A New World

It's a new world for Americans. Years ago I promulgated a theory that summed up America's ills as consumerism, commercialism, and capitalism. It seems I was not far off. I now propose that Americans combat these evils by hording money. Capitalism is the idea that people engage in the production of goods and services for money and for centuries it has been one of the guiding principles of this country. But it evolved into the idea that it is ok to make money, legally, "at all costs." I came to this conclusion of the evolution of capitalism as a destructive force in the 1980s when I noticed that tobacco companies "earned" billions in federal subsidies to produce poison. Commercialism is capitalism's bastard step child. Basically, capitalism reduces everthing into a profit-generating enterprise. For example, some of the Super Bowl's best commercials are about beer and Bud is King. How many commercials do we need to tell us to drink beer when most of the viewers are drinking beer. Bud is advertising to Bud drinkers, talk about preaching to the choir. How stupid is that? An advertiser telling football fans to drink beer? We all know that sports fans are beer drinkers. However, the commercials make it ok to get drunk. Consumerism is nothing more than "keeping up the the Joneses." For the last 15 years or so, Americans bought up SUVs. Vehicles originally designed for heavy duty use, like the Jeep and the Suburban, became all the rage. Suddenly Americans wanted SUVs to drive the little ones to church, what an under-use of capacity, like bringing a machine gun to a fist fight. If ever there was a frivolous purchase, it is the gas guzzling SUV. True to my predictions, the walls came tumbling down. Now there is fear and panic. How do we survive this economy? For now I suggest Americans horde savings. Look at it this way, you are giving your bank liquidity. Save money in the bank and the bank has money to lend, and the economy prospers. That is a true patriotic American. Save, save, save. Let me qualify that statement, save in a locally owned bank or your neighborhood credit union. Stay the hell away from the large national bank crooks who are stealing your children's future. My big brother once told me that he did not fear petty criminals. He could defend himself against muggers or he could run away from them. However, he feared the son of a bitch wearing a coat and tie cause that guy was going to take him to cleaners, legally, and laugh all the way to bank. He was right. AIG, Bear Stearns, Indy Mac, Merrill Lynch, and so on, collectively have taken my retirement. They literally stole it from me and they are getting bonuses for being so clever about it. Wouldn't you know it, the government is in cahoots. Revolution anyone?

It's Tax Time Again

Well, its that time of the year when we have to do our taxes. Over the past several years I have used Turbo Tax and Tax Cut. Both seem to be easy enough to use, unless you make an entry error and that happened to me. The result was that I underpaid taxes. I went to a CPA who quickly found my error and told me to pay up. Since then, I continue to use this software (which ever is cheaper), but I print out the tax return and take it to the CPA before I file it. So, I pay for the software AND a nominal fee for the CPA review. In total, I spend about $100 doing my taxes and spend many hours. My wife does her part by doing a spread sheet with medical bills. I do the rest of the stuff. I also do my youngest daughter's tax return. Man it's a chore, and procrastination is so easy. So, what's wrong with this picture? The tax code is too cumbersome. I have made one mistake on my tax return, the IRS caught it the following year and let me know it, in no uncertain terms. One year, the IRS sent me a nasty gram, but the error was not on my part. Nonetheless, they found the alleged error quickly and again let me know. What's wrong with this picture? They didn't seem to catch Timothy Geithner or Tom Daschle quite so quickly. And from the news reports, it seems these two guys earned the compassion of Senators who dismissed their oversight rather quickly. A totally different reaction from the one I got from my run-in with the fed over tax errors! What's the fix? I vote for a graduated flat tax. Everybody pays something, starting at tax rate of 1% for the lowest income tax payers and increasing to much higher income tax payers. It is not unreasonable to tax billionaires at a 50% tax rate, or higher. He who has more, pays more. Eliminate all tax credits, deductions, exemptions, rebates, and loopholes, save one. Allow tax credits for donations paid to non profit organizations and organized churches. The same tax code would be applicable to businesses. Tax is deducted from pay roll and it's that simple. An annual reconciliation to verify annual income is completed and the tax bill is settled. Jackson Hewitt finds another line of work, as do most of the IRS auditors. We need to define ordinary income that is taxed at the new rates. Ordinary income is any money received by the tax payer regardless of the source, capital gains, inheritance, etc. Tax time should not be this difficult. It is necessary, but it should be simple and fair. Don't you agree?

Pesky Mexicans

For those who don't know, I am American born and bred, of Mexican-American descent. I grew up on the US/Mexico border and have watched the immigration debate with great interest. I submit to you that we will not have immigration reform until we answer the question..."what do we do with those pesky 12 million immigrants in this country illegally." Yes, the preponderance of them are Mexican. We can't simply ship them all home. Hell, we can't even find them, much less send them home. A large bus can handle up to 40 passengers, it would take 300,000 buses, are there that many road-worthy buses in the country? I certainly don't want to keep the criminal element in this country. Child molesters need to go, so too murderers and rapists and thieves. Did you know that American employers travel abroad to recruit foreign nationals to come here for good jobs. The Dallas Independent School District goes to Monterrey Mexico to recruit bi-lingual teachers, and a school district in my home town got in trouble for offering bribes in exchange for recruiting teachers in the Philippines. Its not really about immigrants taking jobs cause we have legal mechanisms in place to give away good jobs. Its about filling vacant jobs for which there are no American applicants. The point is that there are SOME immigrants who are here illegally that we might want to keep for "convenience." Some absolutely must go back, some we might want to keep, kind of like fishing. There is much ado about amnesty, but the definition of amnesty is to forgive transgressions. I have not seen one legislative proposal that offers amnesty. Some proposals, like the McCain/Kennedy bill requires fines and penalties. That is not amnesty. Please don't call it amnesty cause that just demonstrates an inability to communicate properly. I don't support a blanket "amnesty" for all undocumented immigrants, but I don't support mass deportation either. Humans, throughout history, have followed food sources for their very survival. I believe that humans have a right to migrate with the food source, both animal and vegetable. However, that does not translate into an obligation for sovereign nations to accept migrant populations. The dilemma is trying to decide which ones are keepers and which ones to throw back. Sometimes the keepers serve more altruistic ideals, like family unity. Sometimes not. But until we resolve this dilemma, it will persist and we will not have comprehensive immigration reform.

We love our addictions

Addictive behavior is any behavior that becomes a major focus of one's life, usually with an adverse outcome. Common addictions include drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex, and gambling. One can become addicted to hobbies such as exercise, or to eating. All of them can be destructive, but the ones with the greatest tragic tolls on our society are drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex and gambling because they destroy lives. In my community there is a lot of discussion on the merits of legalizing drugs. Certainly this subject draws public interest. More recently the discussion focuses on the war in raging Mexico between law enforcement, the Mexican military, and feuding drug gangs. Even one of our city councilmen called for a public debate on the issue. While he at no time advocated for the legalization of drugs, he was labeled nonetheless with references to Cheech and Chong. Simultaneously, our state legislators are in Austin, TX fighting for the legalization of gambling on Indian tribal lands because gaming brings in tax revenue. You see, we had an illegal casino in town that was closed down by the state attorney general, and most folks want it opened again, legally. Two addictive behaviors, gambling and drugs abuse, are openly discussed with the intent of feeding another governmental addiction, tax revenue. We have plenty of governmentally sanctioned addictive behaviors already; pornography is protected by the constitution as free speech, tobacco used to be federally subsidized until that became politically untenable, and alcohol continues to be the sacred cow of all addictive behaviors. What is it about Americans that we rush to promote destructive behavior? We have a casino nearby in a race track across the state line in New Mexico. My wife likes the slot machines so I, not so reluctantly, accompany her on occasion. I see a disproportionate number of disabled and elderly patrons sitting at the slot machines and I see people that, well, look poor. One day, while at the casino's conference room for a meeting of the local chamber of commerce (yeah, really, no kidding) I ran into an unemployed high school chum who was entering the casino to see if he could win some money to pay the bills. If ever there was someone who should not go into a casino it was he. Local politicians say that the casino in my town used to generate $60 million a year, I say that it sucked in $60 million from some of the folks who could afford it the least. Now we want to legalize drugs to help put an end to the drug war, a war that America has been waging since my high school days in the 70s, remember That Seventies Show? The rationale is that we can't win the war on drugs, that it costs too much to fight the war on drugs, that it costs too much to treat drug users, it costs too much to punish drug users; therefore we may as well just legalize it, and tax it. Sounds just like the rationale for the 21st Amendment, eh? Well my friends, I am a social worker and I have seen the effects of drug and alchohol abuse. I have seen abused women and children. I have seen crack babies and children with alcohol fetal syndrome. I have seen young men and women permanently crippled by drunk drivers. And of course, I have seen the multiple news stories about drunk drivers killing innocent people. In recent years we had two separate couples of drunk pedestrians killed by drunk drivers at an intersection close to the university and the collection of bars that everyone wants to see developed into an entertainment district. City folks talked about traffic engineering to prevent such accidents. One young lady was leading a petition to build a skywalk over the busy street, that is until she wrapped herself around telephone pole, drunk. Certainly, prohibition caused its share of crime, but it is no worse than the violence we see today. It gets better. In my town, beer is sold at most corner convenience stores, where drunk drivers can buy gasoline. Is that not the most absurd thing you ever heard, buying beer and gasoling at the same cash register. Beer is on sale into the late hours. Who buys beer at midnight? Drunks, thats who, and they don't need more beer. Inevitably, they kill someone on the way home. Here's another cute one, beer runs. You see, some of these drunks don't have money, cause they're stupid, so they steal the beer. We, are so stupid that we sell beer at the gasoline store and we are so stupid that we keep selling beer into the late hours of the night to encourage beer runs. We hear all the lip service about the sexual exploitation of women, but women want the right to choose to be sluts. They want the right engage in the oldest profession in the world. We guys deemed it protected speech so that we wouldn't have to give up their delights. We all know that it's bad. But we defend it, knowing that full well that loose sexual mores tear families apart. You defended Slick Willy, remember him, when he was doing the intern in the oval office. Come on dads and moms, do you really think that this young intern was not smitten by his power, so much so that resistance was futile. Sex is addictive. And when old men prey on little girls, it is deplorable, even moreso if it is the President of the United States. But nooooo, you have to defend pornography and adult entertainment. What about tobacco? Can you name one redeeming value of cigarettes? Yet, until 12 years ago, or so, tobacco companies received some of the largest federal subsidies in history. And the industry received the complicit conspiratorial support of the government. Today, we know that cigarettes are an addictive drug, yet we refuse to let the Food and Drug Administration regulate the industry and the product. Yes, we are a curious bunch in this country. Let me go on the record and say that these addictive behaviors should be banned. I want the government to protect me from myself. Don't let me buy beer at the corner. Don't let me throw my money down the slot machine drain. Public education campaigns are nice, so are toll free help lines, but they are a lame response to serious social ills. In the 70s, car makers started installing seat belts, but we didn't use them until it became the law in 1986. Today, seat belts save lives. Public education campaigns didn't make you use seat belts, the threat of traffic ticket and higher insurance premiums made you use seat belts. It the same with addictive behaviors. People will not spend so much money on alcohol, tobacco, pussy, drugs or slot machines. They will have more money to spend on college tuition to make a smarter generation. What say you?