Index of Posts

1. Achieving Personal Wealth Goals (Updated 11/12/2012) 

2. Saving and Improving Social Security (Posted 2/2/2008)           3. Balancing the Federal Budget (Posted 2/13/2008)                 4. Trade Deficits (Posted 2/27/2008)                                                  5. Taxes (Posted 3/13/2008)                                                      6. Federal Reserve Policy and Actions (Posted 3/28/2008)

7. History Lesson – Democrat or Republican? (Posted 3-31-2008)

8. Capitalism (Posted 4/13/2008)

9. The Business Cycle (Posted 4/28/2008)

10. Health Care (Posted 5/14/2006)

11. Government Pensions and other Benefits (Posted 5/28/2008)

12. War and Peace (Posted 6/16/2008)

13. Reducing Crime (Posted 6/29/2008)

14. Religious Issues (Posted 7/13/2008)

15. My Pet Peeves (Posted 7/31/2008)

16. Fascists Hiding in Clear View (Posted 8/13/2008)

17. Environmental and Global Warming Issues (Posted 8/30/2008)

18. Affirmative Action and Diversity (Posted 9/16/2008)

20. Oil Company Profits (Posted 10/1/2008)

21. Was America Right to use the Atom Bomb in WWII? (Posted Oct 21, 2008)

22. Saving Social Security Alternative.

23. A Theory of everything

24. Why we don't believe Islam to be a peaceful religion.

25. The Poisoning of America

26. The National Debt Crisis - An Analogy

27. Climate Change? - Do the Math to unveil this Fraud (Posted 4/19/2012)

28. Lazy Person's Guide to Investing

29. Better Spouse Survivor Options at No Cost for Social Security (Posted 9/1/2012)

30. Cost of a Government Job (Posted 9/3/2012)

31. Your Share of the National Debt (Posted 9/5/2012)

32. CBS Ignores Climate Change Truth (IBD Publication)

33. The Ice Is Right (IBD Publication)

34. Can Anyone Explain why Blacks and Hispanics overwhelmingly support Democrats?

35. Federal Debt -Urgent To Unsustainable To Insane (Posted 9/10/2012)

36. Democrats' Unfair Income Tax Cuts Complaints – Taken to Its Logical Conclusion

37. Famous Quotes by our Founding Fathers

38. The Hidden Costs To You of Taxes, Government Loans, and Subsidies (posted 9-19-2012)

39. The Ticking Time Bomb - Unfunded Government Liabilities

40. Being Better Prepared for Natural Disasters

41. Random Thoughts - Questions without Good Answers

42. Beyond Stupid – Laws and Policies of the US Government

43. Income Tax Reform

44. Climate Change Facts

45. How to Cut Government Spending

46. Social Security Inequity toward Working Spouses

47. Ending the Welfare Mess

48. Conducting Fair Presidential Primaries

49. False Claims that Blacks are Trapped in Poverty

50. Fixing Medicare Fraud

51. Better Social Security Benefits at No Expense to Government

52. Why Raising the Minimum Wage Never Works

53. A State with No Republicans

54. Bond votes - An Information Black Hole

55. How to Fix Government Pensions

56. Decisions that the Unemployed Should Quickly Make

57. Unions Should Be Banned

58. Social Security Unfair Taxation
59. Immigration Reform
60. Black Killings - The Real Problem.

61. Political Correctness - The Hallmark of all Dictatorships

62. If I ran for President

63. How NOT to Unintentionally Disinherit Your Children

64. Student Loans

65. Causes of the Great Depression and the Great Recession

66. The Importance of Perseverance

67. Eliminate All Federal Subsidies
68. How Does US Health Care Compare to other Nations
69. Never let Politics Determine Your Family and Friends
70. Invest in Roth IRAs, not Traditional IRAs, plus use Roth Conversions
71. Student Loans
72. Usage and Morality of the Atom Bomb In World War Two
73. Medical Marijuana Needs to be Legalized Everywhere

74. Judges and the Constitution

75. Gender Pay Gap Myth

76. Immigration Reform

77. The Democratic Party – The Party of Slavery and Discrimination

78. Illegal Voting

79. Roth versus Traditional IRAs and Tax Bracket Insignificance

80. Investment Advice for Novice Investors

81. Guidelines for a Happy Marriage

82. Improving Our Public Schools

83. How Much Savings Needed for Retirement

84. Illegal Immigrants - How to Handle Effectively and Fairly

85. Veterans Health Care – How to Improve
86. Police Shootings - Who's Guilty
87. Vegans and Vegetarians Kill more Animals than Meat Eaters

88. The Top 10 Economic Lessons for America with Explanations

89. The Top 10 Laws and Policies Needed in America

90. Federal Tax Cut Historical Impacts on Annual Tax Revenues 5 Years Later
91. Marriage - Keeping the Romance Alive
92. We All Won Life's Lottery

93. Affirmative Action and Diversity are Code Words for Discrimination

94. Dixiecrats and the Democratic Lie that the Political Parties Switched Platforms

95. The Democratic Party has Morphed into America's Communist Party

96. Questions and Thoughts I Never Expressed in Parochial School

97. Doctor Visits

98. Nuclear Power and Waste and Environmentalists

99. Investing – Don't Squander the Giant Advantages of Youth

100. Middle Class Wages Have Not Been Stagnant for Decades

101. If I addressed the United Nations

102. Annuities - Stay Away

103. Minority Advancement – Government Handouts Are the Problem
104. Israel and Palestine – The Universal Consequences of War

105. Eliminate All Federal Subsidies

106. Medical Care is "Rationed" in Europe and Canada

107. Identity Politics – The Truth versus the Democratic Lies

108. A Good Example of Why Socialism Always Fails

109. All Governments Have No Money

110. Major Reasons Why Health Care Costs Are So high

111. Business Cycles – How They Work and Why

112. Black Reparations For Slavery

113. Oil Drilling Off Of Our Shallow Continental Shelves

114. Illegal Immigration and Democratic Unconscionable Actions

115. Federal Budgets – How to Pass One Every Year

116. People Are All the Same Race

117. Evolution and Creation

118. Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs – Basic Definitions with Explanations

119. Taxes and IRAs and 401Ks – Don't be Fooled by the Government

120. Inherited IRAs Withdrawals – Strategy for New Rules in 2020

121. Medicare For All – A Terrible Idea

122. Why Do We Still Allow Discrimination in America?

123. Millennials – Socialism is the Most Failed Economic System in Human History

124. Capital Gains Taxes on the Sale of your Home

125. Guidelines on How to Prevent Violence and Deaths in Confrontations with Police

126 How to Avoid Poverty.

127. Racial Issues - Lying With Statistics that Evade the Problem Instead of Solving the Problem

128. Democrats – America's Only Racist Party – Just the Facts, No Opinions

129. The History of Slavery and Public Statues

130. Police Killings – The Truth

131. Poverty – How to Avoid It

132. Stop Taxing Social Security Benefits

133. China - Time to Disengage Completely

134. Financial Advisors - Just Say No

135. Mail in Voting - A Recipe for Cheating

136. How the Democratic Party Tricked and Betrayed Black People

137. How to Stop Illegal Voting

138. Racial Income Inequality is Self-Inflicted

139. Social Justice Protests Are Deeply Flawed and Consequently Won't Work

140.  How To Pass Annual Federal Budgets 

141. Retirement – How to Really Help Americans

142. America – Thank God that We are NOT a Democracy

143. California - Imposing a Liberal Democracy

144. End Social Media Censorship

145. Judges – Don't Allow Them to Steal Your Freedom

146. Credit Card Impact of Making Only Minimum Payments

147. Restoring Confidence in Voting Results

148. Socialism – Why It Always Fails

149. Productivity is the Key to Jobs, Raises, Promotions, and Wealth

150. Stock Market Pull Backs – Did You Really Take a Loss

151. Outlaw All Government Pensions

152. When Are We Going To Stop Taxing Social Security Benefits

153. Election Fraud and How to Minimize It Through New Constitutional Amendments

154. The Number One Reason for the Disparity between Black and White Household Income Levels

155. Vegans and Vegetarians Kill more Animals than Meat Eaters

156. The Number 1 Reason Why Blacks Are Poorer Than Whites

157. Tax History Lesson # 1

158. Tax History Lesson # 2

159. Poverty Statistics

160. Proof that Voter ID is not a Problem

161. Needed Constitutional Amendments

162. Needed Welfare Reforms

163. A Proposed Alternative to Home Bankruptcy

164. One Person - 70+ million Deaths

165. Get rid of foreign language requirements in high school and college.

166. Outlaw Ranked Choice Voting.

167. Ron Puma's Federal Taxes Plan – A Better way to Collect Taxes

168. Social Security Tax Benefits of Roth IRAs

169. Skin Color

170. Why is it so Difficult For Retailers to be in Stock 100% of the Time

171. My Christmas Wish List

172 Voter Fraud Cheating Rights Bill

173. We are so  much better off then our Ancestors

174. Hot Water Tank Energy Consumption

175. Genders

176. History of War

177. Tax deadlines and Fines

178. Questions I Wished I Asked When I Was In Parochial School

179. Discrimination is Immoral and Should be Forever Outlawed

180. Modern Life – We Take So Much For Granted

181. Gender Identity Realities

182 Non Working Spousal IRAs

183 Solo 401K for Business Owners

184. Communist Economic systems have all failed

185. Family History Questions I Wish I Had Asked My Parents and Grandparents

186. Crime – Let's Get Serious About How to Prevent It

187. Big Bang Theory – There's A Problem

188. Evolution – There's A Problem

189. Where is God's Mercy?

190. Failures of Joe Biden and the Democrats

191. How can the human race be so smart and so stupid at the same time?

192. What I don't like about cell phones

193. How many ancestors do you have?

194. Social Security Taxes Value If Invested

195. Retirement Expenses

196. A Loving and Merciful God – True or False?

197. Democrats and Electric Cars

198. America's Federal Debt as of January 2023.

199. The Fair Way to Conduct Presidential Primaries

200. House Mortgage Warnings and Guidelines

201. Protect Our Police

202. Texts need to go the way of the Dinosaurs

203. Black Economic Inequality - What the News media Are Hiding

204. True Cost of Credit Card Minimum Payments

205. Democrats are Weaponizing the Media , FBI, and Attorney Generals to Attack Republicans Unfairly

206. All nations headed by a dictator are not legitimate governments

207. Mass Shootings and Gun Control

208. The Many Problems with Electric Vehicles

209. Joe Biden's Job Performance the First 27 Months

210. Black People Reparations Have Been Paid in Full

211. Watching TV is No Fun Anymore

212. The Real Heroes of Our Quality of Life

213. The Debt Ceiling and How to Responsibly Eliminate It

214. Retirement has been an Evolution

215. Doctors - Here's Where to Look For a Tinnitus Cure

216.  Social Security Is A Mindless Shameless Government Bureaucracy

217. Tinnitus Marketing Videos Follow the Same Script

218. Catholic Religion Contradiction

219. Abortion

220. The Most Dangerous Cities in America Are Run by Democrats

221. World Population Growth History and Challenges

222. Black Households with Children Income Differences Between Married and Unmarried

223. Everything is Relative

224. Evolution and Creation

225. 2024 Inflation - Who is Responsible - Trump or Biden

226. Do the Wealthy Pay their Fair Share of Taxes?

227. 2024 Trump Policies That Will Benefit You

2024 Trump Policies That Will Benefit You

                                          2024 Trump Policies That Will Benefit You

1. Reducing tax rates for people and corporations.

Your take home pay will go up as will your standard of living as a consequence. Corporations will have more money to expand their businesses and thus grow the economy. Plus corporations will have more money and opportunities for new hires, raises, and promotions. Plus they will be more competitive with foreign corporations, increasing exports and thus jobs in America. Plus foreign companies, as they did when Trump lowered taxes in his first term as President, move more production to America thus increasing job opportunities for Americans. Finally, historically, Federal tax revenues will increase faster with lower tax rates due to more people working and paying taxes.

2. Repealing Energy Drilling Restrictions imposed by Biden-Harris.

We became energy independent during the first Trump Presidency due to his energy policies. Harris-Biden restricted energy drilling causing energy prices to rise which significantly increased the cost of production and services, plus the cost of driving a car and heating and cooling your home. That fueled massive inflation that has hurt all of us. We are no longer energy independent due to Harris-Biden and must buy much more expensive and dirtier fuel from other nations. Inflation will only increase further under Harris as has proposed abolishing fracking which will lead to higher oil imports and more inflation.

3. Repealing the laws requiring auto makers to switch from gasoline cars to battery cars in the near future.

Battery cars are much more expensive to purchase than gasoline cars. Most Americans need and depend on cars for necessary daily transportation. Being forced to purchase battery cars will significantly lower the standard of living of the poor and the middle class. In addition to that, if all cars were battery cars, America has nowhere near the supply of electricity to charge them. Let's also not forget that electricity is generated by fossil fuels, so battery cars are not "energy friendly". Also, their batteries are prone to fires and putting a battery operated car in your garage is a fire risk.

4. Trump will again pull America out of the disasterous Paris Climate Accord.

Trump did that in his first Presidency. Harris-Biden reversed it and rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. This will result in America paying trillions of dollars in "carbon taxes" and hand it over to "developing nations". It is beyond stupid and unaffordable!! Trump will get us out again.

5. Trump Immigration Policies.

America cannot handle the huge influx of millions of illegal immigrants coming here each year. Illegal immigration was much less under Trump policies and he did not need that ridiculously stupid proposed legislation to not do anything about illegal immigration until it reached a point of exceeding 5,000 illegals a day (over 1.8 million a year). We don't have enough housing for all these illegals which is driving up the cost of housing for all of us. Plus, by driving up labor supply, illegals keep wages lower for many of us than otherwise would be if the supply of labor for jobs did not have all these illegals in it.

6. Imports and Export Control Via Tariffs.

Under the first Trump Presidency, by threatening retaliation tariffs for the high tariffs other nations imposed on America's exports, Trump got Mexico, Canada, and much of Europe and Asia to lower their tariffs on American exports. This resulted in a boom for American exports creating more jobs. More work needs to be done. Harris refuses to do it. Trump will get it done.

Do the Wealthy Pay Their Fair share of Taxes?

Do the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes? Hey Joe Biden, yes they do. The top 1% pay almost 46% of all Federal income taxes collected. The top 10% of income earners pay 75% of all Federal income taxes collected while the bottom 50% of income earners only pay 3% of all Federal income taxes collected. That is very fair and very "progressive". Scroll down this link to the chart listed under What's Your Tax Rate?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-irs-income-taxes-who-pays-the-most-and-least/

Inflation 2024 - Who is Responsible - Trump or Biden

Another clueless news story that never answers the question posed in the headline, namely the cause and responsibility of high inflation. As a person who majored in Economics in college, here are the facts logically analyzed to conclusions:

1. Energy Costs
Under Trump, we were energy independent for the first time in decades. Costs for gasoline, electricity, heating and air conditioning were cheap.
Joe Biden, on the first day of his Presidency, restricted energy drilling in America. Consequently, we were no longer energy independent and had to get a significant part of our needed oil supplies from other nations at more expensive prices and higher transportation costs to ship it thousands of miles over oceans. Plus it was dirtier fuel to burn than American fuel. Energy costs are a big part of producing and transporting goods and services. So everything was negatively impacted with higher costs that were passed on to consumers.
2. Interest Rates
Covid, which started in earnest in 2020 during Trump's Administration, was nobody's fault but it negatively impacted our abilities to work, shop, and use restaurants. To counter the impacts of Covid, Trump had to vastly spend money to prevent Economic collapse. That significantly raised deficits to two trillion dollars a year. Huge government deficits require higher interest rates to attract people to buy government bonds to cover our deficits because the risk of a future government default is exponentially higher. Higher interest rates impact production and services costs, causing prices to rise to cover the increased costs. The housing industry is especially negatively impacted by this, and so is the cost of food. For the most part, Covid was over in terms of the number of people impacted when Biden took office. Federal budgets needed to get rid of extra 2 trillion dollars in Covid spending and go back to pre-Covid 2019 federal spending levels. Instead Biden didn't cut the spending and consequently interest rates kept going up and is the reason for America's high interest rates. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/06/27/biden-trump-presidential-debate-economy-inflation-takeaways/74236870007/

                                              Evolution and Creation

1. Some people don't believe in God.

2. Some people who believe in God don't believe in Evolution.

3. Some people believe, per counting the human generations and ages listed in the Bible, that the Earth and the entire Universe is only 6,000 years old.

All are wrong for the following reasons:

1. Remember the old cliche - "Which came first - the chicken or the egg?" You can't have an egg without an adult male and female chicken at the same time having bred it. You can't have the first adult male and female chicken unless they were eggs first. So either way, the first adult chickens had to be "created" or if they started as eggs, the eggs had to be "created". Same principle applies everywhere, but most especially to humans. Look at a newborn human baby. Totally helpless and dependent on it parents, a newborn baby could not survive on its own. So the first human baby needed an adult male and female human to copulate to create the first baby. Logically, those two first human adults who created the first human baby - how did they come to be if they were never babies themselves? Only logical answer is that they have to be created and in an Earth that is 24,000 miles in circumference, they had to be near each other too.

2. Once created, evolution can occur later through environmental and other factors. After all, we are one human species but have evolved into different skin colors through living in either hot or cold climates for many thousands of years. We know that different skin color humans are one and the same species as we can share blood and body organs when health issues require that to survive.

3. Science has proven that the light from stars that reach the Earth have traveled, depending on how far away from Earth they are, thousands of years in some cases to get here, millions of years in other cases, and billions of years in some cases. So how can the Universe be only 6,000 years old?

Also, if you believe that just the Earth is 6,000 years old, then explain dinosaurs. We know from extensive fossil records, that dinosaurs existed and were huge. It would have been impossible for humans to survive in a world of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are not mentioned in the Bible, nor in human history. So if the Earth is only 6,000 years old and there's no human history of them, then did they only exist for 100 years and died out? Not realistic.

Everything Is Relative

 Everything Is Relative

The term "millionaire" has been utilized to indicate a person of great wealth for generations. How true is that today?

For example, in 1900, a million dollars was equivalent to the annual income of 2,283 workers.

In 1950, a million dollars was equivalent to the annual income of 314 workers.

Today, a million dollars is equivalent to the income of only 16 workers.

100 years from now, it is conceivable that "just a millionaire" would be utilized to describe a person who is poor.

Black Households with Children Income Differences Between Married and Unmarried

Especially if you are Black, you need to read this comparison of the huge difference in incomes between single parent Black female households ($34,544) and Black married households with children ($94,943). If you don't want to be poor, get married before having children. Democrats won't save you from poverty - they want to keep you there through enticing you through welfare programs. It's their way of getting your vote starting with Democrat Lyndon Johnson's Great Society Welfare programs in 1964 aimed at doing just that after Republicans broke the Democratic filibuster and got the the Civil Rights legislation passed. Wise up for your own good and that of your children.

https://wirepoints.org/new-census-data-marriage-bonus-for-kids-greatest-among-black-families-wirepoints/

World Population Growth History and Challenges

 World Population Growth History and Challenges

1. World population reached 1 billion people in 1800.

2. It took another 127 years to double to 2 billion people in 1927.

3. It took only 48 years to double again to 4 billion people in 1975.

4. It took just 48 years to double again to 8 billion people in 2023.

Therefore, in less than 100 years the world human population has quadrupled!! What will happen if the human population doubled again? Seemingly that would happen sometime this century and some people alive today will likely be alive when that occurs. How would we feed 16 billion people? And would someday about 100 years from now would there be a need to feed 32 billion people?

The potential solutions would be challenging and likely would include:

1. Converting wildlife lands to farms, thus driving many species to extinction or near extinction.

2. Converting suburban home lawns to farmland.

3. Inventing/building high tech skyscraper farm buildings that don't use soil to grow crops.

4. Very restrictive laws on how many children families can have (likely just 1 which is something that China does already) or if some families can have children at all.

Will some nations that are having trouble feeding their population invade neighboring nations who still have land resources for additional farmland? Based on human history, most likely yes.

Will their be energy shortages and also shortages of key resources such as steel, wood, salt, materials for clothing, etc.? Most likely yes.

Will a future atomic war occur that would result in a much smaller human population?

The Most Dangerous Cities in America Are Run by Democrats

 The Most Dangerous Cities in America Are Run by Democrats

27 of the 30 most dangerous cities in America are run by Democrats and most have been run by Democrats for decades.

As an example, New Orleans has been run by Democrats since 1872. It has the highest homicide rate of any city in America. Many of these cities have pursued Defunding the Police, eliminated cash bails for some crimes, and have refused to prosecute some crimes. In other words, these cities have increased the incentive of people to commit crimes. Plus these cities are often having trouble attracting enough police to fill their approved police rosters because so many police have left the force due to the negative attitude toward them by Democrats and so few want to become police now for the same reason Therefore it should be no surprise that Democratically run cities are the most violent, crime ridden cities in the nation.

Only the residents of these cities can fix this problem. They need to vote Democrats out of office and replace them with Republicans who support the police and are tough against crime. Otherwise, history will continue to repeat itself.

https://www.outkick.com/usa-most-dangerous-cities-are-run-by-democrats/?fbclid=IwAR1uvZdrPlTDiDnAVv_ARll5YTgY_DRUXd_R9CvaKWbeI95QYhoVUSFSStE

Abortion

 

Given the extreme polarization between Pro-Life and Pro-Death supporters (given that the opposite of life is death the obviously whitewashed description commonly used term of "Pro-Choice" avoids describing the real issue), I strongly hesitated writing anything on this issue. I am savvy enough to know that nothing I say will change the opinions of those on either side of the Abortion issue. I hope that I can at least help somewhat with the following facts.

Before starting, for the sake of perspective on the huge scope of the Abortion issue, let's present one startling fact - Over 63 million legal abortions have been performed in America since the 1973 Supreme Court decision on Roe versus Wade. 63 million human lives deliberately ended!!

Obviously, a healthy woman seeking an abortion never wanted to be pregnant in the first place. There are birth control solutions to prevent pregnancies. The most common and effective are birth control pills but they require a prescription. There are also prophylactics that do not require a prescription and also can prevent the spread of venereal disease.

Fortunately, the birth control prescription pills themselves are cheap, but does require a doctor's visit which may not be cheap depending on a person's insurance coverage. However, that doctor's visit will be a lot cheaper than the cost of a future abortion.

About 100 nations permit non-prescription birth control pills to be sold as they are proven safe for over 50 years. There are no age limits as to who can purchase them. America needs to do the same. This will prevent many unwanted pregnancies and therefore significantly reduce the number of women with unwanted pregnancies seeking abortions. Fortunately in 2023, the FDA has just approved the sale of the non-prescription birth control pills called Opill. They are predicted to be available to the public in 2024. Other birth control pills will still require a prescription. So the FDA needs to go further.

Hopefully, we can all agree with the following facts which should be very obvious:

1. The fetus of a pregnant woman seeking an abortion is alive. If the fetus is dead, than the woman would suffer a miscarriage and there would be nothing to discuss.

2. The fetus itself is "human". That's not a frog or turtle or some other creature inside a pregnant woman's body. That's a human life.

Given those two facts, the definition of an abortion is the deliberate killing of a human life. Reminder, just in America, over 63 million lives have been deliberately terminated since 1973.

For doctors who perform an abortion, you took a Hippocratic oath "to do no harm". How does you deliberately ending a human life equate to "to do no harm"? Logically, it doesn't.

The case of two premature births and how they are treated:

1. A woman goes into premature labor at 6 months pregnancy and delivers a baby. Doctors work intensively to save the baby's life and succeed. The baby goes on to live a full life.

2. Another woman seeks and gets an abortion at the same facility at 6 months pregnant at the same time as the woman in point 1. The baby is alive after the abortion. Doctors just leave the baby alone and let it die.

How can anyone justify saving the first baby and letting the second baby die?

Most Americans believe in God and believe in life after death where the good will be rewarded and the evil will be punished. Most Americans also believe in the Ten Commandments with the most important one being - "Thou Shall Not Kill". Therefore, what does God think of Abortion would be a relevant issue for most Americans to contemplate.

There seemingly are only two possibilities of God's thoughts on Abortion:

1. Abortion is a violation of the Commandment - Thou Shall Not Kill".

If God believes this, then abortion is murder, and the punishment would be eternal hell for the women having abortions, and also the doctors and the medical assistants performing the abortions.

OR

2. Abortion is a woman's right.

If God believes this, then interfering with a woman's right to an abortion is potentially a punishable sin. So what would be the punishment for taking actions that allow a fetus to live against a woman's wishes? Whatever the punishment would be, it has to be less than the punishment for the worst of all sins - murder.

Tinnitus Marketing Videos Follow the Same Script

Tinnitus which is a constant ringing in your ears 24/7 has no known cure. However, there are non prescription pills which claim to help. As you search for Tinnitus cures on the Internet, there are a number of them with marketing videos trying to get you to buy their product. These videos by different manufacturers all seem to follow the same script:

1. They start with a narrator who claims to have suffered terribly from Tinnitus for a long time. Could not concentrate, difficulty in sleeping, headaches, and it was so bad that his behavior scared his family and he felt terrible about that so he was determined to find a cure.

2. He promises to give the cure to you in a few minutes, but that's a lie. The video is 60 to 90 minutes long and you cannot advance the video at all. You must listen to the entire video before getting an answer.

3. Next he goes through a long process describing how he sought help from doctors but they couldn't help him.

4. So he does his own research going to famous doctors or institutions to learn about the Tinnitus research that they did. Then he does more research with them which takes months or years.

5. He supposedly finds that big pharmacy manufacturers are fighting against a Tinnitus cure because they make more money treating Tinnitus than curing it.And they are trying to prevent him from selling his actual cure.

6. He also says government has a cure but they restrict it to high members of the military and big politicians.

7. Through his extensive research with others, he fins someone who has a cure but has not been able to get the funding to sell and distribute it.

8. The cure is completely composed of many natural and sometimes rare ingredients found in remote areas of the world and these ingredients to work properly must not be tainted by fertilizers. He tested it on himself and many others, and the cure worked.

9. He founded a company either by himself or with others to get the tinnitus cure manufactured and distributed.

10. Because of the difficulty of getting all the pure ingredients necessary, this process is costly and the supply is very limited.

11. He could easily sell his product for lots of money, However, he is not interested in making a profit. Too many people suffer from Tinnitus and he just wants to get the cure to as many people as possible.

12. Therefore,he presents an offer to you to buy the limited supply at a discount price (usually about $69 for a one month bottle of pills) in a 30 minute time period if he doesn't sell out before them, so you better place your order now. however, it's best to order a 3 month or 6 month supply and keep taking them even if your Tinnitus has stopped in order to insure that it won't come back.

13. However, if you search Amazon, you normally can find the same product in an identical bottle of pills for less money. And if you look at the customer review scores and read the actual reviews, the results are poor.

Social Security Is A Mindless, Shameless Government Bureaucracy

The Social Security Administration is a shameless government bureaucracy that refuses to take responsibility and make corrections for the bad advice it gives to retirees. They cheated my wife out of $5,000 a year in benefits, $30,000 lifetime so far, by giving her bad advice and then refusing to fix it. When my wife turned her full SS retirement age in 2007, her earned benefit (from her employment SS taxes) was $38 a month more than her spousal benefit (which is half of my SS benefit). She called SS and asked them which benefit she should take - Earned or Spousal. SS told her, of course, take the higher earned benefit, so she did. 16 months later, I read a financial article, that correctly stated that if she had taken her spousal benefit and waited 4 years until age 70, she could switch to her earned benefit then and receive 8% more for each of 4 years for a total increase of 32% to her original earned benefit. That would have been an increase of over $400 to her monthly SS check for an additional $5,000 a year for the rest of her life (note SS ended this "switch" program recently, but it was in effect back then, but you still get an additional 8% a year if you delay collecting any SS benefits until age 70).

So we immediately contacted SS and told them the facts and that we would like to return the extra $38 a month collected for 16 months, go to spousal benefits starting with the first year 2007, so that at age 70 my wife could switch to her 32% higher earned benefit. SS refused. They said that she could return the entire 16 months of SS collected (about $20,000) and then switch to earned benefit at age 70 for 16% more not 32% more because it would use year 2009, not 2007 to make the calculation. That deal made no economic sense for us so we did not do that. However, we both still very much resent the mindless bureaucrats at Social Security who make retirees pay for SS bureaucratic mistakes/bad advice given to us retirees. If SS had been a corporation instead of a government bureaucracy, no doubt that we would have won our case.

Doctors - Here's Where to Research For A Tinnitus Cure

 I have tinnitus which is a constant buzzing/ringing in your ears. It's very frustrating and there is no cure for it. Doctors say it has nothing to do with your ears. It is an internal issue/damage within your brain. However, there are activities that temporary stop the ringing/buzzing. So doctors, here's where to research for a cure:

1. Given that tinnitus has nothing to do with your ears, why do loud enough sounds such as music, the noise from multiple pickleball courts with people playing on them, lawn mowers and leaf blowers "drown out" tinnitus so I don't hear it if it has nothing to do with my ears? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?
2. When I am playing pinochle with friends which also involves conversation and "thinking", why am I not hearing/noticing my tinnitus? Similarly when I am deep in thought focused on something such as researching my family tree or in conversation with others, shopping in a store for just about anything, or sometimes just watching a TV program or news program that interests me, why am I not hearing my tinnitus? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?
3. When I am sleeping, I don't hear my tinnitus. When I wake up, I hear it immediately (which can make it difficult to fall back to sleep given that, as a diabetic, I wake up multiple times at night to use the bathroom). What is the mechanism in being asleep that turns off tinnitus? Whatever it is, can it be used to "trick" tinnitus from disturbing me?

Retirement has been an Evolution

 

I remember when I retired over 15 years ago, I both looked forward to not working anymore and also had some reservations as to how I was going to keep from getting bored with all that free time. How I keep from getting bored is different now then the earlier years of my retirement.

1. At the beginning of my retirement, I kept from being bored by:

a. Playing golf twice a week.

b. Doing a lot of financial planning, seminars, and investing the first 5 years.

c. Doing a lot of family tree research

d. Planning and taking 3 to 4 vacations a year for the first 10 years and before Covid hit. Traveled to much of the US and to 25 nations in Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

e. Taking lots of photos and videos of vacations and family and editing them.

f. I exercised daily on a treadmill for 3o minutes (walking at a brisk five miles an hour) and then increased that to twice a day.

2. As time progressed:

a. I dropped golf which I was never good at and play pickleball 5 days a week which I am good at. I had to drop the treadmill due to knee problems and the recumbent bike never gave me the good blood sugar results that the treadmill gave so I dropped it too.

b. Got into a pinochle group for men, women, and couples. The men and women's groups play once a week and then go to lunch together. There's also a monthly pinochle Men's nightly pinochle game with dinner first, and the same for a monthly couples pinochle game with dinner first.

c. Put hundreds of gigabytes of edited photos and videos for family, vacations, Family research, and internet photos of amazing places, nature, etc., Investment Advice, on a website that I share with family through links and that I continue to update.

d. Created a blog for my interests and thoughts on Economics, finance, and politics.

3. Most recently:

a. Our diabetes causing frequent bathroom trips has made the guided tour vacations we liked to take impractical. fortunately, we have seen almost everything we wanted to see.

b. So we started taking more all inclusive beach vacations since bathrooms by the pool and ocean are always near by. However, we have gotten bored with them and the food and nightly shows are not as good as in the past, so we stopped doing them.

c. Still doing pickleball, pinochle, and family tree research.

d. Some TV time, more computer time including reading a newspaper on line and playing pinochle and Hearts on my computer with my wife and "robots" or just robots.

e. Going out for lunch and dinner more often.

f. Giving investment advice to young family members.

The Debt Ceiling and How to Responsibly Eliminate It

 

The Debt Ceiling and How to Responsibly Eliminate It

The debt ceiling is a limit on the total amount of government borrowing. First put in place by Congress during World War I, it was meant to give blanket authorization for the Treasury Department to borrow money up to a set amount.

1. This is the "PAYMENT " side of government responsibilities.

Therefore the debt ceiling and all the political fighting, which has occurred 79 times to raise it when it is not enough to pay the nation's bills that are in the budget did not exist before World War 1. Therefore, it has been proven possible to live without it.

As previously mentioned the debt ceiling is a product of the budgets approved by Congress. Therein lies the problem that needs to be fixed. It is the Constitutional duty of Congress to pass a budget every year. It seldom does.

2. This is the "SPENDING" side of government responsibilities.

Instead of doing its job, Congress rarely passes an annual budget and consequently gets into many other fights during the year to keep the government running and passes temporary "Continuing Resolutions" during each year to authorize spending. Unfortunately these Continuing Resolutions are always a fixed percentage increase over last year - no thinking involved.

In other words, instead of making the necessary hard decisions on where to raise and where to cut spending based on anticipated tax revenues and by how much that would and should be involved in a true budget process, Congress ignores its true responsibilities and "kicks the can down the road".

THIS IS HOW TO FIX IT:

Eliminate Continuing Resolutions. Make the budget a truly MANDATORY annual event. If the political parties cannot agree on a budget for the new fiscal year by the annual budget deadline, then automatically cut last year's budget by 10% across the board and let that be the new mandatory annual budget until Congress passes a real budget. Also, to insure that Congress "lives within its means" make it mandatory, with the exception of when we are in a war, that total budget spending may not increase more than inflation plus may not exceed anticipated tax receipts by more than 5%.

Such a budget result (10% cut to last year's budget for the new annual fiscal budget) would be unacceptable to all political parties and that fact plus voter anger on spending cuts such as Social Security and welfare would force Congress to do its job and actually make the necessary hard decisions, based on actual tax revenues, on what areas to cut spending and what areas to increase spending within each annual budget and by how much. Those necessary decisions are not being made today and should be. If we do not implement those recommendations, eventually the Untied States will not be able to borrow enough money to pay its bills and debt obligations, and as happened to other nations, the entire economy will crash with dire results for all of us.

Let me give Congress a "head start" on where to cut the budget - SUBSIDIES. There are thousands of Federal subsidies with as many as 100 new Federal subsidies added each year. These subsidies are hidden from view - being buried in many different "Departmental" budgets and amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars and maybe even over a trillion dollars each year. Each subsidy overrides the free marketplace and therefore is a "Slice of Communism" - the most failed economic system in the world.

Minimally put all subsidies in a single "Departmental" Subsidy budget and subdivide it by type of subsidy so that all of us can view the amounts spent of each type of subsidy. The goal is to permanently Eliminate all Federal subsidies within 10 years or less. Most are small enough that they can be eliminated in just one year. Agricultural subsidies would probably need a 10 year reduction program before elimination because some of those subsidies, such as growing corn for ethanol production instead of food, have caused farmers to make key investments such as buying land to increase corn production.

The Real Heroes of Our Quality of Life

 

The Real Heroes of Our Quality of Life

History teaches us the importance of heroes such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, etc.. and they were important. However, they had nothing to do with the great quality of life we have today compared to most human beings throughout history. That honor goes to the important inventors. Most of us, including me, don't know their names, but what they did gave us a great quality of life. These important inventions include (think what our life would be like today if none of these would have been invented):

1. The light bulb in conjunction with Commercial electricity delivered to our homes and businesses to make light bulbs and many more appliances work.

2. Indoor heating.

3. The Refrigerator.

4. Air Conditioning.

5. Washing machines and dryers.

5. Motorized Land Vehicles - Cars, trucks, trains, and tractors.

6. Airplanes.

7. Phones.

8. Television

9. Computers.

10. The Atom Bomb - probably the only reason we haven't had a World War in 78 years, given that the first two World Wars were only 20 years apart. 70 million people were killed in World War 2 and millions more wounded. Conventional weapons have vastly improved since then.

Watching TV Is No Fun Anymore.

Watching TV is no fun anymore. 40 to 50% of the time is devoted to commercials compared to 20% prior to cable TV which promised us "No commercials" as compensation for paying for what was then completely free TV. In addition to currently expensive cable TV, when the actual program is on, there is that annoying Channel symbol or channel wording on the bottom right corner of the TV. Never had that with free TV. In addition, while the program is on, there are occasional mini-commercials in either writing or video on the entire bottom of the screen. Never had that with free TV. Sometimes there is fixed commercial wording in one or two of the other corners of the TV. Never had that with free TV.

Black People Reparations Have Been Paid in Full

 Black People Reparations Have Been Paid in Full

Today, there is a lot of talk about government paying "reparations" to Black people for slavery and discrimination. Some proposals would reward Black people millions of dollars. Think of that - every or many black people would become millionaires paid for by the rest of us who would mostly remain non-millionaires. The rest of us would automatically become poorer through more taxes, interest and principal paid on debt, and devaluation of what a dollar is worth. The truth is for Black people your reparations have been paid in full for the following reasons:

1. No one alive today was a slave nor are any slave owners alive. Slavery was eliminated at the end of the civil war in 1865 158 years ago.

2. The Supreme Court outlawed segregation in 1954. Anyone alive in 1954 in now 69 years old (newborn babies in 1954) or older or dead.

3. The Civil Rights Act banning employment discrimination was passed in 1964 plus the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Anyone who was working then (using 18 years old and older) are now 77 years old or older (that is mostly retired) or dead.

4. The average annual cost of a free public school student education in America (13 years - Kindergarten through 12th grade) is $10,000 a year for a total of $130,000. In large cities where Blacks live in large numbers, the average annual cost of a free public school education is $20,000 a year for a total of $260,000 for 13 years. While many Blacks took full advantage of that expensive free education, many other Blacks did not (either dropping out of school or not applying themselves to achieve good grades) and that is the reason why so many did not do well in employment results. That's on them, not the rest of us in America.

5. There are many government subsidies, scholarships, and easy to get student loans for college for Black people who cannot afford college. The rest of us paid for those programs. Those Blacks who did not take advantage of them did so voluntarily. That's on them, not the rest of us.

6. Affirmative Action, designed to help minorities including Blacks succeed in their employment was part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act plus was strengthened further in 1965 and 1969.

7. 50% of single parent households live in poverty compared to 10% of married households with children living in poverty. Easy to understand - two potential workers and two potential babysitters have much more opportunity to earn more money than one potential worker and one babysitter. Today, 3 out of 4 black babies are born to single parent households. Whose fault is that? Answer - Black mothers who have children voluntarily without getting married. This causes the rest of us workers to pay a fortune in government welfare payments to most of these deliberate single parents who for the most part don't work. Also, teenage boys from single parent households without fathers to guide them are much more likely to drop out of school and/or commit criminal acts.

8. The Black crime rate has been around 8 times the national average for decades. Hard to make money when part or all of your adult life is spent in jail. Plus with the loss of job experience due to jail time, it is harder to gain high paying jobs compared to non criminals who have been working hard while those Blacks deservedly were in jail. That's on the criminals, not the rest of us. Plus we law abiding citizens pay an annual fortune to sustain each person in jail.

Conclusion - Black reparations have been paid in full to every Black alive today. It is up to each Black person to take advantage of the huge fortune that has been invested in them by the rest of us.

Joe Biden's Job Performance After 27 months as President

 Just the Facts - No Opinions: 

1. High Inflation under Biden - hurt everybody. 

2. Illegal immigration - record highs - keeps welfare costs high; keeps low paying jobs low as supply exceeds demand, tells people who immigrated here legally which took several years, that they must be stupid, high drug smuggling resulting in record American deaths, human smuggling amounting to slavery. 

3. Record debt and record spending that will eventually destroy our economy that is no longer related to Covid, but to Socialism - the most failed economic system in human history. 

4. Record crime waves in mostly Democratic cities. 

5. Much higher interest rates due to high inflation caused mostly by excessive government spending making it harder for people to buy houses. 

6. Forgiveness of college loans making us who paid for our own and/or our children's college expenses also pay for the college expenses of strangers. Easy to get college loans is the reason that college expenses have risen 4 times faster than inflation for decades and also the reason why financially naive 18 year olds make stupid decisions to attend expensive colleges instead of more affordable cheaper colleges without regard to how hard it will be to pay off those college loans when they either graduate or drop out of college (about half drop out of college before graduating). not to mention adding almost 2 trillion dollars to government debt. 

7. Dangerous decrease in domestic military supplies shipped to Ukraine without any effort to quickly replace them. 

8. Huge increase in the price of gasoline and energy costs since Trump was President caused by Biden's war on fossil fuels from day one of his Presidency that won't materially impact climate change because the real problem lies with China and India, especially their unfiltered thousands of coal plants, and they are doing nothing about it. In fact they are still building new ones. Note that American coal plants, of which there are a lot fewer, filter out 90% of their pollution from the atmosphere. So the draconian climate change rules Biden is adopting will kill our economy without impacting world climate change materially. 

9. Favorable trading status to China by Biden expands their dominance in Chinese imports while not doing anything to increase our exports. Plus little progress in getting vulnerable exposure and need for Chinese imports for medicines, solar and wind power, rare earth for tech products, etc..

10. Biden's refusal for months to negotiate on the debt ceiling with Republicans which could result in the first ever default on our debt which likely will destroy our economy and hurt all of us significantly. Every other Administration in the past have negotiated a settlement on the debt ceiling as it came up.

The Many Problems with Electric Vehicles

1. Electric Vehicles are much more expensive to purchase. They also depreciate much faster than gas powered vehicles (see point 2 for a good reason why).

2. EV batteries last 10 to 12 years and costs many thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars to replace.

3. EVs are much heavier and can present a towing problem.

4. A total switch to EVs would over power our nation's electric grid leading to blackouts. Plus the necessary nationwide infrastructure for recharging EVs on the road (instead of just at home) is nowhere near viable at this time.

5. Raw materials needed for batteries are extracted at a high human and environmental toll. This includes, for example, child labor, health and safety hazards in informal work, poverty and pollution. Batteries require a lot of minerals, and that means a lot of mining and transporting of materials. According to mining and energy specialist Mark Mills, a thousand-pound electric car battery requires the moving of 500,000 pounds of earth in the course of mining.

6. A recycling challenge looms over the eleven million tones of spent lithium-ion batteries forecast to be discarded by 2030, with few systems in place to enable reuse and recycling in a circular economy for batteries.

7. Safety, Fires can start at any time. Even flood waters can set them off. It’s harder to impossible to put out the fire of EVs. When the battery is on fire, it’s absolutely inaccessible to fire suppressants like water. There is also a chance of re-ignition without sufficient cooling, which can lead to a long-lasting fire.

8. Reliability. Consumer Reports named electric SUVs the least-reliable vehicle type. The most common EV problem areas were "in-car electronics, noises and leaks, power equipment, climate system, body hardware, drive system, and paint and trim," the report said.

9. Dependence on China whose intent is to dominate us and the rest of the world economically - The materials and parts for EVs plus the materials for finished products for solar and wind power come from China and thus threaten the future stability of our national Energy needs.

Mass Shootings and Gun Control

Remember that when the Second Amendment (granting us our right to bear arms) was passed, it took a full 30 seconds to load a rifle before it could fire a single bullet. Then it took another 30 seconds to load it again before it could fire a second bullet. If assault rifles, which are essentially machine guns existed then, our Founding Fathers would very likely have worded the Second Amendment differently. Our right to bear arms currently does not give us the right to own and use atom bombs, fighter jets, tanks, and 50 caliber machine guns. So there is and should be a current limit on our right to bear arms. Where should the line be drawn as to what arms we can and cannot use? Any weapon that is effectively a machine gun should be banned. That would require the Federal government buying back millions of AR-15 assault rifles. Likely, many will not sell it back to the government. Make it life imprisonment just to own one after the turn it in to the government deadline has passed. That won't be perfect but would significantly help. No other nation on Earth has the repeated mass shooting problem that we have here in America. We need a solution that works much better than doing nothing.