THE TERRORISTS OF THE IRS...

It was during the Abraham Lincoln administration that the first federal income tax program was legislated.

It was also the beginning of the progressive tax, where the more you made the higher percentage you paid.  In effect, if you made more you were TARGETED to pay a higher percentage of your income.

Since then each political party has targeted one thing or another to benefit one constituency or another.  We have special tax programs homeowners, investors, municipalities, charities, stocks, solar energy, education, natural resource discovery, etc. etc. etc. Its the American way to use the tax system for political purposes.

Consequently, as repulsive as it is, it should not be surprising that people in the current administration may have been involved in targeting groups that they may have wanted to penalize.  The IRS does not have a random lottery system approach to its auditing program.  It targets based on specific criteria, which in many cases have nothing to do with breaking any laws.

We really don't want to get into a long dialogue about the IRS. Unfortunately the question now is; has a rogue group of left wing politicians, so hell bent on destroying political forces that do not support agendas other than theirs, been able to use the office and powers of the IRS to achieve their goals.

Some very evil people have come to power world wide using the force of corrupt government to wipe out opposing views.

THE PC BUSINESS IS COMING BACK TO LIFE...

Exactly at the point where everything is changing, pessimism runs deep in the personal computer space.

Practically no one who goes into an office or classroom setting uses a tablet to prepare their spreadsheets, letters, term papers, etc. etc.  We wrote a blog in April 2011 (A Retailer Making Computers) about the destructive nature of the tablet to the PC business.

Now we are pointing out that PC business is at the beginning of a resurgence of significance.

A DARK PREDICTION...IT ALMOST HAPPENED YESTERDAY??(ORIGINAL POSTING 8/6/11)

When the housing boom was taking place it developed huge vested interest in the continuation of the housing bubble. A voice in the dark could point out the absurdities of what was happening but the enjoyment of inflated prices and profits overwhelmed sanity, logic, discipline and history.

In my opinion, we are now being faced with a "time bomb" that will far exceed long term capital management, the insurance protection decline of the 1980s and the financial collapse of 2008. This huge "Black Swan", huge beyond comprehension, will hit when least expected and we will wonder why it wasn't dealt with before. The answer will be found underneath the rubble of certain greedy Wall Street types and vested political interests.

We cannot permit automated machine type trading, with no relationship to companies outlook, etc. to dominate the volume of trades in the stock market. There is no excuse, none whatsoever, for creating a machine driven gambling casino mentality in order to justify the existence of capitalism.

Here is what's going to happen. A computer driven decline will occur and the brakes will fail due to human error or whatever causing the equity wealth of the country to be sharply cut again. Because there will be something happening in the world at that time, recovery will not be as fast as it was in the late 2000's. All computerized trading, of the type we are referring to, should be made illegal and stopped before its too late.

The vested interest will tell you otherwise and make their case. Just like in the long term capital case they are mostly using other people's money and are more concerned with their chance of winning than losing. The monies not theirs anyhow and there is no concern for the system, only their own profits.

Look at the erratic swings in the stock market that have occurred in the last few weeks. We draw this as a small example, a very small example, of what is coming if we don't stop this type of computerized trading.

CAPITALISM WILL FAIL IF THIS IS HOW IT'S CONDUCTED.
P.S. Please remember that I am a very strong supporter of capitalism and many of the activities that our financial firms participate in. The probably isn't a better system than ours.

BOSTON MARATHON - GARBAGE CANS BEFORE SAFETY....

We have not written a blog in a while.  There are so many people writing so many things with so many points of view, we weren't sure we had anything to add to the dialogue.

During World War II, one man was a brilliant master of propaganda and mind control.  Imagine what that person could do today with the Internet and social media techniques.

Unfortunately, we face very cunning enemies, both domestic and international.  They have figured out how to use a large element our of population to allow them to attack many of our democratic principles.

Profiling is not allowed, if you are looking for a particular type of person you are hard pressed to disclose it.  We are surprised by the repetitive nature of serious crimes, yet loath to enhance break throughs in our protection systems.

The best and most important example is our schools.  Although there are guards at airports, post offices, hotels, malls, street corners, apartment buildings, stadiums, concert arenas, etc. there are intelligent people who do not want to accept the necessity for much greater protection of our kids in schools.

It's almost as if we unconsciously accept the concept that "they were expendable" because we would rather not face the reality of the current world situation.  We would rather close our eyes and accept the easy way out, that blindly believes that there won't be another and another and another occurrence of tragedy.

We may not like it because its against everything we stand for, but the hostility of what we face should be apparent to all.  The Boston Marathon terrorists could have just as easily planted a nuclear type device.

If the Boston tragedy isn't enough to prove this point true, how much more will it take to convince you what we are really up against.

UNIVERSALISM VERSUS REALITY

This blog may seem like it's about religion, it's really not meant to be. I prefer to think it's really about politics.  So review this one in your mind after you've read the whole thing.

It's pretty well accepted that there has been antisemitism against the Jews in European countries. In one period, from the late 1700's to the mid 1800's, there was a decline in the antisemitism. Although living isolated lives, Jews were pretty much allowed to assimilate into society in general.  After the mid 1800's antisemitism  flared up again. Certain Jews decided on different methods of dealing with the antisemitism.

One of the ways was to assimilate, another way was to move towards the West and yet another way was to become even further isolated from the general community.

Jews lived primarily in ghetto type areas between the Polish Austrian corridor and into Russia, three, four five six million of them,   The return of antisemitism made it apparent to many that the traditional Jew was not easily going to be able to assimilate into European society.  Following a more orthodox route just made the antisemitism worse. Therefore several millions of the Jews that lived by Rabbinic Talmudic law instead of traditional government law moved West.

Changing their names, changing their clothes, attempting to assimilate did little to accelerate their integration into European society.  Since they weren't going to be easily accepted as Jews there developed the concept of Zionism.  Jews should live in a place where you could be Jewish ultimately resolving into the creation of the Jewish nation state.

We live in a world where China, Russia, India, United States, North Korea, Pakistan, Britain, France, etc. have atomic weapons.  Some series of circumstances has allowed this to be the acceptable norm.

In France a law has been passed that Muslims cannot wear their traditional clothing.  In England, Muslims have been attempting to live, some may say by overly influencing British society, in any case not really integrating into the system.  Imagine a large number of Muslim men and women walking around the United States compared to just a large amount of people,  What is it about the large Muslim walking people that could attract all the negative reaction?

As the Jew could not find equal acceptability in Europe, there is no question that the Muslim finds integration, especially in Muslim clothing, especially difficult anywhere but in a Muslim country.

So what we are really saying is if you come here or there, you by in large become like us.  We are not going to become like you, you are going to become like us, otherwise stay where you were.

This flies in the face of logic.  The entire concept of the European Union is no borders, no passports, a common currency and court system and the universality of man, but in practice the nations have not accepted the universal paradigm facing a billion Muslims.

The problem with Israel is not that its a Jewish country, it's that it is a secular country.

The Muslims in general are not interested in a universal world.  The Ayatollah is interested that the Mahdee for Islam appear to reset the mistakes of Judaism and Christianity.  Israel is a threat because it really doesn't want to be religious, it wants to be universal and secular.  Many Americans want to be Judeo-Christians and Europeans seem to want to be everything but Muslim.

So as the Jews, since they really could not integrate, went west and west and west.  The Muslims, being of so many people, don't have many reasons to retreat.  Unfortunately we have very little reason to deny them what they really want and stand on a thin thread of power politics destined to retreat unless the other powers of the world line up in unison once and for all against nuclear proliferation and terrrorism, no matter what has to be done to prevent it.   

GUNS AND GANGS...CHICAGO'S LEGACY? (ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 2/22/13)

THE COUNTRY WILL ARM MORE AND MORE UNTIL THE TRUTH IS TOLD...TODAY'S HEADLIINES FROM NBC CHICAGO...HUNDREDS OF TEENS MOB PEDESTRIANS IN THE LOOP

Here is the link:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Hundreds-of-Teens-Mob-Pedestrians-in-the-Loop-200755191.html200755191.html


Rahm Emanuel, the former Chief of Staff for the Obama administration was elected Mayor of
Chicago.  One of his major campaign pledges was to enforce gun control more strictly.

What has Emanuel really done to clean up this town?  Since his election the murder rate and crime in Chicago has become front page news and he has been ineffective in confronting the gangs and the criminal element in the minority population.

Vice President Biden decides to visit Newton Connecticut to discuss gun control.  Why doesn't he go to Chicago, the town where gun violence is out of control, and discuss his agenda.

This is typical for members of the Obama administration.  Significant problems like guns, unemployment and the Middle East get lots of rhetoric.  Judge for yourself whether they get results.

They travel to a small town in Connecticut to speak on gun control but avoid confronting the urban areas and people responsible for a disproportionate amount of gun related murders and crimes...

ALLY FINANCIAL - ORIGINALLY POSTED 2/24/12

You think we would have learned our lesson.  Every time I turned around I saw this ad for Ally Bank promising consumers all kinds of wonderful benefits.  Upon a quick look it turned out that Ally was nothing more than part of the whole Obama thoughtless financing of questionable companies.  I now read that Ally Financial is hiring a turnaround specialist, probably at huge fees.

Did you ever notice all the ads on TV with disclaimers of one sort or another in letters that are so small they can hardly be seen and certainly can't be read?  So much for change and transparency under this Presidential Administration.