Posted by: William Thien on: May 8, 2012
It will be interesting to see what happens with those EU or Eurozone states that have decided via the democratic process to trend away from the austerity measures put in place recently and those that hold fast.
What will happen with the EU? Will it split up and the member states return to their original composition? Or do the member states need the stronger economies within the EU to remain solvent? Are we witnessing the eventual dissolution of The Euro?
What is interesting about the democratic events in Europe is that we now have a laboratory that we can use to examine what method of state governance works best in industrial societies. We can examine how those states that proceed with austerity measures come out of the global recession and those that decide not to draw back so thoroughly on government programs.
And finally, which country will still be overtaxing its citizens?
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 29, 2012
One of the things you hear about a lot in campaign ads these days is the debate about which candidate will create more jobs while in office or who has the best record of creating jobs or who will do the most to preserve jobs, with the latter being a rather disconcerting note that you typically hear during a recession.
It occurs to me that it is not really the privy of the government to create jobs but to provide services and perhaps one of the reasons there are so many unemployed people in The US is that some time ago I presume it became part of the political landscape, probably in a campaign ad, that politicians were supposed to create jobs.
Perhaps if candidates focused on doing their own jobs such as providing services, seeing to it that the roads didn’t look like the surface of the moon, that the water was clean, and that other municipal, state, and federal governmental responsibilities were addressed, perhaps if the candidates focused on those primary tasks and stayed out of the supposed job creation debate we’d all be better off. Not that government couldn’t do a fine job of creating jobs, but maybe it is time to try something new, or old rather, if ye gets me drift. Maybe the government should stay out of the job creation business altogether.
But the reality is that government has been one of the largest employers for over a hundred years, the largest if you combine all levels of government. In a way, the government is very good at creating jobs, gubment jobs, that is.
The problem is that not everyone wants a government job. Furthermore, employers are usually good at creating jobs they are familiar with. For example, a manufacturer of automobiles would probably create jobs in that industry and those that support it. A baker will create jobs in his or her bakery. Government creates “government jobs” because that is what government knows how to do.
The problem with candidates talking about how many jobs they are creating is that government doesn’t create private sector jobs. Government creates government jobs. And there is a common notion throughout most of America today that government is just too big. More government jobs means bigger government. So, again, maybe it’s not such a good idea for candidates to tout how many jobs they are creating because there is a good chance those jobs will be government jobs.
Indeed, government can create the right atmosphere for private sector expansion, but that is hard for the government to do historically without sacrificing something else, such as taxing the middle class even more to provide tax breaks to corporations. Since the middle class is the bread and butter of America when it comes to taxes, eventually that strategy fails as well as the middle class breaks underneath the yoke of excessive taxation, while the giant corporation puts the small business out of business, the small business being the primary employer of the middle classes, the small business not receiving the specialized and favorable tax schemes offered to corporations, and eventually you will have only corporations and the poor, something the “99 Percenters” claim is happening right now.
Instead, as I said before, perhaps candidates should laud their record on making sure you don’t need a vehicle with a military suspension to navigate the potholes in the roads on the way to work or that the water is clean, concentrate on lowering taxes for all (which usually generates higher tax revenues due to its stimulative effect), and stay out of the jobs creating business for the most part except for public works projects, bridges, roads, infrastructure and the like. If candidates would concentrate on that type of thing, on what was traditionally the scope of governments at most levels in the first place, maybe the populace would be much happier with politicians and their favorability numbers would go up a notch or two on the favorability scale.
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 29, 2012
Twice now I’ve written on Republicans and how their position against abortion and birth control is diametrically opposed to that of a “True Conservative.”
I concluded that if Republicans were truly for smaller government they would not argue against abortion and birth control because a single woman more often that not is unable to raise a child on her own from birth. Consequently she often falls back on government support which by definition means larger government. Therefor if you make it illegal for a woman to have an abortion or to use birth control then she will have to have the child whether she can afford to raise it on her own or not and the public will end up financing her indiscretions.
I add that I am the only one who has publicly taken that stance on the matter from the very beginning.
I wanted to add that following the Roe v. Wade decision which determined that an abortion should be legal under the right to privacy clause, crime went down significantly over the following years. In other words, the legalization of abortion also had a definite effect on decreasing crime in The United States.
So, if Republicans who claim to be true conservatives want to see smaller government they would not work so hard to see abortion made illegal once again and birth control difficult to obtain. It is as simple as that.
I ask, what person in their right mind would want to increase crime in The United States and increase the size of government making it more expensive? Because that is exactly what will happen if you outlaw abortion again. The Republican position on the matter is untenable.
We see commercials now on television stating the obvious, that “an abortion stops a beating heart.” There are billboards up from time to time showing aborted fetuses. And anti-abortionists seem to think that people, women in particular don’t agonize over their decision to have an abortion. Perhaps the anti-abortion crowd funding would be better spent on teaching teenagers and young adults the risks of having sex, such as GETTING PREGNANT!
Sometimes I wonder. People are going to have sex. When people have sex, women often get pregnant. That’s how that works. Should we outlaw sex?
The Republicans have a lot of positions I agree with but if they maintain their stance as a party against abortion they are not by definition “True Conservatives.”
Because there is just one thing Republicans seem to forget about time and time again about men and women, they forget about human behavior.
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 21, 2012
I have heard recently, many times for some reason, the comment that The United States is like ancient Rome and that The U.S. is in a period of decline similar to that of Rome after its great age. I disagree with that sentiment but have an explanation as to why, as in the sense of revenue appropriation. Though, I believe any such decline is due to something else primarily if it is indeed the case that The United States is in a period of decline, which I do not qualify or quantify here.
So, I said to myself that the statement about ancient Rome sounds true perhaps in a way. But what is the reason?
I thought about that and it occurred to me that the case of the decline of The United States is probably different than that of ancient Rome.
If the statement that The United States is in a period of decline similar to that which ancient Rome once suffered, then it is due to the point in the history of The United States where tax policy which was once used to accumulate revenue for the sake of funding certain types of activities and to support public projects, any decline is due to a change from that type of tax policy to tax policy that merely generates revenue on a grand scale merely for the sake of generating revenue, resulting in the general overtaxation of the populace as the government becomes more adept at creating such pervasive tax policy, something ancient Rome suffered from as well.
See Income Taxes: Serial Killer of American Small Business http://williamthien.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/income-taxes-serial-killer-of-american-small-business/
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 21, 2012
In July of 2010 I added an essay to this site titled “Who is really behind The Sexual Revolution? What it is…” I conclude in the essay that the most recent and significant moment in the feminist drive for equality occurred as a result of a corporate desire to see the woman leave the house. Why? So American corporations could sell more products, gasoline, cars, auto insurance, to name a few of the more profitable products to be sold to women now going in to work instead of staying at home.
I will add that this argument is not designed nor has it ever been designed to center on which of the sexes is “better,” men or women, just to observe that men and women are different, which means logically that they are not equal. Books have been written on the matter with cute, pandering titles naming the different sexes after different planets and all sorts of animals have been assigned sexual characteristics, but nobody really has ever had the intestinal fortitude to approach the matter as is being done here in the present.
With that said, something occurred to me earlier today as well that you probably don’t hear much about and that is that the government has a serious desire as well to see women leave the house. The government has by design been instrumental in the redefinition/destruction of the American family. The government has done so for a reason, twice the income taxes. Now, the government can collect income taxes from two workers in every household instead of one. The feminist movement was bolstered during the sixties and seventies heavily by the government because the government was desirous of more income taxes.
Nothing wrong with women wanting to go to work, to get out of the house. In fact, from my perspective there are many benefits. But let’s not get confused about the true motivations of all of the other interested parties in seeing to the organized redefinition/destruction of the American family and the adherence to a falsehood almost to the point of brainwashing the American public about equality between the sexes.
Men and women are different. Different means different, different does not mean equal. Therefore men and women are not equal. Why is it so important to note that? I think the impression that society has of women has fallen dramatically since the feminist movement’s latest significant strides of the sixties and seventies. Crime against women is up, way up since the sixties and seventies at tremendous cost to the taxpayer. I hear people addressing women in all disrespectful manners publicly now in comparison to before. Birth defects are up, way up, also at great cost to the taxpayer (Something I hope to get a chance to comment on in a later essay). Mental defects among adolescents are up, way up. Childhood poverty is up. Childhood obesity is up. Clearly there are significantly negative and costly social aspects to the public equalization of the sexes as the feminists have cast off family bonds in a social, lock-stop, all included movement, granting and consequently surrendering to corporations and the government more control of the family.
I add that I am not responsible for any of this, thank goodness.
So, we know that it’s profitable for business and government to insure the sexes are perceived as equal. As an aside, during the sixties it was believed, or suggested, that the feminist movement was the result of communist efforts. This in my opinion couldn’t be further from the truth as communists benefited very little from the feminist movement. No, it was profiteers and the government that profited the most from the feminist movement, outside of the realm of the feminists themselves.
Finally, I’m not trying to throw the timeline in reverse on the subject of sexual equality, I’m just examining the true motivations of interested parties other than the feminists themselves so we can get a bearing on what can be done to improve the negative social ramifications that have resulted from that part of the feminist movement that isn’t really “the feminist movement.”
To do that, we need to examine the feminist movement for what it really is.
The feminist movement is not just purely a sexual revolution in its entirety, it’s a business plan, too, and it’s a revenue device.
For your convenience here is a link to the first essay on the matter http://williamthien.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/who-is-really-behind-the-sexual-revolution-what-it-is/
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 13, 2012
Being that we are embroiled in a bitter recall election in Wisconsin, and I mean bittttttt-terrrrrrrr and somewhat unfair in my opinion, and we all have to sit there and listen to this massive line of misrepresentations and falsehoods arriving from multiple camps that nobody has the time or resources to sift through in any meaningful way and the media no longer seems to do a good job of it, why?, because they are advertising the lies on their networks and in their newspapers and profiting from it heavily, I ask, “What is more civilized, to let them broker the lies in perpetuity on our time or simply throw them into a pit and let them work it out?” So we can get on with it, that is. You know, as a country. Because whatever this is that is going on here, it’s definitely not civilized.
It seems to me more than anything now that politics is designed to keep you riveted to it at all times, that if you don’t pay attention, somehow politics in America is going to suddenly collapse and take the country with it. It’s a clever form of media programming, a politics reality show, spinning like a cheap gyroscope, and the candidates are the unwitting players where the media rigs the team votes by revealing nasty little tidbits of information about people the media fears and often the best candidates for the country get voted off the continent. And if you ask me, that’s uncivilized in a democracy. The pit would be more civilized, the pit as a metaphor, that is. Just a metaphor, of course. The candidates could try to climb out of the pit and they could latch onto the tubes and wires coming out of the television cameras, yanking and tugging at the television cameras and crews, dragging them down into the pit with them, strangling the television crews with the rats nest of cables, lash their mouths shut, and smash their skulls with the cameras and the props. Wow, wouldn’t that make for good politics? It sure would be sensational tv. The candidates in the pit could smear sand into the television crews’ bloodied, powdered faces, make nooses out of the tv cables and toss the cables up around the steel girders across the pit, lynching the worst of the media from the girders, and then the candidates could punch and kick the dangling, twitching bodies, you know, just like they do to the candidates, in a way that is, metaphorically speaking, of course, just like they do with the candidates that they don’t like because the media seems to fear them for some reason and that’s why they brought out that nasty little revelation about the candidate in the media kangaroo court of campaign ad spending. Woops. Did I say that? WTF happened to Campaign Finance Reform?
So, perhaps we should simply throw them into a pit. They might say I should be in there with them then too since it was my idea. Lovely.
But no, that wouldn’t be fair, some might say because there are female candidates. Some would say, good female candidates, too. And on some accounts, I might be inclined to agree. And it wouldn’t be right to have the women in the pit, too, now would it? Well, why not? I don’t know, I just don’t think it would be a good idea. OK? Well I for one think that’s just plain wrong. Which one are you for again? I for one. Right.
One thing is for sure. Politics isn’t going to let America get on with it anymore. It’s just not. That’s clear.
We are going to have to do something about that.
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Posted by: William Thien on: April 6, 2012
This week has been particularly distasteful with the Primary Election here, not so much because of the choices on the ballot, because I have had to answer the telephone now at least twenty times and have avoided just as many calls from politicos of some type or capacity, campaign staffers or Superpacs.
Most of the calls are Robocalls but now since the Primary is over that behavior seems to have tailed off quite a bit. Now I am getting calls from campaign staffers, real people, not robots, asking no less, how I am going to vote? I’d like to vote for you, I offer sometimes, but not if you keep this up. You see, I tell them, this is the sixth call already this evening. Understand?
Recently I wrote a piece titled “Down with Robocalls.” But it occurs to me that when the law was created prohibiting merchants from calling you at home and a list was created so sales people could not call you at home (which they still do, by the way, even if you put your number on the list), the politicians who wrote the law left something very important out, that the politicians themselves shouldn’t be able to call you, either.
In fact, you have to ask yourself what is worse, some poor sap in an office somewhere calling and trying to sell you siding for your house (which is never fun) or a call from a politician who wants to know your position on late term abortions or something equally disturbing? Really! At this hour? Over dinner?
How was it that the politicians failed to include themselves on the “Do Not Call List?” They failed in the same way they failed when they failed to determine that money isn’t speech when the most recent campaign finance law was created. It wasn’t a mistake. That was a crucial issue which was deliberately neglected. It had to have been. The campaign finance law was supposed to make the situation better. Is it? Do I have to ask? It’s far worse. It was no mistake that Campaign Finance didn’t deal with the “money is speech” issue. What politician in his right “political mind” would cut off that type of funding anyway? Really? Think about it.
Again, it is a clear indication that America’s political establishment demonstrates a complete and utter disregard for the sanctity AND security of the American home when its own needs are at hand, regardless of party, by clogging up home and personal lines of communication with what often amounts to nothing more than political nonsense surveys developed at the behest of some pollster.
Furthermore, it’s an indication that our political class has lost course and is spending too much time on its own desires and not that of the citizenry.
All of the calling needs to stop, Robocalls, vote tallies, you name it. It’s outrageous and maybe even a scandal waiting to happen.
It’s time for politicians to adhere to the “Do Not Call List” like everyone else. Do you think they will write that into the law?
Your guess is as good as any. But I’d bet your intuition is even better.
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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Jobs Debate has Politicians Off Task
Posted by: William Thien on: May 13, 2012
Nobody can argue that the public debate on how to create more jobs in these difficult times is not important. The problem I have with that debate is that it is being waged by politicians.
Most politicians are not running for a position that will have that much of an effect on private sector job creation to begin with. Most politicians are in the business of seeing that government services are rendered effectively at the municipal, state, and federal level, right on up to The President’s Office.
The job of a mayor or even a governor for that matter is not really to create jobs, it is to see to it that the roads are passable and that the water is clean, to name two of the most important municipal responsibilities. But knowing that there has been a shortage of jobs in The United States for some time, the debate during campaigns has turned to job creation. Knowing that people are desperate for decent jobs and that it will get their attention in a campaign ad, politicians and their shrewd campaign staffs have changed the focus with promises of huge numbers of good jobs and a renewal of what was once a vibrant economy. It sounds great! But there is a problem with that.
Politicians can certainly help create an environment where good jobs can be had by decreasing certain types of taxation and creating a regulatory environment conducive to attracting business, but the politicians themselves don’t actually create the jobs. So all the campaign promises about great jobs are really a sort of gamble, a type of fluff that the politicians know the public will buy into in the campaign ads because the population is so hungry for decent jobs. It’s political slight of hand.
What is significant about the ads promising great jobs is that it allows the politicians to change the focus away from their own actual job, to see to it that their municipal responsibilities are completed and done well. It makes the citizen focus on so called job creation by the politicians rather than asking why there are five inch deep holes in the roads on the way to work or why there is water high in carcinogens coming from the faucet?
I don’t know when exactly that it happened that politicians became, or thought they had become the creator of private sector jobs in The United States. But whenever it was, it was likely the same time politicians began neglecting their “real jobs” on a massive scale. And maybe its time everyone sent their elected officials a letter and reminded them about their real jobs. Perhaps if politicians did their “real jobs,” the “real jobs” would come for the rest of those looking for the “real jobs.”
Copyright © William Thien 2012
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