They Call the Wind Mariah

Finding the Perfect Sea Shell

Siberia is the ancestral home of many Chinese residents. This friend of Freddie is a beautiful example.

Wake Up, Richard, and Get A Job!

Brenda Lee Craig --- Freddie's Karate Instructor and Richard's Girlfriend

The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor

     There always will be a gap between rich and poor, in this and every other society; capitalist, socialist, feudal or otherwise.  And yes, there are "poor" people in the United States but compared to poor people elsewhere they do pretty well on the whole, with their cars, refrigerators and central heat and air.  When the late Russian president Boris Yeltsin was visiting the United States he asked to be shown where the poor people lived and his hosts took him to what they considered a poor neighborhood in Harlem.  He looked around, saw cars, saw well-dressed people and asked "but where do the poor people live"?
     Wealth is not money.  It is things money buys.  Viewed that way, there is a lot less difference between the average American and Bill Gates or Warren Buffet than you may think.  Suppose that you have a net worth of one million dollars ($1,000,000) and that Gates and Buffet are each worth fifty billion dollars ($50,000,000,000).  That means that on paper they are each worth fifty thousand times what you are. but they cannot use fifty thousand as much as the average American even though they can buy a lot more if they want to.  Beyond a certain point, if they have common sense, they won't want to.
     The average person eats three meals a day.  So do Gates and Buffet who, if they eat much more than that will be too fat to function.  The average American can afford just about any food that they can, including the most exquisite cuisine; not as often but pretty much of the same quality.  The same is true with travel to exotic places.  They can go to Hawaii and come back to Seattle and Omaha every day.  I  can go there at least once a year and that is enough for my satisfaction.  When a nation is prosperous its people are. The impulse to steal a rich person's paper wealth through regulation and taxation is simply the product of class warfare fueled by jealousy, rage  and shattered self esteem.   
     There is a way that a society can be wealthy without producing anything. It can have vast natural resources which can be sold without processing.  But then the mass of the population will still be in poverty because the rulers will enjoy their riches and have no incentive to benefit anyone else.  Otherwise only free market capitalism encourages investment, invention and innovation, so that the nation's factories hum, its railroads streak down its tracks and its silver jets through the skies, its docks are loaded with exports, its hotels and restaurants hum with activity and its schools are filled with tomorrow's leaders, well trained and educated, its people  employed and its unemployment lines  nearly non-existent.  Trying to create wealth by extracting money from those who have worked for it and earned it is wasted effort, a gigantic fraud on gullible voters because it destroys the delicate mechanisms by which mass wealth is created and distributed.  "A rising tide lifts all boats". That is not "trickle down economics" as claimed by the left.  It is truth.  The attempt to redistribute wealth is immoral, but It is also counter-productive because if it is successful it drains capital out of society, produces nothing, and destroys the moral fiber of a nation.  We should, and do, provide for those who cannot help themselves.  We are a compassionate people but, as Franklin Roosevelt said "welfare is narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit".  Freedom is the answer.  Socialism and liberalism is a fraud.

 

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                               

                                                                                                      

Response to an e-mail from a friend on the absence of critical thinking

      John, I agree with your comments regarding James Carville's frustration over the gullibility of contemporary Americans, and his own Democratic Party as exemplary.   I have been distressed, almost depressed, by the absence of critical thinking which seem to have been gaining momentum even in the last ten years or so.  It is nothing new, but the extent of it has been increasing and you are absolutely right in suggesting that it affects both parties.  Most disturbing is the way it is sweeping the intellectual circles, liberal and conservative.  People seem cheerfully ready to accept anything from 'their side' of the fence.  Just say something as if you sound like you know what you are talking about and they will believe it and repeat it.  I do believe that the Democrats are multiple times worse than the Republicans but it is bad over all.  Liberals will say the same thing on the same day with the same words as if they were saying something original.  Ditto many conservatives.  Then they will act as if they should be taken seriously even when it is obvious that they do not know what they are talking about.

     I admire Charles Krauthammer as a responsible conservative intellectual, but even he concerns me lately  because of some of the absolutely untrue things he will say about Social Security.  I refer to physical, provable facts which even I can establish as such in less than half an hour. 

     This is all confused by the fact that sometimes a statement will be partly true, or arguably true, but the reasoning is wrong.  The best example which comes to mind has to do with Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia (or maybe premier --- they keep changing titles around).  You will hear people say "that no-good so-and-so, he's a dictator, a tyrant, and someone should remove  him".  Then to support the position that Putin is a tyrant they will disgorge a torrent of absolute balderdash to support that conclusion.  Or worse, they will just say "I just know it is true".  They usually don't have a clue what they are talking about.  Where did they get their wonderful analysis?  Simply from the mainstream media, TV gurus and daytime talk radio among other sources. They will repeat what they hear word for word.  And they act as if they deserve to be taken seriously.    If people do not start asking "Is this true"? the country will drown in ignorant and incompetent voters.