Blog Archives

Let Your Light Shine (Four Minutes to Read)

2/29/2012

I was preparing for a Bible study one day and decided to do it based upon Matthew 5:16 where Matthew wrote: “Let your light so shine before me that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

In contemplating the topic, I started thinking about how we can’t generate darkness. Meaning if someone asked what tools you’ll need to create darkness there isn't anything you can use to generate it. The only way we can contribute to darkness is to take something away that already exist, and that is light.

This thought process intrigued me because in order for us to affect darkness we can either shine a light on it which would make it disappear or we can pull our light away and allow darkness to show itself because it’s already there.

Then I thought about our responsibility to let our light shine and realized that Matthew didn’t say make your light shine; these words have different meanings. “Let” means you already have it and just need to release it; while “make” means to generate something yourself.

So I thought about these words and realized I couldn’t “make” my light shine because I wouldn’t be able to light things up so to speak. I hate to say it but me without God is evil. I promise you that no one would like me if I succumbed to those dark sides of me. So how in the world could I be a light when everything inside of me is dark? Once again when you’re dark you can’t generate light.

Now here’s the good part…it’s not just me in my body anymore. Jesus told his disciples to not worry about him leaving because he was sending the Holy Spirit (John Chapter 14) to dwell within them; to guide and teach them according to the teachings he shared with them. When we become Christians we too get the Holy Spirit to reside within us; we become a Holy temple. This is quite a responsibility so I’ll write about it another day; needless to say I’m often very embarrassed at the way I keep my temple up.

With the above in mind though, we certainly have more light that we can shine because of the Holy Spirit being within us but the problem is that we do exactly what I just mentioned and that is we don’t do a good job of keeping our temple clean. We try to hide things in the closet and close doors to certain rooms in an effort to limit the disruption the Holy Spirit might have on our earthly lives.

This is why we can’t generate enough light to make the difference we should be making because when we limit the Holy Spirit’s impact on our lives we lose some of our Christian effectivess in the world. It becomes challenging to bear good fruit and if you think about what Jesus said about trees not bearing fruit, it's a scary position to be in.

I started wondering if most of us aren’t treating our bodies as a temple then how in the heck are we making a positive difference because I know we are in many ways. I thought about this and got really excited because I realized how it probably works when it comes to Matthew 5:16. Then I thought about how I could convey what it means to “let” your light shine. So this is what I did:

I was giving my Bible Study in a conference room at our office. We had Bible Study for those who wanted to attend about 40 minutes before work started. Anyhow, there was a buffet table in the room and it had about a foot of space on the bottom and it was completely dark underneath it. I had a few people take a look to verify. Then I took a small mirror and bent down next to the table and held the mirror to where it was facing the ceiling lights and then I tilted the mirror a little bit and it completely lit up the bottom of the table. Once again I had a few people verify. Some others came up as well just to see how much light it generated.

I then went on to explain a few things to consider about my demonstration. One is that we don’t have a mirror unless we have the Holy Spirit. Without the mirror we’d probably just absorb some light but we certainly couldn't reflect it in the world.

Another thing to consider is that God doesn’t want us holding our mirror right back to him because he doesn’t need the light; he has plenty! All he wants us to do is reflect his light in those dark places. This is why Matthew 5:16 says “Let your light shine.” We don’t have to create the light because we don’t really have anything to offer without the Holy Spirit. The light we’d generate on our own would be about as effective as pointing our flashlights at the sun.

One last point, if we turn our mirror completely towards the world, we’d have the back of the mirror facing towards God so we’d have no light to share. We have to be in the world (tilting our mirrors) but we can’t be of the world; we need to keep our mirror pointing to where the light source is coming from and that's God.

This whole message from God on “Letting your light shine” is awesome because I can be spiritually lazy at times. This message reminds me that I don’t have to worry about being good enough to get out there and minister to those in need. God never expected perfect and instead used some pretty rough characters to accomplish his missions. All he asked of them is to point his light towards a dark world in need of light.

Non-Conformists (Five Minutes to Read)

2/26/2012

I read something recently that really made me think; the article was geared around St. Paul’s letter to the Romans. It described how important it is to be in the world but not of the world and then it went on to discuss two topics that usually trip Christians up. The areas mentioned included the media and money’s power and influence over mankind.

First of all in reference to money it stated that it’s no longer a tool to promote well being and to support the life of man, but instead it has become a force to oppress him. The pursuit of wealth is something that’s almost worshipped in our society and those who have it are often put up on a pedestal even if they don’t deserve it in reference to their character.

Christians need to be non-conformist and not be driven by the pursuit of money. Having money is certainly not a sin in itself but the ways in which we spend it can be. The possession of wealth to us should be considered a blessing and one in which we apply wisely in accordance to God’s will because its really his not ours.

The next topic is the media. Things have changed dramatically since the days of Walter Cronkite where they were strict about the types of stories they ran and the integrity in which they ran them. It has evolved to a point where the underlying truth is hard to find. It has become a medium of appearance not reality where network agendas influence what we hear and see. The end result is that the power of appearance has become more important than reality itself.

This has seeped into all of our lives in that we are more concerned about appearance than truth. We’ve created a world of smoke and mirrors which seeps into our lives in every aspect including our relationship with Christ. We try to create an appearance around those who are professed Christians in order to not show our frailties. With everyone doing the same thing it’s hard to grow as Christians because just like with alcoholics we have to admit we have a problem before successfully pursuing our spiritual recovery.

The bottom line is that we’re called to be different than those who are in the world. The way we chase money and the way we use it when we have it, are ways we can differentiate ourselves from non-believers. The majority of U.S. citizens (wealthy and poor) are often concerned about those things that create a desired appearance not reality. A lot of people are over their heads financially because of where they live and what they drive. A lot of people try to create an appearance that they have it together in their spiritual walk when it isn’t true. The fact is, we’re not different than the world if they don’t know it.

Before I forget the information I’m sharing is based upon an awesome talk given by Pope Benedict.

Administrative Earmarks (Two Minutes to Read)

2/25/2012

Earmarks are items that are attached to legislation that allows politicians to direct funds to special projects, organizations, and even individuals in their voting districts.

Our legislators created over 40,000 earmarks in 2011 adding up to more than $100,000,000,000. Keep in mind these earmarks can be attached to any legislation so they don't have to be related to the Bill. If the Bill gets passed the people who attached earmarks automatically get the money. There's a way to track most of the grants which you can look into on www.grants.gov. The site is loaded with information so its kind of hard to navigate. Anyhow, this is what I discovered:

1) Federal earmarks went up 21.6% right before the Cap and Trade vote. A good example of how this money was used is that democratic representatives from the "coal" states (states that would be hurt by Cap & Trade) received millions of dollars to help soften the politcal impact of their votes on the measure.

2) Federal earmarks went up 94.4% right before the Dodd-Frank Bill. Chris Carney a representative from PA was given $3.6 million dollars that he could
funnel to various businesses in his state in order to nail down his vote.

3) Federal earmarks went up 96.7% right before Obama Care was passed. These grants went out all over the place so it was too hard to track.

Federal earmarks have been available for a long time but I found a report by the Congressional Research Service that showed during the Obama Administration the number of earmarks has grown 54% and the money spent has gone up 126%. Before I forget there were 32 democrats who were identified as being vulnerable for re-election and it just so happens they received a significant amount of the earmarks. Are you surprised?!

I'm shocked at how bad things are in Washington; I knew they were bad but I just didn't know how many avenues of corruption were available to our politicians (on both sides of the aisle). They consider it just the way politics are done but let's face it, someone doing these things in the private sector would get fired or possibly sent to prison for bribery and/or fraud.

I can't say I have any answers to the way politicians are using earmarks to protect their jobs; except for having an all out revolution. I don't know if you know this but our Constitution reads that citizens can overthrow the government and establish a new one. If someone has the ability to design cool looking military uniforms, let me know. No pink please as it takes away from the intimidation factor! :)

Benefits of an Economic Depression (Three Minutes)

2/24/2012

I realize this sounds strange but there are some positives to going through a depression. I’m not recommending it I’m just saying there’s always another side to the story.

When our economy halts or goes backwards tax revenues naturally decline. This forces our government to not only tighten their belt but also evaluate areas in the budget they can cut. This is a great thing because when tax revenues eventually start going up our government wouldn’t be inclined to immediately increase spending. There’re a couple of reasons for this; first of all, they’d realize they could get by without the areas they downsized plus they’d be gun shy for a while due to what they experienced during the depression. This helps taxpayers a great deal because it lightens the burden on us to get our economy back on track because we'd have less government overhead dragging us down.

There’s another aspect of a depression that helps us that wasn’t available for those living in the 1930’s and that is we benefit from a depressed dollar when we compete in a global market. As our prices go down our products begin turning faster and so do profit dollars. With production increasing businesses would have to hire more people. With more jobs and less government our gross domestic product would go up which shows other nations we’re a good investment. This is because our productivity per person would get better and better. With this in mind our credit rating would improve so if our government would need to borrow money they could do so at a better interest rate.

Something else to think about; Americans would have less money because the value of a dollar drops in a depression but keep in mind prices would more than likely go down as well so there’s a chance that in the scheme of things it would be a wash. Not all economists agree with my statement and instead think prices would stay the same or more likely go up but I disagree. I don’t think they take into consideration the fact that things were different in the 30’s. There wasn’t competition during the Great Depression so a retailer could sell their groceries for just about whatever they wanted and people had to pay for it. If a depression occurred now there’s enough competition to keep everyone honest. In other words if a retailer went up on their bread and milk prices their competitors would eat them alive. And good luck to the retailer who goes up on their prices because their customers probably won't go back.

Even if prices didn’t go down like some economists say, most of us spend too much anyhow on things we want not necessarily things we need so we could easily tighten our belts. Plus if you think about it, we’d react just like our government and wait awhile before spending money beyond the basics because we’d be gun shy about the economy. Although saving your money and not spending it has consequences as well (which I’ll cover in another article) but I still think it’s the smart move for your overall financial well being to only buy neccesities.

In wrapping up, none of us wants to live through a depression but I thought I’d share with you that even the worst of circumstances often contains a little silver lining.

Trade Relations with China (Six Minutes to Read)

2/22/2012

The purpose of this article is to prove we’re distorted in our view of economic opportunities that exist in China. It’s because of our incorrect perspective that we make terrible decisions in our trade relations which can lead to economic collapse. Please read on because I'm not crying wolf.

Indulge me for a moment while I give a little background to support my position. China’s population is 1.3 billion which causes U.S. companies to go crazy thinking about how their sales would go through the roof if they could do business with them. As you know, China put birth restrictions on their citizens so their birth rate that is 24% lower than other developed countries. Because of this India is expected to surpass China’s population in the next couple of decades.

Think about this very important factor; China’s landmass is quite larger than India’s and their population base is more spread out so even though they have a very large population their purchasing power is diminished because it’s more difficult to reach people outside of the major cities especially since a lot of them are farmers. So even if there was a good distribution network to where goods and/or services could get through to these outliers, it wouldn’t matter because this segment of the population doesn’t have the money to make many purchases. So right off the bat, the potential buyers U.S. businesses think they’d have in China is reduced dramatically.

India’s land mass is much smaller than China’s and their population is more centralized making it easier to reach from both a product distribution and marketing perspective. Plus more of their population has money to spend because of the concentration of city dwellers they have; not a lot of spending power but definitely more than an average Chinese citizen.

This is important because we give China more leverage than they deserve when it comes to business opportunities which negatively affects our trade policies with them. We make unnecessary concessions because we don’t want to blow the perceived benefits in gaining access to their marketplace. My opinion is that we’d be better off focusing on opportunities in India due to their much better trade practices; I’ll explain in just a moment how China exploits U.S. businesses, something India doesn’t do.

China has the upper-hand in our trade relations for a variety of reasons; one of which was covered above. The greatest reason they can dictate our foreign policies and trade policies with them is they own us so to speak. We borrow $120 billion dollars a year from China and it has grown by 23% over the last few years. From a biblical perspective if you owe someone money you’re their slave and they are your master; I believe this is an outstanding way of looking at it. Let’s face it we’re a slave to China. What else can we do but give in during policy negotiations.

China does a lot to negatively affect trade with them but I’ll give you a couple of examples that I feel are the worst. We protect businesses by not letting companies infringe upon other companies’ copyrights, patents, and trademarks; bottom line is that we have fair trade standards for both economic and ethical reasons. What entrepreneur would want to take the risk of going into a business venture when any company could take his or her idea and run with it? Small businesses are keeping our economy going so if we take away the incentive for going into business our economy would crash.

But here’s the problem; even though we play by these rules in the U.S., China doesn’t. A patent here doesn’t mean China will honor it. They’re
supposed to as it is an international fair trade practice, but whose going to stop them when they don’t do it. Let me give you a great example. Apple products are a huge hit with young people in China. So China duplicated some of Apple’s products and even put up an Apple store that looks exactly like those in the U.S. When it first opened, the people who went in the store had no idea it was owned by the Chinese government. Can you image how Apple feels? All those years trying to tap in to the Chinese market and they get hijacked. Of course our government got involved in what happened but once again what leverage did we have? Surprise, surprise, the Apple store is still in business (I couldn't find out how many there are now).

Another area where China is exploiting trade (not just with us but everyone doing business with them) is they depress their dollar by dumping money into their economy. A great example of this is when you travel to another country and hope you’ll get a good exchange rate. If our dollar is worth more than theirs (it does fluctuate) then you’ll be given more of their dollars to spend during your trip. On the flip side there are a lot of countries you can visit now where if you gave them $1,000 dollars they'd give you $750 in trade. The bottom line is that because China devalues their dollar it makes it more attractive for other countries to purchase their products because they costs so much less. This in turn leads to trade deficits because we end up buying way more product from them than they do us.

I mentioned this same subject in my article on our economy but it  very much applies to what I’m sharing now. We’re in terrible trouble because of what China has done. Our annual trade deficit is over $300 billion dollars which is about three times what we borrow from them each year. With this in mind, over $400 billion dollars leaves our economy each year and doesn’t come back. If this wasn’t happening then those $400 billion dollars would keep going around and around in our economy; meaning when I spend $100 on a tire it goes to the tire store then they pay their employees, their employees buy things with their money and on and on it goes. Eventually it will make its way back into my pocket in one way or another and then I can keep the spending going; maybe the next time I'll spend the $100 on a tree for my yard and then the dollar starts travelling that direction. Our problem is that $400 billion dollars are leaving our wallets each year so our economy keeps going down and down. This is why I’d rather spend our time developing great relations with India versus our focus on trade relations with China. It’s not even close to a fair partnerrship with them and it’s foolish to think it’s going to change.

Let me wrap up with the scariest thing of all; the $400 billion dollars that’s seeping out of our economy each year is about 3% of our total economy. What this means is that if we continue on this path our economy will deflate by close to 30% in a 10-year period. If you’re wondering what this means; it’s called a depression; not a recession but a depression. The only way we can compensate this some is to grow our economy each year but increasing it by 3% a year is a definite reach. Plus even if we did, we'd prevent a depression but still have a recession because we wouldn't experience any economic growth which means our standard of living goes down each year due to pretty much built in inflation. Basically cost go up like food and gas but our paychecks don't.

I want this to be a wake-up call. Please contact all of your representatives and ask them about this issue and what specifically can they do to help the situation. You can copy and paste this article (don’t worry about putting my name on it you can use yours) and email and/or snail mail it to them. We tend to ignore a lot of things because we’re busy; I ask that you please don’t ignore this article. If we don’t do something to address this issue we will experience hard times like we’ve never experienced before. If you think you’d fare well in a depression then that’s fine but if you don’t, you might want to take action now!

Our Nation is Bankrupt (Nine Minutes to Read)

2/21/2012

Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is around $15T dollars. Our GDP is basically the output in revenues from all of the products and services U.S. citizens generate. Countries who invest in the U.S. pay very close attention to this as it’s the best indicator as to whether or not we’re growing our economy.

Because we purchase so much more product  from China than they do from us, there’s a $300B shortfall. Right off of the bat our economy (GDP) shrinks by this amount. By shrink I mean that if the $300B stayed in the U.S. the money would keep going round and round in our own economic cycle. Meaning when I eat at a restaurant, the restaurant uses my money to pay their employees, the employees go out and buy clothes, food, gas, etc., and the places they spend their money keep it going on down the line as they pay their employees and their suppliers, etc. Although kind of strange to think about but the money finds its way back at one time or another which means I’ll once again have money to go out to a restaurant again.

Our money would keep going around taking care of everyone along the way but because we give 300 billion dollars to China a bunch of our money leaves the money cycle we’d been tapping into. Sometimes it takes a while before we begin feeling the pinch but it will happen. What’s even worse is that we continue sending money away every year so the pinch we feel today will turn into a punch down the road. We’d better hope we don’t end up getting knocked out!

Our government is $14.94T in debt (and growing). Foreign investors are owed $4.5T while the rest of it is owed to the taxpayers (i.e. Social Security Trust Fund, T-Bills, etc.). This means a few things. First of all there really isn’t money in our Social Security Fund even though politicians are saying there is. What they’re doing is crediting money to the fund that is actually borrowed cash. This would be like you or I trying to get a loan and the bank finds out that all of the money we said we have in savings is actually money we had borrowed. Good luck getting the loan.

Secondly, just like a consumer gets upside down and can barely pay the interests on a loan, our federal government is in the same situation; this is why are debt is growing so quickly. A good place to see how much the growing daily is to go to the website: www.UWSA.com. Make sure you take a Prozac before taking a look!

Our government collects around $4.6T dollars in taxes which is 30.8% of our GDP. If you reference the amount we owe ($14.94T) and how fast it’s growing we couldn’t even throw everything we sold (GDP) against it. As consumers we wouldn’t survive if we owed four times what we made (and growing). Bottom line, we would have to file for bankruptcy.

To try and avoid the appearance of being broke and getting everyone scared, the government pumps money into our economy. The problem is the money being pumped in is borrowed. This is a good parable as to why pumping borrowed money into the economy doesn’t work:

A businessman is traveling and he’s tired so he stops at the next town along his route. It’s a small town and it only has one hotel. He checks into the hotel and gives the manager $100 for the room. When the businessman heads up stairs the hotel manager goes across the street and gives the bakery owner the $100 because he owed her for bagels and muffins that he provided at his hotel. When he leaves, the bakery owner drives to the farmer’s house because she had been borrowing milk and eggs from him. So she gives him the $100 and heads back to her shop. The farmer sneaks off and goes to see a prostitute that he owed $100. The prostitute then takes the $100 to the hotel manager because she had been using a room on credit. A couple of minutes later the businessman comes back down stairs and says he wants his money back because the room was disgusting. So the hotel manager apologizes and gives the businessman his $100 back. The businessman then gets in his car and drives away with the cash.

Let’s take a look at what just happened; everyone thinks they’re out of debt yet the money left with the businessman. This is what pseudo money is all about. The $100 people owed one another needs to come from their economic circle without outside interference. Meaning the $100 they thought they had is now gone and it will never come back. Their circle of money (GDP) shrunk by $100 and it’s no longer in the system to where they
could make money off of it.

If the money was real and not temporarily borrowed the $100 would have kept going round and round within their community which is what sustains economies. So in the short-term everyone thinks they’re okay but eventually they’ll feel the pinch and not even know where it’s coming from. This is the game our politicians are playing on us. They just worry about the short-term because that’s what affects their jobs. They’re either naïve and should be kicked out of office or they’re unethical and should be kicked out of office. Our politicians are letting future generations suffer. The problem is that it’s reached a point where the future is now.

Another example of how our economy shrinks is when we outsource work. We often hire Hispanic labor because it’s less expensive for us and its hard work that we don’t like to do anymore. The problem with this scenario is that a lot of the money we pay these workers leaves our economy and never comes back. It’s the same problem that I mentioned above because even though everyone feels like it’s a good deal it will eventually destroy us.

One of our negative human traits is that we live with tunnel vision. We think we have a micro existence when it’s actually a macro world where everything is connected. Although hard to believe, almost every time we try to negotiate a better deal for ourselves, we will someday feel the negative consequences from it. Once again, on the short-term it’s nice but “all good things shall pass.” If we continue thinking short-term we aren’t going to make it.

I apologize if it seems like I’m beating a dead horse but a clear understanding of how our economy deteriorates and leads towards bankruptcy is too important a topic to not drill home. Consider the great Roman Empire. They had it all at least until the citizens of Rome began getting comfortable in their upgraded lifestyles. Much like we are today, the
work they were doing had evolved to a point where very few of them were willing to do the tough jobs. So they went outside of Rome to entice workers to come in and work for them. These workers had to live outside of the city because it was too expensive to live in Rome; plus Rome was over-crowded anyway.

These people were glad to get the work as their living standards were much worse than the citizens of Rome. So here we go again. These new workers were taking the money they made back to their communities and most of it never made it back to the city’s economy. Every dollar that seeped out eventually caught up to all of the Roman citizens and they never knew what hit them. Bottom line…the great Roman Empire fell. It wasn’t the only reason for their demise but it was a contributing factor.

Keep in mind one very crucial point that I haven’t mentioned yet regarding these cause and effect scenarios and that is even though the outsourced workers benefited from the arrangement on a short-term basis the money eventually dried up so even the communities outside of Rome fell.

As I mentioned above, we’re all connected. Even now, China’s economy is starting to struggle because one of their greatest customers (U.S.) no longer has the same amount of money to spend. The moral of the story…everything is connected.

Our economy is in big trouble but our government knows that most Americans don’t understand gross domestic product, how our economy works, how much our trade deficit is, how we don’t have money in our social security fund, etc. As a matter of fact they think we’re so stupid that we couldn’t eventually figure out there’s no way we can save our economy without radical changes because it’s declining at too fast of a rate (i.e. size of our government, interest rates on debt, trade deficits, etc.). Even if we dropped unemployment down to 5% our GDP would only go up from $14.6T to $15T. If we took all the money the U.S. produced in a year (instead of just taxes off of it) we’d still be in debt.

Another real problem we have but unfortunately no easy solution to is the wage disparity that exists between how much an average American makes compared to salaries in other countries. It’s the reason people buy goods from places like China and Taiwan because the labor factor allows them to offer much lower prices than we can. One solution to this is to reduce our salaries to where the price of our goods and services would become more competitive. I’d better move on to another possible solution as I don’t see this idea catching on!

We could tack on large import fees on foreign goods but this isn’t good for trade relations and they could end up doing the same to us which negates what we’d be trying to accomplish. So although unions bring this up a lot, I personally think it would hurt us in the long run by not gaining anything in increased trade, just jacked-up prices going both directions.

Another idea that might be more realistic (and that you and I have control over) is to change our buying habits. If we buy goods and services from American companies we’ll get money back into our economy. Not only will this help us sustain our economy but even grow it because people will have more money to invest back into it through spending money through goods and services which eventually creates more jobs. It’s a beautiful cycle when run correctly!

I realize we would be paying more for products so we couldn’t buy as many things but the result from this isn’t as bad as the alternative. I don’t know about you but I have too much stuff. I look around at what I have and know that at one point I was glad I bought it but now I hardly notice the item anymore; this reminds me that everything loses its luster. We need to focus on the fact there is a difference between wants and needs. I think we need to flip these priorities around so we don’t lose everything we own.

I also think we need to do our best to purchase from our own communities even if it means we pay more. Even though places like Costco and Wal-Mart provide jobs at their stores, in the end the profits go back to their headquarters. Plus, especially in Wal-Mart’s case, billions of dollars make their way to China as that is where they source most of their goods. If we purchased from local businesses we’d increase our local economy which is the best way to secure our livelihood.

The founder of Wal-Mart (Sam Walton) was proud of offering American made products to his customers; most of his commercials were red, white, and blue. Somewhere along the way Wal-Mart’s Officers moved away from Mr. Walton’s ideas and pursued the lowest prices possible. I can’t blame them because we certainly bought in to their strategy; we were just naïve about the consequences.

Let me wrap up with this and you can believe me if you want, but my calculations show that unless we do something drastic, we will be bankrupt within seven years sooner if China decides we are no longer worth investing in. Fortunately we have a little leverage with them right now because we are a very good customer of theirs. The interesting thing here is that the best thing we can do for ourselves which will hurt on the short-term, is to no longer be a good customer of theirs.

My recommendation for you is to figure out how to prepare your family to survive a depression because it's coming unless we purse radical reforms very soon.

Democracy? (Two Minutes to Read)

2/21/2012

This is just my opinion but I think a lot of people get confused with what a democracy means. The natural inclination is to think that majority rules but this isn't the case.

Societies would be in trouble if the majority could do whatever they wanted because quite frankly our human nature isn't very good. We would make decisions based on our selfish desires which could negatively affect those in the minority.

This is why our founding fathers adopted a Bill of Rights and a U.S. Constititution. These documents didn't benefit them personally instead they unselfishly framed principles they deemed would establish a successful nation. These documents are to be adhered to in governing our country. With this in mind, we can't do whatever we want because our core ideologies established by our forefathers guides what is and what isn't acceptable.

Our problem as a nation is that both the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution have been watered down to fit the culture of the times. This takes away from its effectiveness as who can respect these documents when they are no longer honored as our country's foundation. It's impossible to lean on a moving object and that's our problem here. Watering down something always causes it to lose its integrity...it's basic physics. I believe the success of our nation is directly tied to our ability to abide by the covenants our forefather's established. Anyone who reads the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution can't help but be in awe as to their genious.

Let me wrap up with this; our forefathers would be crying if they saw what we're doing today; all of their sacrifices for naught. If we allow the Supreme Court to continue down the path of watering down our Constitution to meet the supposed needs of our times, our nation will fall.

The Internet (Five Minutes to Read)

2/17/2012

The concept of the internet was already in the minds of several individuals and our government, back in the 1960’s; but it wasn’t until the 1980’s that it started taking off. The reason it gained momentum was that technology was catching up to the vision and other countries around the world believed in the idea so a global collaboration began. It didn’t
take long for these brilliant minds from around the world to lay the groundwork for a worldwide information network; now a third of the world’s population has internet access.

Let’s go through a variety of scenarios so you have a good understanding of how the internet works. For example if you were thinking about visiting Italy and saw the website www.visititaly.com and clicked on it your computer would have the address it needs to locate that site. This is because every piece of technology that connects to the internet (even cell phones) has its own address; kind of like the address for you house. Internet addresses are called (I.P.) for internet protocol. The creators of the internet established these protocols (meaning uniformity) so that everyone around the world would set their computer up the same way. If they didn’t do this, there would be chaos.

A good way to picture how the internet works is to think of yourself as an internet signal that’s leaving your computer. So in this case, your request to hit the Italian site goes out and all along the way the different servers you pass through take a look at who you are (your I.P. address) to see if you’re legit and it checks on where you’re going to see if it’s a viable site. It’s comparable to going through Customs at the airport. If they see the place you’re going to doesn’t exist, it quickly sends it to another server just in case it recognizes the address. If it doesn’t recognize it kicks it back to your computer. Of course this is when you see on your screen the website you’re trying to access doesn’t exist. If the server does see that where you’re going is legitimate it will allow you to go on your way. Keep in mind this whole process takes place in milliseconds.

Now let’s say you reached the server in Italy where the tourist information is stored. At this point it’s kind of like shopping because you look around and decide on what you’d like. Maybe the pictures “tab” is what you’re interested in so you select it.

This is where it gets really cool. Everything that comes to your computer, like web content, or leaves your computer, like a PowerPoint presentation, turns into data packets as it runs through the internet. The data is recognized by every computer on the internet because everyone agreed to the protocol. So, if someone in the Soviet Union put together a PowerPoint presentation as soon as she hits send her computer converts the file into globally accepted data protocol. Doing it this way makes perfect sense because if different places around the world were doing their own thing it wouldn’t be a global network it would be more of a wide area network that would only work within their countries or organizations. We’re all speaking the same digital language.

These packets can choose whatever path they need to take so they can work their way around any obstacles along the internet highway to get to your computer. Your computer then takes all of those packets that come in and puts the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle. It already knows what it’s supposed to be receiving so if all of the packets come in except for one, your computer can send a message out asking the server to resend it.

Your security software (i.e. Kapersky, McAfee, Norton, etc.) then inspects the final product and if it’s okay it sends it to your screen and the next thing you know you’re looking at pictures from Italy. What’s absolutely amazing is all of this takes place in microseconds! If the file is found to be unsafe it gets kicked out and sent packing. For work computers, security is built into your network by your tech department. Of course these programs are industrial strength so your computer is much safer.

Let’s talk about internet servers for a moment. A server is a computer (usually a very powerful one) that has software geared towards transmitting data versus having software like PowerPoint and Word. Servers are everywhere along the internet highway.

If you were to send an email from home it would go to your internet provider first (i.e. AOL, Gmail, Roadrunner, Windstream, etc.). Then it would move down the internet and go through a variety of servers (more if the email is travelling further like California). There are also major internet hubs that move traffic through the internet. A good way to look at them is like how FedEx and UPS pick-up packages and send them to depots where the packages end up being flown to major hubs closer to where the packages need to be delivered. For North Carolinians sending packages long distance via UPS, the packages go to Wilmington, NC before being sent further down the line to reach your business or
home.

The main reason there are hubs is because you don’t have a direct line from your computer to another person’s computer in another city. It isn’t cost effective and we couldn’t run that much optic cable anyway; we’d end up with a cluttered mess. So instead, all of our messages end up at the same place (comparable to FedEx’s depot) which is the internet hub.

These hubs are loaded with computer servers and optic cabling. As data reaches these locations they are sorted out (like packages) and sent to their desired locations. I believe we have around eleven major hubs in the U.S. including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, D.C., Las Angeles, Miami, and New York.

One last thing, I can’t tell you why data travels as fast as it does. Your network cable at work is geared for computer technology and if you remember years ago we were using telephone lines that were extremely slow and noisy! Now there’s fiber optic cable which allows data to fly back and forth along the same line and at the same time. This definitely sped up data transmissions. Then there are communication satellites which weren't available years ago so smart phones can send data and pictures up in the sky and the satellites send them down to data hubs so the journey along the internet highway can begin. When I was in the Navy there were five navigational satellites that we used to figure out where we were on the ocean now there are satellites all over the place that anyone can use to send information.

There’s certainly a lot more behind the scenes to the internet but hopefully this blog will give you a good idea as to how it works.

Traffic Issues (Four Minutes to Read)

2/17/2012

Traffic issues like does speeding guarantee you’ll get there faster, why it seems to take so long to get going at a green light, why does it take so long if there’s a traffic accident on the highway, are all things I wonder about and you might too. Since I have time on my hands these days I researched the issue and crunched my own numbers to get some answers.

Does Speeding Work

We’re all guilty of speeding at one time or another (possibly daily). Let’s say you’re at a signal light and the next one isn’t for two miles. Another driver takes off from the other lane and goes the speed limit which is 45 mph, and you take off and go 60 mph because you’re in a hurry. With this scenario in mind you’ll arrive at the next signal light one minute faster than the other driver. As we both know a red light will eat up that minute so there’s no gain.

Although unrealistic, let’s say you and the other driver are going to the same place and it it’s ten miles away. Lets also say that neither of you hit a red light. In this case your car would get to the destination three minutes and thirty seconds faster than the other driver. Only you can decide if the time savings is worth the additional risk of an accident or being pulled over by a police officer.

Taking a long trip is of course a different story as far as time savings. Let’s say you’re travelling 240 miles. If you were going 80 mph and a family member in another vehicle was traveling 70 mph, you’d arrive 40 minutes before her. Once again it’s your decision but I think there’s much less of a chance of being in an accident in this case plus I’ve never been pulled over when travelling 10 miles over the speed limit. I could’ve just been lucky though; it’s your call!

Slow Progress in Getting Through Intersections

Why does it seem to take so long to get through an intersection? The problem is that all cars don’t move at once. It would actually work if everyone in line would ease on the gas as soon as the light turns green but they don’t. Instead car number two waits for car number one and car number three waits for car number two, and so on. Every time this happens the time you’ll be waiting is adding up.

As a rule of thumb it should take about 2 seconds per car ahead of you for you to reach the intersection. So if you are ten cars back plan on getting to the intersection in twenty seconds. With this in mind if you’re twenty cars back you might not make the light if it’s a short signal. Remember the two second rule is just a rule of thumb because if one driver isn’t paying attention and doesn’t move for five seconds then you’ll take five seconds longer to get to the intersection even if that car guns it when the driver behind him honks his horn.

The Cause of Highway Delays

Who among us hasn’t been livid when crawling along because of a traffic accident? I always feel guilty that I’m complaining when the people involved in the accident are the ones who are really having a bad day. In most cases we get mad because we know people are rubber necking. Although I hate to admit it I find it too tempting to look at the accident as I pass by so I’m a rubber necker! But the question is, does rubber necking cause major delays?

A lot of people were interested in this topic so physicists tackled the issue. What they found was rubber necking is a small part of what slows traffic down. The best way to explain what they figured out is to imagine yourself in a helicopter and you see a wreck that just occurred and cars stacking up behind the accident. You notice the inside lane is clear and cars are slowly moving into that lane by merging in with other vehicles. At the same time you look back and see the traffic stacking up further and further down the road.

So first of all, traffic is backing up due to the bottle neck. Anytime a mass is squeezed through a small opening it backs everything else up. But the biggest issue is this; each driver not only has to wait for the car in front of him to move but they also trigger a delay on average of five seconds before they’re moving steadily. This is unlike a signal light which has a two second delay per car. The reason for the difference is that cars generally move pretty quickly at an intersection once the traffic starts moving while cars stacked up in a traffic delay start moving very slowly and continue this until they reach the spot of the wreck.

If you’re a few hundred cars down the road it will be at least sixteen minutes for your car to start moving. Then of course it will take you a couple of minutes to reach the crash site. As we’ve all experienced this is the point where things really open up. Cars start flying down the road and you’ll notice traffic isn’t as bad because it’s been spread out for miles because of the impact of the accident.

Hope it helps. You might already have known these things but maybe the specific data was interesting.

President Obama's Speech (One Minute to Read)

2/17/2012

I have a major problem with one of the statements President Obama said during his State of the Union address. He said he’d use the savings from pulling our troops out of Afghanistan and apply half of it to paying down our debt and half of it to nation build here in the U.S. The Democrats jumped up and cheered at his statement.

My problem is that we won't have any savings because China has been financing the war for us. We don’t have the money President Obama mentioned because China is expecting their money back so we don't have money to use towards paying down our debt or stimulating our econdomy.

Another thing not mentioned is the only way to save money is to reduce our troop level which I believe is underway with a reduction of 80,000 military personnel. These 80,000 troops will receive roughly $24,000 in annual benefits and pay when they become civilians until they get a job; this equates to around $1.9 billion dollars in annual costs. There are also thousands of civilians involved in the war effort from a supply perspective who will also be out of work and in need of financial assistance.

So in recapping were not only not going to have money to use towards paying down our debt and/or nation build at home we are going to contine to be in terrible shape debt wise because of the need to pay the 80,000 plus troops unemployment pay. President Obama and his administration knew that what he said during his State of the Union Address was a lie but I guess it's okay because ethics don't seem to exist when it comes to politicians.

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Author: John Mann

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