Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Monday, December 30, 2019
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Friday, December 27, 2019
Thursday, December 26, 2019
Wednesday, December 25, 2019
Tuesday, December 24, 2019
Monday, December 23, 2019
War on Drugs is Not Getting Any Better for the Tax Payer
THE WAR ON DRUGS: STATISTICS AND FACTS
- In the beginning, the DEA had 1,470 agents with a budget under $75 million. Today, over 5,000 DEA agents have a $2 billion budget.
- Just before Nixon declared the war on drugs, a report was released on the increasing epidemic of heroin use by soldiers in Vietnam. Marijuana use in the 60s and cocaine use in the 70s and 80s were also considered issues in America.
- In 1969, 48% of Americans considered drug use to be a serious issue. In 1989, 64% of Americans saw drug abuse as a huge problem, but the following year this number plummeted to 10%.
- In 1980, there were 50,000 inmates behind bars for nonviolent, drug-related crimes, which increased to over 400,000 prisoners by 1997. Today, around 500,000 people remain behind bars on drug charges.
- The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 established mandatory prison time for some drug offenses, some of which were criticized for targeting people of color. Congress attempted to correct this with the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010.
- Over the past 40 years, the U.S. has spent over $2.5 trillion fighting the war on drugs.
- While the war on drugs has increased incarceration rates and decreased smuggling illegal drugs, the amount of drug users has increased with 19.9 million drugs users currently in America.
- The D.A.R.E. program began in 1983 to educate children on resisting drugs. By 2003 it cost $230 million dollars and employed 50,000 police officers, but never showed promising results in reducing illegal drug use.
- In the year 2012, 1.55 million Americans were arrested on nonviolent drug charges.
- The Drug War in Mexico has led to over 70,000 deaths since the year 2006.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Trump's Economy and the National Debt
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Trump has made promises to more than double previous economic growth, revive industries like coal, and slash the debt and the deficit. But has he delivered? The national debt is now skyrocketing to levels not seen since World War II and the trade war with China has experts fearing a global recession.
Trump has made promises to more than double previous economic growth, revive industries like coal, and slash the debt and the deficit. But has he delivered? The national debt is now skyrocketing to levels not seen since World War II and the trade war with China has experts fearing a global recession.
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Tuesday, December 17, 2019
Monday, December 16, 2019
Sunday, December 15, 2019
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
Thursday, December 12, 2019
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
World Population 2068, Gains, Investment in Human Capital
Population Distribution in the World 50 Years From Now 2018 and Birth, Immigration and Migration Gains
World Population 2068, 11,331m
World Gain in Population 2068, 4,074m
- South Asia 2,615m +1,047m +40%
- Sub Saharan Africa 2,445m +1.391m +59%
- East Asia 1,936m +285m +15%
- North Africa + Middle East 1,072m +473m +44%
- Latin America 967m +321m +33%
- Southeast Asia 871m +349m +40%
- Europe 592m +14m +2%
- North America 493m +132m +27%
- Russia +Central Asia 282m +42m +15%
- Oceania + Pacific Islands 58m +21m +36%
Investment human capital potential
South Asia 3662 24%
Sub Saharan Africa 3876 25%
East Asia 2221 14%
North Africa and Middle East 1545 10%
Latin America 1280 8%
Southeast Asia 1220 8%
Europe 606 4%
North America 625 4%
Russia and Central Asia 324 2%
Oceania and Pacific Islands 79 1%
Monday, December 9, 2019
War on Drugs, The Beginning, Prohibitionist, Right Wing Christians, Legalizing Drugs, The Increased Law Enforcement Cost of Maintaining the War on Drugs Getting Worst,
HISTORY OF THE WAR ON DRUGS
In 1971, the US government began cracking down on illegal drug use and distribution under President Nixon, mainly to crackdown on the student protest movement, the liberal left, and the hippy movement. Officially, the war on drugs came about due to a rise in recreational drug use during the 1960s, when some of the best music came out of that error. The goal? To increase penalties for drug-related crimes, make more money for Law Inc, Prisons Inc, Law Enforcement Inc, and a lucrative black market for organized crime and more heavily enforce these efforts, and put more drug offenders behind bars.
The movement increased the enforcement and penalties offenders face, calling drug abuse “public enemy number one.” But it also increased the need for federal funding for drug-control agencies and the prison system. Thus, the Drug Enforcement (DEA) was created in 1973 to tackle drug use and the smuggling of illegal narcotics into America, which in turn again, as during with the push of prohibition in the 1920s, that created more gangs and more profit for organized crime, much of which enters the U.S. through the southern boarders and Mexico. Again so the Mexican Cartels and the South American kingpins profit more and more as stricter prohibition kicks in, Good example, cause conflict in the Middle East, oil goes up, same with drugs and marijuana and it not regulated, so you don't know what you are getting in the first place, but it needs to be powerful enough to addict you, hint hint.
In recent decades, public support for the war on drugs varies drastically, with critics pointing to data on how people of color are targeted for drug suspicion whereas Caucasians can often receive lesser sentences for the same or similar crimes. Some also claim the country could benefit from legalizing and taxing drugs similarly to alcohol and tobacco, which many states are showing could be lucrative forms of government funding for other issues, instead of organized crime, gangs, legalize drugs and get rid of the thugs, Policymakers and other Americans, on the other hand, continue to support the war on drug, mainly church-going conservative right-wingers, the legal systems $$$$$.....and prohibitionist..
Regardless of popular support, the war is weighing. With many states legalizing marijuana, more political views are swaying toward tolerating recreational drugs. Countless facts and reports have shown little results from the war, yet a high cost for Americans. The war on drugs continues, just with less intensity today than in the early years of its creation.
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Saturday, December 7, 2019
Friday, December 6, 2019
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Nazis Gift of God
Did you know that it was Christians in Germany that helped Hitler get the 2/3 vote he needed to amend the Constitution? This transformed the Weimar democracy into the Third Reich, allowing Hitler to become a dictator. The Protestant churches in 1933 saw it as a gift from God.
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
Religious Fundamentalism, Religious Fanaticism, Jewish Doctrine, Religions, Free Thought, Secularism, Philosophies, Dogmas Holding Back Human Achievement, Hell as a Selling Fear Factor, Forced Religion Upon the World, Free Consumer Market, Algorithms, Past as a Reference, Live the Present, Learn from the Past in Not Repeating It, Religious Brainwashing
The difference between religious fundamentalism and fanaticism is belief and action. One could be a fundamentalist in any given religion and believe in the literal truth of their holy scriptures. Most Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Jewish people follow this strict dogma. For the most part, fundamentalists act within society's law, and while it may pain them that secular society doesn't adhere to God's will, they recognize and respect that they are part of a larger collective. Fanatics of Islam, where it is part of the government and mentioning in this, the Evangelicals who if they had their way would make it part of a government, fall more into more of this fanaticism in wanting religion in politics, on the other hand, are an extremist sub-set of fundamentalism who see only their own point of view. They seek to force their ideology on others through intimidation and are more than happy to break the law and commit religious blasphemy, including, murder in the name of their God. From the Medieval Holy Crusades, which were the Dark Ages of its time, (500Ad to 1500AD) to modern-day terrorists committing atrocities in the name of Islam and fanatical right-wing Christian crusaders and monarchism, to an illegal Israeli settlement in the Gaza strip and right-wing Christian groups threatening US government from within, it seems that strict adherence to one's holy book (ancient text vs modern times) of choice has been a source of much division throughout human history. It's interesting to think how many great scientific discoveries would have happened centuries earlier, if not for religion interfering during the Dark Ages and denying science over religion, which now is rearing its ugly head? What if Copernicus and Galileo were never tried as heretics?
Human beings did not become the dominant form of life on Earth by being easy to push around! This is if you are not gullible to cons, fanatics, extremists, and money-grubbers over a cause for profit, not using logic, calculation, free thought, reason, and thinking outside the box. In fact, even with the natural disasters that seemingly take us by surprise, a form of earths way of teaching us what we would not heed, and either partially or completely level our cities, the unawareness and destruction is due to poor foresight and planning. We human beings can if allowed do virtually anything. if not held up by an over-regulated choice of personal liberties, religious prohibitions that hinder and stifle. free consumer supply and demand market, a human being's freedoms and production in life. If we can't yet, we will with a bit of practice and free thought.
Before we get too high on ourselves, subsumed by what the Greeks in the dawn of human intellectual potential called philosophy(the free exchange of ideas and opinions), it's important to remember that we are not automatically geniuses, nor are we invulnerable, we are life long learners in a journey in life, our journey and no one else's. Not everything we imagine and create is good. Human beings are both our own highest achievement and our ow depending on if it sells, in that considering it good or bad. What we must do in order to move forward and flourish as a free species to get out of our own way, and others getting in our way, and stop damaging ourselves! Lead me, follow me or get the hell out of my way!
Religion is one of the worst offenders in this regard. This is especially unfortunate considering that it might be the best way to solve the problem, even if one defines religion as a belief in what is right and good in the world, and not in the traditional old-man-in-the-sky sense, the traditionalist vs the modern-day free thinker. The problem with the dominant religious forces in the world today is that modern-day free thought and critical thinking is a better choice than old ancient text and old institutional thought from the past. In saying this, therefore no restrictions on social media, the internet and free flow of information should not be stalled or hindered. Religious fanatics consist of organizations employing theology as manipulation tools keeping the flock subservient. By using this threat of eternal damnation, hell, as a well-selling fear tactic and fear sells, they manipulate groups of people to set others against others thus enforcing confused disorder, especially to the gullible young, the children and desperately gullible people. The main obstacle in the way of changing this state of affairs is that religious orthodoxy has existed almost as long as religion itself. Traditionalism vs modernism. Religion vs Secularism and in one day, singularity with technologies.
This is man's great dilemma: religion, man's creation, creates the same entity that it is supposed to extinguish! People, especially young people, are pulling away from organized religion, especially the mentality of the Tree of Life (religious programming, brainwashing) and the Tree of Knowledge, free flow of worldly information, freedom of expression and freedom of the internet. It's a tendency to maintain organizational power by oppressive means over the masses for their coffers. It's important to note, that they are pulling away from God and religions. The younger generation of adults, commonly called Millennials, maybe less actively religious than the previous handful of generations that came before. Albeit the form it takes is more individual and local than it is based in old-fashioned hierarchies. For example, the Christianity that young people practice on their own outside the existing structures is closer to a more private thing than belonging to a group, to the teachings of religions as than the mainstream churches have been for centuries. They don't need holy water.
This is man's great dilemma: religion, man's creation, creates the same entity that it is supposed to extinguish! People, especially young people, are pulling away from organized religion, especially the mentality of the Tree of Life (religious programming, brainwashing) and the Tree of Knowledge, free flow of worldly information, freedom of expression and freedom of the internet. It's a tendency to maintain organizational power by oppressive means over the masses for their coffers. It's important to note, that they are pulling away from God and religions. The younger generation of adults, commonly called Millennials, maybe less actively religious than the previous handful of generations that came before. Albeit the form it takes is more individual and local than it is based in old-fashioned hierarchies. For example, the Christianity that young people practice on their own outside the existing structures is closer to a more private thing than belonging to a group, to the teachings of religions as than the mainstream churches have been for centuries. They don't need holy water.
It's important to remember that for all his talk about God, Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, etc in practice was much more of philosophy more than merely witnessed by men that were around Jesus written by a man and the other prophets of the time. Jesus challenged existing Judeah authority, first, the going against Jewish religious authorities and then the Romans to whom the power-corrupted elements within that structure of authority turned him over, so Jesus must have been the ancient hippy counter-culture we saw in the '60s, most of them are CEO's in Silicon Valley are in that generation. (This, to be perfectly clear, is not and was not ever an indictment of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew. It was always about power and the intoxication that comes with it). The way in which religions like Christianity and Islam initially spread was wildly effective, forcibly, empirically and through the historical overthrow of native peoples, The tenets of each of these faiths illustrated a path to reach one's moral potential, according to the ideas of brainwashing of the invading crusades and colonization of cultures being taken over. To become divine, but then again, who is perfect? And morality is but ideas that sell in civilization and are made laws by and appealed and repealed by according to an elective majority and representation.
If it wasn't for the tendency of religions to become a tool of the ruling class, it might never have been necessary for there to be more than one. In its most basic state, nearly every religion to ever exist has been about how to be a better person, but I argue to, with the new modern information flow and freedoms, one can develop and be self-taught through their own self-development.
If it wasn't for the tendency of religions to become a tool of the ruling class, it might never have been necessary for there to be more than one. In its most basic state, nearly every religion to ever exist has been about how to be a better person, but I argue to, with the new modern information flow and freedoms, one can develop and be self-taught through their own self-development.
Reminders of man's fallibility and weakness, but then again live and learn, using the past as a reference for not repeating the same mistake, concepts like original sin, but what is sin, in only that it is what a civilization determines what is sin in harming societies, or if not, it is not. They are added on to take advantage of believers' better selves, in order to keep them obedient using the best prison guard imaginable: themselves, the guilt complex in disobedience, the fear that sells, called hell. Humanity's great artists and free thinkers, however religious, nearly universally reject this self-imposed punishment and brainwashing enforcement of religious dogma. This is also, all partisan politics aside, why there are so few great conservative artists: in order to think and create, one has to be deeply invested in the idea that the new and unknown is good, rather than merely preserving the existing old order).
Ironically, so many of those that talk about immortality and the afterlife is the biggest threat to humanity's continued existence in keeping the world's masses in the dark to all information and free expression. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about all things and question more. It is his privilege to help humanities to endure by lifting their hearts, by reminding them of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past accomplishments in the world. The poet's voice needs not merely be the record of human histories, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. These words, for sure, apply to all human beings.
Ironically, so many of those that talk about immortality and the afterlife is the biggest threat to humanity's continued existence in keeping the world's masses in the dark to all information and free expression. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about all things and question more. It is his privilege to help humanities to endure by lifting their hearts, by reminding them of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past accomplishments in the world. The poet's voice needs not merely be the record of human histories, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail. These words, for sure, apply to all human beings.
In the end, we only have ourselves, and the human mind and the modern technologies, the greatest forces in this world has ever known! The human mind and technologies have given us wings, enabling us to travel faster than sound, to visit other worlds, to unlock the mysteries of this world and in the future, the universe. The only things standing in our way are those most formidable of enemies, religious dogma, fanaticism, fascism, nationalism, extremism, and the despots. The only things in the way of our effectively becoming immortal (by holding the natural world at bay, which ironically is best achieved by living as one with it) are the political systems we've concocted to keep us from doing so, and all the philosophies that scold us for daring to be our best selves. This is where AI, biotechnology, and nanotechnologies come in and the exchange in ideas over social media, the internet and our algorithms of thought.
Every SNAP $ and Where It Goes
very $1 SNAP results in saved health care costs.
SNAP benefits are one of the most cost-effective programs.
Avg cost to Taxpayers
$36 per year SNAP
$6000 per year Corp Welfare
* 2% of entire Fed Budget *
43% Children
42% Elderly and Disabled
78% Vulnerable Americans
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
Monday, December 2, 2019
Developed Markets Are At a Crisis Point Compared to Emerging Economies
Developed economies are at a crisis point, the powers of unconventional monetary policy are exhausted, and markets are just beginning to wake up to this. That’s the sobering assessment on the current state of the global economy delivered by Donald Amstad from Aberdeen Standard Investments
His view is that when developed markets finally crack, there will be serious implications for every asset class and economy. However, those economies where monetary policy remains relatively ‘normal’ will be those best placed to respond. In his view, the emerging markets have more levers to pull when compared to developed markets, where the money printing taps have been turned on and interest rate settings are near zero.
The irony is that during the Asian crisis it was the IMF and central bankers from developed markets that convinced the emerging market governments not to print money and ‘take their medicine.’ Amstad says that this was a cathartic process for these economies, and they are now looking on in bewilderment as the West has resorts to money printing of an unprecedented scale.
“In the emerging world, economic and monetary policy is broadly orthodox. It is the West that is running unorthodox economic and monetary policy and it is the West, ironically, that is now on the cliff edge.”
Implications for investors
Amstad says that unconventional monetary policy has been pushed to the limit and that negative-yielding bonds are playing havoc with pension funds and with the profitability of banks and other financial institutions. He highlights that while the United States is awash with debt, it is the $125 trillion of unfunded government liabilities that is most concerning.
Furthermore, he says that investors are faced with a scenario where the key defensive or ‘risk-free’ asset in their portfolios appears to be in a bubble. Historically, it has been riskier asset classes that have been the source of financial malaise. For example, it was credit markets in 2007, tech stocks in 2000 and equities in 1987. However, during these periods' bonds have acted as a buffer for balanced portfolios, Amstad questions if this will be the case today.
“What we have never had to cope with before is if there is a bubble in the risk-free asset class. What happens when that goes pop. What is the new risk-free?”
Social implications
Central banks have been playing a game of ‘whack-a-mole', using monetary policy tools to quash any flare-up in volatility. Under this regime, it has been the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the world population that has benefited from asset price inflation. Amstad argues that we are already seeing financial and economic troubles becoming political and social flare-ups.
He expects that these social tensions will only continue to escalate if developed world policymakers are unwilling to take their medicine.
“If they do come out with another bout of QE then banks are going to go bust, pension funds are going to go bust, insurance companies are going to go bust. And if it pushes the stock market back up again, then the 99.9% are probably not going to tolerate more handouts. That leads to social and political instability.”
Watch the full video below for a sobering assessment on the state of developed market economies and the implications for investors.
"I am very worried about the West. I think it is verging on catastrophe and what is interesting of course is the markets are just beginning to wake up to this."
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