The Right to Marry: A Constitutional Value

Looking back at the social development of our country you might think we have made a lot of progress. There is no slavery, laws are in place to protect minorities in the workplace, and all adults of US citizenship have the right to vote.  After the Declaration of Independence was signed and “all men” were created equal, it seemed the separation of the federal government and the states had an easy enough time dissolving this ideal utopia.  One of the most important qualities of our Nation is the ability to vote for who makes decisions for you.  However, after declaring independence, only white men that owned property had the right to vote.  Then it seemed our social equality declined when in 1790, the Naturalization Act barred Asian Americans from voting.  In 1812, the true nature of politics as a means of reshaping the federal government that has already been established was born when a Massachusetts governor redrew district lines to favor Republican-dominated areas (something that happens still today).  It wasn’t until 1869 when the Fifteenth Amendment gave African Americans the right to vote.  It was still a very shaky ride, with different states introducing different legislature that kept mostly ethnic minorities from being able to vote.  Women were finally given the right to vote in 1920, but it wasn’t until 1964 when a Civil Rights Act was passed making it illegal to discriminate on voting rights.  It wasn’t until 1971 when all persons over the age of 18 were allowed to vote.  You can find the very confusing and fact filed timeline of voters rights here:

http://www.aclu.org/voting-rights/voting-rights-act-timeline

The point of outlining the right to vote from the time our country was formed, is that it took 195 years in order to give all adult citizens of the US the right to vote.  Under a nation that was supposedly founded for all men to be equal, this timeline of voter rights seems quite unproductive and unconstitutional.

This article, however, is not about voter rights.  I simply outline the lack of recognition of all men being seen as equal in our nation by showing how long it took to finally recognize one of the basic rights of our nation allowable to all adult citizens.  Now we look back and find it silly that most people did not have the right to vote, or have the right to be free men, or have the right to work, or have the right to be recognized as a married couple… OK, so we are still struggling with that last one.  This leads me to the main topic of discussion: Why can we accept our shortcomings in our society when it comes to exclusion of rights on a basis of race, sex and religion, yet we still cannot allow two people to marry based on the fact that a marriage is a religious union between and man and a wife?  The logic behind why gay couples should have the right to marry is evidently astounding, while the logic behind why they shouldn’t have that right is incredibly ignorant.

This country was founded and established by a group of men with various religious backgrounds.  Many of these men considered themselves Deists, which acknowledge a higher power without confining them to the boundaries of a religion.  The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written to absolve this nation from religious persecution, and allow any citizen to believe and practice what they want, without governing the entire country under a particular faith.  So why is it that the federal government and most state governments choose to fight the seemingly simple logic of allowing same sex marriages?  The argument is that marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.  I have no problem with this argument.  If it says in your religious texts that only a man and a woman may marry, then that is perfectly acceptable to me.  My argument is why state and federal governments recognize religious sanctity in their definition of a married couple.  To do such is unconstitutional, and treats gay couples as non citizens of a country they are obviously, in most cases, citizens of.

Many argue that it makes no difference if you are considered married or not.  This way of thinking is largely ignorant.  A very quick and simple search on the legality and benefit of a recognized “Marriage” in the United States yields very positive arguments for allowing same sex marriages.  In fact, I typed in “Benefits of Marriage” in the all Powerful Wizard of Google and found the first website to include all I needed to know to corroborate my theory on the benefits of marriage:

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/marriage-rights-benefits-30190.html

Here are some interesting facts about how a marriage affects two people legally and financially:

Married Couples:

·         Inherit their spouses estate

·         Receive an exemption from estate and gift taxes from property left to you by your spouse

·         Receive social security, medicare and disability benefits for spouses

·         Receive veterans and military benefits for spouses

·         Can obtain insurance through your spouse’s employer

·         Can receive wages, workers compensation and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse

·         Can take leave from your employer if your spouse is ill, or if a family member of a spouse dies

·         Can make medical decisions on behalf of your spouse when they are unable to

·         Can file for joint adoption or foster care rights

·         Receive equitable division of property upon divorce

·         Can Live in neighborhoods zoned for “Family Only” (Didn’t even know they zoned that!)

·         Receive family rates for home, auto, health and other types of insurance

·         Receive tuition discounts

This means that same sex couples that cannot marry also cannot receive these benefits – many of which are federal benefits.  An important fact to recognize is that none of the benefits under federal law will apply to you if you are in a Civil Unions or Domestic Partnership.  So you MUST get married in order to receive most of these benefits.

I find it incredibly disturbing that our society can face these facts but still oppose a same sex union that is recognized by the government under the same conditions as a religious marriage.  It’s so simple it makes me want to vomit diarrhea from my ears.  In fact, I find it outright evil that many people would still oppose a marriage even if it was not tied to a religious denomination.  If we as a society stopped fighting events that have no effect or meaning in our lives and started collaborating positively on issues that affect and matter to EVERYONE (health care, fair wages, civil benefits…) we would be a lot healthier – not to mention sane.

Exploiting Faith

This is a big one.  Where to start, where to start… I suppose I should explain that this article will probably upset a lot of people, if said people were to actually read this.  I try to approach all aspects of life with morality, common sense and logic.  Religion is no exception.  I believe that faith and religion are very separate ideas.  You can have faith without religion.  My aim here isn’t to convince any one person that their faith is wrong, nor their religion.  I am also not trying to target any one religion; however, I am more familiar with the Christian based religions so it may seem that way.  Where everyone is entitled to their own faith and practice, that entitlement does not grant them authority of persuasion.  This is one of the underlying problems with religion, I believe, that has tainted faith for centuries.

I was initially raised in a Catholic setting, as my Dad was Catholic, and so we went to a Catholic church.  My mom, I believe was protestant, because her parents were protestant, or something along those lines.  Apparently Catholics and Protestants don’t get along too well, which is surprising to me because they come from a Christian background.  Anyway, I don’t remember much of the teachings, as I was pretty young, and more or less went by force – not the kind of force, like I was shackled and dragged to church.  The kind of force where, I was a child, and it was either go to church peacefully, or I wouldn’t get to play with my Legos afterward.  Later on in my childhood, after my parents divorced, I would sometimes attend my Grandparents church as well.  I could not discern the difference of either sect.  It was just another boring hour on Sunday to me.  At the same time, my stepfather was practicing his parents’ religion – Mormon.  Oh god, that was the most painful of the three because it was THREE HOURS LONG on Sunday.  Sure we got to go out to Boston Market afterwards, but I would have gladly made that trade if it meant sleeping in longer and playing in the woods.  I’m not sure if it was the lack of pressure to pay attention to the teachings, the lack of consistency of a distinct sect or religion, or some inherent trait that led me to be rebellious to religion, but I never once used faith based teachings in my daily life; at least none that I remember.

I find that the center of all religion is fear.  Fear of the creator.  It’s a bit socialist to me – that fear is instilled in the believers in order to keep them conformed to the faith.  I also find it a bit frightening, and borrowing a line from a Death Cab for Cutie song – “fear is the heart of love” as dictated by a nun, is particularly harrowing.  Love should have no fear.  You should not love out of fear, rather you should love out of compassion and loyalty.  You love someone because you choose to, not because you fear the alternative.

Now faith – faith to me is completely separate from religion, although every religion has faith of some sort.  Save the atheist, everyone has faith.  Even scientists have faith.  What you cannot prove but believe to exist is the nature of faith.  Theories are the scientist’s faith.  I identify more with a scientists proof than a religious proof as there are evident mathematical equations, physics, chemistry… all things science that have created many mechanical and electrical wonders that we can see, and that work.  So they have to be doing something right.  The reason we still have a conflict of religion and science is because of the ultimate question in the reliability in both faiths – You can’t prove God exists, but you can’t prove that he doesn’t, either.  Lack of proof doesn’t necessarily promote faith, but it also does not negate it.

I believe religion is a faith based government.  It is a governing power over a group of people that teaches them, and holds them to a set of rules in order to maintain an organized and growing society.  Religion happens to use faith as the basis of their governance.  Take Christianity for example.  The word of God was passed down to the people.  These people must follow the word of God throughout their life.  The reward is entrance into His kingdom.  However, if you do not follow the word of God, you will spend eternity in Hell, which apparently is not a very nice place this time of year, or any other time for that matter.  None of this is proven, it is a matter of hearsay and mass acceptance.  I believe that many basic religious followers use religion to promote a set of morals that all men should follow.  This idea is actually very good.  Imagine a world where everyone was held to the same moral values and principles.  The only problem is that these are written by God, or more specifically translated and taught by the highest followers of God.  Some of these morals and principles are logically flawed.

First of all, most religious texts are known to have been written by man, as an interpretation of God’s word.  The religion is based on this book.  However, man is fallible, therefore religion is fallible.  Most religions hold its followers to a code of deliverance.  It is their duty to convince the non believers that the word of God is the true word, and that the non believer’s faith is immoral and wrong.  This may be the one flaw that creates the most problems.  Thousands of lives have been lost to this ideology.  In my opinion, if religion were taught to live and let live, the world would be a much better place.  I don’t believe that religion should be abolished.  Faith in an organized sense is important to those that need it to believe there is a higher purpose to their existence.

My biggest peeve with religion is that it is used as governance for all of society, whether individuals in said society believe or not.  Many will quote religion as if it is an ultimately accepted standard for all people.  For instance, some will quote our very government, and country as a Christian based country, that our Country was made on the basic principles of Christianity, and therefore the citizens must be accountable as such.  I doubt many of them know that our founding fathers had a variety of different religious backgrounds, and that none of those beliefs laid the groundwork for our constitution.  The pledge of allegiance was actually written by a socialist named Francis Bellamy in 1892.  Congress later adopted this in 1942 and added the phrase “Under God” in 1954.  Many people forget that practicing their religion in this country is a right, but not an absolute.  This should be a globally accepted norm, rather than just an idea by those who seek peace – You may practice your religion, you may have your faith, but you have no right to impose your beliefs by force, physically nor legally, upon any one person.  The bottom line is – Religion should never be used as a basis of governance over any society.  Religion has no value in government, and it is ignorant to believe so.

There are two topics I rarely bring up in public discussion unless it is with close friends.  These are politics and religion.  The two systems are so complex that there is no logical one any one person can be completely versed on the subject or their point of view.  This does not stop people from justifying their beliefs regardless how logically flawed they are.  The main problem with religious argument is that their word must be taken literal in order for it to be valid.  Everything must be followed as it is written without argument.  This is the basis for the argument against same sex marriage – the only reason there is opposition to same sex marriage is because marriage is deemed as a religious act, and in the Bible it is written that it is to be between a man and a woman.  This poses a problem for those that are homosexual but wish to be married as acknowledged by the society and government they are a part of.  Whatever you believe, there are benefits to having the government recognize you as man and wife.  Some use religion to deny these people of this right, and this is fundamentally wrong.  My biggest argument is that one who is religious, and clings to the word of God as absolute and unchangeable, chooses to ignore those teachings that are archaic, barbaric and immoral.  This, I believe, is the definition of hypocrisy and if you do not allow yourself to reason then you should not be allowed to impose law over those with many different faiths.  I will not go into specifics, but I will say that my thoughts on this matter come from the fact that there are religions that promote stealing as wrong, but rape as an act that is not necessarily unethical.  Not to single out Christianity, but many cling to the bible as the basis for their morality and judgment of others, without actually knowing what is in it.  I have a sneaky suspicion that this is true for many other religions.

I will admit that this article is extremely compressed, and I could write a book resembling a work by Ayn Rand that explains my thoughts on the matter.  The bottom line is that I believe there is a very unstable pressure by many religious individuals to the masses.  Simply forcing one to believe in faith will not ensure acceptance and obedience.  One must choose to believe, and the religious should only preach, not force, their faith to others.  They must put faith in their teachings that they will inspire someone to follow them.  I think this was the intention of religion that was eventually degraded and tainted by greed.

I have never attached myself to any one religion.  I would place my ideology of morality close to that of Buddhism, as they preach acceptance more than any other religion know of – including the absence of faith (I am not Buddhist, I just like their style).  I am not atheist – I cannot discount the existence of a creator simply because we cannot prove it.  I am neither faithful to religion in a sense that I must believe there was a certain way or reason we are here.  I am also not an antitheist, which is an opposition to organized religion.  I may disagree with it, but I also must accept it, even if I do not accept their involvement with government and large scale society.  If anything, I would say I am Deist.  This is the belief that God may exist, and that many religions may coexist.  Some may view it as a weak faith.  I believe that you should not put absolute faith in anything that you do not fully understand.  When you really look at it, I don’t believe we should even be all that worried to hurry up and figure out exactly why we are here and where we go when we die.  The only thing we should be doing is living with each other, without imposition, but with morality and compassion.

Representation by Taxation is Dead

I find most people in the first world are incredibly intelligent.  So smart, in fact, that whenever there is a national or global issue the majority seems to have an educated, expert opinion on the matter.  The internet has been a great place where people can show up and present their knowledge on everything.  There is no retribution, because on the internet you are faceless.  That egotistical extreme racist asshole that makes disparaging remarks on an internet forum on how this race or that race is the reason for all the problems of the earth could just be your mild mannered neighbor.  He’s not going to say those things in public because he enjoys borrowing your power tools, and having you watch his cat while on holiday.

The most recent event that has everybody spewing out their empty knowledge on the matter is of course the economy.  More specifically, who is responsible for the disparagement of wealth, who to blame for ruining the American Dream, and what to do to fix everything in the shortest amount of time possible.  The new face of the movement for economical reform is the Occupy Wall Street protesters, which quickly sprouted into a nationwide protest at several different locations.  I even saw a small demonstration of people at the capitol building in Columbus, Ohio, where I currently reside.  It would appear that anybody with enough money to enjoy the American Dream look down at the protesters as smelly hippies that don’t have jobs and don’t want to work hard for their wealth.  The protesters look down at the reasonably and extremely wealthy as the silver spoon, trust fund people who never had to face the challenges of the lower 99% of Americans.  The problem is, both sides have their own opinion on the issue, but as usual are extremely ill informed and don’t really know what they are fighting for, or against.

The protesters know that they are sick of the growing number of poor and lower middle class.  The ultra rich are sick of these liberal hippies (their words, not mine) smelling up their territory.  What is interesting to me is the media coverage of this whole thing.  The protests had been going on for more than a week before I started to see the media placing the news on their websites and newspapers.  Now there are several articles printed a day on any given news outlet about protests in whatever state, about which companies don’t pay their fair share, and how big business screws up the economy.  The thing is, this has been going on for decades but nobody does anything about it until an unruly mod appears.

I’ll admit, I am on the protesters side, and I am fed up with big business, which includes corporations as well as investment banks (such as the ones we paid first to screw us over, and then again to bail them out when screwing us over stopped making them money).  So why haven’t I lifted a finger to help the cause?  As it stands, these protests are just a show of force, but aren’t attacking anything specific.  They just hope to make a presence and expect someone to step up and make a change.  It’s a start of a movement that needs to transform into something much smarter.  The people they expect to resolve their problems are the same people that allowed this to happen in the first place.  These protests aren’t going to convince the wealthiest of Americans to stop taking advantage of our economic system out of good faith.  We are talking about the greediest, souless…est people on this Earth, that are more concerned about having power than wealth – it just so happens you must have wealth in order to have power.

I don’t want to sound hypocritical, but I believe what needs to be done is to start outlining the factors that contribute to disparagement of wealth.  This is how I see how wealth is gathered – an individual or group of individuals forms a company that produces goods or services.  This is the basis of an economy, and is needed for society.  These individuals receive money for the goods or services from the consumer.  Some of this money is paid to the workers for the company, some is paid to maintain the company (utilities and infrastructure), some is paid to people that invested in the company as dividends, some is paid to the government in taxes, and the rest is (should) be invested back into the company for growth (profits).  Seems simple enough – the entire global economy runs off this principle.

So it’s simple – A company loses revenue due to operating costs, dividends and taxes.  The leftover stuff is profit to re-invest in the company or other ventures.  With big business, these revenues and profits can be enormous and the payrolls for the top executives get higher and higher (re: Disparity of Wealth in America).  Somewhere, more cash is either pumped into the company or cash is freed up somewhere else to allow this extreme shift of money.  Whatever happens, the result is this – the top earners exponentially or geometrically grow their wealth, while the bottom earners have to fight for a raise, or even to keep their job.  This starts the uneven spread of wealth across our society, and it has been happening for decades… centuries, millennia even.  I’m sure if you look at any society that has ever existed, the scenario is all the same – the rich get richer while the poor get poorer.

So, now we have a movement on our hands.  The 99% is fed up with the rich getting richer at their expense.  Unfortunately this doesn’t solve anything.  Bringing the fight to the front door doesn’t stop the rich from sneaking out the back.  We, as a democratic society, need to put pressure on the government and our political parties to fix the funneling of mass quantities of money to the uber rich.  Capital investments are important to society, but only when they benefit everyone involved.  Many people who look down on these protesters because they think these people aren’t willing to work hard for their wealth are not looking hard enough into the underlying problem.  It’s not that they aren’t working hard enough to achieve the American Dream; they aren’t given a fair chance.  Thousands of people unemployed from the high school graduate to the doctorate.  Companies are throwing even more people on the street while giving the executives million dollar bonuses.  The 1%, or rather the 0.5% of top earners in this country know that in order to keep power in this society they must control the wealth of everyone else, or they will have more competition.

How do they do it?  How do these ultra rich, faceless enemies of the general public manage to make so much money while everyone else suffers?  The government and our politicians allow them to do so.  Big business lobbies for a complex tax system and loopholes to reduce their taxable income, so they have bigger profits to stuff the pocket books of the ultra rich.  They create offshore entities to amass an extreme amount of wealth and then tell the government that the only way the country will see this income is to allow them to move it into their US entities at a tax rate barely comparable to the 35% it should be, thus reducing the expecting income of the government that relies on this money to take care of its citizens.  Big business holds the government hostage, telling them the only way they will manufacture on American soil is if they get huge tax breaks, then somehow funnel income to other countries so they aren’t taxed for it.  They do all of this and when we complain they insist they are only conforming to our governments laws… only it’s not really the governments laws, rather the big business that puts out big cash influence into the political system.

It is sickening to think that most big businesses get their start in the US – from the American Dream, and then work so hard to destroy it for others.  The U.S. gave them an opportunity and they exploit it at every chance they can to make more money, to have more power.  It’s not just an act of unfairness or injustice.  It’s an act of treason.

Of course, saying all of this doesn’t make a lick of difference – no more than the Occupy protests do.  All I can say, is we need to hold our government, our politicians accountable for the decisions they make that regulate our economy.  We don’t need to tax the big business or the rich more; we need to tax them, period.  They need to be taxed fairly, just as the ordinary American.  Progressive tax, flat tax… whatever tax – as long as EVERYBODY is taxed.  Remove tax loopholes that allow the funneling and blanket movements of cash in and out of the country at reduced rates.  Increase excise taxes so it is no longer economical for companies to manufacture in other countries only to import the product straight to America (eliminating jobs AND reducing our export/import ratio, which directly effects GDP).  Remove high barriers to start a company so that when these greedy companies exit our economy all together because they don’t get their way, there is someone else waiting to pick up where they left off, in a much fairer manner.  Let these people know that we are not going to be bullied any longer.  Let our officials know we will only put them in office if they promise to stop letting big business get away with being greedy.  Let them know that everyone should have a shot at the American Dream.

TL;DR:  Dear government, stop letting the ultra rich big business and capital enterprises take advantage of the other 99.5% of Americans, and take care of the society you have sworn to protect.  We are still a Democracy, and we should still have a voice.

I Have This Extra Kidney I'm Not Using...

In my previous post I talked about my thoughts of altruistic compassion.  Helping people you know is important.  Helping people you don’t is at least equally important.  I feel  need to disclose that I admire someone who doesn’t harm another.  I admire them more when they help others in need, regardless of any benefit to themselves.  A lot of people become part of an awareness group once they have been affected by it, and this is a good thing.  Volunteering time and money is a great form of compassion.  Some people even become an advocate for something they know is wrong, but haven’t experienced it.  I admire these people even more so.  A friend of mine is an advocate for human trafficking.  I’m pretty sure this person hadn’t experienced this first hand, but they know it’s wrong and they don’t want it to happen anymore.

I like volunteering, but I don’t do it often enough.  I give money to charities, give blood, and I’ve done the whole habitat for humanity.  I find myself questioning some of these acts of compassion though, wondering if I’m actually making an impact, or just prolonging the demise.  For instance, I could volunteer at a soup kitchen, and help feed the homeless.  At the end of the day, they are still homeless.  Hell, at the end of the year they are still homeless.  It’s good to help in any way possible, but I feel I could be doing more for the greater good of our global society.

While philosophizing on the impact of compassion, I started looking at unique ways to volunteer.  I then discovered, and ultimately decided that I would be a living donor.

A living donor is one who donates part or all of an organ to someone else.  Giving blood is a form of living donation, but for the most part it includes bone marrow, liver and kidneys.  For the past couple of months I have been going through the process of being matched for kidney donation for a fellow out in California.  I have never met this person before, but that was kind of the point.  I had one condition: This person must be a good person, and one that has helped and will continue to help others.  The idea is that my donation is a conduit to continued compassion on the recipients’ behalf.  I improve his quality of life in order for him to maintain a positive influence to those around him.

The process has been interesting.  At first I created a profile on a message board for living donors and recipients.  I was flooded with invitations to be matched as a kidney donor for many different people.  I quickly realized that I could not handle responding to so many people, telling them that I will not be donating a kidney to them.  It sounded too much like “sorry, but you’ll just have to risk death a little bit longer, because you aren’t good enough for my kidney”.  It’s like signing a death pact – giving so many people hope and then stripping it away.  Before I changed my profile to “private” I was contacted by one person that met my conditions, and better yet this was someone on the recipients’ behalf – The recipient didn’t even want to ask a living donor to get tested.  He is a good person in his community, and didn’t want or expect someone to go through the process of being a living donor for him.  This, I decided, is the kind of person who deserves my kidney.

So far I have talked to two social workers and given nine vials of blood to determine tissue typing – they needed to make sure that once my kidney was transplanted, his body wouldn’t reject it.  Once it was confirmed that my parts would work in his make and model, we scheduled the remaining tests.  The next step is to give more blood to ensure that I do not possess pretty much every disease known to man.  There are like 30 things they are testing.  On top of that, I need an EKG, chest X-Ray, physical, 24 hour urine collection for a urinalysis, and a CT scan.  There may be others, but the bottom line is, if there is a disease in me somewhere, they are going to find it before I pass it on to the recipient.  I fly out to California to meet with a psychologist in November, and to perform the CT scan.  Once all that clears, the OR can be scheduled for the transplant about four weeks from then.  As it is planned, by Christmas time I should have one less kidney in my body – seems like a perfectly normal way to lose some weight.

I had one reservation for actually going through this process.  I had thought “What if a family member or friend needs it later on in life”?  I realized that this is a big “What If”.  The chances of knowing someone with kidney disease is not that great, and it becomes even smaller when you consider all of the variables needed to be a match.  I then concluded that if this actually did happen, I can count on others to be a living donor.

I really did not focus, and continue not to focus, on the effect this will have on me.  Since I am donating altruistically, meaning I do not know the recipient, I have had to talk to social workers, and eventually a psychologist to ensure that I am mentally prepared for the surgery and for life after the surgery.  I’m not really concerned, to tell you the truth.  For one, life after surgery is about the same with one kidney as it is with two.  I won’t be able to smoke or play professional football, but I think I can get by.  Another reason, it’s not about me more than it’s about helping others through helping one.  Consider this: if you went back in time and had the opportunity to jump in front of the bullet for MLK, sacrificing your life for that of a civil rights hero, would you?  Given the chance, my answer would be a swift “Yes”.  We don’t survive as individuals, and there is not enough selfless acts done for the greater good of mankind.

I’m not saying I am giving my life for someone else, but I am aware and understand that I am risking it.  However small the risk, it is still evident.  One statistic shows that it is riskier to be born than it is to donate a kidney.  When people ask me why I am doing it, I tell them I have an extra kidney I’m not using, and it’s much more beneficial for someone else to have it than continue incubate it for a “What If”.  That’s the simple version.  A much simpler version is that it seemed like the right thing to do. 

I’m not writing this because I expect others to follow suit and start donating a bunch of kidneys.  I would only suggest challenging yourself to do good for others, in hopes of compounding compassion through your acts of kindness.  I debated telling people other than friends and family, but then realized that the more people see an act of kindness, the more willing they are to pay it forward.  I think that the world needs more of that.  I also did this in mass notice, as telling each person individually would be a gigantic effort.

TL;DR: I have this extra kidney I’m not using, and will be donating it because I want to, and it seems like the right thing to do.

Why We Are Less Passionate Than Ants

I haven’t displayed my feelings about religion yet, mostly because I don’t want to completely alienate and drive away some of my family and friends.  Not yet at least.  Upon all of the religions that exist, I agree with Buddhism the most.  Not entirely agree, but they have some pretty good points.  I won’t go into detail just yet, but there is one quote by the Dalai Lama that just made a whole lot of sense… LOGICAL sense.  Mr. Lama said “If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them”.  I find it is hard to actually knowingly harm someone, but it’s quite simple to do nothing at all.  It’s even simple to help over harm.  The Buddhist religion practices compassion.  Compassion, one may find, is not necessarily a selfless act.  Once one is compassionate, they too benefit from the act of kindness, simply by knowing they had a positive impact on another’s life.  In a world where there seems to be more harm than kindness, the feeling is ten-fold, because now it is a rarity.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of acts of kindness in the world.  One friend helps another on a daily basis.  What bothers me is that there is not a big enough presence of altruism.  How often do you see someone carrying groceries out for a sweet old lady anymore?  What about someone whose car breaks down – do you see many people stop to help?  My car recently broke down in the middle of the street, without enough power to run my hazard lights.  It was rush hour, on a two lane, one way road.  People were so frustrated with me, having to slowly drive around me in this stop and go rush hour traffic.  Not one person cared enough to roll down their window to make sure I was OK.  I believe it is our duty as a species to help others when they really need it.  This should be as natural to us as breathing or eating.  If you don’t agree with this, I understand, but consider the following cases.

There are five types of animals that are altruistically caring in nature.  I will discuss two.  The first is a species of ants in the Amazon Jungle.  Their home threatened by a flood, the ants built a bridge using their bodies, to carry their young and Queen to safety.  Some died, but most survived.  If this wasn’t done, most assuredly all would have perished.  Now this may only show compassion in a time when it’s a decision between everyone dying or just some, and we may display the same trait in say, a flood of our own.  But it is compassion nonetheless.

The second case is that of the Dolphin.  The dolphin is perhaps the most caring animal in the world.  When threatened by a predator, dolphins will band together and fight together for the safety of all.  Apart from helping their own species, dolphins have been known to recognize the distress calls of other marine life and come to their aid.  A single dolphin was observed heading the distress call of two beached whales and guided them to safety.  Another instance included a group of dolphins began circling around some swimmers.  It wasn’t until they were out of the water that they learned there was a shark nearby, and the dolphins were forming a ring of protection for the humans.

Now this may be a moot point – just because a couple of dolphins and an army of ants banded together for the greater good, doesn’t mean they all do it.  My point is, these animals are in it for the survival of not only themselves but for other non threatening species.  We have the mental capacity of a million ants, and believe it or not, should be smarter than dolphins.  However, it seems we would rather use this capacity to be greedy and look out for our own good, even though it pales in comparison to the needs of others.

TL;DR: I understand that you shouldn’t be expected to help others, but I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to.  This rant has a bigger point, which I will carry on in my next post, which will be soon.

Justice Isn’t Blind, She’s Just in a Really Intense Game of Hide and Seek

I haven't written one of these in awhile.  I guess I've been to busy to let the world get to me.

I’m not one to grab onto an internet Meme and use it in everyday life; I don’t even know what Meme stands for.  I can’t find a better way to describe my reaction to our (global, really) justice system than ‘facepalm’.  Facepalm, as some of you may know, is the swift slap to one’s own face when reading or seeing something so incredibly backwards stupid, that it would be easier to divide by zero than to try to understand the logic of said stupid act.  I find it disturbing that the justice system is so dependent on law upon law, that 100% of the audience can see the logic in one verdict, but the law points to another.

I contribute most of the inaction and inefficiencies of our society to the fact that we have thousands of laws to obey when making the simplest decisions.  I’m not sure there is even an accurate way to count how many laws there are.  I looked up on the internets to find out how many laws there were in the US.  I didn’t search too far, but I would not be surprised if there was no exact answer.  I did see a couple of interesting lines on random web pages.  One mentioned there are 20,000 gun control laws.  That seems a bit excessive, right?  I can think of maybe two or three laws you would need: don’t shoot people with guns unless they are going to shoot you; don’t carry a gun unless you have a permit that says you are smart enough to carry a gun; and don’t buy guns from some dude out of the back of his van.  I guess wording is everything though, and you could get around that last law by saying it wasn’t a ‘dude’ but a ‘chick’ they bought the gun from, out of the back of ‘her’ van.  Then there’s mention of 452 new definition of crimes added since the start of 2000.  This makes me believe that we completely suck at solving problems, and the only way we can fix them is to make them illegal.

If you think that lawyers and politicians are completely sane, logical, intelligent individuals of society, then I direct your attention to the number of absolutely ludicrous laws still in effect, mostly due to the fact that it would cost too much money and time to strike them from the books.  Here’s a fun website to go to if you need to kill some time, and a few brain cells:

http://www.dumblaws.com/

This site outlines, by state, some of the dumb laws our government has passed with the help of politicians and lawyers.  I looked up some of the laws of the state I currently am forced to inhabit: Ohio.  There are some laws that held a purpose some time ago, but is still in effect, such as ‘Participating or conducting a duel is prohibited’ or ‘If one loses their pet tiger, they must notify the authorities within one hour’.  I’m not sure about when that last law might have been useful, though.  Some laws are good to know when you feel like breaking the law but don’t want to get arrested for it, such as ‘No one may be arrested on Sunday or on the Fourth of July’.  And some laws just don’t make any sense, and are clearly there for our amusement, like ‘It is illegal to fish for whales on Sunday’.  I’m not a Geographist, but I’m pretty sure Ohio isn’t connected to any oceans. 

Now, these are harmless enough, and I’m kind of glad they are still around.  I know I don’t want to see anyone ‘walk a cow down Lake Road’ in Bay Village, or see someone ‘drive around the town square more than 100 times in a single session’ in Oxford.  Often a sentence is issued because the law is in plain sight, but the penalty is ridiculous in comparison, and the person who broke that law just isn’t wealthy enough to hire a lawyer who knows how to get around them.  For instance, a homeless man in Florida steals a box of cereal and evaporated milk.  His sentence is 15 years in prison.  Now, granted this man had 50 prior convictions and rejected a plea deal that would have reduced the sentence to 3 years, the sentencing is still pretty harsh.  Every time I read a story that someone was jailed for misdemeanor crimes, I think about overcrowded prisons and the fact that it’s the taxpayers that pay to house these criminals.  If we look at this from the point of view of a balanced society where there’s a cause and effect that’s equal for all offenders, then I fail to see the reasoning for people who steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in various ponzi-like schemes and get sentencing for less than 10 years.  In the case of the homeless guy stealing cereal, a $3.50 crime turned into a $50,000 per year expense for tax payers… That’s $750,000 out of the taxpayers pocket to punish a hungry man that will just get out and steal again.

Another big pet peeve of mine is copyright infringement.  There are two sides of this law, and the “practice” of infringing on a patent.  Case A: A small company creates software to play videos on a computer.  They patent their technology but do not immediately have the capital to distribute it and make money from it.  A big computer company finds out about it, knows they have a patent, but steals their idea anyway.  This big company makes millions of dollars from the software, leaving the little business that created the software in the dust.  The small company sues the big company for infringement, and wins, but their winnings are just a fraction of the profit the big company made, and the small company has to use their winnings to pay off legal fees, and when it’s all said and done, they don’t have much to show for it.  Here’s the big kicker – the big company can continue to use the software – continue to infringe on the patent, legally.  They can continue to make money off of their theft, and the small company can’t sue them again.

Case B:  A company either develops a patent, or buys patents from small business that does not have the capital to properly distribute the technology.  This technology may be very profitable, but more importantly, applicable and contributive to technological advances, which would create jobs.  The company that buys these patents does so with the full intent of not developing the technology.  They wait until someone decides to infringe on the patent, then they sue them.  Meanwhile, the company that decides to infringe on the patent and start actually using the technology, does so knowing they will get sued, and they will factor this into the price of the developed product.  In both cases, the consumer gets screwed.

The crime to punishment ratio is extremely off balance.  If you murder someone, and we are 100% positive you murdered someone, then you should not be allowed to live anymore – at least not in our society.  If you steal money, you have to give it back, or work it off.  There’s no reason why we should continue to support criminals in our society.  To be somewhat honest, I think we should have a system of penitentiaries like in “Escape from New York”.  We set up maybe three different levels of small isolated societies based on level of conviction, dump the offenders in there to serve their sentence and then leave them alone.  They have to grow their own food and survive with each other.  I’m sure this is a bad idea though, as it could swiftly turn into Lord of the Flies.  So maybe it’s not perfect, but whatever we have now isn’t working.

TL;DR: I’m against the rationalization that we “obey the book” – it hasn’t really worked out for religion, and it surely hasn’t worked for our justice system.  The lack of LOGICAL decisions in this country to all issues is mind boggling at best.  The justice system isn’t any better.  There are smart sociologists that can outline where we are making mistakes and how to fix them, but nobody listens to them.  It was hard for me, but I think I can come to understand how we made these mistakes in the first place.  The fact that we haven’t bothered to fix them, knowing full well they are wrong and detrimental to our society, gives me a bad case of the facepalm.

To Serve and to… Make the City More Money

Note: As a reminder, a tl;dr is at the bottom of the post, to save you the bother of actually having to read the post, if in fact one actually reads these posts anyway.  Also, tl;dr is short for "Your post is too long and boring, and I don't want to have to read it all, but I want to make sure you I get the main points in case you happen to ask me questions about reading your blog in the future".  Sweet Jesus, I have the word 'blog'.  Who named these things 'blogs', anyway?  It sounds like something you throw up.  Now that I think of it, the word seems to be fitting for most blogs now.  Including mine.  Enjoy.

I have a small rant on our Justice system coming, but it was too long to include my insight on a well known social service called the Police Department.

I was recently the proud recipient of two tickets.  I was guilty in both offenses: The first was running a red light, in which one of those fancy intersection cameras took a photo of my license plate and mailed an automated letter from the city telling me to pay them money.  The second was just last night, in which I was pulled over for driving 45 mph in a 35 mph zone.  I thought it was a 45 mph zone like every other non residential street in the city.  Silly me.

I understand that when someone breaks the law, they should be punished.  What I don’t understand, is why this punishment comes with a monetary fine.  First of all – nobody learns their lesson from a traffic violation.  If you get caught speeding, you aren’t going to automatically obey the speed limit the rest of your life.  When I ran that red light, I didn’t know I was doing it – there were no other cars around, and I was looking for the freaking on ramp to the freeway.  What I learned is that I need to look out for cops and cameras more often than pay attention to my surroundings.  I usually always go the speed limit.  If I do speed, it’s no more than 5 miles over the limit.  I constantly see people driving 20 miles or more over the speed limit, driving dangerously close behind other vehicles, cutting everybody off while brushing their teeth, shaving, reading a book and stuffing an egg mcmuffin down their throat.  I never see these people pulled over.  When I got pulled over for speeding last night, I thought to myself, “Self, you should remember that it’s 35 mph on this street and not 45.  Also, a cop might be on this street at 10PM on Monday nights”.  I immediately learned my lesson, that it was a 35 mph zone, and it didn’t take $112 for me to realize that.

Here’s the depressing realization about traffic violations.  It’s no surprise that police departments have quotas for issuing citations.  That they try to meet a certain amount of citations issued each month, or each quarter.  The fact that we are punished for breaking a traffic law by having to pay the city money is quite depressing.  What are they doing with that money?  I doubt it’s going to charities.  The depressing fact is the City needs people to break the law in order to receive full funding for their police department, or any other department for that matter.  We don’t know if the city takes that money and helps to fund the fire department or expenses for senators and representatives.  If everyone were to obey every law for a year, our social services structure might crumble to the ground with the force of a thousand whales.  I have never needed the police or fire departments to actually protect me, but they are pretty good at serving me citations.  They aren’t good enough at taking our taxes and funding our infrastructure, and they haven’t been good at that for, well, probably ever.   They need a society of deviants to make up for their deficits, and that’s just crazy talk.

I consider these citations as an additional tax – not a detriment to breaking the law.  I don’t learn anything from having to pay the city for a small crime against society.  I’ll continue to do it because it’s my way of paying those extra taxes so we can pay police officers overtime to sit at construction sites and watch movies.

tl;dr

Police departments exist as a social service within a city government.  However, they make money from citizens by issuing money.  The fact is they need this extra income to bridge the gap in funding.  If we didn’t break the law, our police force would be disastrously under-funded, and larger more dangerous crimes would occur more often.  So get out there and roll through a stop sign, drive 10 miles over the limit, and pee in public… do your community a service.

*Please don’t actually (get cought) peeing in public, as I hear this often results in being branded a sex offender.

How Octomom is Destroying the Economy

Disclaimer: For your convenience, I place a tl;dr at the bottom of the post.  This stands for "too long; didn't read", meaning you might want the main points, but don't care about my ramblings, which is understandable.  tl;dr is the internet blog version of an executive summary, but I put it at the end like a conclusion.  I'm hip like that.


I dislike a lot of social traits.  Most of these are driven by a group of people united or forced together by this common trait, or associated by some other complementing trait.  I think most of the time people call these stereotypes.  I don’t like to use stereotypes because it is often associated with race or status.  Some of these social traits are harmless.  For instance, people who wear pants/shorts/short-pants low enough to where the belt is just above or in some cases below the knees.  It’s harmless, and actually kind of funny, but it’s still a blemish.  It serves no positive function and really just looks silly.  Unfortunately this usually goes to a specific group of people in a society, and it really doesn’t help their stereotype – because like I said before, it serves no positive function.  I think if for some reason wearing your pants that low improved flexibility and overall human health somehow I would say “hey, they are concerned with their health, and won’t need to go to the doctor as much by doing that, therefore helping to reduce our collective medical costs, and I think that’s neat”.  This is not the case; well, it has not been proven, at least.  The only positive function I have witnessed to wearing pants really, really low, is I saw this security footage of a guy stealing a case of beer from a convenience store.  In his “attempt” to run away, he fell flat on his face and spilled all of the beer on the ground, which he abandoned and jumped in the getaway car.  His fall was entirely contributed to the fact that his pants waist was so far down his legs, that as he picked up speed, his limited stride due to the motion-restrictive nature of the low pants became too difficult to coordinate the foot-brain motor connection.  Why is this a positive function?  It made me laugh.

I have a feeling that most of my posts will be about these social stigmas, but more importantly the social stigmas that have an impact on society as a whole.  In the case of the low wearing pants thief, there really is no impact in the grand scheme of things.  An old lady in Denver isn’t going to be affected by a fashion challenged booze crook in Tampa.  I read a news article titled “Growth anemic, debt fight poses recession risk” today.  It wasn’t the headline that interested me more so as it was the “Going out of Business” banner on the thumbnail.  As some of you may know, we are in a recession, and many people are out of work, and many businesses are not profiting.  We have had recessions before, but for some reason I find this one more troubling.  In other recessions, we were still in a beginning phase of industrial revolution, and technology advancement was moving at a slower pace than it is now, with most of that technology being kept from the general public.  Technology innovation and growth seems to be a big indicator as to how healthy an economy can be.  In the 90’s we had a very profitable period due to the dot-com industry.  That era has died down now, and we are searching for the next big advancement that will bring a new service or product that the world wants to buy, thus creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs.  What troubles me is that I do not see a new technology on the horizon capable of creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs.  I see new technology that further allows us to do more, with less.  Technology that only increases productivity for things that already exist.  Technology that removes jobs rather than creates them.

I believe that the recession is not a product of a weak economy, but of social adaptation – a climate shift for society and human function.  We no longer need a computer for email, a phone for voice communication, a video recorder for home movies, a camera for vacation pictures, a planner for our schedules or a beeper for texts.  All of these individual technologies that provided unconnected jobs are now in one piece of hardware that incorporates multiple different software.  We have become more efficient as humans in our world of technological advancement and no longer need a multitude of singular technology to manage our lifestyles.  Needing fewer services and products to feed our current and future lifestyle will not create jobs like it used to.  The connection I am trying to make here, is that we have too few jobs to offer for a recovery, and we also have too many people that need jobs for a stable economy.  There’s a short term and long term coefficient to this problem.  The short term is that all of the 60-some workers can’t retire because they can’t afford to, so the younger generation can’t get the jobs they are supposed to have filled in by means of career advancement, thus opening up entry level jobs for new graduates (who are probably working more of the trade/skill jobs that non collegiate folks need).  This may be rectified in the next decade, as the retirement age workers actually retire.  If we don’t fix the long term coefficient to this problem, it will occur again in the future, with much greater impact.

This long term coefficient I am talking about is probably pretty controversial, and I have a very logical point of view towards it, but I feel there is a moral point of view that inhibits the rectification of the problem.  The very name of this coefficient sounds cold and heartless, but it doesn’t have to be if we view it correctly.  This coefficient of stabilizing social adaptation with economic growth is population control.

It’s not rocket surgery – as more people are put on this earth, more jobs will need to become available in order to allow these people to function in society.  It was actually surprising to me to discover that the birth rate is much lower today than it was ten years ago.  The death rate has also declined, but not as rapidly, resulting in an overall reduction in population growth in the last decade.  While the population growth seems to be decreasing, it is still existent.  If we already have too many people and too few jobs, putting even more people on this earth while continually shrinking the availability of jobs will only further dissolve the quality of life for most everyone else on this planet.

In the mean time, people are still having babies.  There’s nothing wrong with this, and it’s important to mitigate both population decrease as it is to minimize population increase.  It’s also our right and purpose as humans to reproduce.  However, I find it selfish of families to reproduce in the masses.  Some families keep reproducing without regard to the consequences.  Maybe it’s their personal beliefs, or their religious rights, but some think it is their purpose to reproduce as much as possible.  These people lack the mindfulness that as their children grow older, they will have to compete with one another in a shrinking job market.  They neglect to consider about the impact having more children has on all of the existing children; All the while bringing more children into the world while there are thousands of kids without families.  Altruism exists in all creatures, and we should be no different.

If we want to be prosperous in our society, and more importantly provide a prosperous society for the children we bring into the world, we need to start taking steps in the right direction.  Overpopulation deteriorates our planet quicker than it can replenish itself, and our greed is a direct result of this.

tl;dr

The amount of available jobs are decreasing, and the decline in population growth isn’t enough to reverse the impact job decline has on the economy.  Our society only increases in productivity, which is proof of the job availability decrease.  The economy only recovers when there are actually jobs available for people that are already out of work.  We can’t just create redundant or meaningless jobs just so people have a paycheck.

It’s not that we need more jobs – it’s that we need fewer people.  This sounds cruel and sadistic, but I’m not talking about thinning out the population in a morbid way.  We as human beings should remember that we don’t have natural predators to help manage our ecosystem, and it is up to us to control our population.

Disparity of Wealth in America

There are a lot of problems in the world.  It is my belief that the solutions to the problems of the world revolve around the same principles as a major automobile manufacturer’s mantra.  Or around any major manufacturer that survives off repeat business.  It is not profitable to produce a product that lasts forever.  If this were the case, you might as well market a stick of chewing gum to cost a million dollars.  In the poetic words of Chris Rock “They got metal on the space shuttle that can go around the moon and withstand temperatures of up to a million degrees.  You mean to tell me you don’t think they can make an Eldorado where the fuckin bumper don’t fall off?”  His point here is that there is no money in the cure.  If you solve a problem, there is no way for people to profit.

Take wars for example.  There are hundreds of companies that employ thousands of people to make Kevlar vests, rifles, claymore mines, reinforced Humvees and Blackhawk helicopters.  You can’t market that in Rural Alabama.  Detroit maybe, but not every city is a Detroit.  Do you think the NATO would get involved if someone took over Greenland?  Not unless there is a shortage of ice cubes.  Now, I do think this is warranted to an extent.  We need the oil.  Right now, oil is the blood that pumps rapidly through industry and civilization running a marathon.  The only solution is to slow down so we don’t pump the blood so fast, or find a new type of carrier to wean us off our addiction.  However, the people who make blood would be kind of pissed off.

Dangerous Thinking

The radical thought here is this - What if the economy works in the same way?  Money is what ties cultures together.  We trade with each other, and this trade may be in goods, but you don’t always produce the goods someone else wants.  Someone decided it would be a good idea to create a good that would be useful to all people.  This good is money.  Every society may have a different type of money, but money is good everywhere, except for maybe the isolated tribes in South America.

Consider this: all of the money in the world is gathered up and counted.  Then the money is distributed to each and every person in existence equally.  All is balanced out, and each person is as wealthy as the next, in terms of their ability to spend money.  Imagine next that one person creates an amazing new technology that, I don’t know, let’s you levitate, but it requires you to give half of your money to them.  You buy this incredible item, but you are now half as wealthy as the person who sold it to you.  The amount of money in the world is the same, but there is now imbalance in the system of wealth.  More importantly, wealth is created.  Wealth was non-existent before, because there was only one level of wealth.  There was no need to define it.

Extrapolate this scenario to our current system of wealth.  Bill Gates makes an obscene amount of money.  His wealth started because people were exchanging money for the goods he was producing.  The consumer now has less money, but the wealth isn’t diminished because they now have an asset – a different type of currency that may not be able to sell as easy as money, but it still has value.  On a separate level, banks make an obscene amount of money too.  This is confusing to me.  If I take my money to the bank, and I give them $100, in one year I may withdraw my account and the bank gives me $101.  Where did this extra dollar come from?  Easily, the answer is interest.  The bank took my money, invested it into someone, or something else with the promise that in one year, they will get $102 back, thus making a profit of $2.  This goes on through chains of investments, geometrically earning stronger profits each time.  

The problem I have is that this profit must come from somewhere.  It was easy with Bill Gates.  We know that our money went to Bill Gates, in trade for a computer.  When you invest, there is no telling where the money came from.  I can tell you this: The money was not invented, nor did it appear from a puff of smoke.  With a global economy, this money could come from anywhere.  I know that when I give money to Bill Gates, I get a computer, he gets money to repay the materials it took to make the computer, to pay someone build it, some to run the business, and a little extra to grow and innovate.  The problem with large scale distribution and acquisition of wealth is that the wealthy get wealthier, while the consumer has little to show for it.  Even if both parties make a profit, the money is still coming from somewhere.  Simply put, the rich get richer, while the poor get poorer.  This isn’t anything new, but it surprises me, and may surprise others, at just how quickly this distribution of wealth becomes more and more unstable.

Disparity of Wealth

At this point, someone might hear “distribution” and “wealth” and think I’m a Djembe-playing hippie that has no job and expects to live a lifestyle of a hard working American.  I do play a Djembe, but I also work for what I earn.  Also, if you were wondering, a Djembe is a hippie hand drum played mostly in hippie drum circles at hippie festivals or in the back yard of a frat house.

I took a look at some statistics from the sociology department at UCSC.  Here is the website:

Sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

The statistics revolve around the distribution of wealth in the United States.  When I mention the word “wealth” I am referring to cash, and investments and assets of positive value.  In 1998, it was measured that 10% of the population owned 68.8% of the United States wealth.  Almost a decade later, in 2007, 10% of the population owned 70.9% of the wealth.  Not a very big increase at first glance, but when you consider there are over 300 million Americans and Trillions of dollars of wealth, it makes a difference.  More disturbing is that in 2007 less than 40% of the population, collectively, owned 0.2% of wealth.  Furthermore, in 2007 the top 1% owned 34.6% of wealth, up from 31.9% in 1986.  This means the rest of the population owned 65.4% of the wealth in 2007, down from 68.1% in 1986.  This translates to a 8.46% growth for the top 1%, with a 3.95% decline in the bottom 99%.

These are a lot of statistics, and it took some thinking to figure out what the top 1% and bottom 99% actually represents.  What it comes down to is that in 20 years, the rich got richer by 8.46% while the poor got poorer by 3.95%.   

We would have to increase the distribution of earners of bottom earners, and subsequently decrease the distribution of top earners in order to keep the % of wealth owned at an equivalent.  This clearly shows the disparity between social class – the poor, middle, and rich.  The poor give the rich their wealth.  If you don’t believe that, then I have one final section you should read.

Historical CEO pay

Chief Executive Officers are the leaders of a company.  A company’s goal is to make money.  It is the CEO’s job to ensure the company makes money.  With all of the cutbacks in labor, investments and innovation in the last decade or two, it is clear that companies are not making money.  However, CEO’s are given more and more pay each year.  Consumers, which is easily largely held by the poor and middle class, are directly affected by this.  If the company pays the CEO more, they have to pay someone else at the company much less, or not at all. 

The following data comes from this source:

www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/ceopay.cfm

In 1980, a CEO earned an average of 42 times the average laborer salary.  That’s already a lot.  I’m sure it hasn’t changed since the economy isn’t any better right?  Right??  It will come to no surprise to you that I am, in fact, wrong with that thesis.  In 2010, CEO’s averaged 343 times the average salary of a laborer.  This means, if you were the average CEO in1980, and still held the position today, congratulations, you have earned a total 816.7% increase in salary during your career.  It’s no surprise that CEO’s don’t hold a position for more than a few months or years.  With that kind of dough, I would be sitting on a small island I purchased with my sons’ allowance that I kept for that one time he glued Mrs. Klein’s butt to her chair in Home Economics.  I know it’s funny, but you have to be a good parent every now and then.  Small disclaimer: I don’t have kids, nor am I a gazillionaire.

When you think about it, we have been paying the top earners in this country more money to make us poorer.  They control more than just a goods and service market.  They have great influence with politicians, which I think everyone can agree screws us over in some way or another.  In turn, we are paying them to screw us.  Hard.  I guess that makes them the highest paid prostitutes in the galaxy.

Many people argue that taxing corporations that make huge sums of our money more than others in lower earning brackets is not ethical.  We can’t tax them more.  The solution isn’t taxing them more.  The solution is actually taxing them.

The following data comes from here:

smbiz.com/sbrl001.html

This will be quick, because this is a really long entry.  The following table outlines corporate income tax rates for the last 5 years:

               

Income (in Thousands)	Tax Rate (%)
0-50	15
50-75	25
75-100	34
100-335	39
335-10,000	34
10,000-15,000	35
15,000-18,300	38
18,300 and up	35

Why in Grimace’s good name do we start dropping the tax rate?  This is only one measure to help corporations earn more and more money.  This aligns with the trickle-down theory that if we increase the revenue of top earners, it will somehow magically funnel towards the poorest class of our society.  I think this theory was created by someone who never had to wipe his or her own ass.

TL;DR

I don’t know how to fix the economy.  I would say, spend more moderately, live within one’s own means, reduce waste, increase efficiency, and fix taxation.  I just sound like another politician without the actual means to an end to support my dreams.  We have to take each of these goals and focus on how to accomplish them, using simple logic.  If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.  If you make money, you have to give some to your government, or I swear to Cupid if your house burns down the firefighters better not be there to put out the fire.  Stop funding ridiculous programs like how to safely dye a lizard pink.  Finally, my motto: there must be an easier way.  If there is a way to do something, there is a more efficient way to do it out there; we just have to use a little thought and logic.

Finally, the lowest earners have to spend the same or more to keep our economy running, but they are earning less than they did 10 years ago.  The rich are getting richer, and they have the power to move the economy in a growing direction.  This would, however most likely make them poorer.  So the question in their mind might be: Why would we want a cure?