THIS IS MY 136TH BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY
TOOLS
July, 2018
understandingmoneytools.blogspot.com
To recap, in the last blog we learned how expensive wars can
be, and the mismanagement of our government monies by presidents and
politicians. We will continue
along those lines, however in this blog I would like to write my thoughts on
two big issues of today: socialism and immigration and the affect on “America”.
The country and world is as divided as I have ever seen; not
good. Accomplishing nothing. The most noticeable is with liberals
versus conservatives (left versus right), blacks versus whites, wealthy versus
poor, Christians, Jews and Muslims, men versus women, etc. Even though many of these divisions
have been with us a long time the divisiveness has exponentially grown over the
past 10 years. One wonders how
could this be, for what reasons and through what implementation. The only answers I have is for political
and financial gain, and the
implementation would be through our media. Our newspapers, TV and radio are controlled by the worlds
wealthy “media moguls”. They know
that negative news sells better than positive news.
Regarding the above paragraph, I’m theorizing on this. The want to divide and fragmentize
could come from two sources; the elitists and big business. The individual parts above may be worth
more than the whole, and two, definitely more controllable than a unified
grouping. The elitists in the
Bilderberg Group started in 1954.
From what I understand, and the little leaked from these meetings, is
the theory the world would be better off with globalization and controlled by a
group of wealthy. Big business in
conjunction with IT companies like Google and Facebook would be able to more
closely pinpoint advertising and make more money than “shot-gunning” large
markets.
In the above context, we need to look at proven
documentation. Let’s look at
Gerorge Soros, a Hungarian Jew.
George disrupts countries, takes things apart and buys at a fraction of
the values. He is best known for
his currency arbitraging. As he
was a member of Hitler’s youth “brown shirts” and turned in fellow Jews to the
Nazis for their art and jewelry, he is no longer permitted into some countries
like his home country of Hungary.
Let’s talk about socialism a bit from my point of view. One of our problems is that we don’t
have the same definition of socialism.
Let’s get a definition for this so we have a baseline. Google defines socialism this way: “a
political and economic “theory” of social organization that advocates that the
means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by
the community as a whole.” Now,
the first thing I see when applied to a country or form of government is to
what relative standard are we setting.
To me in its purest sense it is the best system of governing
in the world. I will set the parameters for this statement, and use examples.
There are several socialist countries around the world. These are named year after year as the
best in education, health, welfare, happiness and livability. Let’s name a few and see if you agree
with the studies: Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands,
Austria, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Notice similarities where socialism works? Try limited size of a country, relatively small population,
homogeneity of population/nationalism, similar culture of people including
religion, hard work ethics, cleanliness and disciplines throughout. Said enough? Another point, and one of the most important is this
includes a country that permits immigration, ONLY when it is financially stable
with a healthy economy and essentially no debt and low unemployment.
Socialism can’t work in the USA. We are the most indebted country in the world. Yes,
employment is currently up with many low paying jobs adding to these stats,
however we still sit with about 95 million Americans not working, many who
could but are “milking the system”.
I am all for the support of people not able to work because of mental or
physical handicaps, however if you are able to work, get to work and be
productive in society. A good
example of this if you want a government paycheck is Chile. Get a colored
government bib and an assignment to improve something; could be cleaning a
sidewalk downtown, but you are proving worth to society.
In our country, I have never witnessed capitalism to go so
awry. The inequalities are so
great. The top 1% own over half of all assets. I hope we don’t have a revolution but it may come to that
some day. I think very highly of
Japan where I have traveled twice.
Corporate executives are not permitted pay levels in excess of 400% of
the average worker. In the USA you
have Wall Street favored companies like Amazon (the Sears and Roebuck catalog
of the 21st century) and Facebook (the pet rock of the 21st
century) adding little with unbelievable capitalizations. A couple weeks ago it was announced
that Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, (a company that pays little in taxes nor a
dividend) was worth $141.7 billion.
Now, if we had an asset tax and took away $140 billion of his money he
would still be left a pittance $1,700 million to somehow get by on! When Warren Buffett announces publicly
that his secretary pays a higher percentage of tax than he does you know there
is a problem. This kind of greed
will also take down a nation!
The world’s wealthiest have already been staking their
positions to live in low crime, clean and socialistic countries like New
Zealand, British Columbia, Singapore and Switzerland. You will notice countries of desire also do not permit
immigrants unless they come in with a ton of money.
Socialism will not work in the USA in its purest form. We are already too divided, too large,
too greedy with those in control and too corrupt.
Immigration: As
you know a big problem. Except for
the exodus a few years back of Cubans escaping to Florida, much of our
immigration and issues have been on the Mexican border with Central Americans
and Mexicans crossing illegally.
This is not right. We can’t
immigrate to Mexico! People may
draw parallels with your grandparents coming here from Europe. My grandparents came in from Germany,
my grandfather from Scotland via England.
You didn’t just break into the USA. Most, like my grandparents, came in through Ellis Island in
New York around 1900. Ellis Island
was an inspection station. To come
into the United States you typically needed a “sponsor” which may have been a community
of similar nationality; e.g. Germans, Irish, Jews, Polish, and Italians. These sponsors stated that you were to
be welcomed into their communities proving work and self-sufficiency, not a
financial drain on the US.
Even though many people entering did not speak English they
came from a similar background mostly from north Europe where hard work was
common, a clean to meticulous nature and similar cultures. Also, most were Christians or Jews
which have a similar religious background.
I might mention here that it is well known that the closer
to the equator one gets with countries the lazier the people are, less
productive and not as clean as those in the north in colder climates. Many examples can be brought
forth. One would be the country of
Italy. The manufacturing and
productivity of Italy is in the north and common borders with Switzerland,
France and Austria, all productive countries. Once you reach Rome and south tourism is about the only
large business, and a very slow relaxed environment prevails.
A last comment on immigration. The USA and people no longer have the money they did 40-50
years ago. Like “socialism” we
can’t afford to take care of people.
The people entering from the Middle East have both a different culture
and religion than we are accustomed to, do not speak English. Many are Muslims
with a different respect of Christians including women and will not integrate
with our society.
One more point before we go. So much news these days about the detainment with the rush
of Central Americans and Mexicans across our border. This is not normal nor
good for the US. In this blog we
discussed how immigration was handled at times in our history like the turn of
the 20th century. You
might not know or have forgotten that we had internment camps for American
Japanese here during WWII. It was
forced incarceration holding 110,000 to 120,000. I have a good friend and past business partner who is
Japanese and grew up in one of these camps. His name is Fred Mikawa, and he turned out to be one of the
most normal people I know, and one of the most successful developers of large resorts in Hawaii
and China. Not for all, but many
of these families and kids today have never had it this good, three meals a
day, toys for the kids, new clothes, and tons of games to keep them occupied
along with people serving their needs.
Is this “good” to be reciprocated?
It is said that approximately 80% of the people who come into this
country do not show up for their scheduled times and meetings to proceed with
regulations to live here. They
have no sponsors, they have no money, they disappear.
The federal government as is common practice out-sources
these services to attend to immigration and detainment centers to private
corporations making a ton of money from tax payers; this is into the hundreds
of millions of dollars.
Let’s move on.
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