The Uselessness of Polls

There are alot of things to learn during an election year, both about people and the country that we live in.  One of the things that is very visible is how the use of polls really does effect the decisions that are not only made by our government but by the people that live in it.


All we hear in these polls is that this candidate leads this candidate or this candidate is polling better so they will be winning everything.  We hear that this is what people in the country think or want.  Some of the polls bring out good and some bring out bad.  What I wonder about polls is why we actually listen to them when they do not answer alot of questions.


Something that is so illogical about polls, is that they only take the opinion of anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people.  The number of people who will be part of the poll is determined by the people who are running the poll.  In a country of 320 million people, 2000 people make up .00000625 percent of the country.  A crazy small sample yet it is used as if it was one of the most important things in the country.


Another issue is how do we really know what questions were asked?  If a poll says 3 out of 10 women do not have an orgasm during sex, how do we know the exact question they asked?  Sex can be made of many different acts and some women do not orgasms during the physical penetration but may during the oral part.  So if you ask them generally about sex and they think only the physical act, they may say no.


What about the real emotions and feelings of people during the poll?  For example, if one's daughter was just murdered by a person of color, would they say they were in favor of the death penalty where maybe they were not before?  Would they then agree that people of color are justly incarcerated versus white's?  I think people forget that sometimes it is hard to be objective when your emotions and feelings are in different places at the time the question is asked.


What about the part of the country that we live in.  If you ask more people in Texas about abortion than in Colorado, you might get more answers in one direction over another.  Is that really a reasonable response if it is isolated to one area over another?


What about race, gender, sexual oreintation, etc.  All of these are going to get different responses but it doesn't mean that these responses represent all of these groups as a whole.


Let's look at some examples of polls that are currently being used.


Death Penalty


In a poll last year on the death penalty, they got a response of 1,015 people.  The only question they asked is do you agree with the death penalty for murder?  The poll said 61% favored, 37% did not and 2% had no opinion.  Is this really what the country thinks of the death penalty?


What also can't be determined here is what kind of murder do they favor.  Is manslaughter included in that, what about accidental homicide?  What about someone that kill someone while drunk driving?


What about circumstances such as Ted Bundy or Charles Manson?  Does having them in the poll change the thinking of the death penalty?


http://www.gallup.com/poll/186218/solid-majority-continue-support-death-penalty.aspx?


Socialism v Capitalism


A subject of this election year was the subject of socialism versus capitalism.  Surprisingly a poll done in May 2016 says 60% people have a positive view of Capitalism while 35% have a positive view of Socialism.


The sample was 1,544 people.  What is interesting about it is that even though 60% say they favored capitalism, 85% actually said they favor free enterprise.  How many realize that capitalism is based on the prospect of free enterprise?


Also what was funny is that 53% said they were favorable towards corporations while 96% said they were favorable about small businesses.  Small business thrive on capitalism just as much as corporations but it is the corporations that are always called evil.


When taking ages into consideration, even the younger generation that is favoring all of the 'free' government stuff only 55% still said they favor socialism in the 18-29 and 30-49 was at 27%.  This is a small amount considering the amount of people fighting for this in the election.  The final ironic part of this poll is this same group of 18-29 had a 57% approval of capitalism.  Doesn't this say something about the validity of polls?


http://www.gallup.com/poll/191354/americans-views-socialism-capitalism-little-changed.aspx?


Marijuana


A huge debate in the country is the legalization of marijuana.  Since some states have started legalizing it and are bringing in tons of money, I am sure this will be polled to death for a long time.


So the most recent poll was how many support the legalization of marijuana.  It was 58% supporting in a sample of 855.


Not surprising people 18-34 approve at 71% while people over 65+ represent only 35%.
The one question that is interesting to me that really no one asks is why do you want it legalized?  Is it so it can be used more medically, is it to decriminalize people or is it the simple fact that people want to be high all the time to forget their problems?


http://www.gallup.com/poll/186260/back-legal-marijuana.aspx?


Politics


There is no place where polls are used more than in politics.  The really amazing thing is that it is not just used to determine who will get elected but pretty much how politicians judge the mood of the people.  So when politicians say 58% of people want legalized marijuana, they are telling you how you should think based on the response of 855 people.


Politicians are even using polls to tell you why you should vote for them.  Bernie Sanders is using a poll to try to get people to vote for him that says he is stronger to run against Donalad Trump.  If you use the You/Gov poll that says Sanders is at 48% v 37% for Trump.  This is based on 1,635 registered voters.  Meanwhile Rasmussen has Clinton at 42% to 38% for Trump out of 1,000 likely voters.


What questions were asked to determine this, was it just who would you vote for?  What about why are you voting for this person?  What about the issues that this person stands for, are they important?


What is interesting about this poll is that only 85% and 80% were even saying they would vote for these candidates.  That leaves 15% and 20% undecided, not voting or going to vote for someone else or could even vote for Trump which would put him over the top.


It also says one poll uses registered voters and one uses likely voters.  So in one poll, people who may be thinking of registering are not taken into consideration.  In the other poll, we do not even know if anyone is even going to vote.


I think when we see these polls, we really do not see how this will effect people when others take these polls seriously.  If a poll of 1,200 people ask what is the most important issue facing this country and the Economy is first and racism is 5th, which one do we believe will be taken more seriously?  Racism is killing people, putting people in jail and having people actually considering putting up walls between countries, yet it is only 5th most important.  Is that logical?
Polling to me is the most useless piece of information out there.  The right questions are not being asked, it doesn't take everyone into consideration and it is based on a one time question.  There has to be a better way of getting to know what people in this country really want.


These are the numbers that are used to determine elections, the future of the country and the people in it.  It is sad when candidates start using the polling of elections against their opponent but what is even more sad is how we the people would take the advice of 1,100 instead of our own will.


I have more to say on the subject but I am hungry and need to go ask 800 people what to have for dinner.

Bernie the Grand Illusion: Why I Would Not Vote for Him

When I look at what kind of candidate I want to vote for, there are three questions that I ask more than anything.  1)  Do they run a negative campaign?  2)  Do they run a campaign where they are doing what is best for the entire country and all of the people. 3) Is the person real or just saying stuff to get elected?  This is what true politicians need to do and understand when running.  I know people say I am dreaming but no one is going to tell me that this person is not our there.

When the campaign started for the 2016 election, the one thing I made sure I did that I had never done before was to become more informed about what was happening.  Not only about the candidates but about the agenda that was being pushed down our throats.

I knew Hillary Clinton was going to get attacked like she has been for 25 years and say the things she needed to for election.  I knew Trump was going to win because people do not listen to what his supporters are saying and some people like craziness.  Then came Bernie Sanders out of nowhere.  I knew from the beginning that he was going to create some havoc because this is what the country always looks for when the younger generation is seeing things for the first time.  We are thirsty for someone that we believe will fight for our country, the same thing happened with President Obama.

When Mr. Sanders started I figured maybe this was a candidate that I could get behind.  He was an underdog, he was fighting for things others were not talking about and he was inspiring people to rise up this electoral season.

However, as he talked he kept saying how much the rich were to blame for the issues of this country and how we don’t do enough for the poor.  He was trying to put more emphasis on the government giving us all of these benefits and basically telling us it was our duty to pay for it.

Then as each speech happened, I just kept hearing the same thing over and over, finally realizing that he is not thinking about the effects on the people he is suppose to be caring about.  I finally realized he was not talking about anything that was helping the type of person that I am.  I have been working for over 30 years, I have a degree that I worked for, I am a veteran of the Gulf War, I own my home, I make a good living, etc.  So by doing most of the things that Mr. Sanders wants to do, my paycheck will decrease by at least $650 per month with really no benefit to myself.  So why would I vote for this type of person?

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/3/25/11293258/tax-plan-calculator-2016

I want to help people as much as the next person but the more I found out about Sanders and listed to him, the more I realized that he is not the holy candidate everyone thinks he is.  He is an illusion of the candidate that we seem to want and even though behind the scenes he is not, we want to believe that he is.  He is using all of the tricks, Politics 101 while making himself look non establishment which to me is the worst kind of politician.

One could see the real Mr. Sanders come out with each primary/caucus that he lost.  Of course, it couldn’t be that people didn’t want to vote for him, it had to be voter fraud therefore the blame game.  Did anyone notice that in the states where he got his ass kicked he didn’t complain, mostly the South.  It didn’t dawn on people to check BEFORE the election to see what the rules were or even worse, that not everyone was a Bernie fan.

Already I was starting to stay away from Bernie but then I said maybe the agenda he is saying will still make me vote for him despite the fact that I see through the persona.  The more I listened to it, the more I realized it was not an agenda that was best for this country and ALL of the people in it.  It was an agenda that was best for Bernie and his supporters.

Let's start with the simple fact of using European countries as a blueprint for our country.  Why should we be a country that follows others?  For years, we have been the innovators of the world and now we need to follow other countries as a way of fixing our issues.  I am not saying that something’s other countries do isn’t good but not as a blueprint.

Besides most of these countries are only 1 tenth the size of the US in both mass and people and no one talked about the extreme and expensive task of making it happen here without talking about taxing the rich.  One thing that was also not brought up is the failure of these systems in other countries such as Venezuela.  If you are going to tell Americans to follow other countries you better be ready to be attacked by the ones that didn’t work.  He failed that one.

http://www.dailywire.com/news/6124/bernie-wont-answer-questions-about-venezuela-here-aaron-bandler

The real hot topic of single payer health system is also part of the fight.  The first issue I have is Bernie is spouting all of this but in 1993 he refused to vote for Hillary’s health care plan because it was not his.  We could have had affordable health care over 20 years ago and yet the one person who supposedly cares did not vote for it.

We are told that this will have to be paid for with a tax on companies and a tax on employees but that it will be minimal because premiums currently being paid for will be reduced.  This creates a problem with someone who is working without insurance they are now going to have to have their paycheck reduced when they did not before.  Of course, they will have health care but have less money.  The company also will have fewer profits.

Let’s look at how it will effect me.  I currently pay 25% of the health care premium offered which comes out to $124 per month.  That means my employer pays $372 per month.  Under the new program, I will pay $165 per month and my employer will pay $465 per month.  So that is $492 less I will get per year even before any other taxes take effect.  Then the company I work for will have $5,586 more in expense per year.  Now this may not sound like a lot but multiply that by only 10 employees, that is $55,000 less per year of profit or 1 person’s salary.

Some people say an advantage of single payer is that will be less expenses at hospitals because of overhead and inflated salaries.  However, those same people then become unemployed and since there will be no jobs available at other hospitals, they have to potentially find a different career.  Also what happens if people coming out of school do not want to become government employees and stop becoming doctors, won’t that create a shortage?

The final nail in this coffin for me is who will run this program.  We have seen already where the Affordable Health Care process has not been run well and now we are adding more government red tape to the process.  Not to mention how much power the government will now hold over the citizens which is something we are going to have to decide if we can live with.  Funny I never hear about this in any speeches or interviews.

http://www.medcohlth.com/the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-single-payer-health-care/

How about the idea of free tuition?  I am all for people having an opportunity to better themselves by getting an education especially in a time when this is necessary for most jobs.  At the same time why should I have to pay for people to party at college?  I see no parameters for people that do not graduate or even worse do not get jobs in the field they got a degree in.  So I am paying taxes for someone to better their life but what happens if it does not?

It is said that this will be paid for by Wall Street but how can anyone think the middle class will not be effected by it?  Wall Street drives the economy whether we like it or not.  If taxes are applied on transactions, there will be less investment and this will cause things such as 401K’s to go down.  401K are used by the middle class.

Part of Bernie's plan also will make schools keep tenured professors at a 75% level so that means non tenured will be let go or even worse have a harder time finding a job.  Also, the federal government only takes 67% of the cost at the beginning with states taking the rest but after 6 years states are responsible for 100%.  This means states will now have to come up with billions of dollars as part of their budget to cover something they didn’t before.  I do not see that part of this plan being highlighted on social media or on signs when people are protesting.

http://www.americalostindelusion.com/past-discussions/archived-articles/2015/78-details-and-analysis-of-senator-bernie-sanders-s-tax-plan.html

The way Bernie really hits people is when he talks about helping the poor, saying the same thing everyone says that the poor need to have a livable wage.  I agree with this completely with people needing to make enough to not have to starve each night.  Where I have an issue is when was the last time a candidate actually went out and saw who the poor really was and why they were in the situation they were in.  Just throwing money at a problem really doesn’t solve it.

Poverty is defined by the government based on income level that will allow people to acquire the basics of life.  So a statistic is suppose to tell us a person’s real situation and how to fix it.

The government’s definition of poverty at its lowest level for a single person, it is $12,331 which equates to 5.92 per hour, this is below the minimum wage of $7.25.  So that means the minimum wage brings them above the poverty level by the government’s definition.  For a family of 3 with one person working, it is $19,078 which comes out to 9.00 an hour.  In this case the minimum wage is below the poverty level.

So the solution has been said to raise the minimum wage to $15 and people are actually out there fighting for this solution.  But in reality it does not help the people it is intended to help.  The livable wage in one county is different than in another county so $15 an hour will be different in those 2 counties.

Take one of the poorest counties in America, Rolette County in North Dakota:

                  1 Person Livable Wage 9.72 per hour                  
                                Poverty Wage  5.00 per hour
                      So it would only take $10.00 an hour for a livable wage.

                  Family of 3 (1 working person)  Livable Wage  18.31 per hour
                                                                     Poverty Wage  9.00 per hour
                      So the $15 an hour wage would not create a livable wage.

                 Single mother of 2  Livable Wage  $24.08 per hour
                                                Poverty Wage $9.00 per hour
                      So the $15 hour wage would not even close to a livable wage.

 This is one of the poorest counties in the country so you can imagine what one of the richest like Los Angeles is going to be.  There is more involved in a livable wage, like the high cost of rent, the high cost of taxes, the high cost of necessities, the high cost of life.  Where is the protesting of all of this?

http://livingwage.mit.edu/pages/about

Why would I vote for a candidate who honeymooned in Communist Russia and shouted ‘Death to the Yankees’ in Nicaragua?  Sounds like someone who doesn’t like this country so why should he be running it.

What about someone who says he fights against the military industrial complex but votes for the War in Afghanistan and NATO occupation in Serbia where tons of people died for ethnic cleansing.  A protest supporter who had war protestors arrested in his office.  One who was okay with the complex when the pentagon brought an F-35 project to his home state of Vermont.  Since Congress approves the budget, how many budgets were approved that raised the budget for the military?

How does an environmentalist supporter justify moving low level nuclear waste from his state of Vermont, then dumping it in Latino based Sierra Blanca Texas.  This has created all kinds of environmental issues.  When activists came to discuss he said he didn’t have time for them.  Guess there was no camera on him to spout his rhetoric.

He visited the border fence in Mexico saying we have to have reform to not divide families.  However, in 2007 and 2015 he voted against immigration reform based on the premise that it would lead to low level wages.

Even though he was a civil rights activist in the 60’s, there is no record of him having done anything in the area over the past 50 years.

He says we should do more for Native Americans, even visiting them during the campaign but there is no record of doing anything in his terms in Congress.

Mr. Sanders says he does not accept money from Super Pac’s yet the National Nurses United has donated over $1 million dollars to his campaign.  Now both Sanders and the United will say they do not think of themselves as a Super Pac but sorry to say that is how they are registered with the FEC.

How does a man who says he cares for the less fortunate ignore a major speaker of the handicapped?

https://shiksappeal.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/berned-by-bernie-sanders/

I am all for helping people in the country, in fact it is our duty as part of living here.  I am not trying to say that Mr. Sanders is a terrible person because people do things for different reasons and they make mistakes.

The issue I have is when someone who has built an illusion of being this great savior is in reality nothing but a person who has built his career doing the things opposite of what he is fighting for.  This makes the person non genuine even if others think he is.

https://www.quora.com/What-dirt-is-there-on-Bernie-Sanders/answer/Mark-Hughes-1?ref=fb

http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/5/19/this-ends-now-the-bernie-sanders-opposition-research-the-media-refuses-to-release#.V0D-j9Zd6_0.facebook

I may come off here as sounding selfish and maybe I am, part of all of us are selfish that is why we do many of the things we do.  However, I worked hard to be where I am today and if I am going to support others with that hard work, I want to know that it is going to help all people not just the ones we are told it will help.  Myself and the people like me should be included in that conversation, not just forgotten because we are no longer young and we haven’t reached Social Security yet.

This is obviously a personal opinion when it comes to this candidate and I would never push this agenda onto anyone else.  We all have our reasons for wanting to elect someone into office and we should stand by those reasons, I do.

In my reasoning, I want some reality, even if it is kind of hard to swallow sometimes.  Someone giving me an illusion of what he will be means that eventually that illusion goes away which usually brings more issues.  In the end, I believe the person I want is out there and definitely know it is not Mr. Sanders.

The Absurdity of an Email Server

So here we go as all anyone can talk about is an email server and the guilt of the person who used it.  I read all 86 pages of the State Department's IG report on the security of their emails or at least tried to read the best I could on a department that was trying to make itself look good with alot of meaningless words.


https://www.scribd.com/doc/313803323/State-Dept-inspector-general-report-sharply-criticizes-Clinton-s-email-practices


So what have I found since the reading of this report.  I have found how absurd this thing really is and how so much hatred of a person can create such hypocrisy that blinds us to anything else.  This issue was created by the media and only then did the IG think anything of it.  However, we the people ate it up as we had all these visions about Hillary Clinton doing all of this secret stuff and lying to us.  No one even asked whether it is something that is worth even putting ahead of the real issues of this country.


            The Federal Records Act was created in 1950 and the Act has been updated to change with times but that change happens slowly.  In 1997 emails were added to the Act but only saying they should be printed and filed.  It wasn't until 2009 that the Act was updated about private emails but even that did not say it was incorrect to use as long as the record keeping system was in line with government regulations.  This report has even shown that the State Department has many holes in its regulations about document preservation and has never gone after anyone for not following the so called rules.


             So really the only thing that Hillary Clinton was guilty of was not providing the documents on that server when she left office.  Oh my god what a capital crime.  At the same time, no one even bothered to see that when asked for the emails off the server, Hillary Clinton handed over 55,000 pages of emails.  Yea she must have really been guilty of hiding something when she turned over truck loads of paper.


            Hillary must have created that email server to hide secrets when she was in the State Department.  Oh wait, she had been using it for years and so maybe it was something she felt comfortable with.  Interesting that the State Department knew she was using it during that time and yet even though they say they told her she should stop, they did not push because she wasn't doing anything against the rules.  We should string her up for doing something that was not against the rules.


            Hillary must go to jail for this because this was a vicious crime against the government.  Wait, Colin Powell used his personal email and didn't hand over the records, but that is okay we don't have to persecute him for 2 years because he is Colin Powell.  Hillary must be burned at the stake.


            Wait a minute, Edward Snowden and Wikileaks hacked and stole sensitive documents from the government that showed all of these bad things the government was doing.  These people are heroes to the people because they told the truth.  Well, good thing that they didn't use a private email server because they would be crucified.  Oh wait, they probably did use one so we should need to see their emails.


           I am sure Donald Trump will use this against Hillary Clinton but we know Bernie Sanders won't probably because he doesn't know how to use email.  I am sure that both supporters will continue to attack Clinton for the simple issue of using a private email server.  Forget the fact that most of us spend our days looking through personal emails or Facebook at work when it is usually against company policy.  Hillary must be shot.


         Hillary has lied about this from the beginning.  Yes because talking about such an absurd subject for 2 years and even if the truth would have been told, it probably would have been ignored or said to be covering up something.  Hillary must be tortured.


        I have said from the beginning that this subject was stupid because it deferred away from the real issues of this country.  Now that I read what really happened, it has become ridiculous.  It has also shown what this election has shown since the beginning, how hypocritical this country really is.  When we have a focus on bringing someone down that stands in the way of own selfish beliefs, it does not matter what is right, only that we get what we want out of it.


       In the end, this country just got a little worse because of the absurdity of an email server.             


 

The Generation Battle That No One Wins

As a person of Generation X, the lost generation between Baby Boomers and Millenials, I find this battle interesting. The reason why is because it is a matter of not understanding anything about any generations.

The baby boomers do not understand that they created the Millenials with their technological revolution, baby seating, privelaged life.

The Millenials do not understand some of the hardhsips that Baby Boomers had to go through to try to create a better life for their children such as 20% interest rates and the Vietnam War.

All generations try to create a better life for the future generations no matter what anyone wants to complain about, if one does not believe that then you do not know your history.

At the same time, everything in life is a choice, what you choose to do with your life is a choice, yes your parents have a say in it but the voice that is created is your own. If you do not want to go to college because you do not want to end up in debt, then you do not want to go to college that bad.

If you think people are lazy now, then we shouldn't have created video games and IPads while working 60 hour work weeks instead of spending more time teaching people the values you need.

If people of any generation think they are lacking in morals then that is our own issue. If you are more concerned with whether the Bachelor gets the choice of 1 of 12 women versus the homeless person that you stepped over, that is your choice.

In the end, it is about responsibility and if we think anyone is really concerned about making your life better without you doing anything we are delusional. Even the Bern is not interested in helping you, he is only interested in keeping you blaming others because that is how he is able to get things done. By the way, it is interesting that Millenials blame Baby Boomers yet they are trying to get one elected as President.

There are people that live in this country from the age of 2 minutes to 100 years old and yet we always seem to focus on certain groups as being the 'power' in this country. Always putting people in groups is how we stay divided and in that case no one has power, even the ones you think have power, it is only perceived.

We need to stop having conversations at a table on our phones and see what is happening in the world. We need to understand that even though racism still exists, it is better than it was 50 years ago. We have to understand that as we want to be online more, businesses will suffer because of it. We need to understand that as we try to put the country in a fog of marijuana, people aren't going to be very motivated to do things.

This country has always had problems, we have fixed some but the ones that really matter we let ourselves be more concerned with how Prince died.

That is how every generation fails.

A Ironic Country: Did the 99% help to create the 1%?

The 1% are evil.  The 1% is the reason why the problems of this country exist.  The 1% are greedy and only care about making money.  The 1% have made their money on the suffering of the 99%.  The 1% have more wealth than most of the free world.  The 1% are buying every election.

We have heard it so much over the past years that the wealthiest 1% of this world is responsible for most of the problems of the world.  If only they were treated the same as the 99%, then the world would be so much better and more even.  But is that reasonable?

What do we really know about the stories of the so called ‘evil’ 1%?  Why shouldn’t the people that have money be allowed to have a say in how this country is run as much as the person making minimum wage.  Is it easier for us to call them the 1% instead of knowing who they really are?  The most important question is whether the very people demeaning the 1%, the so called ‘99%’, actually helped create the 1%?

First of all, in the world, the 1% group is about 70 million people, yes that is million.  To qualify for the 1% club the average net worth starts at around $600,000, the US that is closer to $400,000.  That means that every major league ballplayer is part of the evil club, even the ones that are just starting out.

When you look at the 1,810 billionaires in the world, they are worth 6.5 trillion dollars combined.  However, when you look at who these billionaires are, are they really the type that are building their fortune suppressing others?

http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/

So let’s take a look at a few of these billionaires to show that no matter what they are still human.

Let’s start out with the most evil of the 1%, the richest man in the world, Bill Gates.  This is a man whose intelligence allowed him at the early age of 13 to create computer programs.  Even though he attended Harvard, he chose to work on getting a company started in the 1970’s on the verge of the computer revolution.  He never graduated from Harvard.

Bill Gates is a married man with 3 children.  He has created a foundation with assets of 44 billion dollars that helps programs related to education and fighting poverty among its many charities.  He has helped create a ‘pledge’ among billionaires to give half their wealth to charity, a pledge that he created with Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg.

Mr. Gates wealth came from being smart enough to partner with IBM and not give up the rights to his software but to continue partnerships with other computer companies.  Bill Gate’s wealth came from companies need to use computers are part of their business, computers that contained their program.

Mr. Gates wealth came from our internal need to have a computer with his operating system on it, a computer to play games, put pictures and do our checkbook on.  A need that eventually led to wanting tablets, smartphones and everything else that came from Microsoft.

So is Bill Gate part of the ‘evil’ that we are suddenly protesting?   His company probably doesn’t pay their fair share in taxes and I am sure he doesn’t as well.  He has been accused of bad business practices in the past.

At the same time, he has changed our world for the better as part of the technological revolution, helping companies work better and more efficient.  Computers employ millions of people, people that make good money and this is because of people like Bill Gates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

Our next ‘evil’ billionaire is from Spain and created the empire of Zara clothing, Amancio Ortega Gaona.  He started out in a shirt shop, making clothes by hand.  Eventually, he opened a store with his wife and the rest as they say is history.

Zara now has over 6,000 stores and over 92,000 employees.  Mr. Gaona was never a person who flaunted his wealth, no picture had ever been circulated of him before 1999.  He also has created a foundation that helps Spain’s needy.

Clothing empires are built on the need of consumers to have the latest clothing and willing to pay for those clothes.  Satisfying our need to be dressed in a brand helps give people jobs in these stores.  The company probably doesn’t pay its share of taxes and Mr. Gaona probably doesn’t either and the stores have been accused of running sweat shops in South America.  

In the end, is it evil to give people what they want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amancio_Ortega_Gaona

Jeff Bezos is a person who loved science and actually graduated from Princeton with electrical engineering and computer science.  He was so into mechanical things that he built an alarm when he was a kid to keep his siblings out of his room.

Mr. Bezos was already making money from being a Hedge Fund Manager but when the internet was starting to take off in 1994, he realized that there would be a need to sell things online.  This business is over 20 years old which means it started when the internet was barely a blimp on the radar.  He was also an original investor in Google.  Even though he has not taken the ‘pledge’, Mr. Bezos does help donate time and money to charities and also is very involved in the aerospace industry.

Amazon has made its money on the fact that consumers want to be able to buy things in the comfort of their own home.  Even though it has reduced business from other retail companies, it has created an environment that other companies had to change to in order to compete.  It has branched out into other areas such as streaming video, another area that consumers have flocked to.

Is it evil to make our lives easier to live from the comfort of our home?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Mark Zuckerberg is probably called evil for different reasons, the most because he supposedly ‘stole’ the idea of Facebook from others.  However, he paid for that and yet it didn’t stop Facebook from changing social media forever.

Mr. Zuckerberg was already a child prodigy, building computer programs even before he went to college.  By the time he reached Harvard he was already a computer legend and then he built Facebook.

Mr. Zuckerberg has also taken the pledge to give half his wealth to charity and is part of the Bill Gates Foundation.  He has also given 99% of shares to his own foundation built with his wife.  His salary for Facebook is $1.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s wealth was built on our need for instant communication about our lives and the lives of the people we know.  It was built because businesses knew that in order to continue to sell you product they had to be on social media.  Facebook changed the technology world by satisfying our instant gratification.

Is it evil to change the world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg

Howard Schultz was a man who grew up in a poor Jewish neighborhood.    He was an athlete that won a scholarship to college being the first person in his family to go to college.

He worked as a salesman until he became GM for a coffee company.   In a trip to Italy while working for Starbucks, he found the way they serve coffee as being something to do in the US.  He raised money to start his own coffee company and eventually bought out the Starbucks name.  Starbucks was being created on every corner and not franchised so that they would always follow the Starbucks philosophy.

Starbucks has been one of the leaders in business giving part time employees health care, giving away food to the needy and good customer service.  When McDonalds gave competition they closed down their stores and said let’s change our structure to make sure they give customers what they need.  They were one of the first companies to do payments from cell phones.

Mr. Schultz is married and has 2 children.  He has a foundation that helps in areas of veteran’s assistance.

Mr. Schultz’s wealth was built on our need to have good coffee even though it was at an expensive price.  His wealth was built on his intelligence for making sure the business is run correctly.

Is it evil to put the customer first?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz

The final 1% would be hard for a lot of people to call ‘evil’.  In fact, this person should be the poster child for how to overcome adversity in the country to become one of the wealthiest and most respected people in the world.  That person is Oprah Winfrey.

Ms. Winfrey was born in poverty in Mississippi.  She was born to an unwed teenage mother.  She wore dresses made from potato sacks.  She was spanked if she did not do her chores and her mother was on welfare.  She had siblings die of drug use and AIDS.  She was molested by family members.  She gave birth at 14 but the baby had died.  She was a rebel but eventually graduated and earned a scholarship to a university.   She did crack cocaine and had an affair with a married man.

She began working in a news station in high school and continued in television until her break that eventually led to the Oprah Winfrey show.  She built the show from tabloid format to the format of more issue related.  She has since created films, books and even her own television network.

Ms. Winfrey has held a non-marriage relationship for 30 years and said she did not want to have children because of the life she grew up in.

Ms. Winfrey has been very vocal in politics but has also given over $400 million dollars for educational purposes.  She also created the Angel Network for charitable work.  She has helped with Presidential candidate Obama getting people to see the person he was.

Ms. Winfrey’s wealth has grown from our fascination with tabloid television and soap opera type of shows.  However, most of it was built on the intelligence and compassion of the woman herself in every aspect of what she does.  It was built out of our respect for the person not the race or gender.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

Other 1%:

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg whose wealth was built on us watching their movies

Candy Bar empires built on our vice of chocolate.

Beer empires built on our vice of drinking.

Perfume empires built on our need for self-beauty

Supermarket empires built on our need to eat

Casino empires built on our vice of gambling


Stock Market investors built on investing in companies that were built on basis of the above.  If the companies were not popular they would not want to be invested.

The Walton Family built their empire on the basis of consumers need for cheap items despite the fact that they pay cheap labor and have many items built from overseas terrible business practices.

When someone says the 1% we automatically see red because our lives are not what we want them to be and we need someone to blame.  However, when you look at some of the people, one can see that these people should actually be promoted as what can be done with determination and hard work.  They give back to the communities and charities where we can’t because of the positions that we are in.  They didn't all start with a silver spoon in their mouth but so what if they did, aren't we all working to give our children better lives.  Yes they may get some special treatment but when did it become a crime to create an empire or make money.

At the same time, how can we sit and not take responsibility for our part in the creation of the 1%.  Our vices, need for outer beauty and the technological revolution have allowed these people to build the empires.  They provided something that we desired, otherwise they could not be in the position that they are in.  We created the monster and now we are angry that the monster is now beyond our control.  One of the only ways to stop this is to stop our vices and insecurities, are we willing to do this to stop the 1% from getting even more wealthy? 

So maybe instead of sitting behind our computers at home or protesting on the capitol because a movie star wants to hold a $300,000 a plate fundraiser, maybe we should start to find out where that anger comes from hope or jealousy.  In the end, maybe we need to stop our anger at an illusion of a puppet master and start focusing on the 1% and 99% working together to help fix the issues of this country.

 

 

 

Politics 101: Wake Up

We are being barraged every day with election coverage, only slightly being interrupted by the occasional celebrity death or gun shooting.  What really has amazed me over the last 3 elections is how the politicians continue to keep us divided but even more shocking is how we the people continue to be selfish and keep ourselves divided.


Every election the candidates attack each other hiding any real communication about how to solve the problems.  As each election grows with social media, it has created an environment where we have actually surpassed politicians in attacking politicians.  We blame everything from race to rich people for every problem in the country which stops us from creating real solutions.  When are we going to step up and take our responsibility for our country and the problems that are part of it?


First things first, no matter who is elected, politicians are suppose to do what is best for ALL the people.  If a candidate is Pro Life, they do not only serve Pro Lifers, they also are suppose to serve Pro Choice.  It doesn't matter if they are Republican, Democrat or Independent, they are still to do what is best for everyone.  So if this is true, why do we continue to let ourselves be divided into ‘groups’ instead of fighting to work as one country.


Something the people also forget is that the politicians are to do what is best for the country.  Not everything we want or believe is what is best for the country as a whole and we need to live with that.  I think it is very interesting that we vote for someone that promises us all of these things or who has the same beliefs as we do but then criticize them for doing what is best for the country instead of just us.  Having millions of different people in this country means having thousands of beliefs and if anyone thinks that every belief is what is best for the country, they really need to take a reality break


Lastly, why is it that we feel that people cannot change the way they believe.  Just because they said or did something 30 years ago doesn’t mean they can’t change their thinking now.  A lot happens over 30 years and sometimes this can change someone’s beliefs as much as a good argument can.  It scares me more with someone who doesn’t change with the times than someone who does.  Politicians need to understand this and be able to explain why they have changed.


We are currently favoring Bernie Sanders as a candidate to the point of even blaming everyone of trying to stop him from being elected.  He is using the right way of communicating where we are uniting, which is good because it gets us talking about issues.  However, when you continue to blame people, it keeps us divided and stops us from really making good changes.  For example, you can expect to instill free health care for all by not only taxing the rich but the middle class and upper middle class will be effected and that needs to be discussed.  Helping others is always something we should do but if someone is going to make $500 less a month who is not 'rich', should we not be trying to help them as well.


We favor Mr. Sanders because he has given us the illusion that he cares.  When you really listen, he is saying some of the same things our current President has been saying for eight years.  However, no one is out there cheering for the President because we have been blinded by all of the attacks on him.  Maybe he didn't get health care for free but he is the first President to get many uninsured people the health care they needed.  He also got 'don't ask, don't tell' repealed basically telling us that everyone is the same who is in the military.  He said immigrants that come here 'illegally' shouldn’t be removed from their families despite the damage to his reputation.  Even though people highlighted it as a bailout, he saved millions of jobs giving money to the auto industry.  Is the reason why we do not see this is because it currently comes from an educated, strong black Muslim man versus an old, Jewish 'white' grandfather.





http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/








Even Hillary Clinton has been fighting for the same things but no one knows because all we care about are emails and war.  She is the one that tried to get health care going 20 years ago and when Congress tried to water it down, she said no because it wouldn't do the job.  She is the one who has been fighting for families and women since the beginning of her career.  She is fighting for minimum wage and wage inequality but she is fighting it understanding the entire impact, not just promising higher wages.  Even recently she understood that the coal companies in WV would not get their jobs back, no matter what anyone said and tried to get us to focus on helping the people of WV.  Yet the people of WV were cheering for Mr. Sanders, who is against coal, because they thought she was trying to 'fire' them.  It shows what we choose to hear versus what we should be hearing.  Yes she makes mistakes but every mistake has two sides to the story before judgment should be passed.  Below we can see how progressive Ms. Clinton is versus Mr. Sanders and even though he is more progressive in most areas it does not mean she should not be considered the same.





How do we end up with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate?  I think it is because we understimate how some people really view the world and their issues.  Think about it, if your job was outsourced to Mexico and you see millions of illegal immigrants coming here and getting better treatment than you, why would you not go for a person who says a wall should be built.  Tell a person who had someone die in 9/11 that Muslims are not an extremist religion and that a war on ISIS is not warranted.  We are so busy being distracted by the things he says that we are not even thinking about the needs and wants of the people he is effecting.


A large conversation during this election cycle is the idea of 'free' tuition to public institutions.  One of the arguments is that most high paying jobs need some kind of degree so we are holding back people from the American Dream.  Although I do agree that this is needed, are we really looking at the solution in the right way?  Do we really have enough high paying jobs out there for all of the people that will now be getting a degree for free?  What happens if someone gets let go because the person who just got a degree is hired as a cheaper alternative, isn't that still an unemployment problem?


Are we really discussing all of the issues related to this topic or are we just happy with 'free' tuition for all?  I do not see anywhere that says what responsibility is on the student if they do not graduate?  Are we going to have any contingencies if graduates do not find a job or one they got a degree in?  We are so focused on the tuition subject that we almost forget that there are alot of people currently indebted with student loans.  They now have to see all of these people getting a 'free' pass while they get forgotten?  Have we ever thought that people who worked hard for their degree and career do not want to have less money to help people get theirs for free?  Maybe the reason it is not discussed is because the people cheering for it might not like the answer.


What about the true cost of the 'free' tuition?  The money will be raised by the taxing of Wall Street transactions but has anyone really thought about how that will effect the stock market?  People may not care but unfortunately, our economy rises and falls with the stock market and anything that causes a decline will effect the economy in other ways.  In the program, states have to take over the tuition program after 6 years, so this means that states will have to come up with the extra money to do this.  Ways to do this are usually cutting programs or raising taxes.


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-would-bernie-sanders-wall-st-tax-look-like-2016-02-14


Let's talk about the 'evil' corporations.  Corporations are part of this country, they are building a business to provide goods and vices to us.  If they did not exist there would be no jobs, there would be no Starbucks for us to get in the morning.  If something is changed in the country that minimizes profits or worse causes a company to go out of business they should have a say in this.  Going out of business or having to lay people off because of low profits is not good for the country.  Maximizing profits may seem evil because of the practices that are done but in the end public corporations are bound legally to maximize profits for their shareholders.  When this doesn't happen, their stock goes down and people do not invest as much.


http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/09/articles/series/special-comment/ebay-v-newmark-al-franken-was-right-corporations-are-legally-required-to-maximize-profits/


There is a huge cry over the $15 minimum wage.  First of all, anyone who thinks this has no effect on prices or a business really needs to get a better understanding.  If a company wants to stay in business they have to do what the market dictates not necessarily what is best for the business, which means sometimes bending over to customers.  So if you raise the cost of doing business without being able to raise the revenue coming in, how does one not see the business having issues?  If costs begin to get too high, they might have to lay someone off and make the $15 people do more work or worse shut down.


It has been said that raising wages increases morale and makes people more productive.  To me giving people more money to make them more productive is the same as giving an animal treats to do tricks.  No treats, no tricks.  Low wages, low productivity.  If we do not see that as a problem, how are we really looking at the problem.  If we believe that someone who took 10 years to get to a certain pay rate point is going to love seeing a person who just came on get a high amount, then we are kidding ourselves.  Morale and productivity should be about treating people with respect and doing the same for the company that is paying you.  It shouldn’t just be about giving people more money as a detrimate to the business.


The final point on increasing the minimum wage to $15 a hour.  If you are living in the slums of LA and you make $15 an hour you may be making more money, but it doesn't mean you will have a lot of disposal income.  Living in LA still means high rent and the higher up you go the more rent it will be.  So unless everyone is going to move to Rock Hill, SC where expenses are lower, then you still will have issues with your living situation.  Wage increase is not the only thing that needs to be done to help the poor.


Do people ever notice that when we fight for something good, an unseen bad comes with it.  Do we really think that when we fight for the reduction of fossil fuels, it doesn't effect the people who are working in the fossil fuel industry.  Companies will decrease business or maybe even close down.  People will be laid off.  Even people supplying the fossil fuel company are going to decrease in business.  If you read about the state of Alaska right now, the state is starting to go broke because of the oil industry struggles, just think if they had to pay for free tuition.


People say that we have an incarceration problem in this country, many are in for 'non violent' crimes.  First of all, stealing someone's property is still a crime and if you do it over and over again it means you have no regard for the law or people so why should you not be put into jail.  Plus by stealing someone's property and it is not returned, insurance rates go up and people start judging people of different races and living areas by those incidents. 


Next is the drug offenses, we insist that it is better to give people treatment than put them in jail.  We can say what we want that the CIA made people do drugs or that poor people have no choice.  Doing drugs or not doing drugs is a choice and being addicted is what comes from that choice.  If you want to convince me that treatment is better than jail, then tell me how many people are cured from treatment the first time and tell me who is going to pay for these treatments.


http://www.npr.org/2016/03/27/472023148/legalize-all-drugs-the-risks-are-tremendous-without-defining-the-problem?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social


There is a lot being said about breaking up the big banks.  If they are too big to fail, how would decreasing their current activity not effect the country?  They are said to be the reason for the housing crisis in 2008 and they are very responsible but where is our part in this?  We were the ones that were so gullible to take on mortgages that we could not afford, why is the bank to blame for that?  Would we have been better off if they had said no.  How soon we forget that as early as 1980 the interest rate was 20%, can you imagine trying to pay a loan with the interest at 20%.  That means for $100,000 mortgage would be a monthly payment of $1,600, who can afford that?


Campaign finance is another hot issue, we need to get money out of politics.  The one part of this that I have an issue with is that the money is not the problem, it is the integrity of the person accepting the money.  Businesses should be allowed to donate to candidates because again they have just as much at stake as anyone in the country.  So if a company spends millions giving to a candidate and a person in a trailer gives $27, do they deserve anymore or less cooperation from the candidate.  The candidate has to do what is best for the country and for ALL people, not just from those that give them a donation.  If they cannot follow this then they should not be elected.


A large portion of our money goes to military spending, thus hurting our country or so it is said.  We complain about war and actually are blamed for causing wars.  Does anyone even think about a world where America is not helping protect the world?  Think about us withdrawing from South Korea, what do we think would happen?  Do we think North Korea who is deprived of resources and their people are screaming for help, would be nice?  Maybe the solution is removing sanctions from these countries then everyone can do business with them.  We never complain when we help countries such as Haiti with disaster relief but that is money that they will never give us back.  So where is the complaining then?


We are a country of 320 million people and in that country are people that have lived through the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, Jim Crow laws, having dogs and hoses turned on them while the country watched, waiting in line for gasoline, AIDS, 9/11.  They grew up when there was no unemployment benefits, there was no welfare, there was no social security or 401K.  Their decisions about candidates are based on things we can’t even fathom yet we ignore what they have to say.  We focus so much on the young people’s voice that we ignore a lot of other voices, even the so called 'evil' ones.


We have alot of issues in this country and fighting for them to be fixed is what we should be doing.  However, fighting for something where you have not taken into consideration all aspects is like going to a 1 hour meeting where the real problem is only discussed in the last ten minutes, it serves no purpose.  Everyone in this country is effected by these decisions, young, old, black, white, etc.  We need everyone’s voice to be heard, even the ones we may not like.  We need the ‘voice' to not be 'trolling' comments behind the security of our computer.  That only highlights the fact that we are not taking responsibility, we are just continuing the division of ourselves.


We have been a divided country from the beginning of our history, it is just in a different way and we continue to let it happen.  At first it was land owning white people while blacks, women and Native Americans didn't count.  Now it is Occupiers, Anonymous, Socialists, Republicans, Democrats and Black Lives Matter saying one side is wrong and our side is right.  We need to stop our selfishness, our hatred and understand that every voice counts when it comes to making this country better.  Until that happens, we are not only stuck with what we have, we are the ones that helped create it and we need to get over it.