Author Archives: Commentary about the Blue Marble

Deficit and Debt Plank

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Economy

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The most critical and important plank in my “Chance for Sanity” party is our current national deficit of nearly a trillion dollars this year and twenty-two trillion debt. Before any of the other critical changes can be addressed our Country’s finances must be put in order or at least started. Fixing this disaster will need to be spread over all Americans. Cutting taxes may get people to vote for a person but it is on a track that ends at an abyss without a bridge across. My financial plank gives us the bridge.

An old adage says when you are in a hole stop digging it deeper. Every year we are digging it deeper. We must stop digging it deeper and start filling it in before we can address the other critical problems. Solutions for some of the other problems will require additional funding which would not be so disagreeable if the debt had not been allowed to accumulate in an effort to satisfy tycoons.

Reagan had cut taxes and the debt ballooned so he raised them. George H. W. Bush raised taxes
to reduce deficits and debt. Clinton raised taxes and almost eliminated debt. His budget had a $236 billion surplus to finish paying down the debt and fund Social Security when George W. Bush took office. When he left we had a $1.4 billion budget deficit. Obama couldn’t raise taxes because of the Great Recession recovery. Trump cut taxes and increased the deficit from $500 billion to almost $1 trillion and a debt now of over $22 trillion.

As much as I would like to start making payments to reduce the national debt, we first need to eliminate the trillion dollar deficit. Doing that will require increasing the income taxes from $2.9 trillion by at least 40% more to $4.1 trillion. The best way to raise that amount is to raise the top rate to 50% and adjust other rates higher while eliminating most deductions and exemptions. Another way is to bring the estate tax back to two million dollars. Reducing the deficit has to be the first priority. In 2018, we paid almost $290 billion in interest on the debt. Our 2018 deficit was 5.5% of our gross domestic product which was far greater than any of the other top 30 developed countries.

Most of our debt is owned by other countries, and much of that is owned by countries which might use it to extort us for concessions.

Additional taxes will be required to pay down the debt. It will take many decades to get us back to where our debt was before the Bush tax cuts. Other solutions to our many critical issues will require additional taxes.

Rethinking the Possibilities

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Politics

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After a response from friends here and around the world, I have decided to let them know what my plans would be if I chose to run for President of the United States. Because most Republicans have followed the crazier right wing of the Republican Party and the farther left wing of the Democratic Party has suddenly become attractive to many potentials, I have decided on a new centrist party. It would be called the “Change for Sanity” Party.

Unlike those running in the major parties, an independent party does not need to participate in primaries and waste money while destroying each other. An independent party can take ideas from both.

I would make sure my appointments were on the same centrist path as I am. Because a third party President will not have a natural support in the legislative branch, working with both on a bi-partisan basis is essential to doing what is absolutely necessary to balance the see-saw. Even little kids understand it doesn’t work if one kid holds the board down. Right now we have a lot of kids on the down side but less than before. Too many are not being paid attention to by either side and are either sitting in the middle on standing around looking for another game. The “Change for Sanity” independent party could put the center sitters and the large number of standers on another board which rocks back and forth a little.

We have made being President a personality contest with catering to the lowest common denominator being what wins elections. My policies would be to benefit the country as a whole instead of a few friends and donators to my campaign. When compared to the rest of developed world we’re only on top when comparing military power. When we are near the top in individual incomes and first in GDP we should be near the top in other categories and not at or near the bottom.

The country needs a President who can let others in the administration have most of the screen time and doesn’t tell a constant stream of lies, half-truths, and whacky ideas to get in front of the camera. My administration will be listening to scientists and those people with real knowledge and not what some talking head reading off a script says. I would dip heavily into the professionals in the state department for ambassadors instead of who donated the most or is a friend. The best examples of incompetent ambassadors are Joe Kennedy who supported and promoted Hitler and the woman who okayed Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait.

If any reader has a suggestion for Vice-President, send the name and reason for suggesting the person to the Editor.

Other planks will be forthcoming.

No Reparations for Slavery

15 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by in Reparation

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In 1974 Joe Biden said he was not responsible for the sins of his grandparents. He is right! My father’s bloodline stepped foot on this continent in the late 1600s and he nor any of his progeny owned any slaves. They were poor and John Johnson, who fought in the Revolution with Francis Marion’s guerilla band and his three sons were illiterate. As they moved to the 40 acres in Southern Illinois given to him for a war pension, he married a Cherokee woman who taught him and his family to read and write.

My maternal side came over after the Civil War and never had a slave although they had the German prejudice. My grandfather’s third wife was a central Illinois Cherokee.

At the end of the Civil War the ex-slaves were given an opportunity to go west with a mule and a grant of 40 acres. Some took the opportunity as reparations, so further reparations aren’t needed. Many of the laws which were passed to equalize the races have given the poor of all races a chance to succeed. Our country still has many poor and if current administration doesn’t eliminate subsidies to build a fence, they will continue to be helped. Nothing special is needed from the vast majority of us who never had slaves.

Feeling that something is owed is counter-productive and holds people back from succeeding and having the life they want.

Buy the White House

11 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by in Environment, Politics

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The President just made it harder for any government agency to interfere in building pipelines. Only the most egregious plans have a chance of being blocked now. One of Trump’s first executive orders was to allow the Dakota access pipeline to be built under Lake Oahu. The lake is the only water source for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Thousand had protested getting worldwide media and support. Many environmental groups had filed suit. His order to the Army Corp effectively eliminated the legal hold-ups.

Why did he allow it? The Energy Transfer Limited Partners was the builder and he was a stockholder and a close friend of CEO Kelcy Warren. One reason he doesn’t want his tax returns made public is the K-1 from ETP would show a conflict of interest and breaking the constitutions emolument clause.

ETP had invested hundreds of millions in a pipeline that Warren wouldn’t reroute a few miles. He thought every place had the Texas “Don’t Care” philosophy. Failure to complete on time was costing ETP millions. This ruling opens up the way for ETP’s Pennsylvania pipeline from the Marcellus gas fields and saving millions.

Packing the district courts with regulation adverse judges makes law suits harder to win. People are now being forced to have pipelines in their backyards without recourse in courts. American is criss-crossed by pipelines older than me. They are leaking.

Oh, Warren donated $100,000 to the Trump campaign and $250,000 to the inaugural. Who says you can’t buy the White House?

In full disclosure, I own some shares in ETP because it bought a company that bought the company I originally bought shares in long ago. Although the company’s morals concern me, a 16% tax qualified distribution is hard to sell.

Why Come to America?

05 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in Immigration, Politics

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Every year during the cooler seasons thousands of people leave Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras and start north towards Mexico and the United States in hope of a better life. Many won’t make it to Mexico because of the crime and corruption around the Mexican border. Some will be caught and sent back by Mexican border guards while others will decide to stay in Mexico for various reasons. Some will have enough money or indenture themselves to coyotes to transit Mexico and the U.S. border. Estimates are less than one-fourth of those who started will make it without being caught or die in the desert. Many will come as a group for protection.

Latin America’s mess is mostly our fault because of our government’s actions and American’s addition to cocaine and marijuana. We have corrupted their governments, economies, and peoples. My best friend from the fourth grade through Junior College was employed by an arm of the CIA building “schools” where they were built with thick concrete walls looking more like block houses on Honduras’s border. He spent most of the 1980s and 1990s going from one of the three to another depending on which our government was backing that day.

We are the reason why the drug trade has destroyed the national, district, and local governments. The narco-terrorists bribe or kill those who try to arrest them or seize their drugs. We have trained the National Police in the methods we used in South Vietnam where we moved people from villages, burned their homes, swept in at night picking up people who complain and “losing” them. The gangs just lop off heads in front of families. With the army, police, narco-terrorists, and the gangs harassing, extorting, blackmailing, and murdering both the rich and poor, it’s no wonder they want to come north for safety. The rich hop a plane and the poor walk.

How did the MS-13 and the Barrios-18 gangs get started in the three countries becoming so dominant? We deported them from Los Angeles in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. When they arrived in Honduras they quickly organized, spread out to other weakened countries, and with imported weapons became the dominate groups they are today.

No wonder those people want to come to a “safe” country instead of living in a country where torture, indiscriminate murder, kidnapping, extortion, and “losing” are common. The more a business grows the more it is “taxed”. If people don’t pay family members die. Pre-teens may have to join a gang to save a relative. We have no concept of the life these people are running away from and our country is the primary cause because of our drug habit and poor regional strategy. Isn’t that karma?

Not Running

05 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by in Politics

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In spite of all the urging over the years to run for president, I have decided not to run. People have said since I know so much I should be President. During the last two years I have found intelligence and honesty is a hindrance to be the leader of the American people.

Any scientific knowledge stands in the way of forming the most idiotic policies imaginable. I am camera-shy and today one must feel the need to say something in front of the daily gaggle of reporters and cameras at the front gate.

I would bring in very politically neutral people to present ideas for me to consider instead of getting my policies from Fox And Friends each night. I would not tell an average of ten lies a day because I don’t have a clue and have a need to be the center of attention.

I think we need friends around the world and would not destroy the friendships and alliances we have developed for decades. I would hope my personality would never be as abrasive or abusive as some of today’s politicians. I would hope that I would follow the moral integrity and politeness of the last administration.

The majority of Americans have shown they favor people like me but unfortunately too many idiots live in a few states allowing them to control who is in the White House.

More Is Not Better

29 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by in Politics

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I thought I had heard the most idiotic ideas coming from Washington D.C. until I heard Utah’s Senator Mike Lee’s idea. He says we can solve all our problems by having more babies. I do admit his idea is the most unintelligent, childish thing I have heard coming from the mouth of someone people elected. I can only guess he is hoping to use that ridiculous statement in a run for President because it sounds like a Trumpian idea.

I did notice he said it in Washington D.C. where recreational use of marijuana is legal and not in Utah where the strictness of the Mormon religion has sensibly restricted it.

Did anyone ever tell him we have a world population explosion? He thinks lot of babies, especially American babies, will solve all our problems because they will be better educated. This, at the same time his party wants to cut educational subsidies. How he thinks having more babies will solve the population explosion is beyond my comprehension. Chairman Mao and Prime Minister Gandhi understood it.

Senator Lee proves that an idiot can become a member of one of our most “esteemed” legislative bodies. His tops statements coming from the White House. Makes me wonder who’s making the Kool-Aid and what’s in it.

Medicare for all?

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Uncategorized

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I was astonished to read in the Herald’s Sunday, March 24th issue that Malcolm Berko wholeheartedly endorsed Medicare for all. I have read every one of his columns for almost two decades. His recommendations for stocks are worth reading. Some are pyrite and some are gold. He usually gets his advice from others, but when it is his it’s conservative. That’s why I was shocked that he wanted to destroy the healthcare companies he had pushed.

Berko proposes switching to a medical system Canada, France, and Denmark have had for decades. The majority of Americans have indicated in polls they think we need to switch from our current system to one which provides universal access to all. The motto which more people are thinking is “Healthcare is a right, not a privilege.”

Will it happen – no! Why, because the healthcare and insurance lobbies will spend millions on campaigns and “incentives” to people in Congress and Senate. Doing away with private healthcare insurance will have a huge impact on the economy and the world’s most expensive healthcare system.

The proposed system would do away with co-pays and deductibles. Patients would be able to go to any doctor in the public plan. A few doctors would set up a practice outside of the single payer and find a clinic that is not involved in it. In Canada, a few practices and clinics have gone that way on a concierge basis. The private plans might use an insurance plan to allay catastrophic costs.

To answer the question of why Canadians come to the United States for medical care is easy to answer. Notice they go to Florida in the winter or cross the border for childbirth getting dual citizenship. Our friends in Canada, Australia, Germany, and Norway say they might be in a queue for non-emergency and elective surgery and tests, but immediate help for emergencies.

Berko’s plan would eliminate $900,000,000 in premiums and put over 700,000 people out of work in the five companies he cited. In addition the many office buildings they use would become vacant. Some of the people and buildings might be picked up in the new plan.

Several years ago I saw a “60 Minutes” episode on the Canadian plan. A hospital administrator showed a huge room which had housed over two hundred employees coding and calling insurance companies. Now he had only two people doing the work. My doctor clients once said their billing and collecting costs ran about 30% of revenue.

It is possible healthcare costs may actually go down. Drug companies would have to cut costs so we pay the same as the other industrialized countries. Wouldn’t it be nice for everyone to have access to healthcare with a reasonable tax increase with no premiums, co-pays, or deductions?

The Unpleasant Truth

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by in Israel

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I am not remotely anti-Semitic so my views are not coming from any sort of prejudice towards people who are of the Jewish faith. I don’t think my home county had any Jewish people when I was growing up and may not now. My junior college may or may not have had some. I didn’t care because to me, whether or not a person has a particular faith or even believes doesn’t matter to me. Since my college days I have had Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Hindu friends.

Newly elected Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made some comments concerning the American ties to Israel. She is from Michigan and the first Muslim woman elected to a national office. She is more likely to get her facts from the Arabic news media. I don’t say American because those of us who watch European and Asian network news get vastly different viewpoints and pictures. Her comments were to separate the state of Israel from the dominant religion of 75% of Israelis. The other 25% is composed of 18% Muslim, 2% Christian, and the remainder is various ancient religions.

We know Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party had only a fourth of the votes in The Knesset’s 120 seats. In a parliament the governing body must have a majority. Netanyahu has had to get his majority by using the smaller parties. Four of those are militant right wingers who hate Palestinians who lived on the land before the Jewish refugees pushed them off their family lands. The building of new apartment communities on the West Bank (East side of Israel) is highly contentious since it takes land Israel had agreed belonged to the West Bank Palestinians.

Representative Omar’s comments were the same as a very large minority of the Jewish population. Add that to the ethnic Arab population and Netanyahu’s policies must go towards the far right parties to stay in power.

Israel has tied itself to religion for many reasons but the major reason is guilt. Jewish people have lived in Palestine for centuries in peace with their Arab neighbors. They worked and fought together against the Turks in World War I. After World War II refugees from Europe, and the Soviet Union settled in Palestine conducting a guerilla war against the British and resident Arabs. When the British withdrew after giving them statehood, their Arab neighbors attacked. Zionists made it clear Israel would be a first step towards annexing Gaza, parts of Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Israel has used the world’s guilt about the camps to get financial and diplomatic support. Without that guilt and influence, we probably would have dropped them as the United Kingdom and France already have.

Omar speaks the unpleasant truth; we are unable to separate the belligerent government from the religion.

South Viet Nam Redux

18 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by in Afghanistan, Taliban, War

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I really hope we aren’t repeating our negotiating experiences with North Viet Nam during the 1970s today in Afghanistan. We told our Vietnamese ally that we had their back in negotiating a cease-fire. They were not allowed to participate in the talks, just as the Afghan government is kept from the talks with the Taliban because we have their back. Our assurances then were lies.

How much are we willing to give away to get out? We pushed Afghan gender equality and universal education. Both are against Taliban ideology so if they hold to their requirements, will we throw the Afghan women under the bus? Will we decide to give away our view of justice and modernization to get out?

Viet Nam isn’t Afghanistan. Ho Chi Minh had no thought to attacking or supporting anyone or group wanting to attack outside of the Southeast Asian theatre. It took a long time for Americans to get comfortable with the Vietnamese communists. I do not ever see how we can have a normal relationship with a Taliban ideology Afghanistan. The Chinese are trying to gain influence for mining and passing through with the New China Road but they will ultimately fail.

Over 22,000 Afghan army and police were killed last year fighting the Taliban. We lost nineteen troops. Every death is bad but we can’t cut and run this time. No matter what assurances the Taliban gives us now, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will return. Even if it takes another twenty years, we have to stay until the Taliban is completely defeated.