Do we even live in the same country as Thomas Jefferson?

I think it was Glenn Beck that I heard preaching about getting back to the simpler basic values we had when Thomas Jefferson and friends forged this nation.

Let's get real. It not only won't work, in some ways, our political systems are failing because they still cling to some of the notions that worked back then.

Their ideas and goals weren't at fault, but they had to implement them using the tools of the times. The house of representatives was, and still is, supposed to represent us. "No taxation without representation" wasn't just a catchy slogan. When the house was formed, there was no need for full time professional politicians. What was needed, was some way to take the needs of the people and represent them to the lawmakers. Communications was on horseback, and the population wasn't as educated as today.

Today we don't know who are candidates are because all they ever do is take out contradicting tv and radio spots. Who knows what to believe? Two hundred years ago, we didn't know who the candidates were because WE DIDN'T KNOW WHO THE CANDIDATES WERE! We had never seen them, maybe we heard of one or two. The party system gave us a way to know something about them, and it gave them a way to get the word to us.

I'm through with this partisan crap. I don't think we need the parties to pick our candidates for us. We have plenty of sports models with playoffs and championships that offer alternatives so we can all vote on all the candidates. We don't need a party chairman telling one candidate to back off or lose their support.

The information age has changed everything. Now, what we really need, is some way to filter out all the mis-information.

Feel free to delete this...

Could Capitalism Morph Into Communism?

I'm not an economist. I'm just a guy. Carl-Henric Svanberg would probably consider me one of the small people. [Side note: I don't have a problem with Mr. Svanberg's semantics, I think the people in an uproar are truly the small people, the small minded people.]

Whatever happened to the entrepreneur? It used to be, if you had an idea, you could build a company around it. Henry Ford did it. Preston Tucker tried to do the very same thing in 1948, but he was squashed by the big auto makers. (If you haven't already, you should see the Francis Ford Coppola film staring Jeff Bridges.) Microsoft started out as a guy selling programming languages on paper tape. Apple was born in a garage. But today, it's getting real tough to start something new without big bucks behind you, and after the dot-com disaster, the big bucks aren't flowing as freely.

The real concern, as I see it, is the growing multi-company corporations. How many big companies have folded in this economy? If it were simply survival of the fittest, I wouldn't have a problem, but it's survival of the strongest. The strongest have grown big enough to force bad things to happen to their competitors. What percentage of advertising purely sells their own product without bad-mouthing someone else's?

What are we going to do if all the companies keep merging until there is only one left? Instead of comrade chairman, it will be comrade chairman of the board.

Our National Debt and the value of Gold

Two rants for the price of one!!!

That's my contribution to the shrinking dollar.

One thing that really bugs me is misleading advertising. Most of us have lost something in this economy. My house is not only upside down, but it's also at the bottom of an economic sink hole. So when I hear the radio host blabbering on about the value of gold actually rising, I want to lash out irrationally. I'm no economist, but I'm pretty sure gold isn't doing anything special, it's the dollar that has dropped. The more money they print, the more dollars an ounce of gold is worth. If the alchemists every learn to print gold, it's value will be able to keep pace with the dollar.

The same radio program (it's the only talk station my car gets) also had a segment about the national debt currently being around 13 trillion dollars, or $42,000 per person, and that it could rise to 20 trillion by 2015, which would be $65,000 per person. (They said $66,000, but I'm adjusting for the rising population).

Even if we count the illegal immigrants, that would only drop the per person debt by $1000 to $3000 (depending on whose census you believe).