Monthly Archives: July 2018

Business, Culture, Finance, Government

For Which People?

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Today, the Democrats secretly unveiled their new election slogan, “For the People“. The Dims are supposedly going to focus on healthcare, infrastructure spending, and Republican corruption.

Yes, they should fix the healthcare debacle that they created. Remember Nancy and her famous justification for passing the bill, “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it!“? We found out that it benefits the few at the expense of the many. Great deal.  What the Dims want to do is double down on Obamacare as their fix.

What gets ignored in the debate about the current fiasco of healthcare is that it hurts the MIDDLE CLASS THE MOST. For those that work for a large employer, they may not have seen much of an effect, but long term the employer couldn’t give out raises because of these increases in healthcare costs.  Someone ends up paying for the increased cost and it’s the worker in the long run.  Why do you think that wages have stagnated?  More on this below.

Small business owners are hit hard if not the hardest. Some business owners have made the decision to limit the growth of the companies to stay below the 50 EMPLOYEE healthcare mandated ceiling. Above 50 employees the rules for an employer paying healthcare dramatically changes. More people could have been employed but it doesn’t make financial sense to take the step over 50 to many business owners.

What you end up creating is TWO CLASSES. Wealthy and poor. Those in the middle are burdened by the yoke of healthcare. How big of a burden is it? In real dollars I can tell you that for an individual healthcare is about $10,000.00 per YEAR. A family of 4 must spend about $25,000.00 per YEAR. And remember that’s for INSURANCE ONLY, NOT COVERAGE. They don’t tell you that you need to spend those dollar figures before your coverage starts. And in most cases, the coverage is only 80%. Another great deal.

A recent study shows that the percentage of businesses comprised of startups and small businesses is declining. Why is this? I suspect it has to do with economies of scale. Large businesses have a distinct advantage over the small company because they can negotiate for lower healthcare insurance costs as well as paying for staff to navigate the morass of regulations and taxation mandated by state and federal governments.

Why are healthcare costs HIGH and INCREASING?  With the passing of Obamacare we found out that inside of the legislation, those in the MIDDLE CLASS must PAY for those who are “UNINSURED”.  Legislation “For the uninsured people“.  Socialist wealth re-distribution.  Feels good to force working people to give their hard earned dollars to others.  Social justice from above.  Obamacare is a TAX that is buried inside of healthcare premiums.  If the Dims were honest (which is an unlikely scenario for any politician) they should have proposed HIGHER INCOME TAXES to pay for FREE healthcare “For the uninsured people“.  It would have only been a 5% to 10% increase in income tax.  Those forcibly obtained dollars would have easily provided insurance “For the uninsured people“.  Do you think a 10% income tax increase would have been popular?

Here’s that sad part.  Many in the working class have, on top of their increased healthcare costs, also LOST the equivalent of that 10% TAX.  If you didn’t get a raise or you received a smaller than usual raise since the beginning of Obamacare, you’ve fallen behind at least 10% in your yearly income.  If the business owner could have given you a 1.25% raise per year for the past 8 years of Obamacare’s existence, your pay rate would be more than 10% higher than it was before Obamacare.  Even if you get cost of living raises from now until you retire, remember you’re still losing that 10% of earnings for the rest of your working career.

Democracy (ahem SOCIALISM) at its best.

Feel better now?

Culture, Finance, Government, Politics

Is Profit Evil?

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Direct from the Democratic Socialists of America website:
“We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power, discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, disability status, age, religion, and national origin, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.”

Their FIRST principle is to REJECT the idea of “private profit“. From this obviously PROFIT MUST SOMEHOW BE EVIL.

One must ask, why does a business exist? The most basic reason is to produce something or provide a service and generate a PROFIT. Why would an entrepreneur take a PERSONAL RISK (financial, emotional, physical and mental health) to start a company? Again the answer is, TO MAKE MONEY.

One then must ask, how many innovations have come about where the creator never wanted to make a PROFIT?  Look around you.  Do you see anything that was produced where the company made NO PROFIT?  Do shareholders invest money into companies out of the goodness of their hearts and expect nothing in return or do they expect the company to generate a PROFIT and a RETURN ON INVESTMENT?  How many innovations have arisen from such wonderful socialist countries like Venezuela, Cuba, Bangledesh, Guyana, Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia, or North Korea?

One might argue, what about NON-PROFIT corporations?

The PBS President Paula Kerger earned a paltry $802,978.00 in 2016. If you look at the average non-profit CEO salaries with respect to the organization’s operating budget they are compensated at about 10% of the operating budget. A non-profit with an operating budget of $5,000,000.00 pays their CEO about HALF A MILLION dollars annually. The worker bees, bless their sacrificial hearts, make considerably less.

Why do they pay the CEOs the heftiest of salaries and not a “working man’s wage“? The answer is to attract qualified talent to run the organization. For some silly reason, talented individuals want to be compensated for their time (personal PROFIT). Hmmm, strange concept.

Let’s look at just how EVIL selling for PROFIT has become and how much SADNESS and INJUSTICE it has generated in our world.  Here’s one example.

According to Fortune, in 2016 the iPhone 7 had a production cost of about $225. The phone sold for $649 which gives Apple Inc. a PROFIT OF $424 PER PHONE sold. Wowzer, an EVIL GROSS PROFIT of over 188%, that’s a lot of injustice in this world. If you look at the one year cumulative sales of iPhones in which the 7 was released, Apple Inc. shipped nearly a QUARTER BILLION iPhones. Putting that into total numbers, A QUARTER BILLION PEOPLE HAPPILY GAVE Apple Inc. $106 BILLION DOLLARS in EVIL PROFIT in ONE YEAR! That’s a buttload of dumbocratic socialist injustice.

Why would so many people give so much money to a profit generating company and make themselves so SAD?

There’s a thing called a VALUE PROPOSITION. No one forced the consumer at gunpoint to give Apple Inc. the money. The consumer HAPPILY made the trade because they believed that the VALUE of a new iPhone 7 was worth more than possessing the money that they worked for. Apple Inc. on the other hand HAPPILY sold the iPhone because at the completion of the transaction they VALUED the $424 in PROFIT more than they VALUED the produced phone.

Wait, the consumer is HAPPY to pay for the phone at the retail price and Apple Inc. is HAPPY to sell them the phone and make a profit. Who is NOT HAPPY with this transaction?

Oh the social injustice when EVERYONE is HAPPY.

The ONLY SAD thing in all of this is the HUGE number of young people who possess a DUMBOCRATIC socialist view that PROFIT is EVIL.

Culture, Government, International

It’s Just A Phone Call

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By now, almost everyone has forgotten one of the very first “breaches of long standing protocol” that was violated by President Trump.  What was that “breach of protocol”?  He took a phone call on Dec. 2, 2016.

Who was on the other end of the call?  It was President Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan (also known as the Republic of China) who called President Trump to congratulate him on his election victory.  The phone call lasted about 10 minutes.

Former US State Department officials and the news media were aghast that President Trump spoke to President Tsai.  This was against the long standing TRADITION of NOT speaking to a Taiwanese president.  No US President has spoken to a Taiwanese President in over 40 years.

For some background, Taiwan is a multi-party democracy with an elected president and 5 equal branches of government.  Under President Obama the US transferred about $14 BILLION in arms through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) to Taiwan.  In less than 1 year, President Trump has authorized $1.4 BILLION in FMS arms.

What’s the big deal about taking a phone call from another democratically elected president?  It goes against the “One China Policy“.  The People’s Republic of China (PRC) which is mainland China, does not recognize the ROC, that is Taiwan as an independent country.  The communist PRC considers the Taiwan as a part of China and under their rule.  The communist PRC requires ALL COUNTRIES who wish to have a diplomatic RELATIONSHIP the PRC, must have NO DIPLOMATIC relationship with TAIWAN.  Because of the “One China” policy the United States does not have an embassy in TAIWAN.  We have a “Trade Headquarters” that for all practical purposes functions as an embassy, but is not formally called one.  Right now there is a touchy situation as President Trump has ordered United States Marines to provide protection to our headquarters in Taiwan.  This sort of protection is normally only provided to embassies.  The PRC’s shorts are up in a bunch over this plan.

Given all the weird background of our relationship with TAIWAN, why should the United States give a crap about this pipsqueak island?

Here’s what I’ve been warning people about for YEARS!

There is one company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) that makes most of internal electronics used in practically all electronic devices.  Parts made at TSMC are used in almost every cellphone, computer, television, aircraft, ship, car, train, military systems, the electrical grid, banking system, you name it.  TSMC is right now spending $17 BILLION US to build the next generation fabrication plant (TSMC-18) that will by 2020 make the fastest, smallest, and lowest power electronics.  Nowhere else in the world will this capability exist for large scale production of these new parts.  And here’s the scary part.

TSMC make more than 55% of all semiconductors!  The remaining 44% of capacity is split among a dozen other plants that only capture single digits percentage of capacity.  Many of these smaller fabrication plants are in the PRC or in their close ally Singapore.

IF CHINA WERE TO FORMALLY CONTROL TAIWAIN, the communist PRC would control ALL SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING IN THE WORLD.

Think about that for a monment.

Communist China would be able to control access to and the prices of ALL ELECTRONICS in the WORLD!

Do you think that would be a good thing?

Additionally, if we were ever to have a conflict with Communist China or one of their allies, we would NOT be able to manufacture any high tech weapon systems.

  • No more fighter jets.
  • No more stealth bombers
  • No more smart bombs.
  • No more tanks.
  • No more missiles.
  • No more missile defense.
  • No more cruise missiles.
  • No more communications.
  • No more Radars
  • No more satellites.
  • No more surveillance drones.

The best we could muster would be small arms or we could be like the Middle East protesters and chuck rocks.

We would not be able to repair any existing military electronics.  We would never be able to create new advanced systems unless the PRC allowed us.

Does that make you feel safer?

Show of hands.  How many of you progressive resisters think that President Trump establishing a good relationship with TAIWAN is bad?  I suspect many hands would go up.  We would just need Former President Obama to make another Nobel winning speech in Egypt to prevent any worry of Communist China domination.