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Tag Archives: Recession

Housing Prices Edge Closer to Catastrophe

04 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Business, Crisis Management, Customer Service, Economy, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, History, Housing, Real Estate, Taxes, The Tipping Point, United States

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2007-09 Recession, California, Colorado, Disaster, economy, home prices, Homes, housing, investment owner, Massachusetts, median home price, Nevada, owner-occupied, real estate, Recession, recession of 2018, United States

For the last twenty years, the United States has been building a tower of paper wealth. Over time the paper value of homes on the market has far outpaced inflation and wage growth. The current realty market has little connection to reality and we are on the brink of a housing catastrophe.

Price With No Reality Check

The real estate market is inherently flawed. Some claim that it is a perfect example of supply and demand, but that is not accurate. Real estate is the perfect example of a capitalistic market where common sense and ethics are overlooked because greed has blinded the people involved.

Prices exceed the bubble of 2007

Home Prices Heading Toward a Cliff

Housing prices are not governed by a person’s (or family’s) ability to pay. They are governed by a real estate professional who has a financial interest in driving the price up, and an owner that wants as much money as possible. The buyer taking all the risk and if the housing prices don’t continue upward, they lose.

So why would anyone buy a house when prices are already too high?

The ‘Investment’ Loophole

Historically, the one house, one owner or owner-occupied concept kept a check on housing prices. If the buyer couldn’t pay the mortgage, he or she would lose their home. That was a big risk. Today’s investment buyer risks little if anything if they can’t pay a second home mortgage. She or he may lose the home if the investment fails but is a loss of potential future revenue and not a personal crisis.

Investment housing creates artificial shortages because one owner can own multiple homes, removing those from the overall inventory. The lower the supply, the higher the price. In 2016, the number of owner-occupied homes in the United States was 63.6%. California’s owner-occupied rate is 55.3% and at $524,000, its median home price is over double compared to $206,300 for the United States.

Median home price in four cities compared to U.S. average

Another 2007?

The current median price for a home in the United States is higher than it was during the housing bubble in 2007. Any shock to the economy would erase the paper home value and flood the market with another round of investment homes being dumped on the market.

It is a crisis that is easy to anticipate, but no one does. When the next recession hits the United States will once again suffer through a massive drop in housing prices as multi-house owners dump their investment homes and walk away.

[COUNT TO 500: 493rd Article in PAULx]

Illogical: Commercial Real Estate Price Boom in an Internet Economy

26 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in About Reno, Business, Management Practices

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

commercial property prices, commercial real estate, Free Internet, Internet retail, malls, real estate, realty, Recession, retail, retail store closings

Commercial property pricing is meeting reality

Something is wrong in the commercial real estate market. The price per square foot has exploded since the Great Recession of 2007-8. After hitting bottom in May 2009, commercial real estate prices recovered its pre-Recession level in 2013; however, the boom in prices continued upward, reaching a peak of over 125% of pre-Recession prices in 2016.

The odd thing is that the browse-and-click Internet retail market has pushed retail store closings to historic highs, especially big box retail space. What is taking the place of the vacated retail space?

Retail store closings are at historic highs

Nothing.

These large retail spaces are sitting empty, sometimes for years, while commercial real estate prices keep going up. That’s not logical.

Reality is catching up with realty. Green Street Commercial Property Price Index (CPPI) report indicates that commercial property prices have leveled off in 2017. Of all the sectors, mall space has seen the sharpest decline in 2017, down by 11%. This may be the first hint of a commercial real estate bust cycle, that could signal the start of the next recession.

Green Street CPPI by sector

 

GOP War on the Spirit of Christmas

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in Aging, Business, Education, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, Green, Health, Higher Education, History, Honor, Management Practices, Politics, racism, Religion, Respect, Taxes, Universities, US History, Women

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115th Congress, Christmas, Congress, corporate tax cut, corporations, Donald Trump, gloating, GOP, government rape, hate, racists, Recession, recession of 2018, Republicans, tax cut for wealthy, tax giveaway

GOP celebrates destroying Christmas 2017

The Republican party has gone to war with Christmas. It’s not just that they disrespected people’s desire to enjoy Christmas by ramming through a disgraceful and unpopular bill during the holiday season. That would have been bad enough, but what they did is craft changes to our tax code that violate almost every Christian belief at a time when a majority Christian nation sought to celebrate one of their most significant holidays.

I believe they did this just before Christmas for three reasons.

Distraction
First, the Republicans in Congress hoped to use the holidays as cover for their anti-Christian deed. They hoped that people would be so wrapped up in the excitement of Christmas that they would be distracted from a sacrifice of citizens and government to  appease the GOP corporate gods.

Before We Knew What Hit Us
Second, the Republicans hoped that by acting quickly, people couldn’t find out all the details of the legislation before an effective campaign could be mounted against it.

A 2018 ‘Nice Guys’ Makeover
Finally, Republicans needed to allow time to do a personality makeover before the 2018 elections. By passing this bill in 2017, they can begin to pass minor, but popular legislation to make them not look like stooges of corporations and the wealthy.

Now we are left with a dark cloud hanging over the holidays. The wealthy will be allowed to steal more money from the government. Corporations will be able to use all the resources the government provides (roads, infrastructure, law enforcement, etc.) and pay little or no taxes for that service. Money and exemptions that were meant for the poor and middle class have been stripped away in order to give the wealthy lower taxes and more money.

Republicans won the war on Christmas. With laughter they destroyed the foundation of our country. The new year will dawn with Trump and Putin still laughing at us. They won. The United States of America lost.

The 2018 Recession

06 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by Paul Kiser in Aging, Ethics, Generational, Government, Government Regulation, History, Politics, racism, Taxes, US History

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2018, cutting taxes, Donald Trump, economy, government revenue, government spending, military spending, President, Recession, recession of 2018, United States

Some people seem to believe that recessions are unpredictable. After all, if we could predict them, why would we let them happen? But recessions are predictable. They follow economic policies that are near-sighted. Policies that use deception to sell them to the citizens. Recessions happen because you can fool some of the people all of the time.

Recession:  The Shadow That Follows Republican Leadership

Republicans, back on top, recession to follow

Republicans, back on top, recession to follow

Republicans and recessions are inseparable. This was true in the 1980’s after Ronald Reagan made massive tax cuts for the wealthiest, while gutting domestic programs. President George Bush (41st) averted a recession when Democrats in Congress forced him to restore government revenues and increase government spending. The 2001 recession came after Republicans forced Bill Clinton to accept tax cuts and dismantle domestic programs after they took control of Congress. George Bush (43rd) used tax and domestic program cuts, along with massive military spending, and stripped down oversight of banking, to lead us into the Great Recession.

The pattern is simple. Republicans cut taxes, primarily for the extremely rich, and cut spending on domestic programs, taking away jobs and money from the economy. Minor tax relief is short-lived and is countered by an economy that is collapsing.

In addition to gutting the country’s economic foundation, Republicans favorite vice is to pour money into the military, which creates spending in small geographic areas, but it doesn’t support the broader sections of the peaceful economy. This type of spending for destruction fails to build lasting infrastructure that promotes the future economy, and creates a flow of government revenue for expenses outside of the United States to finance bases, logistics, and support troops. This money leaves our economy and doesn’t flow back into it.

donald-trump

The face of the economic failure

Trump’s Plan To Destroy the Economy
Government spending is the fuel of the U.S. economy. Specifically, government domestic spending. Military spending is usually burdened with unethical practices of the private military industry that tend to overcharge and under perform.

Donald Trump’s plan is to combine the economic errors of past Republican fiascoes and leave a middle class with low paying service jobs. Spending in the military is only effective if the United States is at war, so it is likely that Trump’s aggressive war of words with the rest of the world is designed to generate violent acts that can be manipulated into an air and ground war.

The result of Trump’s revival of failed Republican economic policies will bring on a recession in 2018, that may last for years.

Government Domestic Spending:  Real Jobs, Good Jobs
Growth in our economy has one common denominator:  Government domestic spending. Money spent by the government pays for both public and private sector jobs. Spending on programs that create new infrastructure and new technologies have the lasting effect on our economy. Spending on dams and hydroelectric programs, highways, and the space program all infused money and technological advances that moved our country into the economic leadership role that it has held for over a century.

When government fails to invest in internal programs it empties the pipeline of money that flows through the economy and that prevents money flowing back to the government, choking off the recharge of tax revenue that keeps the economy going.

Who’s Not Paying?
We are in a wealth crisis. As of 2012, the wealthiest ten percent (10%) of the United States own just under eighty percent (80%) of the wealth. The distribution of wealth in other affluent countries in 2012, showed that the top ten percent (10%) owned fifty to sixty percent (50-60%) of their country’s wealth.

Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have successfully sacrificed the U.S. economy to make the wealthy, wealthier. Trump plans to put those efforts on steroids as he leads us to a recession that may resemble the Great Recession.

Can It Be Avoided?
No. The election of Donald Trump proved that there is no popular will to identify the problems caused by Republican economic self-pleasuring, and change course to put our country back toward a healthy economy. The best we can do is brace for impact and hope that our least educated citizens will finally see the consistent failure of Republican leadership. 

2012: The Year That Didn’t

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Paul Kiser in Crisis Management, Government, History, Opinion, Politics, Pride, Space

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Tags

2012, Affordable Care Act, Apocalypse, Climate change, Curiosity, December 21, Doomsday, Facebook, gay marriage, Global warming, Greece, London, Mars, Mars Rover, Mars Science Lab, Mitt Romney, Recession, Summer Olympic Games

Game over, man, game over...oh, wait, uhm, false alarm.

Game over, man, game over…oh, wait, false alarm.

A lot of things were supposed to happen in 2012, but they didn’t. Here are a selected few of the ‘didn’ts from this past year:

  • The Apocalypse didn’t happen on December 21, or any other day this year, nor the cataclysmic asteroid, the massive solar flares from the Sun, nor the shift of the magnetic poles. All part of the end of the world scenarios planned for this year that didn’t materialize.
  • 2012 will also be known for what Congress didn’t accomplish. It was labeled the ‘Do Nothing’ Congress for the obstructionist attitude of conservatives who sought to keep President Obama and Democrats from governing the country. 
  • Facebook was going to be the stock to own and once on the market the sky would be the limit on its per share price. Somebody forgot to tell the grumpy old white investors that the thing they love to hate was supposed to go big.

    The face that didn't.

    The face that didn’t.

  • President Barack Obama was supposed to be humiliated in a landslide loss to Mitt Romney. He wasn’t humiliated and he didn’t lose.
  • Romney also predicted that London’s security wasn’t ready for the Summer Olympic Games. They were and Romney publicly embarrassed himself and the United States.
  • Greece was supposed to have a major economic disaster and bring down the rest of Europe. It didn’t, but many still have high hopes it will collapse in 2013.
  • The Arab Spring of 2011 was supposed to lead to more democratic countries without dictators. Somebody forgot to tell Egypt.
  • Outlawing gay marriage was supposed to be part of many States final solution in destroying gays and lesbians. It turns out America isn’t that hateful, nor that stupid.
  • The Supreme Court was going to rule the Affordable Care Act as unconstitutional. They didn’t.
  • Climate change skeptics were financing studies to prove that Global Warming is a hoax. They didn’t and it isn’t.
  • The landing of the NASA/JPL’s mission to Mars was going to be too complex to succeed and result in a spectacular U.S. failure. The MSL (Mars Science Lab) rover team delivered on all their promises and Curiosity is going places no other country can hope to match for years.
  • Massive protests by the Occupy movement were going to lead to riots and a general societal breakdown. It didn’t happen, but the Occupy movement was heard at the ballot box in November.
  • America’s economy and unemployment were going to reverse and fall back into a recession in 2012. Our economy and unemployment continue to defy the skeptics.

Gloom and doom was the expectation by many during this past year. As bad as 2012 was supposed to be, let’s hope that 2013 will restore a more positive attitude in our nation….right after we fall off the fiscal cliff.

Romney’s Concession Speech

20 Thursday Sep 2012

Posted by Paul Kiser in Crime, Education, Ethics, Government, Government Regulation, Health, History, Opinion, Politics, Public Relations, Religion, Taxes, US History, Women

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ann Romney, concession, Democrats, economy, GOP, job creators, Recession, recovery, Republicans, speech, Unemployment, Willard Mitt Romney

November 6, 2012  4:34 PM EDT

I know the polls have not closed in…well, anywhere, but the results of this election are obvious, even to a multi-millionaire like myself. We’ve lost…again.

Many complained that we lied and deceived the voters in an attempt to be elected. What were we supposed to do? Our choice was to acknowledge that President Obama did a great job in tackling the mess we created and began rebuilding the country, OR lie. We were not going to win any elections by telling the truth!

This campaign was built on the idea that we could fool people long enough to be elected President. As I said in May, 47% of Americans are too smart to be tricked by our twisting of facts, and we knew that 30% of Americans would vote for me no matter how bad we ran our campaign. So this campaign came down to sucking in less than 23% of the electorate. Unfortunately for us most of the citizens of this country are not as stupid as we had hoped. 

But you have to credit us for our bravado in our attempt to buy and lie our way into the White House:

GOP Success: Stopping America’s Recovery

  • The Economy:  Our fault, but that didn’t stop us from blaming President Obama. We almost convinced America that President Obama failed because he didn’t create full employment, didn’t pave streets in gold, nor had honey flow out of our taps in four years. 
  • Unemployment:  This one is funny, You’ll laugh. We told people that the wealthy are …ready for this..THE job creators! I know, I know. How stupid do you have to be to know that private business loves high employment. Low unemployment means employees can demand better pay, better benefits, better working schedules and all those other headaches that come when too many people have a good job. Employers now have employees by the short hairs and we’re never letting go.
  • The Recovery:  It was remarkable under the circumstances, and conservatives fought hard to keep it from happening. There are no liberals in Big Oil and they worked with us to keep prices high this year. Still, no joy.
  • The Debt:  The truth is that the Bush-era tax cuts cut knees out of the federal budget. That and two mega-wars, plus the devastation caused when my conservative banking friends wrecked the economy. Sure the stimulus and bailouts increased the nation’s debt, but none of that would have been necessary if conservative policies hadn’t put all the ingredients together for an economic disaster.
  • Big Government:  We made it sound like President Obama made massive increases in government, and yet it was George Bush that created the TSA, and other massive increases in the size of federal government. Still, we just have to say ‘big government’ to stupid people and they start to sweat. It’s kind of fun.
  • Obamacare:  We were blessed to have a major Democratic lead program that wouldn’t be effective until 2014. We could paint it to be anything we wanted and we wanted it to be evil. Who could argue with me?
  • Foreign Policy:  Conservatives are warmongers. We love a good fight. We love a bad fight. We love it anytime we can send our young adults and technology to overseas to beat somebody up. I thought we had President Obama beat on foreign policy, but I sort of screwed it up in London…and Israel….and Poland. If you don’t like my foreign policy you can kiss my ass!

We also did a good job of ignoring what we didn’t want to talk about.

  • The Past:   We had a Republican National Convention and we didn’t even invite either of the Bush’s. We didn’t need to highlight the past and good riddance to both of them.
  • Taxes:   We didn’t want to talk about my taxes. As Ann said, if we let people see our taxes, “they will attack us!” Sure a President should have a thick skin, but who needs that when we can deny and  hide? Richard Nixon taught me that.
  • Family History:  I don’t want to discuss this, even now.
  • My First Name:  Seriously, who would vote for someone named Willard?
  • Women:  We probably should have been more sensitive to women’s issues, but really, who cares? Right Ann?
  • Education:  Smart people don’t vote for idiots. Why did you think we didn’t want to talk about education?
  • Crime:  We conservatives have always pushed a ‘lock’em up and throw away the key’ policy on crime. The problem is that it cost $30,000/year to house one inmate, and after they reach 55 years old, inmate costs go up to $60,000/year because of increasing medical issues. More inmates, higher costs. Who knew?

I know my mouth got this campaign into a lot of trouble, but honestly how can you only blame me for failed policies that are the very definition of being a conservative. Like everything else, it was the fault of the Democrats that I didn’t get elected as President.

Well, I guess I should end this before I say something stupid. I hope all of you feel better now that you won’t have Ann and I to kick around anymore. 

The Quality of Mercy: Tea Party looking for a pound of flesh

29 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by Paul Kiser in Ethics, Government, Government Regulation, History, Passionate People, Politics, Pride, Respect, Rotary, Taxes, US History

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2007-09 Recession, Blogging, Blogs, Democrats, Ethics, GOP, Illegal Immigrants, Political Parties, Recession, Republicans, Sharron Angle, Tea Party

by Paul Kiser
USA PDT  [Twitter: ] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Skype:kiserrotary or 775.624.5679]

Paul Kiser

Article first published as The Quality of Mercy on Technorati.

William Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, tells the tale of Antonio, a wealthy merchant who can’t lend money to a friend in need because his money is leveraged until his ships return to Venice. To help his friend, and having no other options, he goes to a moneylender named Shylock who despises Antonio, but surprisingly he agrees to lend the money without interest. The only condition is that if the money is not paid back in full by a certain date, Shylock will be allowed to take a pound of Antonio’s flesh.

In Act V, Antonio’s ships have apparently been lost as sea and he is arrested and brought before the Duke of Venice and Shylock. The moneylender is adamant that the contract is valid and he should be allowed to collect on his debt by taking the pound of flesh ‘nearest Antonio’s heart’. The root of the issue is not about the loan contract, it is about the long-standing conflict between Antonio and Shylock.

The Tea Party is playing the role of Shylock in American politics. Feigning some fictitious abuse in order to convince others that something horrible has happened to them, when in fact the Tea Party doth protest too much. Next Tuesday they seek their pound of flesh from the rest of our country and unfortunately they will likely get it. Sadly, the village idiots have told their lies enough that many people are starting to believe them.

It strikes me that our political uproar caused by the alleged ‘anger’ of the Tea Party and other extreme conservatives has nothing to do with the state of the economy, healthcare reform, higher taxes, immigration, nor government regulation. Like Shylock, it is the desire to destroy that drives the Tea Party, not rational thought. No rational person would accept:

  • That our economy is worse today because of a Democratic majority.
    • We were on the brink of complete economic disaster 18 months ago. Through brilliant use of tax money and government intervention disaster was averted. Ironically, we are making interest from some of the money invested.
  • That the 2007-09 Recession was caused by government regulation.
    • The 2007-09 Recession was caused by unethical business men and their practices, NOT because of a lack of government regulation.
  • That healthcare reform is bankrupting businesses.
    • Most of the reforms passed will not even take effect until 2014 and no one can offer a rational argument to support the doomsday prediction.
  • That the Democratic majority has increased taxes.
    • Wow. Taxes have been lower for 95% of Americans in 2009 and will be again in 2010, if the Republicans stopped holding the rest of us hostage unless the richest Americans are allowed to only pay tax equal to the poorest Americans.
  • That illegal immigrants are destroying our country.
    • Where’s the proof? I have heard the same ‘incidents’ used over and over. Undocumented workers lead a quiet, low profile life in this country… they have to. Yes, there are a few incidents that involve undocumented workers, but when a 21-year old, white, male attacks a woman in Denver because he ‘thinks’ she’s a Lesbian it is obvious we have bigger problems with stupid white men.

      Angle: Manning up in stupid

I don’t mind a good debate and reasoned argument, but there is nothing I have heard out to the Tea Party rhetoric that is based in reality. US Senate candidate Sharron Angle runs from the media. She and her supporters make baseless and absurd accusations of voter fraud, puts out flyers saying her opponent voted for death panels, and send out fake emails saying that her opponent’s great Uncle was hanged as a horse thief. It’s as if Richard Nixon’s ghost has returned.

At the end of Shakespeare’s play a character makes a plea to save Antonio with a speech known as the ‘Quality of Mercy‘ speech. Shylock is unmoved, but in the end Antonio is saved and the moneylender’s plan is thwarted by rational people. For us, not so much.

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What I’m Not Buying This Year

13 Wednesday Oct 2010

Posted by Paul Kiser in Branding, Business, Communication, Ethics, Government, Government Regulation, History, Honor, Internet, Lessons of Life, Management Practices, Passionate People, Politics, Pride, Public Relations, Random, Re-Imagine!, Relationships, Respect, Rotary, Taxes, The Tipping Point, US History

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Blogging, Blogs, Christine O'Donnell, Conservatives, Crime, Depression, Ethics, Executive Management, Good Government, Hispanic, Illegal Aliens, Illegal Immigrants, LoCOS, Management Practices, Mexican Nationals, Mexico, Nevada, New Business World, Political Parties, Politics, Public Image, Public Relations, Publicity, Re-Imagine!, Recession, Republicans, Rotary, Sharron Angle, Tea Party, Unemployment, Unethical Business Practices

by Paul Kiser
USA PDT  [Twitter: ] [Facebook] [LinkedIn] [Skype:kiserrotary or 775.624.5679]

Paul Kiser

Tis the season and there are a lot of political candidates out there selling their version of what is wrong with this country/state/county/city and how they are going to fix what ails us. This year is different from most because it seems that a lynch mob has taken over a prominent role in politics and like most lynch mobs they don’t need facts, they just need someone to be angry at and someone to blame.

It would be easy to label the people behind this political lynch mob as ‘stupid’, but that is probably overly harsh. These people are driven by emotions, not a lack of intelligence, so stupid is not the correct term. I prefer to describe the lynch mob as people who have a Lack Of Critical Observation Skills (LoCOS for short.)  This year the LoCOS are trying to sell a lot of garbage and I’m not buying it. For example:

Nevada: The best at doing it wrong

LoCOS:  Lower taxes will improve the economy
To the LoCOS who are selling the load I have one word. Nevada. Nevada has no Income tax. Nevada has no Capital Gains tax. Nevada has no Corporate tax. Nevada has no Inventory tax. Even conservative business groups rate Nevada as one of the most ‘business-friendly’ states. Nevada is to business what the Bunny Ranch was to male ego.

According the LoCOS argument, Nevada should be awash in new business. Nevada’s economy should be booming. Nevada should be the poster child of the low tax concept.

The fact is that the State exposes the Lo Tax/Mo Biz as a myth. Nevada is Number ONE in unemployment (2nd place Florida is over a full point better than the Silver State.) Nevada is Number ONE in crime. Nevada is Number ONE in housing foreclosures. Nevada is consistently among the lowest in unbiased education rankings. Nevada is proof that lower taxes does not make for a better economy.

(Article: Nevada’s State of Disaster)

LoCOS: Business is better at running our government
Let’s remember that it wasn’t government that put us in a recession but business…BAD business. Government was an enabler, in that it stopped regulating and monitoring the unbridled greed of the incestuous investor-run business world, but at the end of the day it was business people who made all the decisions. The corporate executives chose to ignore the obvious result that would happen from their greed and dove head on into unethical practices that doomed our economy.

Greed is inherent in business. Greed is why business exists. There is no ‘care for fellow citizen’ in the business world. Business is based on competition, winners and losers, and often the losers are not the weakest, but rather loser’s are the one’s with morals. Business only keeps to a moral compass when there is an unbiased arbiter oversees its activities. That is the role of government.

This year we are seeing the perversion of investor-run business with clearer eyes. The Chamber of Commerce has abandoned their mission of promoting good business in the community in favor of attacking local governments and promoting only those candidates that will remove the protections for honest business and our citizens. It is ironic that anyone would suggest that business, with its greed-driven motives and proven track record of unethical practices, should replace good government.

Don’t get me wrong, a strong economy needs good, healthy businesses, but good, healthy businesses need a strong government to create and monitor the rules for which guide and protect all. The leap of logic of the LoCOS, that our government should be run as a business, is as absurd as saying that FIFA needs fewer referees on the soccer field.

LoCOS: The trillion-dollar debt is bad
The LoCOS must have Alzheimer’s.

I’m not in favor of a large deficit, especially when it involves sending US dollars to finance the destruction of another country …. but I’m really not in favor of is a Depression. That is what we faced in early 2009. Business had raped our economy through outrageous, unregulated practices and we were on the brink of an abyss that had no bottom. Again, business, not government caused our economy to fail. Initially, our country let big banks suffer the consequences of what they had done, but it quickly became apparent that what was about to happen was the massive collapse of the entire economic system, which would have forced the United States government to take over the day-to-day operations of almost all of our major financial institutions.

Cheney's Folly: The start of our debt problems

The alternative to a nuclear meltdown of our economy was to lend money to those institutions, help initiate controlled purchases of ailing banks, and invest government money in key assistance programs. Was it a bailout? Yes, but it was investing, not buying, which meant we would get the money back in almost every case.

The government also invested money in the mismanaged auto industry that, if not preserved, would have sent us into Depression-era unemployment overnight. Yes, it increased our nation’s debt. A debt that had gone from surplus in President Clinton’s years, to a deficit under George Bush. It would have been better if we had not spent so much money on Cheney’s overseas folly and already been in the hole when the house of cards of bad business fell, but there was no choice. The decisions made in late 2008 and early 2009 were necessary and save our country from disaster.

Have we recovered? No. But the LoCOS rage over a big deficit is being driven and financed by the major corporations that would prefer the citizen forget what really happened. I wish business hadn’t forced us to use trillions of taxpayer’s dollar to remedy their greed, but we had no choice.

LoCOS: Government is bad
Government is really, really good providing it is run by reasonable people who truly care for the citizens … all the citizens. There is one difference between civilization and anarchy and that is government. Every time I hear the LoCOS point out an example of bad government I can think of a hundred ways that government has made our country great. I mentioned to a person that the airlines need to be regulated again and they pointed out how, under government regulation, an airline was forced to maintain a route to a small city that was not profitable. Yes, that is tough, but what about the scores of lucrative routes that government regulation handed that same airline on a silver platter? I’m really weary of the single exceptions to how great government has been in making this the strongest country in the history of the world. Single exceptions do not make an argument for destroying our country.

Government is the foundation of our society and the only people who don’t benefit from a strong government are the greedy and unethical. When we were in school we would have rather had no teachers telling us what to do, but that wouldn’t have made our education better. It’s time we stopped making the argument of a 5th grader…and time we started respecting what a blessing it is to have a government that keeps our society from devolving into anarchy.

The Face of the LoCO People

LoCOS: Electing stupid people is smart
This one mystifies me. A candidate from any other party would be laughed out of politics for saying or doing something stupid and yet candidates for the LoCOS wear their stupidity like a new hat.
LoCOS candidates are avoiding the media, saying one thing, then changing their story. They scream about illegal aliens and how they are destroying our country, then it’s revealed they were employing them. They dress in Nazi uniforms. They steal other people’s work and claim it as their own. They take campaign money and pay their personal bills with it. They have to explain to people why they are not a witch. They threaten violence on people, yell about almost anything, deceive, and often outright lie…and the LoCOS cheer on.

I know that the quality of candidates of the LoCOS is a reflection of the lack of respect they have for our country and government, but isn’t prima facie evidence that the LoCOS can’t really be trying to improve our country when they are represented by the worst of the worst?

LoCO S: Illegal aliens (=Hispanics) are destroying this country
First, let’s remember that a major portion of the United States (California, Nevada, Utah, southwestern Wyoming, western Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas belonged to Mexico until the mid-1800’s. We took the land from them at gunpoint and paid fifty cents on the dollar for the land. I could make a strong argument that Mexican nationals are not really the illegal aliens in Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, and Tejas, but I will let that dog rest.

(Article: America’s Hostile Takeover of Mexico)

Regardless of the history of Mexico and the United States, the fact is that a typical tactic of a lynch mob is to find a symbol (person or group) that has little or no opportunity to defend themselves and present them as evil. This is a tactic used by the KKK, the Nazis, and every ultra-right wing, nationalistic, racist group. It doesn’t matter of whether the targeted group is guilty of anything, just that they, or no one else, is able or willing to stand up and challenge the accusations. Mexican immigrants are the perfect target for a group like the LoCOS.

The facts are that:

  • Most Mexican undocumented immigrants lead quiet, peaceful, law-abiding lives in the United States (a fact that the LoCOS lie about)
  • Mexican undocumented immigrants are working jobs that no American citizen wants to do
  • That the United States is the primary enabler of the drug wars in Mexico (we buy the product and sell them the arms)
  • Mexican undocumented immigrants can’t file for Income Tax refunds (which most would get if they were citizens) so the United States collects and keeps all the money deducted from their pay.

But according to the LoCOS, they are pure evil and responsible for our all our economic and societal ills. In Arizona, a sheriff’s deputy called that he was under attack by Mexican drug smugglers and was shot. He became the hero of the LoCOS.

Deputy Puroll's wound

Despite a massive effort, no drug smugglers were found. Now it turns out that the wound was from a bullet fired at close range (not from 25 yards as he claimed) and likely self-inflicted. Almost no one questioned the story of the deputy at the time, despite the inconsistencies in his account. Why should they, blame it on the Mexicans. Naturally, the story has to be true!

To me, the whole issue of ‘illegal aliens’ is a tornado in search of a trailer park. The damning terminology, the use of single examples, and falsified facts all indicate that the LoCOS need to create a threat and it the Muslims are too far away to pick on so the target is Mexican nationals.

The New Testament of the Bible has clear instructions on how a Christian is behave. Jesus said to love thy neighbor as thyself. The Apostle Paul says, “…as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another..” (1 Thessalonians 4:9). The LoCOS often boast of their devotion to Christ and then desecrate his teachings by their un-Christian attitude towards those of Hispanic descent.

I’m not buying it.

LoCOS: Threatening our government and the electorate with armed rebellion
Several members of the LoCOS, including LoCOS candidates have indicated that ‘some people’ may be mad enough at our government to invoke ‘their Second Amendment Rights’. I don’t care how you say it, to suggest that some people are going to take up arms against their fellow citizens (if the LoCOS don’t get their way) is wrong. In this country we vote, and we don’t take up arms to enforce the LoCOS will on the majority. Anyone who suggests this is a threat to our Constitution and to this country. Mad or not, there is a line that cannot be crossed over.

I know that everything I said here will not make any difference to the LoCOS. In fact, they will be outraged that I spoke out against their unbridled illogical arguments. You can’t reason with a lynch mob. But sometime in the future we will all look back on this and say, “What were the LoCOS thinking?” The problem is that they are not.

More Articles

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Rotary Related

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Science Related

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Other Pages of This Blog

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Paul’s Recent Blogs

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Paul Kiser’s Tweets

  • Trump: "We will be back in some form..." Who does he think he is? Voldemort? https://t.co/hU7QS14gM3 8 hours ago
  • T-Minus 12 days, 9 hours, and 20 minutes to the 50th Anniversary of the launch of Apollo 14, our return to flight a… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 day ago
  • Did anyone else note that Mike Pence basically said he was not Presidential material? He's refusing to invoke the 2… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
  • @brianduggan I'm getting the feeling that we white people think that we can prove our white superiority by taking S… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 week ago
  • @AmyShiraTeitel A suggestion on your look at USSR space program: Was Yuri killed by the Kremlin? I took a stab at… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 3 weeks ago

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