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The Top 2% (Three Minutes to Read)

12/25/2012

 
Why would Republicans focus on the wealthy like Democrats say they do when they're the smallest voter base in the country? I'm truly shocked that some people fall for this. I wish voters would think through this issue so they could realize what the Democrats are doing. Democrats  want to create the impression they're David taking on Goliath because there are a lot of taxpayers who easily believe this.

Democrats say the "rich" should pay more and this certainly sounds good to those of us who aren't wealthy but is it ethical? The word "rich" is a relative term because everyone up and down the economic spectrum considers those making a lot more than them to be rich; for instance if you make $50K a year and someone else makes $100K you'd probably think this person was rich. But you'd be rich too according to a retail employee or a waitress's perspective who dreams of making $50K.

With this in mind how would you feel if the government told you to pay more to give to people making less than you? Would it be fair? Would it be ethical? Would it make you mad? These questions are the same whether you're making $200,000 a year or $50,000 a year. A lot of people think it doesn't matter because the rich have plenty to spare. But the fact is just because someone can take a punch doesn't mean it's right to punch him. Is it right for us to expect something of other people that we would be mad about if it happened to us? I consider this an ethics issue so where do you stand?

Going after the rich to pay more will only make a dent in our revenue problem. The problem is our politicians who won't do what's right to turn our economy around because they are afraid they'll lose their jobs if they make the spending cuts necessary. I believe that pitting citizens against one another for political reasons is a form of treason; they are purposefully dividing our country which severely impacts our nation’s survival.

I hope you'll share this information with any Democrats or Independents you know. I admit that I've only changed the opinion of a few Democrats; the last one was a couple of weeks ago. She was voting for Obama until I shared with her the difference in Obama's and Romney's ideas for turning our economy around. With this election expected to be so close, every vote counts.
gtion all the way up until now, the Democrats have claimed that Republicans are trying to protect this group of rich people ney in a White House Press Conference the other day say that because Republicans aren’t willing to increase taxes on the rich that it would not only hurt the middle-class but also families with disabled children and college students. What a great way to build relations with the Republicans as both are trying to work together on a budget – Disgusting!

I posts on a few political blogs and one of them is Road Runner. Several times I’ve posted the question to Democrats: Why would Republicans care about a million votes at the expense of 90 million votes? I tell them that votes are currency in their world and it makes absolutely no sense what they’re claiming. I’ve never gotten a Democrat to respond to this because they have no good answer. I just hope they really think about it and realize how insane it is to think this way.

I didn’t like Democrats playing class warfare on the campaign trail but they were doing everything they could do to win. But now, it makes me really angry. The reason why is that at every press conference I heard while they were supposed to be negotiating with Republicans over a budget, Democrats (including Obama) were throwing the Republicans under the bus saying they aren’t willing to increase taxes on the rich. How in the world can they expect the Republicans to work with them, when they’re having press conference after press conference saying what terrible people the Republicans are? My company had at least some form of negotiations going on daily; we wouldn’t trash the people we’re working with, it makes no sense. Nothing would ever get accomplished if we did this which is exactly what’s happening now.

Now to the Top 2% the Democrats can’t stop talking about. If we increased taxes on them like they are proposing, we’d only bring in around $80 billion dollars in increased tax revenues. I realize every little bit helps but this isn’t even a drop in the bucket when we consider we’re going in the hole over $1 trillion dollars every year. So they know it’s such a small amount yet have been acting like it’s the difference between us going over the cliff or not. To me this is fraud.

So the question is why in the world would they do this? Now you might be able to come up with more than just one reason but I can’t. It’s class warfare. They know that an average taxpayer wouldn’t know the money they act like they’re fighting for is only chump change. They constantly use it to shape an opinion that Republicans are a bunch of rich people who don’t care about the poor or middle-class. There are a lot of things wrong with this but first and foremost it creates too much division in our country when we’ve never had more of a need to come together as Americans. It also creates a false perception of the problem because there’s nothing we can do to increase our tax revenues even close to enough to improve our deficit. We would be able to make a difference if the middle-class taxes were raised but that’s not going to happen.

Democrats aren’t willing to make the cuts necessary to pull us out of another recession and possible depression. Republicans are willing to cut but not deep enough to pull us out of the mess we’re in. There are over 400 government agencies and in my opinion at least 300 of them could be cut. Agencies like the U.S. Japan Friendship Commission, Radio Free Asia, Wood Utilization Agency, etc. There are also repetitive agencies as I found at least six that we’re dedicated to the Arts.

So why don’t our representatives cut these agencies? The answer is simple and that is in one way or another they’re ongoing pork for them. An earmark (pork) is typically on every piece of legislation and it usually has nothing to do with what the legislation is for. But these earmarks are generally a one-time injection of money to wherever the legislator(s) want it to go. These crazy government agencies allow these politicians to build their pork into the budget every year.

So the bottom line is both parties are guilty of not serving us and instead are playing political games with our lives. There’s absolutely no doubt that Republicans are being way more responsible than Democrats when it comes to budget cuts but even they’re not willing to do what needs to be done.

For Democrats to play class warfare knowing they’re only talking about $80 billion dollars is almost a form of treason because it’s a means of destroying our country; I’ve never seen us so divided. I don’t know how to make it stop. We continue to re-elect people who have proven time and time again they are inept. I guess it comes down to the fact that we get what we deserve.


 

  
    



The Sound of Music (Two Minutes to Read)

12/25/2012

 
Certainly considered one of the best movies and Broadway Musicals of all time but most of us don’t know what happened to the Von Trapp family when they escaped from Austria. I guess first of all I should mentioned this movie was based upon a true story, but there were some differences of course.

Captain Georg Von Trapp was 47 years-old when he married Maria then 22 years-old. He was a highly decorated Navy officer in WWI. His father was also a highly decorated Navy officer who was given nobility which is one of the reasons why the family ended up with so much money. He died when the younger Von Trapp was four years-old. 
 
If his father was still around he would’ve  been proud of his son’s accomplishments which included extraordinary service on surface ships and was one of the first commanders on submarines. The reason he got his first submarine assignment was due to his wife’s grandfather being the inventor of the modern torpedo. His wife’s family was very rich and that is one of the reasons he was so wealthy before and after she died to his inheritance. 
 
Maria was an orphan since age seven and had a teaching degree before she became a nun. Captain Von Trapp’s wife died of Scarlet Fever and he was left with seven children. Maria was asked to tutor a few of the kids and all them ended up loving her like their own mother.  The love affair between she and Captain Von Trapp wasn’t how they depicted on TV instead it was more like a marriage of convenience. She said it took a few years before she grew madly in love with him. 

Unlike the movie, Captain Von Trapp wasn’t forced to fight for Germany; they wanted him to, but didn’t force it. They did leave nevertheless because things we getting more volatile in Austria as the war went on. They didn’t escape climbing up a mountain but instead by car during the day. They moved to Italy and reestablished themselves again. Mr. Von Trapp had sent much of his fortune to a bank in London which was run by an old friend, but unfortunately the bank crashed during the worldwide depression (we tend to think it just happened here). 

Faced with a difficult financial situation, Maria decided to try and create a family singing group in hopes they could start making money. A family friend and priest had been living with them and said he would manage the group and get singing engagements. It worked successfully and
the group started singing not only in Europe but they went on tour in the U.S. a couple of times. They fell in love with Vermont during one of their trips as it reminded them of Austria so they decided to move there and ended up purchasing a 660 acre ranch. Maria and George ended up having three children of their own.

While performing in the U.S., an agent heard them sing and helped them get a recording contract with RCA records; where they became very successful; they were even on one of Elvis Pressley’s Christmas albums.  When they weren’t on tour  they had a singing camp in Vermont and ran the Trapp Family Lodge. 
 
In 1957 the group retired; Maria turned the Lodge over to one of her sons and then she and three of her children became missionaries in the South Pacific. Captain Von Trapp had died ten years earlier of lung cancer. Maria never remarried and lived forty more years than him and  finally died of heart failure at the age of 82. 
 
Of course I found out a lot of things I didn’t know about this story including that it was a true story! The Sound of Music was a play and then movie in Europe before it became a Broadway and movie sensation here. One thing I definitely came away in my research is that Maria wasn’t the wallflower the movie made her out to be. She was a strong-willed woman who was certainly the Captain’s equal if not his commander.  

So anyhow there you have it in as condensed of a version I could make considering the subject matter. My opinion is they could make a fantastic (non-musical) true story movie about the family after they left Austria because their story is absolutely amazing. 


    Author: John Mann

    Picture

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