By: Frosty E. Hardison
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. Much like Akham’s Razor suggests that all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the correct one – sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one too. Could that work for our economy? After months of pondering these questions about the “pending” economic recovery, even during the Bush Administration, I have a few simple low cost solutions myself.
Education: Frankly, we have lost our way. If you take the time to research our public school system over the last hundred years, or even pick up a book or two by John Taylor Gatto (Amazon) you will understand how programmed the American sheeple have become in Amerika. Programmed to go to work in the factories, allowing government to think for them and take care of them. Yeah take care of them as slaves! What happened to self reliance?
Next, we have too many languages to cater to in public school. There should never have been more than one. Divisiveness is killing us from within. Learn it or leave it. Instead of teaching diversity – unite us as a nation. One language, one history and one science not junk science and unproven THEORIES.
You want to teach history? Have some of our soldiers go on a speaking tour with some of the History Channel’s documentary videos relating to the battles some of these soldier were actually in. You want to show the greatest level of respect for a vet? Have them teach about that war and allow our children to learn from real heroes. The benefit of learning history is that we hopefully have learned something from the past mistakes.
I am a Star Trek fan, which we will come back to, I would like to see our nation begin thinking beyond self and stop making politicians richer and making bankers richer – let us focus on the future of our species, our planet and space exploration. Let us unite as a nation and stop bickering about our differences. Let us speak one language (English) and have a second language increase our culture and experience to enhance us not inhibit us.
Let’s build Star Fleet Academy and train our brightest to learn truth by experience, experimentation and observation. Have them seek the truth at all costs and NEVER EVER allow a group of people ever stifle continued discussion of ideas like they are doing now to creationists. (Ben Stein) Let us learn and teach hypothesis and facts – and how to distinguish the two. Let us test ideas for accuracy and if a theory does not have all the answers – let’s keep looking!
The THEORY of evolution is a THEORY and still not a provable fact – it too has too many holes to be the stand alone explanation for life on earth. However, again the simplest explanation in the written record of events by those living at the time who witnessed it first hand cannot be thrown out with the bath water entirely. Get over it. Another historical fact is that nations in history that have a solid understanding of the fundamentals of human rights, laws and believe in the existence of a loving God, flourish and those who lose their moral compass soon perish. Call it God, call it whatever you want to – a society that believes in God and has a sense of good nature and morality – thrive.
Learn by example and emphasize producing repeatable results as a conclusion not some random test sample or basing our facts on a dating method such as radioactive decay that has an accuracy rate of +/- 1 to 800 million years.
Economy: First off a simple question. How do companies make money? I mean boiled down to the basics… create a product or service in demand and sell said – right? Wrong. That’s only a partial right answer – to make money means turning a profit. To do that a company has to have revenues that are greater than it’s expenses and serviceable debt. Sure you can create a product or service but unless you make money (a profit) you’re out of business! A hundred and twenty years ago debt was taught as a bad thing to get yourself into. It was part of elementary education. Don’t borrow more money than you can pay back. Cash is king. You can’t borrow yourself out of debt. Common sense right? Look around you today.
According to creditcards.com (Link) the average household had 5 cards or more in 2008 averaging $10,679 – each. Hello?
These are simple no brainer concepts no longer taught in public schools. This needs to change.
Also, I would like to offer a slight dis-agreement to Ronald Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics” philosophy. Trickle down economics doesn’t work nearly as well as TRICKLE UP economics. I state that as a fact of spending habits in combination with Paretto’s Law of 80/20. Whereby 20% of the population own as much as 80% of all assets and wealth in America; while 80% are lucky to make the house payment each month. Continued out in extrapolation – 20% of the population have all they need and the other 80% are heavy consumers needing to spend their income on daily needs. Understand? With that baseline established….
May I offer the solution that if we can stimulate the 80% (major consumers) to be more productive they tend to spend 80% or more of their income on living expenses – which yes may include beer, cigarettes, cable and the basics of life, but let us remember that those industries are owned by the other 20%; so the money still flows north and up the chain then needs to come back down – like the water cycle. Whereas this last stimulus package the Obama-nation supported went to the 20% of wealth owners in America. The problem is conservative estimates suggest the stimulus money stayed right there. That’s $3.3 trillion that went nowhere but into the pockets and bank accounts of the wealthiest people in the world. (Stimulus went where?)
Ergo – this is the very reason we have not seen a fast economic recovery. The banks and big business owners that this last stimulus money went to never made it into the creation of jobs, never got spread around throughout the economy – it did however go to line the pockets of senior executives in just about every echelon of big banks and businesses. Billions of dollars in tax money went to pay bonuses and 6-7 figure incomes. Where do you think that money went? Did you see any of it? Where is your bailout? We covered earlier that these 20% need not spend their money as much as the 80% do right? I mean when you’re making millions of dollars and your house payment is a mere 2 – 10% of that – you get to save more of your money in off shore bank accounts – right?
The best way to jump start the economy is simple, stop the pork in Congress, stop allowing lobbyists to bank roll government officials, stop giving bankers any stimulus money to manage, demand an accounting for the money they already have accepted and spend that money on getting rid of the Federal Reserve, re-establish fair lending laws making 12% the maximum interest rate any bank, credit card or contract can charge. Lastly, stabilize the money supply with platinum, gold, silver, copper or aluminum.
Next? Get rid of the income tax for a sales tax. The nation will make more money with a sales tax on the US GDP than with an income tax anyway. By getting rid of the Federal Reserve we can allow banks to borrow from the US Government and pay interest there where the cost/expense of credit go back into our nation’s economy, not the world bank, bank of London or some other country like China.
Finances: How do you fix finances? Again look at history. In the late 1920’s the nation of Germany had hyperinflation. The government had printed so much paper money that it became valueless. Sound familiar? It took thousands of Marks to buy a loaf of bread. (Germany 1924) The U.S. is headed that direction if we don’t get the Federal Reserve off our backs and overhaul our Congress.
An old saying suggests that when you are in a hole the first step to getting out is to stop digging. We need to turn the tables on banks that offer credit cards at 30%. We need to put the caps back and since the average persons credit rating is held so high as a measurement of worth in this country, make the credit bureaus a lot more accountable to accuracy.
The first and cheapest solution to fixing our nations finances is making the money stable and backed by something of value. Again we have to get rid of the Federal Reserve printing more and more worthless paper that is no longer worth anything more than an idea. I don’t know about you, but I have had enough of the tax and spend by both sides of the house and senate. One of the first signs of a government getting out of hand is once they have a spigot installed on your wallet. Once that happens all accountability goes out the window and they have total power. The founding fathers knew this – which is why the direct tax was prohibited as a fact in the U.S> Constitution (Article 1 Sec. 9 lines 4 & 5) Didn’t we learn anything from the Magna Carta? Once taxation was taken away from the king – the king lost all control. I could go on here about Rothschild and the Napoleonic war and how his hired man rushed the news of victory to Rothschild who spread the rumor that England had lost only to buy nearly everything for pennies on the dollar the next day when the market collapsed. I’ll save that story for another rant, I mean another day.
The key point is your money is losing value daily. The reason is our paper dollar is not backed by tangible assets any longer. That needs to change. What good is it to have a million dollars in the bank, and in 10 years have two million – with less buying power? That’s the erosion of your retirement, your savings and taking away the need for savings – period.
Healthcare: We need to get government and lawyers out of the healthcare business. A free society needs to have the choice of competition in medicine – or we will surely die of the cure instead of the disease. “Government governs best when it governs least.” That is a quote from Thomas Paine which still holds true today. (Thomas Paine). I tell you a key to getting politicians out of our healthcare system is to mandate that politicians have to use the same healthcare and stand in line like the rest of us – with no chance of favoritism being given to them. What’s good for the nation should be good enough for these public servants.
I like this quote too: “It would be a better place if the guy telling us nothing can be done would get out of the way of those of us actually already doing it!” I find this a particularly fun quote as my wife and I used to teach finance classes and when it came to fast growth stocks and negotiating with creditors… we heard all kinds of excuses of why it wouldn’t work from people that had never tried it. Then I showed them I already did it. Yeah, lead follow or get out of the way. If you’re not a part of the solution you are part of the problem. If you want to tell me how to fix something – be prepared to back it up with proven results.
You want to fix something – go back in time when it was working – and learn from the mistakes we’ve made in taking from some to give to others.
If lazy people wish to be lazy – let them reap what they sow. But don’t sit there and punish me because I want more for my family out of life than to live in a mobile home and be a beer drinking redneck. I have not gone to college for 12 years and taken all the classes I can to be more than just the sum of my parts – only to have my go getter attitude taxed so that some lazy fool can get his welfare check and cigarettes. I did not sign on for that in life.
And that my dear reader is how we can fix America before it becomes Amerika.
God help us.
Frosty E Hardison
Frosty E. Hardison is a graduate of Colorado Technical University with a degree in Business Administration. An MBA honors student with a 3.83 GPA, Frosty is most recognized for standing up against the Al Gore film “An Inconvenient Truth” being shown as a stand alone “science film” in his daughter’s science class in January 2007. He specializes in data research and analysis as well as work flow/production efficiency. For questions, see his website.
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