To my friend Danny

The whole idea is we would all work together to make a better system. You attacked entitlements. I dislike that word when we are talking about social security, medicare or medicaid. Do you consider your 401K as an entitlement? No because just like millions of Americans, you pay into it and believe that when the time comes it will be there for you. Look at the history of our country and what happened to people before social security. It would have been more humane to shoot our elderly citizens then to continue letting them live without some support. People work their whole lives, scrape together a little bit of savings and then had it wiped out by one illness, before medicaid-medicare. Oh, just shove them off into the corner somewhere to die, because my liberties are offended that I should have to pay a small amount of money to help them. I asked once and ask again. Why are you not offended by the 1% of the population that has more then the bottom 90%? Why are you not offended by the corporations that make hugh profits and yet pay nothing in taxes, because of tax breaks? You once mentioned that people were like sheep, being lead around by government, yet you blindly follow the spin by large corporations and the wealthiest people.

To my friend Danny

I want to make a couple of statements in response to your comments in general. You throw around the word liberty, as if you or people who think like you only knows the meaning. Liberty is not something that is inanimate. It is living, breathing and an item that we have to be responsible to. The saying, " Of those that have much, much is expected," demonstrates to me part of what our liberties, in America, are. You sound offended that your money, be used for those amongst us that are not as fortunate. What price do you feel is best for our liberties? How about the 9% of our population that has served or is now serving in our armed forces, so you can have these liberties, is that price fair?  How about the 1.2 million people that have died in the wars for our liberties is that a fair price? Not every war we have fought has been for the wrong reasons, but these people have paid a price for our liberties. Do you feel it is and was fair that only 9% served and the others did not, but yet they have the same freedom ad liberties as those who served. What would happen if when the time came and we were called we did not answer that call. You have the right to criticize decisions because other have been willing to give of themselves. Hide behind your indignation all you want. The bottom line is we should be willing to help those less fortunate. Do I believe in handing out everything with people not earning it? Absolutely not. To be continued.

Profits continued

To disclose and for fairness, I do not pay any of the fees mentioned before, so people don't get the impression that I have an ax to grind. Since I am retired from Bank of America, I receive free checking and we have overdraft protection so we don't have to pay overdraft fees. Think about this, they use your money and then charge huge fees to make larger profits and bonuses. When their loans went bad we bailed them out and now they are back to making money. What about the average person?  These are just two examples of industries that do not understand that middle class America is shrinking fast, Want to talk about an endangered species. This all sounds depressing, however I, for one, hold out great hope. I believe in the American people. I believe that we will start to unite in ways that will shake the very foundations that this country was founded on. A new awakening is coming and the top one percent of Americans that control 74% of the wealth is going to hear shouts and voices that will make then tremble in fear. The new revolution will be waged in the political arena and at the ballot box. This is what the founding fathers envisioned. The average American rising up to direct this country to new heights. Join with your voices. Be heard.

Profits continued

Another industry is the banking and financial services companies. They were and are very much at fault for the collapse of the economy. I worked in banking for twenty plus years and know how it works. Years ago banks made most of their money by making good loans to individuals and businesses. They kept the loans on their books so the decisions to lend were solid. They knew that making a profit meant doing your homework, before loans were made. Today they make their profits with fee income. They sell the loans on secondary markets and then service them. They charge a fee for the servicing of the loans. Profit. If the loans go bad the banks do not care beyond the fact that they lose their fee income. How closely do you think they look at the loans, before approving them? The other fees that banks get is on your checking and savings accounts. You overdraft your account and they charge you $35, drop below a certain limit in funds they charge a monthly service charge or use another banks ATM and they charge a fee. These are just a few of the fees that they can get you for. These items my cost the banks pennies, however they charge large sums for profit and greed. More to follow

Profits continued

That house of cards collapsed and then they wanted bailed out for their mistakes. We bailed them out and instead of finding that better mouse trap, they went back to higher bonuses for them. Where does Socialism come into play. The sharing of profits. Why can't the average worker share in their production and wealth? Why does it only go to the upper people of the corporation? Why is the average worker, not part of the management process? One of the industries I have railed against is, health insurance companies. What do they really do. Please, think about it. They collect money from individuals or companies. The money is then split for profits, administration fees and patient care. They are fifteen to twenty percent higher in costs then Medicare. My question is what do they really bring to society, except a middle man. Remember the fight against Universal health care is the government between you and your doctor. The insurance companies are very much between patients and doctors. They determine if they will pay for drugs or procedures that physicians want for their patients. I will continue in new post.

Profits

I know in many instances it seems that I have a problem with people making money or profits. I do not. My problem is with greed and uncaring people or corporations. I do not support a Socialistic movement, but more of a marriage between Capitalism and Socialism. Let me explain. The person who builds a better mouse trap should be able to sell it and make a good profit. The people that build (work) for the company, should make a fair wage and benefits for their work. The workers are then able to go out into the economy and spend their earning to purchase the mouse trap they build. The problem today is the only people who can afford the mouse trap is the CEO's and upper management. They want huge profits plus bonuses to go to themselves and do not care about the people working for them. They have no long range plan for the company and do not want to spend money on new and better mouse traps, or they want a larger write off, for research and development from the government. The problem with their thinking is there is not enough of the extremely wealthy to support a robust economy. The largest group, the middle class, is the engine that drives the economy. Without this we flounder, such as right now. The current wealthy, created their money with slick, financial games. They took other people's money and build a house of cards with it.

Response to Darlene

Number one, if you read my post, you should have noticed that I said I did make mistakes. My problem with Palin is she does not know how to be anything but a comedic sideshow. She is about herself and not the country. She needs to be who she is, not some made up politician. The problem with people who defend her is that they never look at what is being said, which was, she is an example of politicians not being able to admit to mistakes. The mistakes that were done over the last 10 years and more. Darlene look beyond the idea of defending the individual or party. The country is in trouble and until people begin to admit past mistakes and correct them we will just sit here looking at narrow issues. You were more concerned with Ms. Palin and defending her. Ms. Palin is the problem. Her misuse or misspelling is a symptom.The problem is people in power not owning up to mistakes and correcting them. Also as a side note, she mispronounced the word, "refudiate" on FOX just a few days before. You can either try to defend the problems we have or move them forward. Your choice.