Mail In Voting - A Recipe for Cheating

How come the liberal news media never reports on these problems, and in fact denies that there are any problems with mail in voting? Nor does the news media distinguish between the TWO TYPES OF MAIL IN VOTING - requested absentee voting by registered voters (not a problem) VERSUS mass mailing of non-requested mail in voter ballots to everyone whether they still live at those addresses (1 in 10 Americans move each year) or are even alive (huge problem that should not be allowed). Plus the practice of "ballot harvesting" where an individual collects ballots from multiple voters and turns them into the state or doesn't turn them into the state is a sure recipe for fraud. Why didn't the news media report that 6 million mail in ballots in the 2016 Presidential election were lost? Seems kind of important. See link:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/04/24/28_million_mail-in_ballots_went_missing_in_last_four_elections_143033.html?fbclid=IwAR24__Ya1CVVfTYauJxEd9y-Cc-5G8x40qTOVo-sr4EhsN7Ps00N0w65eM8

Financial Advisors – Just Say No

 I do not believe in Financial Advisors managing my money. Here's why. Most take 2% of the ENTIRE value of the assets (not just 2% of the gains or losses) in fees each year. Plus the S&P 500 index, which costs you nothing to buy and sell at most brokerage firms (ETF symbol = SPY) outperforms financial advisors 70% of the time. If 2% fees don't sound like much, think again. For example, if they had a good year and your assets went up 10%, they take 20% of your gains as fees. Likewise, in a bad year where your assets went down 10%, those fees add 20% to your losses. If your assets went up 5% for the year, that 2% takes away 40% of your gain, and if your assets only went up 2% for the year, that 2% fee takes away 100% of your gain (while a 2% loss, is doubled by that 2% fee to a 4% loss).

China – Time to Disengage Completely

China – Time to Disengage Completely

China is a dangerous, rogue nation that steals technology from companies doing business in China as a condition of doing business there, plus engages in worldwide spying to do the same, manipulates it currency to give it trade advantages, does not honor its international commitments such as the 1997 50 year one country, 2 systems treaty in Hong Kong, and international agreements about ownership of sea lanes by nations sharing those sea lanes, brutalize its people, and is striving for world dominance and control by the year 2050.

It is time for America and its NATO allies to work together in a measured step by step way to disengage from China completely (no trade, no diplomatic relations) until that nation changes its criminal behavior, adopts democracy, disbands its Communist Party, allows other political parties, and conducts free and fair elections. Economically, given that China exports far more than it imports, China would be hurt far more than the US and Europe if trade ceased with China. Don't do it at once. First fix trade imbalances with needed prescription drugs, rare Earth, needed production, and any other critical products by increasing domestic production of these valuable items. Once safely established, then give China a one year ultimatum to accomplish the goals set out. If they refuse, then cut off all trade. Also make it known to companies and other nations, that America and NATO won't allow imports of goods from their countries that were partially produced in China or containing Chinese made parts.

China is never going to change its outrageous, dangerous, and criminal activities until it pays a high enough price for its deeds. Let's start the process to influence China to free its people and behave responsibly before the situation gets any worse.

Social Security Benefits – Stop Taxing Them

If you really want to help seniors, then stop taxing Social Security benefits. SS benefits were never supposed to be taxed. Then in 1984 with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans, retirement total income above $25,000 for singles and $40,000 for married couples (then considered income amounts for only the "wealthy") had their SS benefits taxed. Those income maximums were never indexed for inflation. So now, 36 years later, much of the middle class has their SS benefits taxed and more of the middle class are added to those retirees taxed each year. Minimally, those income limits should be raised to reflect the inflation of the last 36 years, and indexed to inflation each year in the future. Ideally, make it simple, and as originally promised in the 1930s, and stop taxing Social Security benefits.

Poverty – How to Avoid It

If you honestly want to avoid poverty, there are three simple, easy to follow guidelines:

1. Education - make a strong effort at school and strive to not only graduate high school, but go on to college or technical school to gain the skills that employers are looking for and pay more for those skills. America spends more per public school student per year than any other nation (about $10,000 each per year). In large cities where many of the poor live, we spend double that. Now show your appreciation and your good fortune for having such a fine education system, behave in school and put the effort in to learn. Parents - You must be involved with your children's education. Monitor their behavior in school, make sure they study and do their homework on a daily basis, and set high standards for achieving good grades. Teachers alone cannot control your children's behavior toward learning. It is a dual responsibility.

2. Marriage - never have children out of wedlock. 50% of single parent households are poor to only 10% of married households with children. Two parents working together for family and income can obviously make more money than one parent.

3. Crime - Don't commit crimes. You can't make money in jail, and when out of jail, few want to hire you due to your criminal background.

Police Killings – The Truth

Statistics on police killings that are based on “total” racial populations are irrelevant, biased statistics that are purposely designed to distort the truth. Comparisons to racial population totals count for nothing, yet these are the only ones you hear from the news media. What counts are comparisons to the “number of law breakers” by race because law breakers are the people that police deal one on one with, not with entire populations. Consistently year after year, Black crime rates are roughly 8 times the national average. 8 times!!!!!!!!!!!!! Therefore, when that fact is calculated, a White criminal is more likely to be killed by police than a Black criminal. If you truly want to stop killings by police of all races, follow these simple guidelines:

1. Don't commit crimes.

2. Follow police directives immediately and without complaint.

3. Never threaten, fight with, or attack police - remember if innocent, you will get your day in court to prove it.

4. Never run away or drive away from police.

The History of Slavery and Public Statues

Let me start with the obvious – Slavery is a totally disgusting and unacceptable crime against humanity. Slavery was embedded into America as both a colony and a nation until the Civil War ended the practice. When you see the news and protests in America about slavery and early important American leaders who owned slaves, it is easy to get the false impression that slavery was a uniquely American invention. Unfortunately, slavery has existed for thousands of years before America existed. It has existed on every continent including Africa. Some African tribes had slaves. Some African tribes sold people to the slave traders from Europe, America, and South America. That's right – Blacks in Africa had slaves and Blacks in Africa sold Black people into slavery to White slave traders. The obvious conclusion – nobody has clean hands when it comes to slavery. History cannot be changed no matter how much we protest. It should not be hidden either – Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. We only can change the present and the future.

That said, logically, every Confederate soldier and politician was a traitor to America and they should not be honored by statues in public view. However, don't tear them down by mobs. Let all of America have a say and therefore do it legally. It will mean a lot more historically if the majority of Americans stood up and were counted in this process.

What about statues of very important leaders such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson who birthed our nation and preserved it through the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 where America's existence was far from certain, but themselves owned slaves? America owes them their existence so give them their fair due. Be grateful that the Founding Fathers, when they could not after vigorous debate, convince the Southern colonies to give up slavery, gave America the means to amend the Constitution in the future. George Washington did free his slaves in his will, the only slave owning Founder (not all the Founders owned slaves) to do so. Keep their statues, they earned them, but remember both aspects of their history. As to the Lincoln statue with the slave that by some is regarded as demeaning, remember that the statue was erected and paid for by former slaves. Obviously, those former slaves saw nothing wrong with it. Respect that and leave it be.

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

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

The Democratic Party was founded in 1829 to preserve slavery.

In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled that Blacks were property with 7 Democrats for to 2 Republicans against.

Democrats started America's Civil War to preserve slavery in which 600,000 Americans were killed (more than both World Wars combined at a time when our total population was a lot less).

After losing the Civil War, Democrats founded the Ku Klux Klan, instituted over 100 years of segregation and discrimination to keep the former slaves terrorized and on the Southern Plantations as cheap labor. They also prevented blacks from owning property.

Democrats voted 100% against giving Blacks the right to vote.

When they lost that battle, Democrats imposed voter poll taxes and literacy tests to stop Blacks from voting.

In 1964, Democrats blocked by filibuster the Civil Rights Bill for 75 days until Republicans garnered enough votes to break the filibuster.

After they lost that battle, Democrats created massive welfare programs, not for the benefit of the poor, but with the stated intention by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson to keep Blacks voting Democratic for the next 200 years.

Prior to the massive welfare bills, 3 out of 4 Black babies were born to married parents. Today, 3 out of 4 Black babies are born to single parent households, thus destroying the Black family unit.

50% of single parent households live in poverty compared to only 10% of married households with children living in poverty.

Democrats today are against school choice, denying parents the freedom to better educate their children through Charter schools and improve their prospects for a secure financial future.

Through welfare programs and lack of school choice, Democrats have succeeded in keeping many Blacks on what has accurately been labeled “The Government Plantation”.

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

Racial Issues - Lying With Statistics to the Detriment of All

Statistics don't lie, but it is very easy to lie and distort the truth using statistics. Every comparison I see about the “inequities” by race utilizes the proportional “national” sizes of each racial population to make comparisons that conclude that Blacks are discriminated against on the particular issue being reported. These comparisons never talk about the real causes for these differences. In the interest of actually coming up with solutions that will actually work to reduce and eliminate racial disparities, let's examine some of these causes:

1. In the most current and emotional issue of the day – police killings of Blacks is decried, using total racial population differences, to be twice the rate of Whites killed by police:

This comparison deliberately ignores “root cause” and is therefore statistically meaningless. Now for the truth. Police deal one on one with “ law breakers”, not total population. Consistently, year after year, Black crime rates based on their population is about 8 times the national average. What that means for police killings by race is that a White criminal is more likely to die in a police killing than a Black criminal. In other words, the real truth is being ignored and purposely distorted by the media and liberals for political purposes.

2. Black prison population is out of proportion compared to Whites based on total racial population:

Answered in point 1 – Black crime is 8 times the national average. That's why the prison population is skewed heavily toward Blacks. What are we supposed to do – arrest and jail innocent White people so that the prison racial populations will reflect total national racial populations?

3. The Truth - Police have a very demanding job and overall do it very well:

Finally on this issue, with all the hatred currently misdirected onto all police for the sins of a very few bad cops, let us always remember that, based on population size, a cop is 25 times more likely to die in the line of duty than a Black person is likely to be killed by police!! 25 times!!!!

4. Blacks, on average, earn less money and have less wealth than Whites:

There are several reasons for this.

A. The most basic reason is that Black educational achievements are the lowest of any race. In relation to total population, Blacks drop out of high school in far greater numbers relative to race population than any other race. Blacks enter and graduate college at the lowest rates relative to race. This result is despite the fact that Black populations are largest compared to Whites in big cities. Why is that important? In America, we spend more on public schools than any other nation on a per student, per year basis. The national average is about $10,000 per year per student. In many big cities where Black populations are statistically higher compared to Whites than the Black national population, the average spent per year per public school student is about $20,000 each, double that of the national average!! We are putting the resources there for all races to achieve success. Blacks are not fully taking advantage of those resources and it is up to them to do so.

B. Blacks have a higher unemployment rate than Whites. True, but the reason has already been explained. Blacks lag in educational achievements by a wide margin. In the real world, as should always be the case, jobs and income are simply not given out by race. It has to be “individually” earned. Many people of all races have figured this out and are successful because they went out and earned it. That's the way, for the benefit of all of us, it should always be.

C. It is a statistical fact that only 10% of married households with children live in poverty. The poverty rate of single households with children is roughly 50%!! Back in the 1960s, prior to the start of the Democratic “Great Society” welfare programs, 3 out of 4 black babies were born to married parents. Today, just the opposite, 3 out of 4 Black babies (and 1 out of 4 White babies) are born to single parent households – the engine of poverty!! This is easy to understand as a cause of poverty. A married household with children has two potential income earners and two people who can care for the child. A single parent household has only one person to be both the income earner and the person taking care of the child. Two parents are likely to be in a better position to earn income and stay out of poverty than one parent. See link:

http://marripedia.org/effects_of_single_parents_on_poverty_rates

D. In the only statistical comparison that matters, the fact is that people, no matter their race or gender, with the same educational levels and years of experience on the job, essentially earn the same income. That should not be a surprise. That's been the law for over 50 years. The current political nonsense of coming up with just one national pay rate to utilize as an income “comparison” by race or gender by putting people of all types of jobs, full time and part time, along with high school drop outs and graduates, plus college dropouts and graduates together to come up with one statistical pay rate by each race or gender is utterly and totally statistically meaningless!

E. Black home ownership rates are the lowest of all races in the US. Of course they are for all of the reasons previously explained above.

5. Health Disparities by Race:

There are several making the rounds.

A. Black women die in childbirth at a higher rate than White women. Teenagers die in child birth at a higher rate than women in their 20s to 40s. Teenage births, comparatively speaking, are higher for Blacks than any other race. There's your root cause.

B. Covid-19 deaths are much higher for Blacks than Whites. Very easy to explain. Covid-19 deaths are proportionally higher in cities than rural areas. We've already established, that based on population, Blacks live disproportionally in big cities.

C. Blacks, on average, die at younger ages than Whites. Obesity rates, a leading cause of disease and death is much higher for Blacks than Whites. See Link:

https://redice.tv/news/new-study-reveals-american-obesity-rates-by-race

Conclusion:

Unless Blacks address and fix the issues documented here, then 50 years from now, nothing will have changed, nor should it change. The opportunities are there for each of us to achieve progress, success, and parity with all other races. There is nothing to stop anyone in America from being successful in life. Millions have proven that from all races. We have even had a Black President elected and re-elected. America is the greatest nation in the world, not due to handouts, but due to the freedom, perseverance, and hard work of its people to earn and achieve great things. Go for it!!!

How to Avoid Poverty

Education:

Take full advantage of the public school system. Study hard, aim for good grades, persevere, behave in school, and graduate high school. Parents – it is your job to monitor their school work and discipline your children as required so that they achieve these goals.

Next, continue your education with either college or skills training for good, non-college jobs.

Family:

Only 10% of married parents with children live in poverty while roughly 50% of single parents live in poverty. Easy to understand – two potential household workers and two child care takers have more potential for income than one. So do not have children unless you are married. Children with fathers, especially teenage boys, are more likely to finish their education and less likely to get in trouble.

Live within your means:

Never use credit cards unless you can pay them off entirely each month. Credit card interest rates are so steep that, in time, they can double or triple the actual price you initially paid to purchase goods and services with credit cards. Same is true with the Pay Day Loan services. Don't use them. Homes and cars are normally people's largest expenses. Buy what you need and can afford, not what you dream. Especially cars, buy much cheaper used cars with warranties over more expensive new cars. Doubly true if your annual miles driven is low.

Go to Colleges that you can actually afford:

College costs can be astronomical at some schools. If you or your parents can't afford them without borrowing huge sums of money, then go to a more affordable college such as Community Colleges, some State Universities, and online colleges. Live at home if at all possible to save room and board college costs. Work part time when taking classes and full time during summer recess.

Persevere hard at your job:

Whether college educated or not, you are in competition with your peers for promotions and raises. Strive to be the best that you can be at your job. Also, strive to learn and gain the skills needed for higher paid positions. Never quit your current job until you have been hired for your next job.

Save and invest at least 10% of your income:

Avoid as best you can living paycheck to paycheck with no savings. Read again the Live within your means section if necessary. You need savings for emergency living expenses that will come up, eventually buying a house if that is your goal, vacations (only take vacations you can afford without borrowing), retirement (you will have a lot more money for retirement if you start young in your early 20s with 401Ks and IRAS than if you wait until your 40s or later), and peace of mind. Favor Roth IRAs and 401Ks over Traditional ones. Better to pay a small tax now instead of a large one later. Learn how to invest in the stock market.

Tips for the Novice Investor:

Here are some tips to help the novice investor. Never buy individual stocks - they can go to zero or just stagnate far longer than any stock market, plus you are not smart enough to know when to get in or out. Buy pooled assets such as mutual funds, ETFs, and index funds and hold onto them for decades without selling. Only have a small amount to invest - The S&P 500 ETF index (SPY) is all you need. It reflects the stock market trend which over the past long run has averaged 10 to 11% average annual growth or a doubling "average" every 7 years. SPY is composed of 500 of the largest stocks ( virtually no risk of all 500 going to zero), is cheap to buy (about $5 to $7 at most brokerage houses) and has the added value of being able to buy or sell it instantly during open market hours (as do all ETFs; mutual funds buy and sell prices are calculated after the market closes and if you buy them after the market closes, then your price is determine after the next day's stock market close which is why it is better to buy these within the last hour the market is open but not too close to the end). Want a technical stock market play also - buy the ETF - QQQ, which reflects the top Nasdaq 100 stocks (heavily weighted toward technical companies, but not only technical companies).

As your wealth and experience increases, to attain more investment diversity – try the ETFs – MDY (S&P 400 Mid-Caps) and SLY (S&P 600 small caps). For additional diversity and balance, there are also “growth” and “value” versions of the S&P 500 indices - just put a “G” for growth, or a “V” for value at the end of them (SPYG, SPYV, SLYG, SLYV, MDYG, and MDYV). Note that growth and value funds over the long run achieve about the same results. In the short run, growth outperforms value funds when the general stock market rises, but value funds outperform growth funds when the general stock market falls.

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

1. Do not break any laws.

2. Never physically attack police (with your fists, hands, or body, projectiles, firecrackers, fire bombs, vehicle, weapons, or other means).

3. Follow police instructions faithfully when given to you.

4. Do not run or drive away, yell at, or verbally attack police. Keep your voice calm and low.

5. Do not resist police handcuffs – you will get your day in court to defend your innocence should that occur.

Always Remember:

1. Before mass protesting publicly which often leads to violence,property damage, businesses and job lost, and often people hurt or killed, remember that all deaths at the hands of police are investigated and if guilty, police are punished and/or sent to trial and the guilty police to jail. Given that there are about 800,000 police, over 18,000 police forces nationally, and 13 million arrests annually, plus the fact that there are no “perfect” humans, in numbers that huge, there will always be rare cases of police misconduct or criminality. When this happens, never paint all police as violent or criminal on the basis of one person's actions. You would never want another person's bad or criminal actions attributed to you too. We are each solely and individually responsible for our own actions and not collectively guilty of other people's actions.

2. We live in a modern, technological world of instant news. Instantly transmitted provocative videos of police violence, often incomplete as to everything that occurred or even sound, can never and should never result in instant retribution. That's called a lynch mob – something we never want to see in America. The wheels of justice necessarily move slower than instant news. That is a good thing that protects all of us so that a proper investigation can occur and if justified, the proper charges can be filed. In America , we are all innocent until and unless found guilty in a court of law. You would not want it any other way for yourself.

3. Police killed on the job, as a percentage to total police population, is many times higher than the percentage of people by population killed by police by race. Police work in a high stress job, where sometimes necessary split second decisions often mean the difference between their living or dying. Police do not have the luxury of time in these types of situations that we do when later reviewing and judging these situations and their outcomes to carefully ponder the “Should I or shouldn't I react” split second decision that police must sometimes make.

Capital Gains Taxes on the Sale of your Home

Currently, the capital gains exemption is $250,000 for singles and $500,000 for married couples. There are two key issues here:

The exemption amount was never indexed to inflation and therefore has not changed since 1997 even though home prices are much higher today than 1997. Therefore, in inflation adjusted dollars, the benefit is much less than in 1997.

When a spouse dies, the survivor has two years to sell the house or their capital exemption will be cut in half, from $500,000 to $250,000. It is hard enough to lose a spouse, but given that for many millions of Americans, their home is their greatest financial asset, surviving spouses who would rather stay in their homes, make the uncomfortable financial decision to sell their homes that they really would like to keep, so as not to lose $250,000 in tax exemptions and the tens of thousands of tax dollars that they will likely need as they age to live on.

Both these issues need to be addressed. First raise the home tax exemption to reflect inflation since 1997 and permanently index it to inflation. Secondly, stop punishing surviving spouses by no longer reducing their married couple home exemption when a spouse dies.

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

Apparently, according to news reports, a majority of Millennials believe that Socialism is superior to Capitalism. Part of this belief stems from the fact that many Millennials had difficulty entering the job market during the 2008 Recession. Also, Millennials did not live through the so called “Cold War” that matched Communist/Socialism ideology against Capitalism from the end of World War 2 in 1945 until the collapse of Communist Soviet Union in 1989. So let's review the history of Socialism.

It started to 1917 when the Bolshevik, followers of Marxist leader Lenin, the inventor of Communism, forcibly took over Russia and instituted Communism. Communism was supposed to create a “workers paradise”. Did it? Emphatically No. Without the profit/loss incentive that private companies have to produce what customers really want at prices and quality that they are willing to buy, the Russian government took over industries and operated on “production goals”.

For example, if told to produce 5 million coats, factories would produce the 5 million coats even if people only bought 3 million. So instead of creating wealth, they wasted material and labor resources that could have instead been utilized to produce products and services that people actually wanted. Also, with no ability for people to create their own companies, there was also no incentive to invent new technologies and new industries as there is under Capitalism. The best Communists could do would be to steal these technologies from the Capitalist nations that invented them, but their products, such as cars, were far inferior to Capitalist nations. The Russian people became poorer but could not create political parties to vote out the Communist dictators.

After World War 2 in 1945, the nations that Russia “freed” from Nazi Germany were not given their freedom, and instead were forcibly incorporated into new Russian “States” and Russia renamed their country the Soviet Union. A few years later, when China became Communist after the rebel Communists won a Civil war, China also adopted the policy of taking over industries and dictating production. North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba did the same thing with the same dismal results. Their citizens were much poorer than Capitalist nations.

So military force and sometimes walls were utilized to keep these dictators in power and very importantly to keep their citizens from fleeing to neighbor Capitalist nations. Many of those citizens fled anyway, and some lost their lives trying. Citizens from Capitalist nations did not try to flee to Communist nations. That should tell you something important.

In 1989, the Communist model of the Soviet Union collapsed. The Eastern European nations, a population of almost half a billion people, who were much poorer than their Western Capitalist European neighbors, were freed from Communism and became capitalists. Today, they are much wealthier than they had been under Communism.

In 1970, with a very stagnant, poor economy, China allowed limited capitalism. They have improved dramatically though their Communist run industries are losing lots of money and are propped up by China subsidizing them with lots of printed money (a recipe for eventual financial disaster). The average wealth of an American is $69,000 compared to $21,000 for the average Chinese.

An excellent example of the failure of Communism/Socialism is Korea. Same people, same culture, same language. Capitalist South Korea averages $72,000 wealth per adult, while Communist North Korea averages less than $2,000. Millions of North Koreans eat grass in order to survive.

The only thing that Socialism accomplishes is to make everyone equally poor and miserable. So yes, you attain equality of income with Socialism, but at the cost of everyone being poor. Who really wants that?

Why Do We Still Allow Discrimination in America?

We have several kinds of discrimination in America. Age discrimination, reverse discrimination, and gender discrimination come to mind. As an older American, I have faced age discrimination. Just before I turned 65, my allergist for 5 years, informed me that she was dropping me as a patient due to Medicare. If you are retired and age 65, try to get private health insurance instead of Medicare. You can't. When I went to an urgent care center at age 72 during non-business hours for my doctor, they refused to see me because it was their corporate policy to not treat patients age 70 and older (no explanation given). Now with Coronavirus pandemic, Cruise ships are banning customers 70 and older unless you have a note from your doctor within the 7 days prior to your trip that you are “fit to travel”. Airlines are considering doing the same thing. It is hard enough to get a timely doctor's appointment and will get much worse if doctors are bombarded by elderly travels for such notes. I doubt that Medicare would pay for the costs either, since there would be no existing Medicare “code” for it (without the right “code” submitted by doctors to Medicare, Medicare won't pay for your treatment or drugs). So if you are stopped from flying due to your age, will hotels and rent a car companies refund your prepaid reservation money? Not necessarily as many are not refundable.

Reverse discrimination is pure discrimination and therefore totally disgusting but employed everywhere. If you are the most qualified for college admission or a promotion at work but are White or Asian, a less qualified Black or Hispanic, may be chosen over you to meet racial quotas at colleges and employers. That's not what Martin Luther King fought for. He fought for “No Discrimination”. Today, reverse discrimination has been expanded to gender. Less qualified women will be admitted to colleges or promoted at work over more qualified males to reach gender quotas. People need to “earn” their admission to college and promotions at work.

No one should be discriminated against due to skin color, gender, or age. All discrimination should be illegal. Until it is, America is not living up to its ideals.

Medicare For All – A Terrible Idea

First, medical fraud on government run health care programs is estimated to be between 10 to 25% depending on which newspaper article you read. Either way that tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars lost annually. What is private insurance medical fraud? Answer - less than 1%, thus proving it is better to have private industry run health care rather than the government. Secondly, Obamacare was supposed to save us $2,500 a year plus we would be able to keep our doctors. Instead, health care premiums went sky high and so did deductibles so that the average American family that is not subsidized by Obamacare must spend $25,000 of their own money in any given year before they see a penny of health care benefits. We do have one Medicare for All government run health care system - the one for military veterans and that has been a disaster. Many veterans have died waiting for needed appointments or surgeries. Others suffered in pain. The VA rated its own hospitals on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest rating. Most VA hospitals were rated a 1, the worst rating of all. Plus they are few and far between. When I entered the VA health care system, the VA warned me NOT to give up my own health care insurance. If that doesn't convince you how bad government run health care is, then you must be dumb, deaf, and blind.

Inherited IRAs Withdrawals – Strategy for New Rules in 2020

After reading this newspaper article about the 2020 tax rule changes, I came up with the following strategy for those who inherit IRAs. As I have always preached, Roth IRAs and 401Ks are much better than Traditional IRAs and 401Ks, but with the new rules, even Roth requires developing a strategy to handle the new changes in the law.

Starting in 2020, new rules concerning IRAs eliminate inherited lifetime “stretch” IRAs except for spouses and people who are less than 10 years younger than the deceased (for example a brother or sister within 10 years of your age). The old “stretch” IRAs required inheritors to withdraw annually for life from the inherited IRA (both Traditional and Roth IRAs) with the withdrawal amounts required each year based on their age.

The new rules, with the exceptions previously mentioned, requires IRA inheritors to withdraw the entire amount within 10 years. However, you do not have to withdraw the money every year, You are allowed to skip years, or withdraw it all in the 10th year – your decision. In both the old stretch IRAs and the new current rules, Roth withdrawals are not taxed.

Since once withdrawn from the Roth IRA, any of that withdrawn money re-invested in a non-IRA will be taxed as it grows – both dividends and capital gains, my advice is to withdraw money each of the required 10 years and then use those Roth withdrawals to reinvest to the maximum allowed into your own Roth IRAs and Roth 401Ks each year. Remember, since you are using tax free money to do this, unlike a regular Roth IRA deposit using your own “earnings”, this is like getting the tax free initial investment of a Traditional IRA and the tax free withdrawal of a Roth IRA – the best of both IRA worlds!!

If some of the inherited IRAs or 401Ks are Traditional, your mandatory withdrawals during that 10 year period will be taxed. So take the net after tax and invest them in Roth IRAs and/or 401Ks each year up to the government imposed limit allowed. There would be no additional tax, they will grow tax free, and the withdrawals will be tax free and not mandatory at age 72 as is the case with Traditional IRAs and 401Ks.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/01/17/secure-act-stretch-ira-rmd-retirement/4488419002/?fbclid=IwAR1xLn_SrHzSGlZvp9OBNn4lJ1J5Od3T8tRohJy4YQ6mF8OPzGDDovTK0XQ

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

The number one fact to always remember is that you are taxed on EARNINGS (and capital gains, interest, and dividends if you have any), and NOT what you deposit from your earnings into checking, savings, and brokerage accounts whether those accounts are tax deferred or not.

So whether you put money into a Traditional or Roth IRA and/or 401K, there is NOT a single penny of additional taxes due to the government.

Both Traditional IRAs/401Ks and Roth IRAs/401Ks have very different tax savings implications:

However, Traditional IRAs and 401K “tax savings” are a government “trick”or “shell game” that you want to avoid. Sure you get tax savings for the year you invest in them, but that's the trick that suckers you in. When you withdraw from those Traditional accounts (and the government forces you and/or your heirs to withdraw from them later in life), it will likely be decades later when they have doubled in size several times and thus are much, much larger than your initial investments. All of that money (original investment plus what it has grown to) is taxed. This is a great tax bonus for the government and a tax disaster for you, even if you are in a lower tax bracket when retired because there is so much more money subject to tax.

On the other hand, a Roth IRA/401K is a legitimate and very large tax savings for you. You paid zero extra taxes each year when you made deposits into those Roth accounts and you pay no taxes when you withdraw from those accounts, which likely have also doubled in size several times over decades, no matter how much money is withdrawn. Plus the government does not force the original owner to withdraw ever.

Now some employers offer Traditional 401Ks, but unfortunately may not offer Roth 401Ks. If there is a substantial company match to your deposits into those accounts, then given the fact that there is no Roth 401K alternative, you do want to take advantage of that opportunity.

For heirs to IRA and 401K accounts, the government forces you to make withdrawals even if it is a Roth account. You won't be taxed on the Roth account withdrawals, but you will be taxed on Traditional account withdrawals. My advice in either case, is take as much money from those forced withdrawals as the government allows or you can afford and reinvest it into Roth IRAs and/or 401Ks. Remember from above, it costs you nothing in additional taxes to do this, plus it saves you lots of taxes in the future as opposed to putting it in a Traditional IRA or 401K account or a non-IRA account.

Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs – Basic Definitions with Explanations

Company Stocks - a stock is a unit of "ownership" or "share" of a particular company that you have bought into. Once bought, you are now a partial "owner" of that company. How big a partial owner depends on how many shares of stock you have bought compared to the total number of shares that the company has issued. Normally, for the small investor, your ownership share of a company is very tiny. You get to vote (usually annually) on who should be on the board of directors, who should be the accounting firm responsible for verifying that the company's profit and loss statements are accurate, and sometimes other issues that may come up in running the business. The company will mail or email you your voting sheet with both instructions and the company's recommendation on each vote proposal as to whether the company is "For" and "Against" that particular proposal. Company stocks can be instantly bought and sold during the day when the stock market is open. Therefore, you instantly know the price you bought or sold it at.

Mutual Funds- a mutual fund is a "managed" portfolio of multiple company stocks that has a particular "business" focus (more on that later**). There is a team of "professionals" "researching" the companies within a mutual fund on a daily basis and then deciding when to both buy and sell stocks within that stated business focus (based on market factors/expectations and individual company past performance and future performance expectations). For their "service" there is an annual percentage fee (normally ranging between 1-2% of the total value of your share of that mutual fund) that is automatically taken out by them (whether or not your mutual fund gained or lost money that year). There is also a dollar fee when you buy or sell a mutual fund (normally $20 to $40).

Mutual funds come in two "types" - load and no load funds. Load mutual funds initially take out 5% of your investment to start, meaning that you need to gain 6% just to break even. Never buy a load mutual fund.

**The “business focus” of any individual mutual fund covers a lot of possibilities:

1. For example, a mutual fund could be focused on a particular business field. Examples include autos, health, technology, retail, real estate, transportation, pharmaceutical, etc..

2. Also, the business focus could be further directed in different ways. Focus could be on small or medium or large size companies or all size companies and could either focus on a particular business field or all business fields.

3. Another aspect of mutual funds is that their individual focus might be “aimed” at either "value" companies (normally defined as companies whose stock price is a low multiplier of their annual earnings) or “growth” companies (normally no profit companies or high stock price to earnings ratio companies that are viewed as having high future potential for sales and eventual profit growth) or both value and growth companies.

4. Mutual funds can have a geographical focus. For example, just US companies or companies from any other individual nation, or just European or Asian or Latin America companies or “emerging markets” (newer markets anywhere in the world that the mutual fund thinks has larger than normal growth potential).

5. Mutual funds can also focus on “index” funds – existing well known stock market funds such as the Dow Jones, S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, etc.

Finally, when you buy or sell a mutual fund, unlike stocks, there is no instant transaction created. Instead, each day after the stock market closes, the value of that mutual fund is determined. It is that end of the day price that will be used to settle your buys and sells placed when the stock market was open. You can also buy and sell mutual funds after the stock market is closed, but the price you will receive will be determined at the end of the next stock market business day.

ETFs – short for Exchange Traded Funds. Essentially, ETFs mirror Mutual Funds except that no team of professionals are researching them to determine when to buy and sell them on a daily basis. Therefore, there is no annual percentage fee and normally no cost to buy and sell them. ETFs are especially useful for buying and selling index funds cheaply (normally no cost or possibly $5 cost). When I want to buy an index fund, I like to buy it through an ETF rather than a mutual fund.

Evolution and Creation

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. 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.

People Are All the Same Race

Though it won't happen in my lifetime, we need to stop dividing the one and only race that all people belong to, the human race, into phony “race” subsets by “color” such as White, Black, Brown, Yellow, Red, whatever. Science has proven that we are all one and the same “species”. Our blood and organs are interchangeable. We therefore are all one “race”.

As an analogy, take horses. They come in almost the same colors that humans do - Black, White, Brown, Blond, and multi-colors. Do we divide horses into different subsets of horses by color? Of course not!! We call all of them horses. Same principle holds for people.

Federal Budgets – How to Pass One Every Year

The last Federal Budget to be approved occurred in 2009 when Democrats had a super majority in the House and Senate. It only takes 40 Senators from the opposition party to block passage of a budget. So what happens when a budget isn't passed by Congress? Either the government shuts down or Congress passes individual “spending resolutions” by department. What's the difference? Spending resolutions have automatic spending increases built in. There's no real capability to reduce spending where needed and spending increases tend to be generous. Democrats love these; Republicans do not. So why don't Republicans fight for spending decreases in these spending resolutions. Democrats won't agree to spending decreases, except for military spending despite the fact that both Russian and China have been building up their militaries. If Republicans stand firm against these spending resolutions, then there will be a partial government shutdown which everyone hates and for which the fake news media will falsely assign blame to Republicans.

So how do we fix this rigged system of never ending, unaffordable annual spending increases and resulting debt creation and growth? We need a law or better yet a Constitutional Amendment that mandates that in the absence of passage of a single unified Federal budget in any given year, until such passage occurs, the new year's budget will default to last year's budget minus 10%. By now rigging the system to decrease spending if no budget agreement is reached instead of the other way around, that should be sufficient motivation for both political parties to actually compromise each year to make the tough decisions of where to cut spending and where to increase it.

Illegal Immigration and Democratic Unconscionable Actions

Illegal Immigration and Democratic Unconscionable Actions

I'll tell you what is unconscionable:
Dems wanting open borders so that millions of illegals can easily come here and stay.
Dems blaming Trump for illegal detention cages that were built and used when Obama was President.
Dems using photos of overcrowding in detention centers that were taken in 2014 when Obama was President, and then railing against Trump.
Dems refusing to pass/reform illegal immigration laws and also protect the Southern border to effectively stop this huge invasion of illegals into our country.
Dems establishing sanctuary cities and states to hide illegals from Federal authorities.
Dems releasing illegal criminals from state prisons and deliberately not turning them over to Federal authorities for deportation.
Dems flip flopping from calling for strong measures against illegals in the past to defending them today - and here's the proof of that hypocrisy - Old videos of key Democratic leaders who used to be against illegal immigration - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvRZdNoHEf8 – Diane Feinstein
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdAyn89hFIo – Chuck Schumer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l35OCOQ5yQ4 – Harry Reid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DckY2dRFtxc – Hillary Clinton sounding like Donald Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jky5Oj7ZErQ – Senator Obama

Oil Drilling Off Of Our Shallow Continental Shelves

The safest place for ocean drilling for oil and natural gas is in our shallow, Continental Shelves off our East and West Coasts because they are shallow (100 to 400 feet deep). There is much less water pressure at the well heads on the ocean floor of the Continental Shelves as there is in the Gulf of Mexico where wells can be in water a mile deep and thus under intense pressure. That makes leaks much less likely to happen off the Continental shelves, and much easier and faster to contain and fix if they do happen.

Black Reparations for Slavery

Simple question - does this help or hurt Blacks. Obvious answer - this hurts Blacks by giving them something that they never personally earned, thus reducing their motivation to succeed. There is no secret to success in America. You study hard in school and you work hard at your job. Those that do in this day and age are usually successful no matter what their color; those that don't are usually failures. Black performance in our public schools is dismal compared to other races despite the fact that many of those schools get as much as $20,000 a year per student or double the national average. So just throwing money at the problem hasn't worked. So let's address the real problem for people of any color - single parent households. Single parent households on average are much poorer than married parent households and are the engine of poverty and crime. This should not be a surprise. Married households have the potential for twice the number of working parents and baby sitters. What has happened since the introduction of the 1960s Great Society welfare programs? Back then 3 out of 4 Black babies were born to married households. Now, 3 out of Black babies (and 1 out of 4 White babies) are born to single parent households. What should we do about that and the cycle of failure it has been producing? First, without preaching morality “sermons”, add Economics courses to public schools which include income demographics facts about single and married households. Second, for by design single parent households, name the father before collecting welfare benefits and seek support from that father (require DNA proof to make sure the right person has been identified as the father). Third, only promote students to the next grade if they actually passed. No more "social promotions" for failed students so as not to embarrass them. Give them summer school and also after school programs to help them pass, but if that fails, let them repeat the grade. Finally, if a student fails a grade level for a second time in that or any other grade, bring the parents to Family Court to determine if the child is in a hostile of otherwise failed household and needs to be removed for their own good. Again, never ever an automatic child removal from the household, - let the judge review and decide what is really happening and what needs to be done.

Business Cycles – How They Work and Why

Why do we swing from good times to bad times to good times again? Why can't the economy just go straight up without ever falling? The economic swings up and down are largely caused by business cycles. Let's take an economy that is emerging from weak to strong slowly. When the economy was weak, many people were out of work thus dampening consumer spending – the main driver of the economy. With consumer demand down, the laws of supply and demand kick in. Less demand for products and services, in addition to causing layoffs and even bankruptcies, also leads to cheaper prices for goods and service as it is better for businesses to at least get something for their products and services. Often their own costs for products and labor have gone down, enabling them to mostly survive the bad times. Over time the cheaper prices for goods and services causes demand to rise for them as they have now become more affordable. The higher demand eventually causes business to increase production and hire more employees. This result has a multiplier effect, especially as the people who have been hired were either unemployed or making less money in the job they quit. So now they can afford more goods and service and there is pent up demand for these goods and services. The improving economy will cause some of these employees to start their own business, hiring more employees to meet the growing demand for goods and services both large (such as homes, cars) and small. So why doesn't this process go up forever?

At some point, the increased production of goods and services will have fulfilled the pent up demand from the previous economic low point. Purchases will decline. Layoffs and/or reduced working hours will increase, and some bankruptcies will occur. This too has a multiplier effect to the negative. Once enough damage has been done to the economy, prices for many goods and services will fall again, and the process of trending toward better times as described previously will begin again.

What about government – can't they help? Yes sometimes they can, but they may not do it right and multiply the problem. For example, after the 1929 stock market crash and the resultant Recession, with less people working, government revenues went down. So to balance the budget, government raised taxes during a Recession. Consumers, with less disposable income/take home pay due to the increased taxes, bought less goods and services, resulting in further layoffs, less taxes collected due to less people working, and the 10 year long Great Depression that took a World War to get out of.

The government has two major tools to speed up or slow down the economy. The most often utilized is the control of the money supply and interest rates through the Federal Reserve. This is called Monetary Policy. In a down economy, lowering interest rates makes borrowing cheaper. That enables more people to afford buying homes, cars, etc.. That drives up demand for goods and services and starts an economic uptrend. Raising interest rates in an over heated economy can likewise slow an economic boom down hopefully before severe inflation topples the economy. However, people don't rush out and buy new cars and homes in big quantites just because interest rates have been lowered. This is a slow process. Thus Monetary policy is the weakest tool that the government has, but can be very useful when the business cycle is not very volatile.

The more powerful tool in the government's economic arsenal is called Fiscal Policy. Fiscal policy is the lowering and/or raising of taxes. These type of changes are felt immediately by consumers as their take home pay increases or falls.When it increases, since most people typically spend all or nearly all of what they earn, demand for consumer goods and services rises much faster than under Monetary Policy. Thus the impact on the economy is much faster.

Also, raising taxes in an over heated economy has a much quicker impact on cooling off the economy than monetary policy. However, it is also easy for such dampening fiscal policy to be too dangerous because too many people, including much of the middle class, live paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings. Cutting their take home pay could easily make them unable to pay their rent, mortgage, car payment, or other important bills. Therefore, it is normally better to utilize more slowly acting monetary policy to dampen over heated economies.

There's nothing stopping government from utilizing both fiscal and monetary policies at the same time, though control rests “independently” with Congress and the federal Reserve. Sometimes they can help each other; but sometimes they actually fight each other.

It needs to be pointed out that even in strong economies, when businesses and jobs are growing nicely, there will be some businesses and jobs lost due to inefficiencies compared to competitors and/or obsolescence of such goods and services. For an easy to understand example – the making of horse drawn wagons was once the largest industry in the U.S.. However, this industry went out of business when the car was invented and caught on as the preferred transportation means. That's a good thing and something that Capitalism does best – rooting out “waste” (it would have been a waste of both human and material resources to continue to build horse drawn wagons in large quantities since no one would have been buying them). By more efficiently rooting out “waste” than any other economic system, Capitalism has become the most successful economic system ever, and the only economic system that has raised billions of people throughout the world out of poverty. The reason that Communism never worked and was the most failed economic system ever is that it has no mechanism to efficiently root out waste in a non-market driven economy. You met the production goal and you were a success despite the fact that much of it became surplus that no one bought, thus not raising the standard of living of anyone. Also, Communism gives no incentive for people to take risks and develop new products, services, and very importantly, new technology. My hope for the future is for American schools to offer and require more Economic classes so that future voters are wiser on Economics - normally the most important issues for voters in any government besides freedom.

Major Reasons for High US Health Care Costs

The US, compared to the major, wealthy nations in Europe and Canada, have, by far, the highest obesity rates, the highest drug overdose deaths, and the highest rates of teenage births. All of these “self inflicted” factors explode heath care costs for all Americans and have absolutely nothing to do with what kind of health care plans each nations offers. See links:

https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/the-world-is-fat/ - US is much higher than Europe and Canada which explains some of our higher health costs and worse health results

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190221083419.htm - American drug overdose death rates the highest among wealthy nations.

https://www.unicef.org/pon96/inbirth.htm – US has much higher rates of teenage births

Another reason for high health care costs is the fact that medical fraud on government health care programs range, depending on which newspaper article you read, between 10 to 25%. That equates to tens of billions to hundreds of billions of dollars wasted each year. Private insurance companies average less than 1% fraud. We can sve a ton of money by firing the federal workers who handle health care and hiring insurance companies as third party providers to design and administer our government health care programs. Health Care Fraud – Private versus public - https://www.quora.com/In-the-United-States-which-has-a-greater-percentage-of-fraud-committed-Medicare-Medicaid-or-private-insurance and also http://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/waste-fraud-abuse-government-health-care

The final component of high health costs is complex and has no simple solutions. About 25 to 30% of Medicare costs occur in people's last year of life. It is difficult to predict which terminal patients are receiving operations that only worsen their suffering and doesn't stop their soon to be deaths. Some of these patients may be better off with hospice care to relieve their end of life suffering and allow them to die peacefully at home instead of painfully in a hospital. Living medical wills, that cannot be over ridden by relatives, may be one humane way to reduce this problem. See link:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/how-we-spend-3400000000000/530355/

All Governments Have No Money

All Americans very much need to understand this critically important basic principle - all governments have NO MONEY. They get all of their money from taxpayers and by borrowing which eventually we taxpayers must pay back too. So governments cannot give us anything for "free". Anything governments "give us" is paid for by all of us through taxes so that nothing we get from government is free. Even if your income is so low that you are not actually paying taxes, you still are paying for those "free" government benefits through lower wages, less available jobs, less job promotional opportunities, higher borrowing and credit costs, etc. due to the lower disposable income of consumers who are now paying higher taxes.