Lest we forget

Do not forget fellow citizens, in this country, economics introduced the slave trade, and Christianity killed it.

Names

I don't like remembering names. I would rather spend my time learning about the person. I don't care what your name is, if your around me enough I'll learn your name. I don't like that feeling when somebody knows my name but nothing about me. Like it validates them that they know my name. The minimum requirement for me to treat them civilly or for them to pretend we are friends. I throw away names, and remember faces, I remember people.

Ben Franklin is the man, Barney Frank.... is..... well.....not

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. – Ben Franklin

Pity

I hate pity. I could leave it at that but I feel it is the worst feeling in the world. When I feel it I feel like I am sinking. I hate to hear people admitting defeat. It is even worse when I can see they don't even believe they can succeed. I hate pity and whenever there is a hint of pity in the eye of someone around me when they look at me I instanstly burn inside. I cannot stand to be pitied. I cannot stand to hear people seeking pity. If things are bad for you, I am not the man to come to. I do not gratify and I do not validate. When a man is tired and feels like the task cannot be accomplished, what use would I be to take that task from him. Take away the pride of accomplishment? It would take away all of what he should have felt from all that he had accomplished so far. I don't want to help, only to encourage. When you feed a man, you starve his soul. When you give a man his home, you take away his chance of hope. Nothing is worse than pity. Perhaps not even death.

I was walking on the beaches of Marinduque, Philippines when I stopped and turned to my Filipino constituencies and asked if they wanted to learn a little about economics. They didn't protest enough for me to stop. Looking out I saw about 40 canoe sized boats with fisherman not too far from the shore. Farther out in the richer waters were larger boats. I asked how many men could be put in each smaller boat. "2". Then I asked how many would be in the larger boat. "5". Then we discussed how much more fish the larger boat could catch. We settled on about 10 times as much. When asked why anyone would use the smaller boats the answer was money, they can't just go buy a bigger boat. Then I laid out the following scenario. A business man and politician wanted to increase the amount of fish that could be produced fisherman in that area, but wouldn't do it because of the political effects. First of all I pointed out it would take 4 of the larger boats to replace all 40 of those boats. The number of men thereby employed would be 20. Each of those fisherman would make more money, enjoy better hours, and would have the added benefit of reducing the pains their hit or miss way of fishing was causing. Politically it would be disastrous, for sure those 20 men and their families would vote for him, but he would face strong opposition from the 60 whose lives were now ruined. Politics and progress. Most of the time these two are very incompatible.

Social Security is a regressive tax hitting lower income individuals harder than the rich. There is a cap that when you reach that income level you do not have to pay that tax any more. Cutting the social security tax for employees is the smartest way to cut taxes in a simple effecient way to benefit those who WORK and make less than $106,800.

The government should not focus on propping up poverty, but rather give individuals the tools to rise out of it.

California State prison guards make 3 times as much as Texas state prison guards.