My Existence

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/23/lawsuit.acorn/index.html

Seriously people?  Does anyone agree with ACORN’s stance  here? It is doing nothing but help further promote the idea that it is OK to hide behind laws while doing something wrong, that their “reputation” is more important than the truth, that people are no longer allowed to have a voice and that you can try and get away with anything in a lawsuit!!

Regardless of how the information is collected, the only thing that should be important here is what two of ACORN employee’s were caught doing.  Now, take a step back here…I do not feel ACORN should be held 100% responsible for what went on as long as they took the appropriate steps after this went down and then put into place preventative measures to reduce the risk of this happening again.  However, nor should they be able to do what they are trying to do and hide behind the laws.

I am so sick of the entrapment BS.  If an officer of the law is hiding behind a big rock and catches a civilian speeding, does it mean they were not speeding?  HELL NO!  Why should anyone have any leg to stand on, any avenue or path to fight the charges simply because the officer was not in plain sight allowing the civilian to slow down?  That is saying “Hey it is OK if you break the law, just don’t get caught!  Have a good day!”

Take some responsibility for your actions people, if you do something wrong - Don’t point the finger elsewhere and don’t do everything in your power to get out of any punitive action taken against you.  It is a part of the growing experience, and the young kids these days really really are going to be a handful in 5-10 years.

Likewise, just because there were two bad apples, does not mean ACORN should be punished unfairly.  If they fired the offending employees and are going to do their best to ensure things like this do not happen again, they did their bit and that should be that.  Public funding shouldn’t be cut off unless ACORN was directing these people to make the decisions that were made.

Let’s show the young people in America that it is NOT right to try and cheat the law by any means necessary or to unfairly punish an entire entity for the actions of a couple members.

Common sense and responsibility!!  Maybe I will run for office and that will be my slogan.

Just a quick thought to all those who received bonuses from AIG.

Instead of returning them to the company, where the money is simply going to be spent on something else just as ridiculous…..why not do a novel thing and GIVE THE MONEY TO REAL PEOPLE WHO NEED IT?

Just a thought, you know?

I’m sick of “the public” getting mad because something silly or stupid, AKA wrong, happened - yet they don’t have an idea on what should have happened, or what the best thing to do would be.

As a receiver of a bonus from AIG, I would have publically announced my intentions and asked that the money was not held against me during taxes or in any other way.  Depending on the amount, I would have given it to someone who really needed it.

It just makes sense, don’t you think?

“I am more happy to be communicating my desires to you Mr. President, than for you to hopefully be reading them.  I know you are a very busy man, but I have one question for you, that hopefully passes across your eyes:  Where is the transparency with the credit card companies?  Your team wants to spend millions more on the DTV switch, yet you could stimulate our pockets better by having these shady companies REDUCE interest rates across the board for every American, and see immediate results.”

My Bank of America APR increased to 28.99 percent from 22.99 percent.  Yeah, just 6% you say.  Not as much as some other people, you say.  Your point?  Whether I now have to pay an additional $1, $10 or $100 dollars, it is THAT much less money in my pocket.  That much less money I have to spend as a consumer.  Obama’s Administration wants to stimulate the economy?  Try getting these credit card companies, who are increasing APRs because of THEIR BAD MANAGEMENT decisions and an increase in the number of people defaulting on their payments, to actually LOWER the APRs.  Maybe then, more people would see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Maybe more people would be willing to work through it and try to pay off the debt instead of simply filing for bankruptcy.

If my bad decisions caused me to get in so much debt I couldn’t find a way out, why does the bad decisions made by these companies not only get them government assistance, but also give them a real good excuse to make some extra money while they are at it?  Where is my handout?  Where is my free ticket for my bad decisions?  Oh wait, I don’t have the political pull that would be necessary to get a JLA BailOut package, do I?

As has been said already, the Government is making a very bad precedent for companies that fail to go running to them looking for assistance.  Now I am totally all for Socialism, but done the RIGHT way.  Star Trek or Babylon 5 style where the government is run by honest folk who run and provide everything for everyone and people are not greedy and gluttonous, but strive to excel and improve themselves everyday.  Ok, JLA Niave Hour is over now.

On one side, these companies are getting help and on the other they are taking advantage of consumers.  You want to know why credit isn’t loosening up?  Interest Rates.  These companies are all playing ball, old school style.  For the moment, it may APPEAR to be working according to their number crunchers, but in reality consumers like me and you have that much less money to put into the economy, and that much less revenue is being made by companies, who are forced to increase prices on the few consumers who still have some money because they were lucky or smart enough to avoid a lot of debt and these consumers in turn are now really making every dollar stretch as far as possible.  It is a vicious circle, but the credit card companies are simply jumping on the bandwagon because of their bad choices in the financial market.

They are taking advantage of the politics of the situation, making this “need” for them and their companies.  An artificial need, for sure.  If everyone lived in their means, as we all should be doing, what need would there be for companies like these?  The fundamental problem lies in the price inflation of certain worldly goods that are commonly accepted in today’s society as “needed.”  A house, a car, a boat, etc.  With less people building their own, because of a lack of skill or the laws that have popped up to prevent people from doing it, house prices inflated.  That created a demand for loans.  Which carried over to automobiles and of course anything else you can purchase that costs more than you make.  Loans soon turned into a credit system, where you may not want something as expensive as a house, but you want some pricey things and cannot afford them.

With no proper regulation from the beginning, these companies have a lot of people stuck.  The people who can’t pay, have now created the demand for another job - “debt consolidation.”  As if I or anyone else couldn’t consolidate our own debt if these credit card companies would actually work WITH us?  But oh no, we need to be some big bad business to be able to “consolidate” a person’s debt.  Including our own!?

I just don’t get it.  I am all for paying off my debt, thankfully I have a very small amount because I caught myself before I got sucked into the wormhole, but couldn’t these credit card companies be REASONABLE about things?  Don’t jack rates because your management made bad decisions and you are trying to recoup your losses.  You are not like a traditional business.  If you lose money in bad bets, you shouldn’t be demanding more money from people who still don’t have it.

Unless of course, you want to keep them with all their debt, that way you get more money in the longterm?  Maybe that is why you first lower people’s limits and then mention if they can get to 60% of their limit, they can get a lower APR?  A little quick math in an example, you ask?  $10,000 limit, $6,000 is 60%.  If someone previously had say, $7,500 balance and were told to reach 60%, they would have a mere $1,500 to go.  But if you first lower their limit to say $8,000 and then offer the 60% option, 60% of $8,000 is $4,800.  $7,500 - $4,800 is $2,700.  That is an additional $1,200 more that person now has to lower their balance by, instead of the $1,500.

Interesting little tactic, wouldn’t you agree?  And yes, that was an EXAMPLE.  At time have I ever held a credit card with a $10,000 limit!  As if.  Please.  Only $10, really?  Common.  I have never had anything under $50k, duh!

I am not a political person, at all.  I don’t give a thought to all the bickering, the backstabbing, the lobbying, the pandering, the silly little speeches and certainly don’t waste my time arguing over who should be in charge, or leading this or that.

This country is founded on the belief that elected officials work for the ordinary citizens. What happened to that?  We have traveled to the extremes here, and are hypocritical on top of all that!  How can we turn our backs to what the country was founded on, while clutching hold the Constitution AND rewriting it to fit our needs?  For too long, America has been trying to have the cake and eat it too.

Today, I hope marks the change of that negative and defeating way of thinking.  We need to stop trying to CHANGE the rules and learn to live WITHIN them.  We need to learn to take responsbility and accountability for our actions and if it comes to a point where a finger needs to be pointed..look at your role in what happened.  What could you have done to STOP the problem, what did you do to HELP the problem?

To often we blame others, when the responsbility was on our own shoulders.  No one is perfect, we all make mistakes.  But don’t further compound the problem by then trying to place the blame on someone else.  Live up to your mistakes, own them.  Analyze what you did, what went wrong and how it could have been prevented.  Learn for the future, so the chance of those mistakes happening again are lessened.

We need to change America!  We need to change our core values, our beliefs and our goals.  We need to come to the understanding that wealth and power are not the reasons to be alive.  There is more to walking this earth than accumulating.  Be happy with who you are, always be on the lookout to try and help the person next to you and always remember that being a good person brings out the same in most others around you.

We are always going to have a small percentage of people who are unable to integrate with society, but that does not mean we need to respond to them in kind!  If the larger portion of the population is caring, giving and selfless, the population was a whole will improve.

I ask that each and every one of you reading this( IE:  no one!  ) to look within yourself for the oppurtunity to to improve yourself and help others.  Be reasonable in discussions, be giving.  Be respectable, selfless and unwanting.

Do we really NEED more to survive?

When was the last time, a person of political power said what they were really thinking?  Their OWN words?  Their own feelings and ideas?  When was the last time we, as American people, took them at face value?  Didn’t analyze and nitpick EVERYTHING that has been said, since their first words til the last press conference they were in?

Why is it, that politians can’t speak their mind?  Why do WE, the American people,  put them on pedestals and assume they can not, should not, and will not doe any wrong?  Why, I ask you, do we then throw them under the bus or otherwise enjoy hearing of their trangressions, faults and mistakes?  And not ONLY do we enjoy it, but we ACTIVELY seek the information!!

McCain announces he is not going to attend a certain debate until the current economical crisis is solved.  He calls on his opponent, Obama, to do the same and join him in Washington to iron out the game plan.  Here is what people are thinking:

McCain thinks he is going to lose the debate.  McCain is putting the economy before his campaign.

If Obama doesn’t also pull out, he doesn’t care about the economy.  If he does pull out, he is bowing to peer pressure.

Here is what I want to know :  Why have we made it matter what they do?  Why are we going over their every action and commenting and arguing about what they do or say, or do not do or do not say?  Why does what a candidate says in a debate, or at a press conference matter to a vote?  Why does it matter if they stumble on words, or appear lackluster, or insincere, or just don’t seem to handle themselves well??  In this particular political season, why does it matter that one of the choices for vice president is a female?  Who likes to hunt….what does her hunting have to do with RUNNING A COUNTRY???  Why does LACK OF EXPERIENCE really matter??

When you got your first job, did you know how to do EVERYTHING the job entailed the first day?  It matters more that you were a quick study, learned how to do your job, and tried to improve the process.  That is what should matter when it comes to voting.  That and what the person stands for, based on their words and how they have voted on issues in the past.

Forget all the television, radio and paper ads that are just bashing the other side.  Why have campaign ads sunk to the level of having to point out the negatives of the other person a majority of the time?  Why can’t ads promote what the person is going to do for their country?

We, as American people, need to stop rubber necking.  We need to stop being hypocrits.  We can’t hold politians to a certain standard, yet all the time be secretly wishing they stumble and fall!  Doing that only means politicians are going to say what THEY THINK we want to hear!  Which is what happens now!  We need to foster an environment in which a politician can say what THEY FEEL AND THINK!

So please, wake up America……we need change.  But the change needs to be in US, the common person.  The taxpayer, the one for whom which the government is supposed to be working for.  Not the other way around…..demand your representatives to be real people, and don’t scoff at what you hear, learn to accept it!

Sarah Palin, I don’t know the lady and nothing said here is directed at her or meant to be negative in any way.  Though this is my blog and that is my right, I try not to exercise it when talking about politics because I try to stay out of them, that said…

The ONLY reason America now knows her name, is because someone in the McCain Administration said “Hey, let’s sign a female VP to grab all those dissatisfied Clinton supporters who are on the fence about whom to vote for since Obama didn’t pick Clinton, we can put another female on the ticket because all these supporters were really doing in the first place, was voting for a female!”

Read that, read that again, and read it one more time to fully understand all the nuiances of this once great country and the one absolote truth about politics:  They are now a total joke and all about perception and expectations.

McCain picked her to win female Clinton votes, PERIOD.  That is the number one reason on the list of why she was picked.  Any other reason supported the decision, plain and simple.  How is that politics?  How is that winning a vote by arguing your points to the point you change minds?  Why is America still getting all worked up over this outdated BS system??  Why would any true Democrat, want to vote for a party that is doing what they feel is going to get them the most votes, the most strategic thing???
Obama had prolly the most difficult choice ever as to whom to pick for VP.  It was widely “expected” he would pick Clinton, just cause.  For no other reason.  If he didn’t, he would lose all those votes because a majority of Clinton supporters are simply females who want to see another female as President or VP.  It’s not about the politics with them, it is about affirmitive action!  In most cases, very little more.  I mean, how can we not come up with that conclusion?  Since any TRUE Democrat wouldn’t vote for McCain if he was the only option, as his policies are completely polar to that of Clinton’s.  But, what is the feel of the Clinton supporters right now?  Vote McCain cause Obama didn’t pick Hillary!

Ok…that makes so much political sense, you won me over!  I am going to vote for a politician who doesn’t believe in the same things someone I was backing and rooting for!  Yeah!!  Cause obviously, this other politician is going to be able to get me the things I want, the things Clinton stood for, even though he is publically against Clinton and most of the things she stands for.  But he can get them for me, yeah yeah yeah!!

Complete and utter lunacy.  Hey, instead of voting Democrat because there is a FEMALE on the ticket, or running for President, why don’t you…say, vote for someone you believe can get you what you want?  Novel idea, eh??  Or not because someone didn’t do what you wanted them to, like Obama.  Just cause he didn’t pick Clinton, doesn’t mean he can’t get you the things you want.

Carry that logic to the poll booths, please.  Don’t make the electon process even more of a joke than it already is by voting AGAINST Obama, just cause.  If you seriously want to vote for McCain, have a reason that can justify your choice in 4 years.  Ask ex-Bush supporters what their reasons were 8 years ago, ask them if they justify their decision then, and if they would vote the same knowing then, what they do now….just ask, do us all a favor and ask!