Judging from comments and site visits, these posts aren’t all that popular but oh well.  Movies are slow, and this is my blog afterall.

So I was reading an article that stated a fact about taxes in the US:

70% of taxes are paid by the top 10% of Americans

That’s a pretty staggering statistic.  The imbalance of wealth is so out of whack in the US that the bottom 90% of people are almost trivial in terms of taxes; and in essence, the economy.

But that doesn’t mean the bottom 90% aren’t important to the economy — it just means their wealth isn’t their most important contribution to it.

The truth is that for the US economy to prosper, that top 10% have to be happy campers.  They have to be starting businesses, investing money, and buying yachts.

The orders of magnitude in difference between the wealthiest and poorest is so great that a wealthy person spending 10% of their income could be more impactful to the economy than a poor person spending 100% of theirs.

That being said, however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the only viable option is to cater to the wealthy.  Before we talk economic theories, we have to first identify the goal.

Despite your leanings, it’s a mathematical fact that in order to get money into our economy we have to get the top 10% spending more money. 

Right or wrong, the top 10% simply have too much money to ignore.  The bottom 90% can spend all of their income and still not equal what just a few percentage points of wealthy spending could contribute.

I think both political parties have potentially viable ways of meeting this goal.

On one side, the concept is to give the wealthy tax breaks that would, in theory, convince them to spend and invest more money; ultimately releasing more funds into the economy and helping it gain ground.

That is a direct approach, but not necessarily any more successful than the less obvious approach; give the bottom 90% more money and let them spend it.

Although the amount the bottom 90% funnel into the economy is almost trivial, they offer something more intangible — opportunity.

The wealthy mostly got wealthy either directly or indirectly through providing services or goods for that bottom 90%.  If that bottom 90% starts to look like a potential cash cow, then the top 10% jump into action to get a piece of the pie.

Even if that pie is tiny in terms of total wealth in the US, it is a perfectly filling pie for an individual company or person.  Capitalism kicks into play as the top 10% try to get the money the bottom 90% are now willing to shell out.

Either way, if the theories work out to perfection, the top 10% is spending its money vigorously and the economy thrives.  That helps every American from the top to the bottom.

The top 10% make more money, so they pay more to their employees, who then spend more money to benefit the top 10% who pay more to their employees.

I don’t know which theory will yield the best results in today’s economic environment, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the goal is an undeniable effort to get the top 10% to spend more money.

Accomplish that, and things will start to improve for every single American.

Yesterday, the United States House of Representatives voted to reject the passage of a bill which would give billions of dollars to the treasury department to help bail out companies hither and thither.

Unless my blog is the first thing you’ve read since you came out of your nuclear bunker, you already know that.

I’m not here to express my opinion one way or another on the bailout and whether it’s a good idea.  I’m not an economist, and although I have a house horribly depreciated in value, I don’t feel that my opinion really means much on this subject.

Instead, I think it’s a time to celebrate.  Celebrate what, you ask?

It is a time to celebrate the government instituted 200+ years ago by our forefathers; a group of brilliant men who understood all too well how a government must be controlled by the people.

A group of men who had lived under the rule of tyranny for far too long and would have no part of a government which would give absolute power to a given person.

It is a time to celebrate George Washington who, upon being offered Kingship of these United States, refused to do so because he understood what the Revolution had really been about.

This week, the Executive Branch of the United States requested more power, and the Legislative branch — through the opinions of congressman and their constituencies — denied that request.

That is why they are there.  That is why they exist.

Whether you agree with the bailout or don’t, the fact is that the United States government has operated in one of its finest forms in my lifetime by rejecting the bailout bill.

The system has worked.  Now we must accept the consequences of our actions and weather the storm.  Sometimes the only way out is through.

On the front page of CNN today you can find this article titled “10 ways to avoid a speeding ticket.”  It’s originally from AOL Autos, but I don’t think that really matters.

No matter how you look at it, this is unacceptable garbage journalism.  If CNN wrote an article titled “How to duck the cops while running a prostitution ring out of your basement” I’m pretty sure they’d receive a little bit of flak.

Speeding is illegal.  Publishing, writing, or endorsing an article on a professional level which discusses effective ways to safely break the law is downright absurd.

Someone should seriously be fired for that.  Anyone with half a brain should know not to publish that.  Would that same person publish an article about the most effective way to dispose of a dead body?  I bet not.

I’m not trying to be a hypocrite here.  I know we all speed.  I speed, you speed, your mom speeds, and my cats would speed if they could drive — but that’s not the point.

We’re all breaking the law when we’re speeding and whatever clever contraptions we may use to try avoid getting caught doesn’t make the act any less illegal.

I especially like this tip from the article: “If it’s ok legally, get a radar dector.”

If we’re going to promote criminal behavior, I say let’s go all out.  Couldn’t they spare a few words on how to hide a radar detector from the police?

I don’t know why I even read CNN anymore.  They post sensationalist headlines that are oftentimes outright lies, and now they are promoting the breaking of laws by their readership.  The whole organization has descended into unprofessional madness.

I’m not one to usually delve into politics on my blog, so linking to an article by Glenn Beck might seem a bit odd.

But this article titled “What’s right with America? Plenty” really hits home.

It’s not about politics, but rather looking at what America has going for it rather than spending time on what’s wrong, as we more commonly do these days.

An excerpt:

Our economy is almost as big as the next four largest economies on Earth (Japan, Germany, China and Great Britain) combined. The state of California alone has an economy as large as the entire country of France. Illinois has the same GDP as all of Mexico. New York matches the entire GDP of Brazil. Florida’s economy is as large as South Korea’s. Texas has a GDP roughly equal to Canada’s. Michigan’s economy is as large as the entire country of Argentina.

And that’s just about the economy. It’s a good read, and refreshing outlook on the state of affairs in the US.

Slightly worse than awesome isn’t as bad as we make it out to be.

With the 4th of July coming up, it’s only appropriate to reflect on Freedom and what that really means.

Perhaps it is inevitable in the history of any nation that things will dilute over time. It has happened to countless nations and countries over the centuries. Things don’t always go out with a bang; sometimes it is with just whimper.

With the world in the state that it is in, it sometimes confounds me the things that people fixate on.  Issues become issues that shouldn’t be issues at all.

Some things in life are not black & white.  Some things dance in the gray, never really becoming clear no matter how much science, thought, or philosophy is put into it.

But some things are black & white.  Some things are clear.  Some things are not up for debate.  Freedom is one of those things.

When I was in high school, a very wise and very old government teacher once said to me, “Your rights end where your fist ends and another’s face begins.”

You never appreciate such teachers enough at the time.  Our rights end only when they infringe on others’ rights.  Not before, not after.

We don’t get to pass laws that infringe on others’ personal choices just because we have moral objections to them.  That is a dangerous, horrible web to start weaving.

That is a web that we have been entrapped in before, yet never seem to learn as a nation how to avoid.  It was wrong when we did it to Native Americans, it was wrong when we did it to African Americans, it was wrong when we did it to Japanese Americans, and it was wrong when we did it to women.

Freedom is choice.  We have no right whatsoever to even consider laws which would forbid people to make personal choices that do not affect anyone else.  No right.

It is one thing to have a personal objection to an action; it is quite another to enforce those objections on others.  There is a difference between what is good for the country and what is good for an individual’s soul.

Freedom must be preserved.  It must be maintained.  It doesn’t matter if actions are morally right or wrong; it matters whether they infringe on the Freedom of others.  It is a very simple litmus test.  Very simple.

On this 4th of July, we should all remember what Freedom really is.  With an election coming up, we would do well to sort out the issues appropriately and understand what is an issue of morals and what is an issue of Freedom.

This is our country, and its strength was built upon Freedom.  Don’t let personal judgement get in the way of doing the right thing, championing the right cause, or making the right decision.

As a nation, we are better than that.