Causes of the Great Depression and the Great Recession

If you only know when things happened and not why, then you are economically ignorant and therefore part of the problem. FDR, by raising taxes to balance the budget whose revenues had dropped because so many people were out of work and not paying taxes thus reducing disposable income which in turn lowered demand for products and services, plus by enacting trade barriers to imports which other nations retaliated, causing entire industries on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean to collapse, throwing many more people out of work is the reason why it took 10 years and a World War to get out of the economic mess of the Great Depression. The recession of 2008 was the result of high defaults on home mortgages. The high default rate occurred because in the 1990s, Bill Clinton put Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act, which put pressure on banks and mortgage lenders to lower borrowing standards "so that the poor can buy homes" on steroids. Not surprisingly, these loans had high default rates. It took years for the percentage of these type of loans to total loans to all borrowers to become large enough to have a meaningful impact on the economy, To his credit, Bush recognized the problem early on in his first term in office and tried to change the law 18 different times. However, the Democrats, led by Congressman Barney Frank screaming "don't fix what isn't broken" blocked passage of the bill. When the inevitable happened and too many loans defaulted sinking the economy, Democrats lied and blamed "greedy banks" for the problem. Gullible people bought it. The Democrats passed all sorts of new regulations after Obama got elected, but none of them fixed the real problem - the Community Reinvestment Act forcing banks to give loans to unqualified buyers. Therefore, history is likely to repeat itself in the future and the economically ignorant will not have a clue as to the cause. 

Student Loans

The very ease of getting a student loan plus the financial ignorance of the students have been exploited by colleges to raise tuition, plus room and board, much faster than inflation and also to expand their Administrative staffs to bloated levels while paying ridiculous salaries to "star" professors. Given that over half of college students never graduate, no student should get a college loan for the first two years. Let them go to cheap Community colleges instead (and work part time if they need to). If they don't drop out after qualifying for their junior year, then consider college loans, but put a cap on it of no more than $15,000 a year. Also, no loan unless the college the student plans to transfer to, accepts all the student's college earned credits to be transferred (otherwise, expensive colleges will deliberately reject many of the credits forcing the financially naive student to spend more time and money at the college he/she transferred to). Some Community colleges have expanded from two years to four years. Encourage more to do so. That way, many more students could graduate inexpensive colleges without the need for student loans. Now, with less demand for their services, the expensive colleges will be forced to compete for students by lowering costs to reasonable levels and also utilizing alumni donations to help students instead of constructing new buildings and monuments to themselves. Everyone benefits.

How NOT to Unintentionally Disinherit Your Children

If you have re-married or do so sometime in the future, you need to be aware of how you could unintentionally disinherit your children. In a second (third, fourth, etc.) marriage, even if the current spouse is not listed on any of your IRA beneficiary forms, by Federal law, the current spouse, if she/her survives you, gets all the money in the account, and the other beneficiaries (for example, your children) get nothing. There is one exception to this law. If you have a signed waiver where the current spouse gives up her/his rights to the money, then your IRA(s) will be distributed to the beneficiaries in the manner that you designated. That is why our own Trust mandates a premarital agreement at least 30 days before any future marriage in which the prospective bride and groom are each represented by different legal counsel. Should you be in similar circumstances, you need to be aware of this law and how to ensure that your inheritance wishes are followed. 

If I ran for President

If I ran for President, I would be a lot more specific on my plans concerning jobs, wealth, debt, and unfunded government liabilities. First, I would end all 2200+ Federal government subsidies totaling over one trillion dollars a year. Next, I would require all healthy welfare recipients who are not working to work, creating menial public works jobs if necessary. That takes care of annual deficits and produces a surplus. I would stop being the only major nation who taxes companies from bringing their overseas profits to invest in America creating new jobs in the process.

I would revise income taxes to be taken at the gross income level without deductions in a progressive manner, but at a lower tax rate so that the impact is tax neutral on individuals and as with Social Security, there would be no tax forms to fill out.

I would add a Social Security option, based on life expectancy tables, to fully collect the highest SS check when one spouse dies (just like today), but with the option on the second lower SS check to collect some, all or none of it when the first spouse dies by taking a little bit less of the second lower check when both spouses are alive (similar to what most pensions do today).

Also on SS, I would fund it differently. SS consists of a pension, disability, and child welfare for widows. I would fund SS by having one SS tax for pensions designed so that people get back what they put in thus limiting as today the amount of income taxed, and a second welfare tax for the other two programs which taxes all income (at a tiny 1-2% which is about all that is needed).

I would eliminate overtime pay in the calculation of government pensions to eliminate the fraud of working massive overtime in the last year of work to boost pensions from 50% of income to 100% at taxpayer expense.

I would repeal the Community Investment Act and similar laws that force banks to make mortgage loans to unqualified buyers "so that the poor can buy homes" which later they default on their mortgages because they couldn't afford it in the first place (the real cause of the 2008 Recession courtesy of Bill Clinton who expanded the original Jimmy Carter program and which Democrats wouldn't let Bush fix).

I would fix health care costs by first allowing insurance policies to cross State lines and compete. Most importantly, since up to 50% of medical costs are spent on terminal patients in their last six months of life, I would have two types of insurance policies. One type for those who just want to be kept comfortable when near death and one who want every effort expended (driving up costs exponentially) to keep them alive for a few more weeks (though even with that, I would have some reasonable government limitations). Those that choose the comfort option would pay a lot less in insurance than those who don't. No family member can override the option chosen by the patient when they bought their insurance.

I would also have third party insurance companies administer all government health care programs as they have less than 1% medical fraud while the government medical fraud rate is estimated at 10 to 25%, costing hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

I would get rid of the asylum loophole at the border by requiring foreign asylum seekers to get approval and documentation of approval from an American embassy to show at a legal point of entry. Without it, or even with it if they cross anywhere but a legal point of entry, they are immediately deported without a trial.

I also would change the definition of citizen. Those born of American citizen parents anywhere in the world are citizens. Those born in America of legal permanent residents are ctizens. All others are not citizens even if born in America. They are foreign nationals born on American soil.

Finally, I would take some of the new budget surplus I created to increase the size of our Army which is now too small to defend ourselves in a conventional war and is the cause of so many repetitive deployments overseas by our current troops. 

Political Correctness - the Hallmark of all Dictatorships

Political correctness is an abusive political tool to say that one side is always right and the other side is always wrong. To those who believe in political correctness, I say who determined what is politically correct? You don't know and therefore cannot tell me, can you? More importantly to validate politically correct issues and answers, first show me a complete list of all the politically correct issues and the politically correct answers. Next show me the dates when a national vote was taken on these issues along with the vote counts for and against. If you cannot do that, then you are just making it up as you go. That makes all my issues and all my answers as politically correct as yours. The entire concept of political correctness, I repeat, has absolutely no place in a freedom loving democracy. Political correctness is the hallmark of all dictatorships. If you are not politically correct in a dictatorship, then you are jailed or tortured or killed or all three.

Black Killings - The Real Problem

A lot of protests and media press has been given lately to a handful of cop killings of blacks as if there is a huge national conspiracy by cops to kill blacks. Yet, very few blacks are killed by cops and those that were killed were engaging in criminal and violent activities plus resisting arrest and deserved what they received. The media has even supported the frequently seen protest lie concerning Michael Brown of "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" when all the witnesses who were actually there and testified under oath in court, including Black witnesses, that it never happened that way. Instead the 300 pounder put his head down and charged like a football player engaging in tackling violently toward the officer.
Of course, all the so called Black Civil Rights leaders have promoted the myth of cops killing blacks simply because they are black. More Whites are killed by cops than Blacks, but that fact is ignored. Also ignored is the fact that thousands of Blacks are murdered each year - 93% of them are murdered by other Blacks. In 35 years, over a quarter million blacks have been murdered by other Blacks. That's more than double the number of Americans killed in the Vietnam and Korean Wars combined.
If "Black lives Matter" as the protesters and Civil Rights leaders love to shout at cops, then why don't all those hundreds of thousands murdered Black lives by other Blacks matter? Why are they not trying to address and fix the real threat to Black lives instead of the miniscule handful of Blacks killed, normally for excellent reasons, by cops? If you are a Black person, you have a lot more to fear from other Black people than you do from cops. Imagine how many more Blacks would be murdered if it weren't for cops?

Immigration Reform

If you want meaningful immigration reform, then just do what Mexico does to stop illegal immigration from Central American nations who consider Mexico to be "rich". Mexico does not allow them to get jobs, nor go to school, nor receive government benefits, nor rent an apartment. If caught, Mexico takes all their assets and money, then deports them. Problem solved. For good measure, make it impossible for those caught to ever become US citizens or to become legal Permanent Residents, or to even visit the U.S. again.