The America I once knew was mixed with equal parts of capitalism, greed, and some modicum of fair play. Laws were meant to be obeyed not rendered useless with creative arguments from lawyers. In the intervening 50 years of my life- the political class crawled into bed with the rich and elite. A depraved oligarchy emerged. They are driven by power and greed and they can never be satiated. They are international bankers, Wall Street types mostly, and old men like Warren Buffet who use their power and influence to get what they want and find ways to get even more. They offer up little pledges to try to make us believe they are benevolent and charitable. It's just a facade. A little damage control to confuse the onlookers while they go about the business of exploiting and fleecing others. That's what they do. In 2008, amidst my personal renaissance, I started this blog. There was a massive stock market sell off led by banks that year and near the end of that debt driven carna...

"A government of laws, not men." Our forgotten president, the second one, has never received the acclaim he deserves. As one of the original framers of the Constitution, John Q Adams incorporated some of the philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke on government. Locke was one of the leading political philosophers of his time- a time which predated the Constitution by about 100 years. So what made John Adams so special? On a personal note, one that I agree with, Adams feared the aristocracy. The willingness of men to enrich themselves at the expense of others. He feared an oligarchy of rich men running the country. The only way to keep them in check was a government of laws and not of men- otherwise we would devolve into a nation where the aristocracy arbitrarily ruled and did what they wanted to do at the expense of the powerless. A government of laws leveled that playing field considerably. Here is a summary and link which cites historical accounts and two books...

Thomas Jefferson once penned the following, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that  all men are created equal , that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." Of course, Thomas Jefferson wasn't referring to the slaves he owned at the time he penned the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence and you can also bet that the King of England disagreed with that premise. This "lording over" of other people has gone on since time began. It is what separates the haves from the have nots. About 30 miles NE of my current home lies an area called "Hunt, Idaho" I guess. There is no town there. It is just an area- truly in the middle of nowhere. So last Sunday in the rain, my wife and I ventured there. It's hard to find. This was where the United States stockpiled about 13,000 Japanese Americans in what they are now calling the Minidoka Nationa...

There is always an element of fear in advertising. Often it is subtle- you'll be left out if you don't buy this or you don't know what you are missing- those are the underlying messages. So I have noticed something new and over the top. It is a result I think- of how effective big pharma and their drug lobby has become. Buying our politicians with re-election bribes has certainly paid big dividends. It doesn't hurt that millions of otherwise uninsured people are still clinging to their Obamacare policies either. The direct advertising and marketing of drugs to consumers is illegal in most countries. It used to be illegal here. That all changed sometime before the discovery of Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra. The boner pill market was so huge- that big pharma couldn't stand it and put the full court press on to make the direct marketing of those drugs to consumers legal around 1997. Big pharma of course, got what they wanted. As a result, I can't tell you how man...

I have always detested insurance companies. I cannot imagine how much money I have paid them over my 40 years of home ownership, car ownership, health insurance, and even a little life insurance. I am going to say 50k in vehicle insurance, 12k homeowners insurance, and probably 200k in health insurance. About a quarter million is what I've paid them thus far. I have made claims totaling about 20k for auto and homeowners related losses, maybe another 50k for a couple of hospitalizations- the last one about 20 years ago. All in all, I have had claims totaling less than a third of what I have paid in over the years. My guess is that most healthy people have had a similar insurance experience. That is a lot of money. Compulsory I might add. The government or corporate America forces most of that on us and I am not even going to speak to unemployment insurance or Workman's Comp Insurance- both items required by government entities. I actually know small businesses that threw i...

Like shock collars for dogs- it just delivers a different kind of shock. I have a special kind of dislike for dominant, controlling bosses. I think those feelings are sourced from the thousands of miners who died putting "rock into the box" from the underground operations in my hometown. As a child, we traded those stories of the people who died and who was responsible for their deaths. It doesn't take long to identify the villains. So when I read that Amazon Inc., had invented and patented a wristband to track employees, it made the hackles on my neck stand up and brought me out of hiding.  https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-03/amazon-patents-ultrasonic-tracking-wristbands-control-workers For years, I've been reading blurbs here and there from current and former Amazon employees about what a crappy place it is to work. The problem of course- is that corporate America and it's rich campaign contributing owners- get away with this type of condu...