Every activity for the day comes up short sometimes by a mile sometimes by an inch. The problem is that everything required for that day has to come in at 100% and of course it did not. Becoming ever more enraged as the day progressed there is but one activity left to accomplish and perhaps that will go as it should. It seems reasonable to expect something to go right on a day when all projects have come up short. At this point a 100% failure rate for the day would be out of the realm of reality. It is the moment to escape from the self created twilight zone. With clenched teeth and a stiffened spine the wrappers on the activity unfold. The hands fly across the keyboard with lightening speed and the accuracy of the thought appears on the monitor. This is when you know you are about to come to the end and land the trophy position. There is light at the end of the tunnel and I am about to break out. The light is brighter and brighter and with just a few more key strokes it will be finished. The last stroke is in place and the end of the tunnel is visible just save it and it is a done deal. At the same time the file saves are about to begin the screen of the monitor flickers the lights in the room flash and then all is dark. The file is not saved and it is probably best to just sit here all night and start again in the morning. The other option is to go home but at this point the chances of arriving home on the train safely seem nil. I hope tomorrow is a better day.

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Here is the question for the day. Did the media forget about the North Korean ship that was being watched and was a potential boarding target by the U.S. Navy or did the government ask them to drop the coverage? With a lead story as big as the unrest in Iran I can understand the North Korean story moving to second place but to drop off the radar as it has signals something is wrong. In reality a North Korean ship with arms is the bigger story of the moment. If the U.S. were to board the ship a war is a strong possibility. Generally a possible war in the making is much bigger news than the unrest in any unfriendly nation. Befuddled as I am I must assume that there is reason to believe that the U.S. government has pulled the plug on the story for the present. I do not wish to see a war but as I have written in the past I believe it is time to Bitch Slap the North Koreans and was hoping the ship in question would have been the answer I was looking for.

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If our Congress wants to put Buy American provisions on everything then they should not squeal when the Canadians start to do the same to us. The buy American provisions tied to the stimulus packages was supposed to exclude NAFTA partners but many of the states have been rejecting bids and shortening work projects for Mexican and Canadian firms. Some of the Canadian areas are starting to retaliate. Parts and systems made in the U.S. are on the deferred list. That means they are not on a pass through list for products to buy. Mexico is preparing to do the same if the situation is not corrected. This will be a headache for the administration if they do not fix it soon. Once retaliation is met with retaliation it will be hard to stop the self defeating process. The administration must do something immediately.

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There is a financial crisis brewing and the U.S. Treasury is going to be expected to bail out the problem. The problem is there is too little cash for road, bridge and tunnel construction available. The fund is just about depleted because its revenues are based on a gas tax. Americans are driving a lot less and a growing number of fuel efficient cars are finding their way onto the highways and that is making it difficult to replenish the coffers. The needs over time are the same to support the infrastructure but the revenue stream is weakening by the day. Congress will have to agree to a 20 billion dollar bailout from the treasury in August. If the Treasury and Congress fail to provide the money the states will have to cancel projects and that means more lost jobs. It will also mean that the U.S. highway infrastructure will continue to fall apart and it is already in bad condition as it is.

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American manufacturers of unmanned drones are making about two billion dollars a year. This industry exploded after 9/11 and has grown handsomely over the past eight years. They were first used just for the military but that quickly changed as the reliability of these aerial spies proved out. They are now used along the U.S. borders to monitor fences and smuggling activities providing information thousands of miles away in a few seconds. In fact they have become so effective that police in large cities are using them to monitor large crowds and their high crime areas. Recently these drones have been used to track gang activity in cities with large gang populations. The foreign markets have started purchasing them from U.S. companies. They are used in Europe for many of the same non-military activities seen in the U.S. but they also monitor large croplands and specific crops on a continuous basis.



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This is just a little something to think about. Kids all over the world argue and fight with each other. When they fight they kick, scratch and bite but they generally do not take it farther than that. There is a reason that their fighting does not escalate into all out war. They do not go to war because they do not have the ego problems that plague most adults. They have few territories and boundaries that are sacred to them and when they feel one of the few has been violated they seek to right the wrong but generally have a self imposed monitor within their minds that tell them this is how far they can go. Adults can easily ignore that monitor and go to war. It is the older and more rational adult mind that can over ride this monitor when its ego comes into play. Through out history those who have started war have played the ego card while the other side simply is defending itself. Perhaps the time has come to let the children run the world?

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If you have done any shopping lately I am sure you have noticed one thing and that is there is less of a selection in most item categories. No it was not your mind but it is in fact the reality of the present retail world. Over the last eight months the lack of customers has hurt the retailers. They had to figure out a way to reduce inventory yet have enough on hand for the customers that wanted to buy. When the retailers took a hard look at their inventory they realized they were offering too many items. Many of the items were there to satisfy a few customers but the margin on the products was small. To change that situation around the retailers decided to provide a smaller number of items to choose from and the items they elected to sell were the items with the big margins. In this way they could reduce the dollar value of the inventory they had to carry and at the same time offer only products with high profit margins. For the retailers it ties up less capital and provides a better bottom line. They sell less but in the long run they are more profitable. And yes, you did see the shelves shrink and the number of brands diminish at your favorite store but be careful in the long run as bargains they offer will be more of a bargain for them than you.

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The government is pumping large amounts of money into the economy and specifically in the green movement. The idea is to go green by providing incubator money to get fledgling companies which are developing and providing green products and services to grow. It is hoped that this growth will create jobs for many of the unemployed. The problem is all those green dollars may end up hurting the cause it is supposed to help. Companies that grow in this arena will employ the unemployed but that will only last as long as the dollars continue to come in. Most people, who are eventually to buy these products, do not have all the extra money necessary to change their house to solar energy. Even if there is a breakeven six years down the road most people will not opt of the expense. If this turns out to be the case then the extra dollars will have gone to support a new industry and hire people who currently do not have jobs and thereby creating an industry that may not be able to support itself. I am not against the green movement I am against the less than capitalist approach to bring this industry into prominence. Though the greening of America is necessary the process needs to procede slowly moving forward at a self sustaining rate. With that approach the people hired will remain so and there will be room for additional workers to find positions in the industry. Moving too fast will just assist in the stumble and fall process of a poor business model.

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The last twelve months have been quite difficult on the economy and in particular for those fund managers who service big pension funds. Many of these managers invested large amounts of money with hedge funds as a way of getting the extra bang for the buck. It was a way of expanding the rate of return to the funds but that which expands also contracts. In this case the contraction was at the speed of light. There was a lot of money lost. There was also a lot of money lost in the general blue chip funds but the contraction rate was slower in those investment channels. The problem occurred as the hedge funds were petitioned by investors to cash out of their positions. Timing being everything the hedge funds were not able to cash out their positions at a rate fast enough to keep up with the demands made upon their funds. That action caused the hedge funds to become required to sell more and more shares of their holdings as the prices of those holdings fell. The spiral went strait down until everyone heard the impact of the crash landing. Now that the market is again in bull status, I think we are headed for a pull back, those large fund managers are going to be faced with a big decision. The decision is where to invest the remaining money they are still supposed to guide, guard and protect for the hard working investors of the pension plans? My guess is they will be a bit more conventional this time around.

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On September 2, 2008 I projected what I thought was going to happen in the economy relative to oil prices, unemployment, and inflation. I still stand by those predictions. For those of you who missed my projections in September I will quickly give a rundown of what I believed then and still believe.

By the end of 2011 the price of oil will hover close to the $235 mark. That would mean $8 a gallon for the purchase of gas and fuel oil in the U.S. For Europe the prices per liter will be between $9 and $11 but as of this writing I believe the price will be closer to $13 per liter across the board in Europe.

Unemployment will continue to climb to 10.2% by this year's (2009) end and perhaps a bit more. There is no way to calculate the impact of the energy cost in the unemployment situation as the higher cost of energy will surely slow the recovery and perhaps cost even more jobs.

Inflation will remain low for a while but it will start to show its ugly face somewhere around March of 2010. I expect inflation to be at 5.75% by the end of 2010 and even higher by two points or 7.75% by the end of 2011. There are now some other conditions to consider with this equation but they are for a later day when I have the time to calculate the numbers.

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All day today I have heard people saying that we, the U.S., should do something about the election fraud. The reality of the situation is that we can and should do nothing. AS much as we can consider the election results fraudulent there is no empirical data to support such a statement. Remember that the other day there was little to no data to qualify the election as a tight horse race. The information reported thru the media was the unscientific responses gathered by people in the street. That information was not scientifically gathered. At the same time there is nothing to say the assumptions of the present day are any less true. Under these circumstances the only position the U.S. can take is to accept the results unless there is documented data to show the election was fixed. By doing nothing the U.S. is doing something. It is allowing the people of Iran to allow their voice to be heard in the streets. The people in the streets should speak their mind and assure the government they are not behind them in any way. That message tells those in charge that they will have an uphill battle from this point on every venue the government presents to the people. The growing population of moderate Iranian citizens will continue to grow and in time the government will be completely changed.

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The Supreme Court of the United States is a necessary entity not just because it is required by the constitution but also because of the diverse world our nation has become. The changes to this country over the last fifty years are nothing short of astonishing. The change in the ethnic demographics over this time period, indicate we are a country that has changed and is continuing to do so. With this change come many new and significant challenges. One of the most important of those challenges is a Supreme Court that can balance the gravity of the changes to the laws that are in place. To some degree that will require greater diversity on the bench. The appointment of a qualified Hispanic Female to the bench is perhaps the most necessary appointment to be made. Such an appointment will give an additional level of insight to the court as a whole. With a large and growing Hispanic citizen population the representation of this demographic group on the court will give more credibility to any rulings affecting this group in specific. Although the court is bound to define the parameters of existing law inclusion of a new judge, who is representative of the Hispanic community, will provide a sence of inclusion to this large segment of the population who hear to for have been a bit less represented within the government across the board. We currently have an opportunity to provide additional diversity to the court relative to the diversity we are experiencing in the continued growth of our nation.

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Cities all across the country are hurting for cash. The economy is hitting them harder than was expected. The city governments have been trying every thing they can think of to raise money to keep the urban wheels in motion. The last thing that any city wants to hit is the sales tax. Most other taxes when increased have a very small effect on the individual and in general they are ignored by the public. The sales tax is a different story and any movement in the tax generally has far reaching results either negative or positive. A reduction in the sales tax usually encourages spending. Any increase in the sales tax will discourage spending and the bigger the increase the greater the impact on spending. That is because it is a visible tax that the consumer is witness to at each and every purchase they make. With the economy doing as poorly as it is there is great chance that the sales tax card will be played in your neighborhood soon. That will help the cities in the short run but as the consumer begins to spend less because of the tax the local tax coffers will end up taking in about the same as they did prior to the tax increase. It is a hard place to be for any city government but the consumer will not feel that bad for them. Perhaps the consumer is correct in the long run.

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The health care plan the Republicans say they have is not real. What they have done is to cob together a collection of old ideas that never made the grade in the past and created a package that looks like a plan. The reason that they have not presented the program is they know it will be exposed for what it is and of course is not. From what we have been able to glean, from the information floating about, is there are points in the program where there is no connectivity to the other elements of the plan. That being said it is obvious that the plan was put together just to be able to say the party has one. That will cause many stiff republicans to refuse to sit down and truly negotiate a way out of this fly bottle. The secret plan is to stall the Democrats long enough for too many other important things to pile up on their plate so they have to remove it from consideration to get the other important things moving again.

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For as far back as recorded human history goes there has never been peace every where in the world at the same time. Many people use the expression "Peace is at hand" only to find that the term of the peace is generally quite short. Unfortunately that expression does not cover the entire world either. It generally covers conflict in a specific area. If war were to stop at the same time every where in the world that would be a true miracle. For those who believe in miracles expect them to come as a whole in a flash of time. Reality tells us war miracles come after a long period of negotiation and the development of an understanding with the adversary. World peace may never be a reality but we must always work toward peace and better relationships between all peoples. With out those stepping stones we are failing to give peace a chance.

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There is an expression which many Americans use and it goes like this: "My country right or wrong". Well I think it is time for those who believe in this expression to grow up and learn to show responsibility for their actions. These are the same people who tell everyone that two wrongs do not make a right. At the same time they exclaim that there is no way like the American way yet they seem to forget this country is based on the rule of law and the moral imperative that right is right and wrong is wrong with no shades of gray. Americans are supposed to hold themselves to a higher standard and we are required by our social and legal codes to take responsibility for our actions regardless of the individual or collective nature of our acts. At present there is a portion of the American public who feel their President has made un-American statements by saying that we have been wrong in the past relative to some of our actions on the world stage.

For my self as an American, and in particular for an American President, this was a responsible and honorable thing to do. We cannot be respected if we are always the big bully in the room but we can stoop to help those who are not as fortunate as we are. This show of change was done with a speech and without loosing one ounce of power. The speech offered to show others we can work with them to reduce the barriers and distrust that now exist. This approach is not complex nor is it difficult to understand. The President has relinquished no power nor diminished the American position on the world stage. What he has done is signal the world that there is change in the way America will do business in the future and that a new approach to collective cooperation within all of the world communities is now in motion.

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Education is definitely a hot topic these days and for good reason. Most people know that the more education an individual has the greater their chances of enjoying a better economic life style. Far more so then the life style the uneducated will have to fight for. That being said the individual will grow as a person because of the education. It is this very growth that is the real winning tool of education. The diversified and broadened base of knowledge which springs from that higher education is what will enable future leaders and managers to better understand the future and the workings of the global world. When the individual reaches such heights they not only achieve fame and fortune the also get to see their personal rainbow. A personal rainbow is defined as the refraction of light in the mind allowing one to witness their secret goals and dreams as they come closer to achieving them. The world knows the need to make money. The better and higher the for many people will make the difference on the economic plane as well as allow the individual see, almost on a daily basis, the dreams they hold in secret come to fruition piece by piece.

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There has been a lot of talk lately about the gun lobby getting things a bit too much their way. Those complaining want a full crackdown on guns but there are few if any of those voices that can identify what needs to be done and for what reason. Most people are against guns because they do not like them. Many people are against guns because they believe they are only used to maim and kill other human beings. What they do not understand is that 99% of gun owners in the U.S. are responsible citizens who use their rifles, pistols, and shotguns for sport. These are the tools of the shooting sport which includes competition shooting, hunting, and plinking. Plinking is a technical term to describe an individual or group of individuals who go off into the woods or some other isolated place to shoot at targets such as tin cans. It is what gun owners do and it is what they like to do. They do not break the law and in many places the pistols they have must be and are registered and licensed within the county where the owner resides. These are not the law breakers seen on the TV each night nor are the individuals who form civilian militias. To the contrary they are good old plain Americans who enjoy a tradition that goes back to the beginning of this country's history. We do not need more laws we need the judges, district attorneys, and the police brass to start a full court press and be sure to capture, bring to justice and incarcerate those who break the laws now on the books. Passing new laws will just find them being enforced in the same manner as the old laws.

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