FREE ENTERPRISE vs. Socialism
A lesson from our past for our present day politicians and citizens,this movie clip, the final scene in the movie TUCKER, says it all.
There is Hope: Read Op Ed Column at THE DAILY CALLER:
"Reading Tea Leaves - Why American Free Markets Will Win and American Socialism Fail"
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/28/reading-tea-leaves-americas-free-market-will-win/
Keeping faith and hope alive,
James Michael Pratt
Showing posts with label America and capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America and capitalism. Show all posts
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Saturday, November 21, 2009
THE GIPPER WOULD APPROVE
All American Beliefs
Ronald Reagan is a leader for our time, and he loved football. My governor as a teen, and the President who rescued an economy in shambles, a captured Embassy in Iran, and a world in extreme Cold War when I was a young struggling married man with one kid, was part Hollywood and part politician, but ALL AMERICAN.
WARNING: DO NOT SEE THE MOVIE RECOMMENDED BELOW IF... well read on.
That's almost all you need to know when I say: "The Gipper would approve."
What would he approve of? INFORMATION; relevant truth, substance, and a reality check on what every citizen needs to know to save our country and make of him or her an ALL AMERICAN.
It was a good day, yesterday. I know that my business partner in PowerThink Publishing, world leader in ebook development,Carlos Packer, and I have created the educational equivalent to the 'A Bomb' when used to inform oneself in defense of our republic against all enemies foreign and "domestic."
THE US CONSTITUTION COACH Kit - RONALD REAGAN LEADERSHIP EDITION, over 60,000 critical documents of US history and politics on dvd/cdrom plus 32 video, mp3, and text speeches by the greatest President of the last century.
Launched both on the San Diego talker station, Rick Robert's Show 760 KFMB and presented to the Reagan Presidential Library in my hometown; Simi Valley, CA.
Check it out at www.powerthink.com and watch the surreal video of Reagan speaking in 1964 as if he were witnessing our day.
To top the day off, I went to our favorite theatre and watched the best movie I've seen all year: THE BLIND SIDE. I love football, but that is not why I went. (It was Sandra Bullock at first, just didn't tell Jeanne)
WARNING: DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE IF: You enjoy true stories of overcoming adversity, kindness, mercy, love, faith, humor, and heart-filled triumph.
The "Gipper" would approve. Glad he is part of my life again and part of restoring American confidence in the US Constitution. And part Hollywood he would have loved this movie and taken Nancy out to enjoy it as a man of faith,optimism, hope, football, and what ALL AMERICAN means. Enjoy this trailer:
Ronald Reagan is a leader for our time, and he loved football. My governor as a teen, and the President who rescued an economy in shambles, a captured Embassy in Iran, and a world in extreme Cold War when I was a young struggling married man with one kid, was part Hollywood and part politician, but ALL AMERICAN.
WARNING: DO NOT SEE THE MOVIE RECOMMENDED BELOW IF... well read on.
That's almost all you need to know when I say: "The Gipper would approve."
What would he approve of? INFORMATION; relevant truth, substance, and a reality check on what every citizen needs to know to save our country and make of him or her an ALL AMERICAN.
It was a good day, yesterday. I know that my business partner in PowerThink Publishing, world leader in ebook development,Carlos Packer, and I have created the educational equivalent to the 'A Bomb' when used to inform oneself in defense of our republic against all enemies foreign and "domestic."
THE US CONSTITUTION COACH Kit - RONALD REAGAN LEADERSHIP EDITION, over 60,000 critical documents of US history and politics on dvd/cdrom plus 32 video, mp3, and text speeches by the greatest President of the last century.
Launched both on the San Diego talker station, Rick Robert's Show 760 KFMB and presented to the Reagan Presidential Library in my hometown; Simi Valley, CA.
Check it out at www.powerthink.com and watch the surreal video of Reagan speaking in 1964 as if he were witnessing our day.
To top the day off, I went to our favorite theatre and watched the best movie I've seen all year: THE BLIND SIDE. I love football, but that is not why I went. (It was Sandra Bullock at first, just didn't tell Jeanne)
WARNING: DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE IF: You enjoy true stories of overcoming adversity, kindness, mercy, love, faith, humor, and heart-filled triumph.
The "Gipper" would approve. Glad he is part of my life again and part of restoring American confidence in the US Constitution. And part Hollywood he would have loved this movie and taken Nancy out to enjoy it as a man of faith,optimism, hope, football, and what ALL AMERICAN means. Enjoy this trailer:
Thursday, October 22, 2009
GHOST OF HALLOWEEN PAST
HALLOWEEN & Pre-Election 2008. Has anything changed?
2008 Blog & Today: (Read then watch video)
I gave up on Halloween costumes and "trick or treating" when my 1965 12 year-old brain told me it was "childish" to hit up homeowners on Christine Ave, Simi Valley, CA. for treats in exchange for playing no "tricks." Yet that is exactly what many supposed leaders of our country and financial institutions have done to stake-holders in the Amercian dream of home ownership for decades... dressed up and played the Halloween games with our future.
How appropriate: Given the momentous "Bailout" (they like the term "Rescue") actions of the present politicos I thought I would share the Wikipedia definition of the Halloween mantra used by children. Here it is:
The "trick" part of "trick or treat" is a threat to play a trick on the "homeowner or his property" if no treat is given. Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween.
It isn't difficult to understand how we got into an economic mess...
"Trick on the homeowner:" Congressional Democrats and Republicans have encouraged the mortgage industry to create "entitlement" mentality to "home ownership" for nearly a generation. Documentation, and traditional qualifying requirements have been virtually suspended compared to past generations of borrowers. Mortgages; the "easy money," became "candy" or treats for "votes."
THE CANDY MAN: Both political parties are to blame; creating a sweet tooth public mentality that all people were "entitled" to home ownership regardless of classic and real ability to pay. Now we are on the verge of economic collapse. Banks sit on non-liquid assets. Banks require liquidity to run, lend, keep the engine of commerce alive. Congress created the problem, and now pat themselves on the back for fixing it? (See Sept. 27th Blog - Saving the Economy.)
New Candy Men with October Surprises? In thirty days we can choose between a war-hero seasoned Senator who claims to be a "maverick" or a freshman "community organizer" Senator who hopes we buy into an emotion filled platitude as a substitute to substance; "change we can believe in." Is this your average election year "October Surprise?" or just a coincidental convergence of justice finally catching up to theft, incompetence, and greed 30 days away from America's national election?
Not sure there are many "treats" out there, but I'm sure there are plenty of "tricks." Be careful. Be thoughtful. Judge character. Shed emotion and toss out reliance on empty "platitudes" of change. Look under the political rug for what has been swept and hidden there. These people running are experienced politicos and we may be choosing for a lesser of two evils during war and economic crisis. People who helped "create" the crisis are not going to bring "change."
Do the math. Do the homework. Your vote is required in 30 days. Obama or McCain, and other candidates will ask, "Trick or treat?"
JMP 2008
TODAY: Halloween 2009 – THE DOG SAYS IT ALL. Watch this:
2008 Blog & Today: (Read then watch video)
I gave up on Halloween costumes and "trick or treating" when my 1965 12 year-old brain told me it was "childish" to hit up homeowners on Christine Ave, Simi Valley, CA. for treats in exchange for playing no "tricks." Yet that is exactly what many supposed leaders of our country and financial institutions have done to stake-holders in the Amercian dream of home ownership for decades... dressed up and played the Halloween games with our future.
How appropriate: Given the momentous "Bailout" (they like the term "Rescue") actions of the present politicos I thought I would share the Wikipedia definition of the Halloween mantra used by children. Here it is:
The "trick" part of "trick or treat" is a threat to play a trick on the "homeowner or his property" if no treat is given. Trick-or-treating is one of the main traditions of Halloween.
It isn't difficult to understand how we got into an economic mess...
"Trick on the homeowner:" Congressional Democrats and Republicans have encouraged the mortgage industry to create "entitlement" mentality to "home ownership" for nearly a generation. Documentation, and traditional qualifying requirements have been virtually suspended compared to past generations of borrowers. Mortgages; the "easy money," became "candy" or treats for "votes."
THE CANDY MAN: Both political parties are to blame; creating a sweet tooth public mentality that all people were "entitled" to home ownership regardless of classic and real ability to pay. Now we are on the verge of economic collapse. Banks sit on non-liquid assets. Banks require liquidity to run, lend, keep the engine of commerce alive. Congress created the problem, and now pat themselves on the back for fixing it? (See Sept. 27th Blog - Saving the Economy.)
New Candy Men with October Surprises? In thirty days we can choose between a war-hero seasoned Senator who claims to be a "maverick" or a freshman "community organizer" Senator who hopes we buy into an emotion filled platitude as a substitute to substance; "change we can believe in." Is this your average election year "October Surprise?" or just a coincidental convergence of justice finally catching up to theft, incompetence, and greed 30 days away from America's national election?
Not sure there are many "treats" out there, but I'm sure there are plenty of "tricks." Be careful. Be thoughtful. Judge character. Shed emotion and toss out reliance on empty "platitudes" of change. Look under the political rug for what has been swept and hidden there. These people running are experienced politicos and we may be choosing for a lesser of two evils during war and economic crisis. People who helped "create" the crisis are not going to bring "change."
Do the math. Do the homework. Your vote is required in 30 days. Obama or McCain, and other candidates will ask, "Trick or treat?"
JMP 2008
TODAY: Halloween 2009 – THE DOG SAYS IT ALL. Watch this:
Saturday, November 1, 2008
SUPER POWERs & WHO WE TRUST
SUPER POWERS, POLITICOS and ELECTIONS
The political machines of two dominate parties in high gear, we are days from electing our "future." The candidates are all making promises, thick enough if spread beneath their feet over the average lake in your neck of the woods, they could literally walk on water. Politicians are asking for power and would have you and I trust them. They offer “God bless America,” just enough to make you feel they really mean it. Some do, of course. But that’s not the point.
Much is made of the United States, Russia, and China as “Super Powers.” The difference lies in which country honors the real “Super Power.” Other countries such as Iran, North Korea, seek weapons in order to “join the club.” “Joining the club” of political Super Powers through political and military might isn’t the way it works. It's about people, their will, and what they grant in the way of power that makes a nation great.
The point is this. The people of a nation must govern their leaders and insure that those elected officials remember who is the REAL Super Power. When that check and balance of people governing elected officials, and God acknowledged in public and private freely, along with freedoms established by a Constitution guaranteeing such rights, the term “Super Power” begins to have real muscle.
It’s simple really. The United States of America was the only place on earth, when first established, where the RIGHT to worship God according to the individual dictates of the conscious was a primary protection. The founders, including my ancestor Lt. William Pratt who settled in Massachusetts and then Connecticut in the 1640's, came to this land for religious and economic reasons; in a word "Freedom."
Every other country on the planet was either secular in nature or ruled by a strong central figure coupled with a “State” authorized religion. Belief in “super powers” was often highly controlled. Not much has changed unless…
You consider the great debates resulting in the Constitutional Convention (1787) and the resulting document deemed sacred to Americans for over 200 years. Every time I look at a US minted coin and see, “In God we trust…” I hear a prophetic Isaiah of Israel (Isa. 42:1-3) who must have foreseen our day. We know what happens when faith is persecuted and prosecuted. My paternal ancestors fled England in search of “Freedom of Faith” – to be who they wanted to be, worship as they wanted to worship, build a society in the fashion of their ideals based upon individual effort in collaboration with others of the same desire.
More moral freedom always encourages personal and community growth and greatness. Openness to faith and the promotion of the moral compass inherently found in faith creates not only individual character, but the character of an entire nation; resulting in “Super Power” status.
Mantras of Change: Beware of those who find it necessary to change a successful formula, or tweak it with ideals and social experimenting that has a track record of failure and oppression. All one needs to know is found in the reading of history, and where failure is concerned, a study of political change in the 20th Century.
Take God out of the ‘Super Power” and you have a hollow inside with an outer shell of bellicose rhetoric, some angry men and women guiding a nation on their own, mixed with intercontinental ballistic missiles, and self-worshipping ego-centric “follow me” attitudes the size of the title “Super Power.”
The Autocrats: Chairman Maos, the Castros, the Stalins, Hitlers, Pol Pots, dictators small and large come and go. While tens of millions have died under their power faith lives, and their memory is one of contempt. Heaven forbid we ever elect one...
China, Russia, and other supposed “Super Powers” will never rise to the level of greatness that their people as individuals aspire to until they learn the lesson of faith in a power beyond themselves, and power beyond theirs to control. As long as the human spirit yearns for faith, the bands of political control may never contain it.
To remain a SUPER POWER we in the United States must rule the leaders. We grant them the “power” to manage the greatest nation ever conceived in mortal history. The sacred document organizing our United States was agonized over by a group of wise men who began their deliberations with prayer each day during the summer of 1787. The Founding Fathers looking beyond their day and into ours, knew that absolute power corrupts absolutely. If we get back to the genius inspired principles of balance of power, free market economics, (Adam Smith, author Wealth of Nations, was the Founder's hero...available at my website www.powerthink.com)along with freedoms of faith and others guaranteed by their concensus in the US Constitution, our position as a people and a country will remain blessed and secure.
“In God We Trust” and “God Bless America” are located on coinage and through the written and spoken word. To the degree they are genuine and heartfelt we will remain a free nation and Super Power.
James Michael Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
The political machines of two dominate parties in high gear, we are days from electing our "future." The candidates are all making promises, thick enough if spread beneath their feet over the average lake in your neck of the woods, they could literally walk on water. Politicians are asking for power and would have you and I trust them. They offer “God bless America,” just enough to make you feel they really mean it. Some do, of course. But that’s not the point.
Much is made of the United States, Russia, and China as “Super Powers.” The difference lies in which country honors the real “Super Power.” Other countries such as Iran, North Korea, seek weapons in order to “join the club.” “Joining the club” of political Super Powers through political and military might isn’t the way it works. It's about people, their will, and what they grant in the way of power that makes a nation great.
The point is this. The people of a nation must govern their leaders and insure that those elected officials remember who is the REAL Super Power. When that check and balance of people governing elected officials, and God acknowledged in public and private freely, along with freedoms established by a Constitution guaranteeing such rights, the term “Super Power” begins to have real muscle.
It’s simple really. The United States of America was the only place on earth, when first established, where the RIGHT to worship God according to the individual dictates of the conscious was a primary protection. The founders, including my ancestor Lt. William Pratt who settled in Massachusetts and then Connecticut in the 1640's, came to this land for religious and economic reasons; in a word "Freedom."
Every other country on the planet was either secular in nature or ruled by a strong central figure coupled with a “State” authorized religion. Belief in “super powers” was often highly controlled. Not much has changed unless…
You consider the great debates resulting in the Constitutional Convention (1787) and the resulting document deemed sacred to Americans for over 200 years. Every time I look at a US minted coin and see, “In God we trust…” I hear a prophetic Isaiah of Israel (Isa. 42:1-3) who must have foreseen our day. We know what happens when faith is persecuted and prosecuted. My paternal ancestors fled England in search of “Freedom of Faith” – to be who they wanted to be, worship as they wanted to worship, build a society in the fashion of their ideals based upon individual effort in collaboration with others of the same desire.
More moral freedom always encourages personal and community growth and greatness. Openness to faith and the promotion of the moral compass inherently found in faith creates not only individual character, but the character of an entire nation; resulting in “Super Power” status.
Mantras of Change: Beware of those who find it necessary to change a successful formula, or tweak it with ideals and social experimenting that has a track record of failure and oppression. All one needs to know is found in the reading of history, and where failure is concerned, a study of political change in the 20th Century.
Take God out of the ‘Super Power” and you have a hollow inside with an outer shell of bellicose rhetoric, some angry men and women guiding a nation on their own, mixed with intercontinental ballistic missiles, and self-worshipping ego-centric “follow me” attitudes the size of the title “Super Power.”
The Autocrats: Chairman Maos, the Castros, the Stalins, Hitlers, Pol Pots, dictators small and large come and go. While tens of millions have died under their power faith lives, and their memory is one of contempt. Heaven forbid we ever elect one...
China, Russia, and other supposed “Super Powers” will never rise to the level of greatness that their people as individuals aspire to until they learn the lesson of faith in a power beyond themselves, and power beyond theirs to control. As long as the human spirit yearns for faith, the bands of political control may never contain it.
To remain a SUPER POWER we in the United States must rule the leaders. We grant them the “power” to manage the greatest nation ever conceived in mortal history. The sacred document organizing our United States was agonized over by a group of wise men who began their deliberations with prayer each day during the summer of 1787. The Founding Fathers looking beyond their day and into ours, knew that absolute power corrupts absolutely. If we get back to the genius inspired principles of balance of power, free market economics, (Adam Smith, author Wealth of Nations, was the Founder's hero...available at my website www.powerthink.com)along with freedoms of faith and others guaranteed by their concensus in the US Constitution, our position as a people and a country will remain blessed and secure.
“In God We Trust” and “God Bless America” are located on coinage and through the written and spoken word. To the degree they are genuine and heartfelt we will remain a free nation and Super Power.
James Michael Pratt
www.jmpratt.com
Friday, October 24, 2008
SOCIALISM 101 Eyewitness to Failure
2 Years in a South American Socialist Utopia and Why Socialism Cannot Create a Thriving Economy out of the Best Economy Ever Built
Socialism 101 Preface: I was an eye witness who lived among the poor. I saw first-hand the Russian allied Peruvian dictator Juan Velasco ruin his country, turning it into a trash heap of despair and squalor. Living in Peru for two years during the volatile swings from free market to socialism, and now back left me with little doubt as to the absurdity that any new comer with a "remake" of the modern European style, Leninist, Marxist, or Maoist ideas of social utopia can succeed.
Life in General Velasco's Peru 1972-1974 As a wide-eyed young American eager to do my spiritual/humanitarian best for the people I went to serve among I learned several things. The list goes something like this:
1. I learned Americans were'nt poor under our worst conditions.*
2. People really do die from preventable sickness and disease.
3. People really do starve, and struggle on $1.00 a day under hyper-inflation.
4. Capitalists offer a "hand up" not merely a "hand out" but lose their hands.
5. Socialists take the capitalists businesses and re-distribute the property.
6. Re-distributed "rich" man's companies fail when nationalized due to stupidity and lack of incentive.
7. Educated businessmen leave the country they love because of economic bias. People they once employed go jobless.
8. Joblessness soars. Life is one big "black market" of selling anything to survive.
9. Cops carry machine guns. Easier to hit rioters that way.
10. People who get arrested often dissapear.
11. 15 days a month without meat or protein except for the last chicken egg, sucks.
12. Hot showers are a modern marvel enjoyed far far away.
13. Shaving cream @ $12.00 a can (1974) stinks. So does shaving w/soapy cold water.
14. Running for your life from thugs, thieves, and desperate people stinks.
15. When the government can't tax more people they simply blame evil capitalists.
16. People live in fear and wish the socialists would go back where they came from.
17. Right wing dictators eventually kill or jail the left wing dictators.
* Poverty comparison to millions I witnessed living "dirt poor" without sewers, running water, with thatched or mud walls, no roofs, food and clothing, emergency care, dirt floors, and so on.
A WHOLE LOT MORE I never wrote home to Mom about... Coming soon.
Socialism 101 Preface: I was an eye witness who lived among the poor. I saw first-hand the Russian allied Peruvian dictator Juan Velasco ruin his country, turning it into a trash heap of despair and squalor. Living in Peru for two years during the volatile swings from free market to socialism, and now back left me with little doubt as to the absurdity that any new comer with a "remake" of the modern European style, Leninist, Marxist, or Maoist ideas of social utopia can succeed.
Life in General Velasco's Peru 1972-1974 As a wide-eyed young American eager to do my spiritual/humanitarian best for the people I went to serve among I learned several things. The list goes something like this:
1. I learned Americans were'nt poor under our worst conditions.*
2. People really do die from preventable sickness and disease.
3. People really do starve, and struggle on $1.00 a day under hyper-inflation.
4. Capitalists offer a "hand up" not merely a "hand out" but lose their hands.
5. Socialists take the capitalists businesses and re-distribute the property.
6. Re-distributed "rich" man's companies fail when nationalized due to stupidity and lack of incentive.
7. Educated businessmen leave the country they love because of economic bias. People they once employed go jobless.
8. Joblessness soars. Life is one big "black market" of selling anything to survive.
9. Cops carry machine guns. Easier to hit rioters that way.
10. People who get arrested often dissapear.
11. 15 days a month without meat or protein except for the last chicken egg, sucks.
12. Hot showers are a modern marvel enjoyed far far away.
13. Shaving cream @ $12.00 a can (1974) stinks. So does shaving w/soapy cold water.
14. Running for your life from thugs, thieves, and desperate people stinks.
15. When the government can't tax more people they simply blame evil capitalists.
16. People live in fear and wish the socialists would go back where they came from.
17. Right wing dictators eventually kill or jail the left wing dictators.
* Poverty comparison to millions I witnessed living "dirt poor" without sewers, running water, with thatched or mud walls, no roofs, food and clothing, emergency care, dirt floors, and so on.
A WHOLE LOT MORE I never wrote home to Mom about... Coming soon.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
TRUE CAPITAL, CHARACTER & Joe the Plumber
“I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist'.” --President Ronald Reagan
The Final 2008 Presidential Debate: Last night I stayed awake for most the Presidential debate. I was wide awake during all comments about “Joe the plumber.” I have to say that Joe the aspiring business owner from Ohio stole the show and, of course I connected with it, because I have been an “average Joe.”
Obama’s blunder: Senator Obama may have lost the election because of just an average Joe, and now must regret talking to the plumber from Ohio. Answering a question that he was interested in “spreading” Joe’s “wealth around” if he made over $250,000 a year was like revealing he was going to play "Robbing" Hood on the middle class job creator. Days ago paying higher taxes was called “…time to be patriotic” by another “Joe;” Senator Biden, Obama running mate.
America’s Joe from Ohio uncovered the hidden truth about Obama and Biden’s redistribution of wealth plan and showed how out of touch they are with small business owners, and what constitutes wealth in middle America. He asked a simple question about taxes and found out that his “dreams of wealth” could not be achieved unless he “spread” his gains around; courtesy of the Obama Administration hopefuls. With all the costs of doing business, including payroll contributions, worker’s comp insurance premiums, liability insurance premiums, expansion capital, etc. $250,000 is HARD EARNED, and can be lost overnight without extreme business oversight and diligence.
I KNOW JOES' DREAM: I was a small builder that started a construction business with $900 dollars severance from a Police Dept. in May 1984 with a need to care for a young family, and a desire to make something of myself. I was constantly struggling to do all the work I could physically do to keep control of quality and dollars in our pocket. It was extremely difficult. If I had known what I was in for, especially with regards to six day work weeks, 12 hours a day for twelve years, and then losing nearly one million in California real estate and other business value during a deep real estate recession of 1991-1995, I wouldn’t have had the heart.
But it was MY dream... AND we had a great life. Hard work didn’t hurt me at all, and we enjoyed the “fruit of our labors” during the Reagan tax-cut years. I had proved I could start with under $1,000, and simply started over once again in 1994.
A NEW DREAM: There were no handouts, welfare payments, or government interventions when I was in a hospital bed, just back from near-death after the second life-saving blood transfusion in as many years. It was May 1997. I got a call from a literary agent. We had no income, no health insurance, and no job. I had chosen to “start over” in spite of it all. I had a “dream” to write. That dream then and now included making a fine income, and building wealth from my new self-employed risk taking. I had three tubes coming out of my body when I was told I would make a $250,000 “Advance” for The Last Valentine, my first of seven novels. It was hard work and risky to get from bankrupt “bad news” to the hospital bed “good news” where I recieved the welcome phone call. But I had a dream, and have once again benefited from a land that didn’t “spread my wealth around” but allowed me to dream big enough to grow a new business.
THE POINT: “Spreading wealth around” needs to be a private choice and not a “social” experiment run by a government. The character it takes to be self-employed, take no paydays for sometimes months at a time, and build something from just an idea can’t be appreciated by the non-participating “receiver” of my hard earned “wealth.” In fact without hard work the “welfare” recipients put on my payroll by a government mandating my charity expect to not be asked to contribute to my dream and business vitality. Class envy is enevitable when the government decides who should prosper and how and it cannot produce wealth. Such socialism cannot solve budget deficits, cannot provide new value or help someone develop the personal characteristic that fosters profit for a truly wealthy economy and personal life. Taxing wealth cannot produce more of it.
WHAT WORKS: Work works. Hard work, freedom to earn and work at whatever we chose without the fetters of government will solve the present economic crisis.
Capital, Values and CHARACTER: At the end of the day, it’s all about the essence of capital: value and character. The greatest “capital” created in any economy is the personal capital of the American man or woman with a dream. Incentives to better ourselves and personal lifestyles contribute to wealth. The dream begins it, hard work continues it, and the realization of profit takes it to a new level.
THANKS JOE! Your question clarified what America is all about in spite of our politicians inability to do so.
James www.jmpratt.com & www.powerthink.com
The Final 2008 Presidential Debate: Last night I stayed awake for most the Presidential debate. I was wide awake during all comments about “Joe the plumber.” I have to say that Joe the aspiring business owner from Ohio stole the show and, of course I connected with it, because I have been an “average Joe.”
Obama’s blunder: Senator Obama may have lost the election because of just an average Joe, and now must regret talking to the plumber from Ohio. Answering a question that he was interested in “spreading” Joe’s “wealth around” if he made over $250,000 a year was like revealing he was going to play "Robbing" Hood on the middle class job creator. Days ago paying higher taxes was called “…time to be patriotic” by another “Joe;” Senator Biden, Obama running mate.
America’s Joe from Ohio uncovered the hidden truth about Obama and Biden’s redistribution of wealth plan and showed how out of touch they are with small business owners, and what constitutes wealth in middle America. He asked a simple question about taxes and found out that his “dreams of wealth” could not be achieved unless he “spread” his gains around; courtesy of the Obama Administration hopefuls. With all the costs of doing business, including payroll contributions, worker’s comp insurance premiums, liability insurance premiums, expansion capital, etc. $250,000 is HARD EARNED, and can be lost overnight without extreme business oversight and diligence.
I KNOW JOES' DREAM: I was a small builder that started a construction business with $900 dollars severance from a Police Dept. in May 1984 with a need to care for a young family, and a desire to make something of myself. I was constantly struggling to do all the work I could physically do to keep control of quality and dollars in our pocket. It was extremely difficult. If I had known what I was in for, especially with regards to six day work weeks, 12 hours a day for twelve years, and then losing nearly one million in California real estate and other business value during a deep real estate recession of 1991-1995, I wouldn’t have had the heart.
But it was MY dream... AND we had a great life. Hard work didn’t hurt me at all, and we enjoyed the “fruit of our labors” during the Reagan tax-cut years. I had proved I could start with under $1,000, and simply started over once again in 1994.
A NEW DREAM: There were no handouts, welfare payments, or government interventions when I was in a hospital bed, just back from near-death after the second life-saving blood transfusion in as many years. It was May 1997. I got a call from a literary agent. We had no income, no health insurance, and no job. I had chosen to “start over” in spite of it all. I had a “dream” to write. That dream then and now included making a fine income, and building wealth from my new self-employed risk taking. I had three tubes coming out of my body when I was told I would make a $250,000 “Advance” for The Last Valentine, my first of seven novels. It was hard work and risky to get from bankrupt “bad news” to the hospital bed “good news” where I recieved the welcome phone call. But I had a dream, and have once again benefited from a land that didn’t “spread my wealth around” but allowed me to dream big enough to grow a new business.
THE POINT: “Spreading wealth around” needs to be a private choice and not a “social” experiment run by a government. The character it takes to be self-employed, take no paydays for sometimes months at a time, and build something from just an idea can’t be appreciated by the non-participating “receiver” of my hard earned “wealth.” In fact without hard work the “welfare” recipients put on my payroll by a government mandating my charity expect to not be asked to contribute to my dream and business vitality. Class envy is enevitable when the government decides who should prosper and how and it cannot produce wealth. Such socialism cannot solve budget deficits, cannot provide new value or help someone develop the personal characteristic that fosters profit for a truly wealthy economy and personal life. Taxing wealth cannot produce more of it.
WHAT WORKS: Work works. Hard work, freedom to earn and work at whatever we chose without the fetters of government will solve the present economic crisis.
Capital, Values and CHARACTER: At the end of the day, it’s all about the essence of capital: value and character. The greatest “capital” created in any economy is the personal capital of the American man or woman with a dream. Incentives to better ourselves and personal lifestyles contribute to wealth. The dream begins it, hard work continues it, and the realization of profit takes it to a new level.
THANKS JOE! Your question clarified what America is all about in spite of our politicians inability to do so.
James www.jmpratt.com & www.powerthink.com
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