Debt For Clunkers

Fellow Americans we are being taken for a ride. I want to address an e-mail that I have received. I am not sure if it is true, but I must say that it hits a number of points that I have been thinking about with regards to "Cash For Clunkers"

Here is the full e-mail from an unknown source.


Here's what my friend had to say about "Democratic Math": It's worse than that.

Ignore all the gas crap and just look at how the stupid car buyer got taken to the cleaners:

If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent "savings" of $1000.

However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you).

If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.
So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds.

In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for.

Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.
But wait, it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer.
For example, every dealer here in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for
$12,500 the month before the "cash for clunkers" program started.
When "cash for clunkers" came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before.

(Honda, Toyota, and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).

You traded in a car worth: You got a discount of: Net so far But you have to pay: Net so far: And you paid: So let’s do the final tally here: Net

$3500 $4500 +$1000 $1350 in taxes on the $4500 -$350 $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before -$3350

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan but let’s just stop here.

So who actually made out on the deal?

The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they "gave" you.

The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies.

The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before.

And the poor stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.
Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in "free" money from the "government" when in fact Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.

Pushing Back (Part 4) Unchecked Environmentalism

I want to start this topic off by saying; I am not against the environment. I love this country and I love this land. I also love to see America as an independently wealthy nation and Americans working to better themselves and their families. America is a fantastic place to live and work and I want to see that continue.

However, in looking at the type of radical people calling themselves environmentalists today, it just makes me sick. It might be unpopular to say this, but I value human life more than the life of a tree.

The idea of punishing America’s wealth for the sake of the environments is just absurd. It hearts Americans and it hearts the environment.

Lets take a look at recycling as just one example of environmental planning that damages both the environment and American labor. The city of LA had to double their trash trucks just to account for a separate recycling pick-up. Clearly this resulted in higher costs, more traffic and more pollution from increased number of trucks.

In addition, recycling has a direct impact on the American pulp farmer. (not lumber jack, farmer) More recycled paper demands less virgin paper. Less virgin paper demands less jobs and less oxygen creating trees.

Rather that keeping the jobs here and making new paper, we take old paper and ship it across the ocean to China and have it reprocessed. It turns out that his act creates more pollution than processing virgin pulp.

This is just one example of blind environmentalism doing more harm than good, but it is hardly the only example. Cap and Trade promises to do more damage to the US job market, but also the environment. A lot of businesses will leave the US or simply close their doors.


Solution
The fact is manufacturing goods in the United States is better for the environment than sending business to countries where environmental laws are not in place. I am shocked to see that both politicians and real people can’t see this.

Further restricting businesses with more federal controls and taxes will only result in manufacturing leaving the United States. If you want to make the world a cleaner place, make it easier and cheaper to manufacture in the United States. Reduce Taxes on businesses, and allow Americans to create jobs.

Pushing Back (Part 3) Untested Government Planning

I see a lot of crazy things going on today, but none seems stranger than the idea of massive government changes without any data or testing to back it up. No one seams to ask, or even understand that the idea may not go 100% according to plan. I don’t hear concerns about what possible consequences may come from the changes. Instead, it seams that this country is willing to put all of their trust into the hands of the politicians, and just assume that everything will be great.

If a company acted in this manner, they would be out of business in no time. I guess somewhere along the way, we have lost sight of the fact that America is a type of business. We need to have positive income to remain a healthy organization, and that comes from healthy financial choices.

The Problem

The wrong political leaders
Our political leaders are wrong for this. They are the wrong type of people, and they want to get elected for the wrong reasons. They want to build an ever-growing government and spend our hard earned dollars to do it.

What seems to be missing in the current American logic is that healthy choices require well-informed people. Our politicians don’t understand (or care) about unforeseen consequences. Our government’s blind and emotionally based actions point to a simple and underlining point. The wrong people are running this country and they are doing it with blatant disregard to what “We The People” ask for.

Missing historic testing data

The current legislation that America is facing is untested and based upon unproven data. Lets look at Cap In Trade as just one of the examples.

We have no test markets; we have no idea the economic impact. This country has no way to know how businesses will react to this or if it will actually help reduce the amount CO2 in the air.

Keep in mind that a large amount of our current CO2 is coming from China as it is. Making it harder for businesses to operate may result in even more jobs leaving the US. It may result in more US unemployment, and more dirty manufacturing overseas.

Moreover, we have no data to prove what will happen if we are to reduce the amount of CO2 by any drastic amount. We have no knowledge of how that might impact global weather, or food production.



The Solution

The solution is not that simple and not that fast, but it is necessary. First off, we need to create an association. Members will be organized, plans will be created and goals will be agreed upon.

For starters, we need to agree on the following items.
1. We believe in this country and it’s people.
2. Our guiding documents will be the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights
3. We desire a country where we are not punished for being smarter and working harder.
4. We believe in smaller government with less federal power.
5. We believe in knowledge before action

I fear that only through an organized union of Americans Citizens will we be able to fight the sort of tyranny that we see today.

ACORN Videos

I want to take a moment and talk about the genius of James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles with regard to their ACORN video project. Their actions have illustrated that you don’t need mainstream media support to make a big difference. As a result of their courageous actions, they have exposed this corrupt origination and their disgraceful employees.

It takes some time to watch all the videos on Veritasvisuals.com, but it is well worth your time. Keep in mind that your tax dollars have been going to ACORN for years.

This ACORN project illustrates my point we can expose corruption and bring about positive change. Americans have the ability to make this country great again, and the best part is, the solutions can also be profitable.

Acorn Videos >>

Pushing Back (Part 2) - Biased News Media

Recap

In earlier entries, I discussed the idea that we Americans can and should do more than just complain about things. If we want positive change, we need to do things to make that change happen. Moreover our actions need to be sound money making solutions to attract the right sort of people. So with that quick recap, lets move on with some solutions.


Problem

Lets talk about news media today. News media is a major factor on the American masses. So many people listen to the news and believe without questioning. The media has a lot of power over what Americans think and how they vote. But how do we know we can trust them with so much power? How do we know that they are not lying to us simply for their own gain? The sad truth is we don’t and they are lying to us.

Who can forget the situation when Dan Rather was trying so hard to make George W. Bush look bad, that he falsely reported the National Guard story without validated proof. This is a clear-cut case of false reporting, but hardly an isolated case. The media needs to report the news, not create it, but that is what goes on all the time.

I believe that after years of bashing George W. Bush, the media managed to convince the American public to vote for Obama. Sadly a lot of people voted for him without considering his policies. I have spoken to a lot of people that now regret that they didn’t look into his policies more before voting.

So clearly the media has tremendous power, but who is regulating them? Well for the most part, they are unregulated, and that is a scary thought.

Often times the media will toss out a major, and devastating story with the power to crushes people’s life. If they are proven wrong about their information, we are lucky if they publish a tiny, and often buried, retraction. Well I don’t think that is right. They need to be accountable for their actions and their stories.


Solution

I propose a for-profit origination along the lines of Consumer Reports that monitors and rates, reporters and publishers for creditably.

Items like bias, false reporting, balanced reporting, and retractions would all be monitored. This origination would likely follow and publicly expose reporters and publishers that violated the rules. (Much in the same way the attack others today) The origination would sell advertising space and the sensational reports would make for a great deal of interest. People would love to watch a high profile reporter being questioned while they try to avoid the interview and cover-up the camera lines with their hand. Something about the irony in this makes it such a delicious idea.

On the flip side, honest and unbiased media outlets could register with the origination for a fee. They would be featured on the website as a credible source. Training may also be offered to members to help media outlets less bias. This would allow them to market themselves as a trust worthy news source.

In my mind, the great thing about this solution is that we have the ability to create a profitable resistance to the negative things we see in the media. We can do it without, passing a new law or asking for government intervention. We can do it the right way. We can do it the true American way.

Pushing Back

I have been reading and listening to a lot of people talk and complain about the things going on in America today. I for one, don’t want to see this country fall apart. I don’t want to leave a broken country to my children, the way it was left to us. So I want to use this as a spring board to address what is going on, how it happen, and what are we can to do about it?

I am the first to admit that I don’t have all the answers, but I have some, and I have a few ideas as to what we can do.


First off, what is the problem?

Well, we are living at a time when the government is asking us to put our very lives in their hands. They want us to trust them with our economy, our national security, and our health care. But they can’t seem to get anything right.

The bail out’s have not helped the economy, cash for clunkers was a major failure, the borders remain insecure, inflation is increasing, the value of the dollar is dropping our debt is growing at an alarming rate, and it is only a matter of time before terrorists attack us again, and the government keeps asking us to trust them.



So how did this happen?

It is hard to say for sure, but over time politicians that think that they are above the people have hijacked this “government of the people, by the people, and for the people”. Our politicians don’t live by the same rules we do and I think that is wrong.

The worst part is that we have allowed it to happen. I am sorry to say, but we are all to blame.



What can we do?

I have outlined a number of issues that I feel need clear and focused modifications. I will add more in time, but I want to start with Items that I understand best, and expand after that.
Unlike most people that just complain, I want to do more... I want to see positive change in this country. I believe in capitalism and I feel in order for change to happen, the process of making that change needs to be profitable. (wow that flys in the face of the current thinking)

Here are some major issues as I see it, and each of them has a profitable solution:
· Biased news media
· Untested government planning
· Unchecked environmentalism
· Punishments of small business
· The tax code

I will dive in to each topic, and we can disuses ideas and hopefully, we can get some things turned around, and fix some of the problems that we all are facing.

An Article By Star Parker

I was very impressed with this article and plan on reading much more that Star Parker has written.

Here is the link.

Back on Uncle Sam's Plantation >>