You know, I actually understand the governments fetish with stimulus… it’s hard to break free of that failed spend more cycle. It is especially hard when so called experts are pushing for it. I want my websites to be successful, with how much time and effort I’ve put into them it feels long over due. Desperate, and tired of throwing away hundreds of hours of my own efforts earlier this year I decided to finally put a little bit of money into a couple of my sites. At first I was buying ads with LinkWorth, and then later in the year I got a $100 gift from Google for their adwords program. Neither produced as much as it cost to run. With exception to the Adwords program since it was free for me With each attempt I ended up losing about 20% of what I put in (in other words if I put $100 in, I got $80 out… not the best deal on the planet). But with so many website experts pushing the programs, and my desire for the sites to be successful I have the extreme desire to continue using them. Something inside me says “you just haven’t spent enough” or “You just haven’t spent enough at the right times of year.” either way, it’s a program that has proven to be a failure for my situation… so why can’t I let it go? I’m sure many politicians feel the same way in Washington, but what needs changed is not spending policy… but attitude. lets face it, I’m not really in control of the income of my websites, that depends on the visitors, and advertisers… I have very little to do with how much I make from them. And the government is much the same way, they don’t really effect the economy positively ever… government is in the way of progress, and many well meaning individuals are ensuring that it stays that way.

If you’re here you probably know that I’m a very enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter. There is one place that I disagree with Dr. Paul heartily, and that is the gold standard. Don’t get me wrong, the gold standard is good enough in a tight spot… but it doesn’t represent true value as Ron Paul says. If that were true the gold rich countries would be the wealthiest countries in the world. Just look at Africa for a minute, I understand it’s not a unified country, but the continent of Africa is the most gold rich place on earth… so where is the wealth? More gold comes out of South Africa than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD COMBINED!!!!!!!! Therefore why is it that most of the cities in South Africa look like the encampments of central park during the great depression? No, golds value is manipulated, faked, forged, and often conjured out of thin air. The difference between gold and a fiat currency is that you have thousands of years of manipulation backing gold. Well, I guess that’s not the only difference… there is value to gold, just like there is value to paper. When you’re talking about paper currency the value of that paper is far less than stated, just like when you’re holding a gold bar the value of it is far less than you’d have to pay for it. Gold is useful in a lot of industries, but often impractical for use because of the hording that occurs.

With that said, I actually do believe very strongly in the fiat currency system. As with any currency (gold, silver, platinum, paper, salt, pepper, etc.) its value is determined by its perceived value. Now gold has been around for a long time, and it has been used as currency for a very long time, so its perceived value is very high. However, since gold is not useful in the average persons daily life it is easy for the perceived value of gold to sharply drop in times of hardship. What good is a piece of gold in a drought? You can’t eat the gold, you can’t bribe the clouds to rain, and if a farmer doesn’t have enough food to feed his family you probably can’t buy food from him either. What is still useful in a drought is hard work. In a drought you might be able to dig a well, you might be able to dig a ditch from a creek to your crops, you might be able to lay out a dew catching system to capture the morning dew… of course in a severe drought none of this will help you, but you can still move your family to where there is water. It’s not pretty, and no one wants to leave their land behind, but droughts in life come and the only thing that will get you through it is the hard work of yourself and the community around you. Money, all money, is just a place holder. Money holds the place of food, clothing, shelter, cars, computers, and anything else you might find useful or necessary in your day to day life. So why not go to the root, quit fiddling around the edges and hold the place of the work ethic of Americans?

So in my mind the only currency system that makes any sense is one based upon the work ethic of those around you. That’s right, we’re going to start freezing sweat, coining it, and passing it out as currency! Okay, not so much… But here’s what I perceive as the best system possible. You take the average pay of all Americans probably something like $150,000 a year (I’m guessing, but between the average workers pay of $50,000 a year and the few multi-millionaires around you probably hit 6 digits), then you take the number of Americans working (be sure to include home makers and anyone who adds value to the country), and you end up with the amount of money in our system. You see when the recession hit and the unemployment rate skyrocketed the Fed printed money, lots and lots of money to ease the burden on those people… printing money makes it cheap to borrow money because it’s not worth as much… so in theory it creates jobs… the problem is that it does not. What should of happened is money should have been removed from the system. Fewer jobs means fewer people adding value to our economy, so the amount of money in the system should have dropped… this would have actually helped those who were laid off, instead of their savings accounts being drained by devaluation the money they have saved would have become more valuable. With fewer dollars in the system your dollar buys more. It allows you to float longer, it means that businesses can buy more with their money, and eventually will start to hire again because they were able to do more with the resources they had at hand. While printing money makes it cheap for businesses to borrow money, it really only helps out the large corporations, most small businesses don’t borrow that much money they have to rely on the resources they have on hand. If the resources they have on hand become more valuable (as they would in a recession with my system) they’re able to do more without relying on the banks, they’re able to hire more. A work ethic based currency would have several down falls though… for starters it’s really, really, REALLY good for the middle class, the middle class is the most likely class to run/own small businesses. As stated before small businesses don’t borrow money as much as large corporations do, the only way that large corporations work is that they operate almost entirely on “future” funds… or loans. They get the money now to make a product through the stock market (just a big loan office in my mind), banks, etc. then after they’ve made their money from a product they actually make the product… which seems ass backwards to me. Small businesses don’t have the luxury of operating that way, so a system that made their work ethic the most valuable asset would be too good for the middle class. This in turn would make for some big pushes to get rid of the system from some very wealthy people… Because of that it could not be controlled by a small group of people like the Fed currently is… it would have to either be an amendment to the constitution… or simply have an addendum that required 2/3 vote in congress or by the American people to change the “value” of the employed Americans… or the definition of who was employed… or how often the census of who was employed was taken.

Okay, this is a bit of an extension of my earlier discussion… but I just joined a page on facebook for another money bomb for Ron Paul in December called “Take Back The Tea Party Money Bomb” well… someone was offended by it… or worried about some peoples sensibilities suggesting that we change the name to “The Spirit of the Tea Party Money Bomb” as to not offend current “tea partiers” this very simply was my reply.

I think one of the biggest problems in America is political amnesia… There was a debate that I had missed and the next day I saw some of my friends having a discussion about how they were converted to Herman Cain, and how amazed they were at his bravery for being able to stand up against his former bosses to audit the Fed. I was dumbfounded, didn’t know what to say or think… Herman Cain, the man who said that there was nothing going on at the Fed, the man who said the Fed already has too many internal audits and one from the government would only further weaken our economy… the same man who said we’d never find anything with an audit of the fed… That’s the guy they were proud of for wanting to audit the fed? Really?!?!?!

With that said, a single example of the political amnesia problem in America, I say that I like the name. If people are to awaken in America they need a good slap in the face. By the way, MythBusters tested if you could slap some sense into someone, and confirmed that slapping sense into someone is a legitimate technique. Yes, some people are going to say “Take back the tea party? You never had the tea party, Michelle Bachmann started the tea party she says so every opportunity she gets.” Which will open the door for an intelligent conversation about both recent history and the beginnings of the Tea Party, and early American history why those dates are historically significant.

If the event doesn’t slap some people in the face they’ll never understand the true origins of the tea party. They will happily go along in their ignorance, and we will never regain control over what our efforts began. Why should they get the glory and wield the collective bargaining power of the Tea Party when it was/is our blood, sweat, and tears that went into its creation? Sure we’re going to push a lot of neo-cons away… others will be educated and join our cause… our resolve however will not falter, and we will once again regain the influence that we fought so diligently to obtain.

I didn’t have much to spare, but did donate a little to get that second Ron Paul magnet for the other side of our car

Some people ask me from time to time why I so ardently support Ron Paul. The simple answer is that he’s consistent. His integrity is unmatched by anyone else in politics. No matter who you are, or what you believe the role of government should be there is one fact that everyone must agree on… well they don’t have to, most politicians are perfectly happy about ignoring, or denying it… but that fact is that our country is bankrupt. If someone has a business with a yearly income of $40k but spends $100k a year your answer for them would not be to get another credit card to stimulate their monetary growth. That’s the most ridiculous idea that anyone has ever had, but we feel that the rules should be different for the business of government. Right now we NEED someone in office who understands the stakes, someone who has a plan to cut down spending, balance the federal governments checkbook and get our country back in the black. If we are only making $40k a year, we should not ever spend a dime more than that, simple as that.

I must say I am like 100x over proud of my state. I’ve learned a lot about Missouri law in the last two years that has not so much surprised me but rather just plain made me proud! I guess what has been surprising is how on top of things our state is. A while ago I was considering making ethanol for our car in part of my obsession with living “green” in my research I found that it was not cost effective, nor very green to make ethanol at home. What I did learn though was that it is VERY cost effective to make your own wine at home. I also learned that Missouri has laws in place that allow anyone of legal drinking age to make beer or wine at home without any permits, or registration. I’ve since enjoyed making my own varieties of wine (mostly sugar cane).

The next thing I learned that made me doubly proud was during the SB1070 scandals and fights that the Obama administration was having with Arizona. It’s a law that gives police the right and ability to check a persons legal status when they are pulled over. I stood by Arizona as the federal government tried to stop them from passing the much needed law. Soon after many other states followed passing their own SB1070 type laws… I hoped that one would be passed on Missouri… only it didn’t need to be passed because Missouri has had a similar law for years.

Earlier this year I heard about a law in Florida exercising their 10th amendment rights blocking the federal government health care mandates at their borders. I was proud of Florida and wanted to see it happen in Missouri soon too… only Missouri passed a similar law before the close of 2010. I also learned that it has not passed or been made a law yet in Florida (though I do support them in their efforts) it has only passed in their state house of representatives and is going through their senate now.

And then my favorite, another exercise of the 10th amendment rights. Is a proposed bill allowing medical marijuana within the borders of Missouri. I truly hope this one makes it through without a hitch. My mom is a physical therapist, most of her patients are elderly with a variety of issues and disorders. Most of the issues that they have are very painful. The only thing most doctors do is pump them full of a consistent stream of very dangerous, highly addictive pain killers. Most of those pain killers don’t effectively do their job either. I can speak from experience as I’ve had them all from various accidents I even had morphine once when I crashed my bicycle and slid down 30+ feet of road on my bare back. Even morphine the supposed pinnacle of pain relief drugs didn’t take the pain away… it simply made me care a little bit less that I was in pain. Anyways, several of my moms patients live in fear because they have to buy marijuana illegally as it is the only thing that relieves the pain for them. Most of them must suffer for extended periods of time in pain also as it is illegal they’re not able to use in every circumstance when they are in pain. We’re talking about 80 year old men and women who have to hide from their nurses, doctors, and family because the only way they can live pain free is sneaking off to purchase pot and light up a dooby. That is a sad system… and while I have never smoked marijuana before, nor does it interest me to at any point in the future I support not only the legalization of medical marijuana but I support the full legalization of marijuana as it being illegal only causes violence, and it’s far less dangerous than even Alcohol.

Okay so I just read an article that was supposed to be about whether or not wikileaks served public interests… The first half of the article was well written, clear, understandable, and sensible.  It’s no surprise that it was so being that it started out with an “expert” in the field (not sure that there is anyone that could qualify for that term, but whatever) saying that yes wikileaks does serve the interests of the people because it keeps the government honest (even if it is by way of force) and exposes many lies the American people and everyone around the world has been fed for years about the war in Afghanistan and Iran.  The second part of the article was painfully full of bull shit and I must admit I didn’t finish reading it.  For starters the guy trying to convince you that wikileaks doesn’t serve public interest didn’t actually understand what the word “public” means.  He starts out his argument with a statement about the founder of WikiLeaks and some interviews he’s stated that he wants to hinder the progress of the US government abroad… sounds good to me but I was still starting to tune out already because he makes it sound like the guy who founded the site is some big criminal or anarchist for doing so.  Then he went into how the site is bad for the government and how the government suffers from the site, and how the military suffers from the site, and how our many and various wars suffer from the site… uh… wait… dude this is supposed to be about whether or not wikileaks serves THE PEOPLE we all know it doesn’t serve the government, and if the government isn’t serving the people that is a very good thing.  Then finally he gets to the people, he states how wikileaks promotes mistrust in the governm… ah hell I couldn’t read it anymore after that.  Seriously?  You think that wikileaks promotes mistrust in the government?  That is so far from the truth it’s not even funny.  If the government was telling the truth about what was going on or what their goals were there would be no mistrust promoted by the release of secret documents because they would align with the words coming from the politicians mouths.