I'm Poor---but it doesn't make me a bad person!

From Merriam Dictionary:

poverty

noun, pov·er·ty often attributive \ˈpä-vər-tē\

: the state of being poor

: a lack of something

Full Definition of POVERTY

1

a :  the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions

b :  renunciation as a member of a religious order of the right as an individual to own property

2

:  scarcity, dearth

3

a :  debility due to malnutrition

b :  lack of fertility

Examples of POVERTY

1. He was born in poverty.
2. There is a poverty of information about the disease. 

Origin of POVERTY

Middle English poverte, from Anglo-French poverté, from Latin paupertat-, paupertas, from pauper poor — more at poor

First Known Use: 12th century

Related to POVERTY

Synonyms

beggary, destituteness, destitution, impecuniosity, impecuniousness, impoverishment, indigence, necessity, need, neediness, pauperism, penuriousness, penury, poorness, want

Antonyms

affluence, opulence, richness, wealth, wealthiness

Synonym Discussion of POVERTY

poverty, indigence, penury, want, destitution mean the state of one with insufficient resources. poverty may cover a range from extreme want of necessities to an absence of material comforts <the extreme poverty of the slum dwellers>. indigence implies seriously straitened circumstances <the indigence of her years as a graduate student>. penury suggests a cramping or oppressive lack of money <a catastrophic illness that condemned them to years of penury>. want and destitution imply extreme poverty that threatens life itself through starvation or exposure <lived in a perpetual state of want> <the widespread destitution in countries beset by famine>.

Medical Definition of POVERTY

:  debility due to malnutrition <evidence of poverty in calves>
 http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/how-we-ignore-poverty-and-blame-poor-people/

Right now, today, on any station or channel, in any workplace or church, you can hear people discussing poor people.  It is never discussed from the "I am a poor person" position.  It is always about "those poor people" and no one is saying it like it is funny or they are so cute.  Poor people do not have the same effect on us that pictures of kittens do.

We blame poor people for stuff--lots of stuff.  Poor people lower property values, make the urban areas look less attractive, clutter up their yards, rent in slums, drive clunkers, wear old and frequently stained or even dirty/smelly clothes--especially when they are coming home from work. (what? what?)  They wear cheap shoes.  If their state will let them, they use SNAP--used to be food stamps, but that is low tech, and have subsidized housing where they get help with that $1000/month rent in the place-well, I wouldn't live there, or pay that for it, but they are living in high rent places--for poor people.  All that raises my taxes because everyone knows that my taxes are all going to the poor people entitlement programs.  They cause high crime rates where ever they go because they are immoral and ungodly.  They make all kinds of money selling drugs and sex, and individual cigerettes.

Now, lets flip that pictures, because most of the above paragraph was obviously not quite right.

Poverty affects about 16% of the United States population.  It is not equal everywhere.  New Hampshire has a less than 8% rate of people living below the poverty level.  Mississippi has more than 21 % living in poverty.  The poverty level in the contiguous states is $11,770/year per single person with an additional $4160 allowed for each additional person that lives in that house.  There are programs that help with buying a house (working poor) and programs that subsidize rent (section 8) and frankly finding any information about those online is impossible.  I have talked to people that received assistance and it is a complicated and demeaning process and they have to go through it multiple times a year.  In our state, if you don't have a mental illness or a physical disability/chronic illness that prevents work, you must have a dependent child.  Homeless people, who frequently have medicare or a SSDI check are homeless due to inability to get rent and food and medications with what they qualify for.

Poverty is not genetic, but if you are raised in poverty, your chances of continuing in poverty are good, and getting better every year we blame poor people for being poor.  

To get out of poverty, and that is the first link a poor family must break, a person needs 4 things: 

• Adequate nutrition to ensure that they make it to their full genetically determined height and optimum brain development.  (currently childhood hunger and malnutrition--which can be present even in the presence of obesity--fat is not healthy--we need some of the good kind, but it is not all we need)
• Good education programs from early childhood education through higher level (graduate school) so people can fully utilize those well-nourished brains)  Currently, education in those areas with the poorest people are the lowest achieving--and no--that is neither the teachers' or the poor children's fault, it is past time to fix a system we have known didn't work for more than 20% of the population since the 1940"s.
• Role-models--this is not a slam at poor adults but a reality check.  I cook like my mother; have work ethics like my father and fashion sense like my father; my neighbors showed me what other kind of routines people had, my relatives hammered me with a sense of right and wrong, and all the choices I made before 20 were based on what I saw in my little world.   I think that is how most of us learned as children, that is how the world works until we are able to get an older and more experienced perspective..
• Last but far from least--opportunity.  The opportunity to accomplish our dreams.  The opportunity to become anything we want.  If I take my well nourished brain in its perfectly made body with its great education and a working knowledge of how a successful individual from a successful family in a successful neighborhood does things, and then find that I still can only get a job paying minimum wage because I am not "the right person", skin color, gender, religion, accent, whatever, how long am I going to keep plugging away in an upright and appropriate manner.

Humans love to say they are for the underdog, but in truth, we demonize people that are  "not like us" and we love to blame the victim.  If you have a very hard life, no breaks, no success, then unless you are saint-like, you deserve everything you get.  We all want forgiveness for our frailties, but don't want to forgive.  We are competitive, we like to be better than someone, to beat them.  We jockey for position and don't want to lose any advantage we might have.  We need poor people, and unlucky people and helpless and powerless and uneducated people so we are not the ones being looked down upon. Poor is a comparative term, not an absolute.  It is all perspective.

So, could we eliminate poverty completely?  There will always be people with less fortune than others.  but we can break the poverty cycle.  Reality is, if every single person in the USA made the same amount, we would all make about $44,000 per year.  That is a four times more than poverty level and a good sign no one needs to be there.  And that is per person, not household.  The people in this country are very productive.  But while I can not give a single example of a nation in which everyone shares equally in the national adjusted net income, I do think that we could easily stop people from being hungry, homeless, without access to good education or good healthcare and the last two, which are the hardest, require nothing more than the people with advantages, share.  Be a role model.  Look in the mirror and examine your own prejudices and fears, your own beliefs about people that are different, that look different, believe in a different version of god or in no god, that speak differently, that do not fit your version of "professional" or "educated" or "socially acceptable" are treated around you are not given the hand up, the break to a better job, the offer of more power, because they are not like the other people already in those positions. Our prisons are full of somebody's babies.  They didn't hope that for them?  And if they are there for drugs or stealing food or not being able to find a better role model than the local drug dealer, which is the successful person in a neighborhood without hope or opportunity, if they are there for prostitution or shop lifting or check kiting, well, maybe our modern jail is just a new version of "poorhouse".  Those are definitely the petty crimes of the poor and desperate--and angry.  What teen or twenty-something has never been angry when they realize that those things on TV, on the "reality" shows, on the sitcoms, in the malls will never be theirs.  First we believe the hype about "The Land of Opportunity", then we get angry because we believed.  We hoped.  We dreamed.  But those were never supposed to be our reality.

They could be.  

Our nations biggest goal should be to end poverty this generation.  Clean it up, make it fair, stop the hate, stop the greed, stop the "crab in a bucket mentality", stop the "whack a mole" mentality.

We can all have plenty.  It's not a competition.

 



http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/how-we-ignore-poverty-and-blame-poor-people/ 

Democratic Socialism---is that a oxymoron?

The United States of America is a federation of states with a republican government, a capitalist economic system and a few social programs that came about during the great depression.
Let's compare us, the US, for variables that we will discuss further down the page.

Healthy Life Expectancy (thank the WHO--no, its not a band anymore)
1. Japan
2. Australia
3. France
4. Sweden
5. Spain
6. Italy
7. Greece
8. Switzerland
9. Monaco
10. Andorra
24.  The United States of America

Health Care Systems (followed by their healthcare expenditure per capital ranking in parenthesis)
1. France  (#4)
2.Italy (11)
3. San Marina (21)
4. Andorra (23)
5. Malta (37)
6. Singapore (38)
7. Spain (29)
8. Oman (62)
9. Austria (6)
10. Japan (13)
37. USA (1)

Mother's index from the WHO
1. Norway
2. Finland
3. Iceland
4. Denmark
5. Sweden
6 Netherlands
7. Spain
8. Germany
9. Australia
10. Belgium
33. USA

Income Inequality

1. Chile
2. Mexico
3. Turkey
4 .USA
5. Israel
6. Portugal
7. United Kingdom
8. Spain
9. Greece
10. Japan

Crime rate per capita--Violent and nonviolent

1. USA
2. United  Kingdom
3. Germany
4. France
5. Russia
6. Japan
7. South Africa
8. Canada
9. Italy
10. India

Murder rate per capita

1. Honduras
2. Venezuela
3. Virgin Islands
4. Belize
5. ElSalvador
6. Guatemala
7. Jamaica
8. Lesotho
9. Swaziland
10. Saint Kitts and Nevis
108. USA

Least Murders per Capita

1. Liechtienstein
2. Monaco
3. Singapore
4. Japan
5. Iceland
6. HongKong
7. Kuwait
8. French Polynesia
9. Bahrain
10. Indonesia
108. USA (We are right in the middle)

Prisoners per capita

1. Seychelles
2. USA
3. St. Kitts and Nevis
4. Anguilla
5. Virgin Islands
6. Barbados
7. Cuba
8. Belize
9. Rwanda
10. Thailand

Highest on the Democracy Index in 2013

1.  Norway
2. Sweden
3. Iceland
4. Denmark
5. New Zealand
6. Australia
7. Switzerland
8. Canada
9. Finland
10. Netherlands

Top Social democracies

1. Denmark
2. Finland
3. Netherlands
4. Canada
5. Sweden
6. Norway
7. Ireland
8. New Zealand.

The USA is on neither democracy lists---we are a republic that is currently trying to remove all social programs and  make everything a business--for profit-- schools, prisons, retirement, healthcare, all those very human community needs that will be governed by greed and how to jerk a little more money out of human suffering and human frailty.  Right now, Vietnam comes closest to a purely capitalistic nation, but we seem to be preaching for that pride of place, while building our Oligarchy of the rich.
 A republic (from Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which power resides in the Citizens  and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law.  We are currently trying to place the power in the hands of the monied through those laws.  At that time, as is true in all Republics, removing the citizenship of those that aren't "the right people" can change everything.  What if it were decided that to be a citizen, one had to possess real property, or had to have a certain amount of net worth to be a citizen?  (Feudalism and the dark ages come to mind)

We in the USA, have been taught that the governments of the world are on a continuum with
1_CAPITOLISM ___________________________
10Fascism/Communism_
                                                                                            

In truth, it would be more of a line like the one below, and balance is the answer.  Freedom to starve to death and be used to death and to suffer in inescapable poverty is not really what liberty, justice, the pursuit of happiness is all about.
-10Pure Capitalism___________________________
_0 Social Democracy_________________________
-10 Pure Fascism

                                                                                 
I removed communism, because, while Karl Marx loved the term, no one has ever been able to control a revolution of the people fighting a Oligarchy well enough to stop it while the people still ruled.  They have all stopped at a fascist state where once again the people lose.  Some Ideals just are too hard to put into practice.

What is Capitalism?

Capitalism is a social system based on the principle of individual rights. Politically, it is the system of laissez-faire (freedom). Legally it is a system of objective laws (rule of law as opposed to rule of man). Economically, when such freedom is applied to the sphere of production its result is the free-market.
Capitalism is closely tied to Social Darwinism--basically the belief that the meanest,  and greediest should win because they have the best genes. (this is only true if you use money as the score card)

Aren't Public schools Social Programs?

By the 1840s, a few public schools had popped up around the country in the communities that could afford them. However, that smattering of schools wasn't good enough for education crusaders Horace Mann of Massachusetts and Henry Barnard of Connecticut. They began calling for free, compulsory school for every child in the nation.
Massachusetts passed the first compulsory school laws in 1852. New York followed the next year, and by 1918, all American children were required to attend at least elementary school.

The schools were never because the poor children were crying for a good education but rather the new factories had no one to work in them.  Machines had diagrams, labels, and instructions.  It wasn't like pulling a plow behind a mule.

Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few.

If you were raised on the knee-jerk reaction to the word "socialism" and made it through this, there is hope for our regular people.    Now educate your friends and family.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
a definition and history

 http://chartsbin.com/view/6kx 
 above link is to a map and definitions of types of governments.

 http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/05/11/worlds-happiest-countries-social-democracies
 article comparing research on happiness and types of governments

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/01/22/10-startling-facts-about-global-wealth-inequality/
article and graphs on wealth inequality world-WIDE

/http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/
graphs and maps with rates of such things as alcoholism, cancer and heart disease

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats#src24
 article on global poverty with great links for more information at the bottom of the article.

joy and aspirations

Over the years, I have heard dozens of things that are the "one difference between animals and humans".  Most of them left me wondering if there was any difference.  But then I hear "the one thing humans do that other species do not is aspire". 
All my life I have heard we humans are not animals.  Since I have always loved animals and was raised by 2 parents that also loved them, I never understood why that differentiation was even necessary.  Apparently, it is needed when treating them like assets and resources.  "Don't name farm animals, it makes it hard to eat them."

I have heard farmers and hunters and mean little boys, that animals don't feel pain "like we do" and they don't get scared 'like we do".  I have also heard from those same people that it is best to not chase something right before you kill it as it makes it taste "gamey".  Translate this, its pumping out adrenaline and that copper-penny taste in your mouth when you are terrified, that goes all through the meat.  Sounds a lot like fear.

I have heard religious leaders go on and on about God giving us stewardship of the planet and use of all the planets and animals of the earth.  That only the humans have souls so using the animals is not bad.  It is what god made them for.  Those same leaders have gone through shifts in thinking and also determined that women (that didn't have souls before) have souls and people of other cultures (what would have been called "savages" in less politically correct times--read "not like us") have souls.  I'm thinking that those soul experts may not have much more idea about all that than the average 3 year old--or turkey.

I have heard scientists complain about soft-hearted animal lovers anthropomorphizing animals, giving them attributes of love, caring for their young, having friends, playing, mourning their dead, communicating and being emotionally ill--depressed, sad, happy, confused.  I have heard later studies that showed that those same attributes, while ascribed to instinct in the animal, were then considered to be present due to the change from dissection to understanding animals to observation to understand animals.  And while memories were though to be decidedly human, we have all seen dogs responding to their missing human returning after a long time, elephants recognizing a specific elephant from years before. 

So that leaves us with our human search for god, our soul, and aspirations.

I don't know why humans search for god, or seek answers to why we exist or think we have a soul.  None of those three things are knowable about animals because we can't really know anything about them with humans.  We humans speak to each other, but not to animals.  The old assumption that people that didn't speak our language therefore they were not smart, did not know god or have souls was long ago proven to be a case of poor communication.

I do know animals feel joy.  I have seen it in their faces, watched it in their movements, or maybe I'm just anthropomorphizing.  I have seen birds sitting in a ray of sunlight after it has rained for days, and they have their heads up and their eyes closed and a look of pure peace.  I have seen a dog that is not a very good dog so seldom out to run, take off running like a maniac, grinning like a fiend and tail flying while he runs fast and hard and comes back around repeatedly.  I have seen a cat that settles down after alone all day, snuggles in, purrs and rubs  and kneads whatever is close.  I have seen joy on the faces of elephants in videos and joy on the faces of big cats when the person that raised them comes to visit.  I have seen it when an animal that used to always be next door comes for a visit.  It is hard to describe but I know it when I see it---it looks like more than happiness, it looks transcendant.

But Aspirations.  A strong desire to achieve.  Not just people-pleasing.  NOT just attention-seeking, and Not just trying to become rich and famous, but the desire to actually achieve a thing that has not been achieved before--either personally and/or by mankind.  Animals can like attention and treats and pats on the head, can be competitive (prey and predators are both competitive).  But the aspiration to get humanity into space, to build a tower to heaven, to see an atom, to create world peace, to end poverty---to aspire--that is something I have not seen in other species.

Joy is good.  Joy is great.  But to aspire to something that moves us all to a better place in history.
That would give us all joy.

immigration and magnet schools

In the 1960's, the large city near my little neighborhood decided to fix their segregation problem and meet national requirements by starting a Magnet School program.  It was award winning at the time.  The reality of it was less sparkling, though

The High School they decided to turn into the magnet was an all-black school on the north side and it represented the neighborhoods of the northside, which was also segregated.  They did not stop everyone that would go there due to geography from going there, but they halved the people that went from the neighborhood, sent the half that was no longer automatically in that population to small, poor but white schools that weren't that far away or busing them across town to the all-white high schools.  They then upped the curriculum, added college classes, advanced classes, better music, art, science, and math classes and went from 3 sports to the addition of things like tennis, golf etc.  They then had the white students apply to go there based on their strengths.

Soon the school had the best band, chorus, won the academic awards, and those students that were just going there became the losers.  They eventually made all the students apply.  It was and is a better school, but by pulling the talent out of the other schools, a lot of students lost sight of students that excelled and those students that attended the school, that might have been valedictorian at their old school were now just one of the crowd.

Time passed, and the northside, southside, westside, eastside divisions became pockets of poverty and hopelessness with only the magnets and charter schools to provide hope.  The wealthy sent their children to the same prep schools that they had always sent them to.  The upper middle and determined to moved to the suburbs where the schools were best according to test scores and sports opportunities.  Now, instead of racial segregation, we were segregated by money.  The cities schools are in a constant fight to get off the failure to succeed list.  The teachers are threatened if they don't succeed, so the best move out.  The cities attempt to deal with segregation without really fixing the problem has made everything worse.

So now we  (not me personally,  no one asks for my opinion but I seem to have one about everything--read this as the USA and other countries that are experiencing growing pains and blaming it on immigration) are trying to halt the immigration of the wrong people.

We don't want more poor, uneducated, desperate refugees seeking to replace their unsafe homeland with something that won't kill them and we don't want more hopeless, unprepared but aspiring people  that seek the land of opportunity coming over and competing with our own hopeless and unprepared but aspiring children and relatives by working for less money.

What we want, is for the well educated individuals that are willing to do those jobs that we don't have anyone trained to do, those talented individuals that can help us move up in IT or Medicine or Research, to immigrate here and also to work for a little less.  It would be helpful if they looked like what we expect well-educated, intelligent, successful people to look like, but as long as they are willing to assimilate, they are welcome.

People mostly immigrate for three reasons.
1. They are refugees--something, a natural or manmade disaster (war, fire, tsunami, huge earthquake, volcano, coupe, genocide, human trafficking) has taken their home, made it unsafe for themselves or their family, and driven them out.  No one chooses to be a refugee.  No one can safely stay in the country they called home when they are a refugee.
2.  They are hopeless--The country they were born in has shown them that they will never be successful, they are the wrong color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or they have a physical or mental disability or a set of beliefs that place them at risk for starvation, beating, imprisonment, ostracism, and believe that there is another place where they can find hope.
3. Adventurers--those people that see every opportunity as an adventure.  They are risk-takers, shakers and movers, lunatics.  They are also not the most common group immigrating.  These individuals are much more likely to get a visa, or fly in on a kite, then go home when the adventure is over.  This also seems to be the only group the USA really wants to deal with.  "Come on in, spend your money, share your thoughts, leave when you have nothing else to give us."

While Columbus may have been that winning #3 candidate, adventurous and going home when he has what he wants, the rest of us got here via immigrants of the first 2 varieties.  We were trafficked, be were bond servants avoiding imprisonment, we were religious outcasts, tenth children of poor people, hopeless, ostracized, seeing our only future in a new land.  Three hundred years ago, no one was turning anyone away.  One hundred years ago, our nation was starting to squawk if the faces were too brown or the religions too diverse.  These days--we only want the cream.

Why would the cream of the crop of a nation migrate?  For a better country? A better paycheck?  Why?  We are not number one in the USA for most things that make people that already have their choice of places to go and salaries to request  make that choice.

We are attractive to people in places that have no freedoms.  We are attractive to people that see us as accessible on foot and having some chance of living--not dying.  We are attractive to people that have no idea what it is like in real life.  Our TV shows make us look like everyone has money and opportunity.  Our homeless people, our prisoners, our children and women that have been forced into prostitution or into slave labor, they aren't on the TV sitcoms.

And our hate, we do not put that hate on TV.  We do not show that the same thing that made states and cities have to come up with plans to stop segregation, exist.  Our melting pot is full of people that think their way is better, their genes are better, their religion is better, and their brains are better than those people that are not like them.  The people in power whine when the opportunities they were born with are offered to people that have never had those opportunities before.  We are so afraid of competing with people we view as inferior and being proven wrong in our assumption of superiority.  We believe there is a limited amount of resources and opportunities and sharing might mean not having either for ourselves or our loved ones.

Can we become a more secure, less hateful, fearful, acquisitive, greedy,competitive, judgemental nation?

I think I'm counting on it. 

Bernie Sanders--I'm in.

Bernie Sanders announced his run for presidency and I'm in.
I'm in, not because I have always wanted to be a socialist---which I remember when I was young hearing the actual definition and not really understanding why it was such an evil thing, but accepting that everyone else must be right. 
I'm in, not because I have a problem with a female president--I would be in if it was Elizabeth Warren also.
I'm in because the words coming out of his mouth match the votes coming out of his work in congress.
I'm in because he is still fighting for the people he represents and not wealthy, corporate donors that want one more vote to do the thing that hurts the regular people while ensuring ongoing power and money flow to those that already have plenty of both.
I'm in because I promised myself that if there was a candidate that was not the same ole-same ole politician, read--"snake oil salesman", I would do my part. 

So, I'm in.

And I'll be annoying a lot of friends and relatives with my inability to avoid religion and  POLITICS for the peace of family gatherings.  I'll be beating whatever drums I can find.  I am going to stay true to what I believe and share that---because the land of my birth and 14 generations of ancestors and all the descendants I have, is currently being threatened by greed and corruption and bigotry and hate. 

I want to be part of the solution, and the solution is not to roll over while we return to a feudal system with rich land owners and power monger and poor peasants that work  constantly to live their short, brutal lives.  I don't want to live through a French revolution or A Russian revolution or A Chinese revolution--all brought on by systems in which the rich and powerful thought it was all right to treat everyone else as if they were disposable assets whose purpose it was to make those rich folks lives easier.

I am not a bit player in my own life drama.  My life matters.  And everyone currently in prison for bad choices they made trying to deal with their own hopelessness and poverty, their lives matter, and everyone currently homeless because the system allows for that, and everyone that is ridiculed for using SNAP because minimum wage won't pay for food and a place to live and a way to get to work and school supplies and daycare, they matter.  Every person that wants to further their education but can't go to school and work fulltime, everyone that wants to get an education in a field that is so undervalued that the salary won't pay the student loans, their lives matter.  And every young man of color that has been pulled over for looking suspicious and been disrespected or pistol whipped or shot for talking back or not moving fast enough--their lives matter. 

Look around you.  If you can see anything that is not fair;  if opportunities for self-improvement are not within the grasp of someone your care about because your own family is not successful and powerful; if you are afraid for you offspring in the current climate, or for the safe retirement of your parents or for yourself,  you too know it is time to fix the problems. 

There is still time.  There is still hope.  But turning off the news is not the answer.  Ostriches don't really stick their heads in the sand, but humans that are scared definitely do.

Be Brave.  Vote for Bernie.

prince charming, winning the lottery, and luck spells.

While I gave up on prince charming long ago, I buy my lottery ticket religiously and am not above casting a luck spell--especially right before they pull those lottery numbers out of their hat.

I hate that little girls are taught that they need Prince charming, or his equivalent to save them from drudgery (cinderella)  eternal sleep (sleeping beauty) dragons, distress, poverty, powerlessness, victimization---you know--everything bad that can go wrong.  I do understand it, though.

While we watch, vicariously through the paparazzi, beautiful or rich or famous or powerful women or men as they live big, beautiful, rich, adventurous, risky, romantic lives, we look around our own little neighborhoods at the lives our children see us living and are underwhelmed.

My big adventure this week was taxes.  I still owe money I don't have; not a lot and not forever, but the 15th came and went and I couldn't pay it all.  Where is my fairy god mother when I need her.

Why do so many of us find ourselves in situations that could use a little help.  Not  "standing on an off ramp with a sign" help, but not "life is going fine and  I have everything I could ever wish for" either.  I do understand gratitude and thankfulness and staying positive and working hard and patience and hanging in there.  I am a survivor and there has never been any doubt about that.  But survivor is another word for a person that has suffered some really crappy breaks.

This is not about me whining.  It is about people that spend a lifetime with no hope more realistic than winning the lottery.  It is about trying to not become hopeless when you can't even see any possible way to pull yourself out of the latest problem. 

Who goes looking for Prince charming?  Young girls, even if they are pretty darn old at the time, girls that see themselves as homily, uncharming, unattractive, and also powerless and incapable of building a life without someone to help them find their own strength and beauty and value. 

Who plays the lottery?  People that have been struggling and struggling and realize they are treading water.  They can't ever change jobs and do better, they can't start on their bucket list, they have as much chance of  helping their loved ones as they have of winning the lottery.  So they play--buying a little hope every time they buy a ticket.

And luck spells? 

I've met lucky people.  At my work, the same people win the raffles and draws all the time.  I've known people that doubled their money every time they went to the casino and bingo players that always won at least one game.  I've known people that find money on the ground routinely, not pennies.  I've met people that ran into their prince charming in elementary school, married them, got rich, and lived happily ever after.

Luck, good fortune, call it whatever you want.   Some people have more of it than other's.  I haven't noticed positive thinking being the same thing.  I can't really tell the difference between the effects of positive thinking and the effects of being delusional.  I realize that being so negative you give up, lose hope, throw in the towel can guarantee failure.  You can't win if you don't play.  You will never succeed if you don't try.

So I skip Prince Charming, He is a girl's hope, really.  And I buy my lottery ticket, dream of how to make the most of the winnings, and light a candle to Fortuna.

Good luck to all of us survivors..

My fair Tax Plan

I did my taxes.  And as has been true after every single time I have been told that the taxes are lower, my personal rate went up.  Apparently, the rate is down and the deductibles are up if you are making a lot of money, like the kind of money where you can donate large amounts to the candidate of your choice.

In my tax plan, it is going to a flat rate--not flat like "everyone owes $10,000 dollars, which is less than I pay but more than a lot of people can pay, but a flat rate that is a percent and that does not have a million (i chose that number for its subliminal effect) deductions available for giving away massive amounts of money and making huge bad investments on purpose.

Its pretty simple, really.  And gives 10% to federal and 10% to states.  Because even God only asked for 10%.  It starts with a simple number, that is figured yearly.  A family of 1 person or 2 adults (per person because 2 can't really live as cheap as one unless only one of them get to buy anything) doesn't pay anything if they make less than the highest state's (Alaska) Federal Poverty level.  Children cost poor people about 8,000 per year each, so each child is a 8,000 deduction, and that number is also refigured  each year to match the changes that the value of the dollar and the economy create.

I could have chosen the middle class estimate which was about 16,000 per year or the rich person estimate which was about 32,000, but which ever is chosen, it is used no matter your income not stepped up for middle and high--everyone wants to do more for their kids.  So a person making the US median income, that is 50% above and 50% below, if single and no children would pay 43,585-19920 = 23665 x0.10%=$2366 to federal and the same to their state.
A person that made $20,000 would only pay 8$. to federal and 8 to state.
If that same median income person was a couple with 3 children under 18, that would be $43585-$19920-$19920=$3545-(3 x $8083) = -$21704.  And there you have your earned income credit.  It would mean that no one didn't have what was needed to at least care for their family at the basic level..

But what would that do to a person at the bottom edge of the top 2% of income earners?  I'll use $225,000 since it is hard to find anything more recent than 2013.
A married CEO with a stay-at-home wife has an income of $225,000 -$19920-$19920 = $205,080 x 0.10%= $20,508 to federal and $20,508 to state.  That same person with a stay at home wife and 2 children would owe $16,916 to both.

All income, whether from investments or from wages or company profits or bonuses would go toward the same number--"income".

What would that do to the tax base?  Why make the state and federal the same?  Because the state is responsible for just as much as the federal.  Would we collect as much that way?  I don't know, but those people that are in the top 1% would be paying the same share and those at the bottom would not be battling poverty and children whose future is aimed toward prison and homelessness and hopelessness.

In 2011, Warren Buffet (I actually like this man, but his income was easy to find) made $62,855,038.  If he paid taxes with my plan, he would owe $62,855,038 - $19,920 = $62835118 x0.10%= $6,283,511 to federal and the same to his state.   He actually paid a little more than this in federal taxes, but I have no idea what his income would have been if it hadn't been adjusted to make capital gains, etc not as much.  I also don't think he paid nearly this much for state income tax. I suppose if a person that has income in multiple states, it would be divided out in the same manner it was earned--50% from Kentucky then 50% back to Kentucky, 10% from California, then 10% back to California.

About 42% of the federal revenue is from individual Income tax.  The 2013 Federal revenue was about 2.8 Trillion dollars so $1,176,000,000 came from personal income tax.  There are about 115,227,000 households in the US now.  About 27 percent of those household have only one person in them.  About 46% of households have at least one child.  That means over 25% of households have at least 2 adults and no children.  The US population has reached 318,892,103 with 74,181,467 under the age of 18.    The percent of households living in poverty ranges from 7.6% to 21.6% depending on the state.

But look at what else is changed by a fairer tax law.

If I can figure this on a blog, I'm pretty sure the IRS can downsize.  Also, how many variations of TURBOTAX--a tragically glitchy and expensive program that is good for 1 year and that charges extra for just about everything.  How about the cost of all those tax forms that still exist and the cost of tax accountants that have no other job than trying to find more ways to not pay taxes.  I searched for information about the cost of the IRS and the profits from tax companies, but found nothing.

I do know that a ton of companies rise up in January, start hiring people to stand around in weird costumes to wave people into the "get your taxes done" places.  There is a crapload of bad debt every year that comes from sales in which the first high rate payment is an expected tax return.  People that owe 250$ on taxes pay 250$ to get their taxes done.  People that expect to get $900 back go to the car lot of the renta center and have them done and end up with something that is at least $900 dollars over-priced.  For 2 minutes after the beginning of tax season, people that got something back are buying things they usually couldn't afford.  The week of April 15th, people that still owe a bit are trying to figure out where to get the money to pay that in.  The current system is soooo flawed.

Is it possible that 10% wouldn't provide as much revenue?  Maybe.  Do we need to spend more on defense than all the other countries combined?  We should be the safest, most peaceful country in the world for all the money we spend on defense, yet we fall between Argentina and Jordan, with 91 countries that have more violent deaths than we do and 100 countries with less violent death.

Corporate taxes are less than 10% of the federal revenue.  The next biggest source of revenue for the federal government are those two items we pay out from our paychecks--social security and medicare--a whopping 34% of revenue.  It is no wonder all those lawmakers keep wanting to grab that money for their own use.  But it is designated.  It is we, the people's annuity retirement plan.  We pay it in, we get it back--at least if we live long enough.  Those lawmakers have dipped into it before, in fact, that revenue got popped into the general revenue where it was used for the annual budget.  It reminds me of the gambler parents that use their childrens savings to go to the casino.

We are a big country, third largest by population, but less than half the size of the bigger two--China (#1) and India (#2).  We are more than twice the population of Russia, but Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria and Bangladesh have populations larger than Russia.  We have 3 times the population of Mexico and 5 times the Population of the UK--of course the UK used to be much bigger, it is now just North Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.  At one time, the British Empire included much more, including parts of Canada, Africa, the Caribbean, India, Australia and our own first 13 colonies.  When I was a kid, China (called "red china", but not because they were republican, it was our own bit of ignorance and fearmongering.  One of these days I'll look at what made a country with as old and proud of history as China revolt against their power structure, (That would take a while, because we never really touched that in school)  was known to be huge and threatening.  It and Russia were considered to be the two countries that could threaten the USA defense.  The cold war was very much alive.  India, almost as large, was almost unspoken of.  They were independent of England by 1947, but I think most of us saw them as small, poor, and powerless due to their previously being just a part of the British Empire.  Pretty silly on our part.

Glad that China and India aren't spending as much per person on defense as we are in the USA.

So what should taxes be used for?
For the good of the people both present and future.  What does that look like?

1. The continued care of the land that sustains us.
2. Infrastructure to keep everything moving.
3. The health of the people.
4. The education of the people.
5. The safety and defense of the people.
6. The improvement of the standard of living of everyone.

That is my plan.
Share it with those congressmen that still think that just because big business gives them money for greasing their wheels, the rest of us feel like that about them and their tax breaks.  Every Corporation--10% to federal and 10% proportioned out between the states they are in according to how much money that state brings them.  They use the roads, they use the education and healthcare for their employees.  If they are people too, they can pull their weight.  (a small business that isn't making poverty level after expenses gets the same deal as a person not making enough, but a business that needs an earned income credit needs to just go get a job like the rest of us.

the history of history

I have always loved history--the subject history, the study of and the stories of and the paraphernalia that we keep to remind us of the stories.  These days, history is being discussed because of the inability to pull the perspective back from the people in power to a more global and all-seeing-eye perspective.  That is a hard thing to do.  I have read some books where authors did a fair job and seen a few movies where directors did a not as good as they had hoped job.  Perspective is deceptively difficult to get past.

When I was a child, 7ish, I already liked history.  I didn't officially take it in school, but holidays, church, common conversation was steeped in the history of both the dominant culture and our specific families.  It was also enmeshed with the times.  My favorite time was the prehistoric time, with cave boys on mammoths and dinosaurs moving rocks to build houses and fossils in LIFE books that looked a little like birds, a little like monsters and human bones that looked like monkeys or humans or monsters.  Those images became a part of my life view.  I could not imagine a world with evolution, without fossil remains, without cave men and cave paintings.  I thought we all shared those images.  I thought they were universal. 

Forty years later, I discovered that there were people--not just in far and strange lands, but my age in my town than thought that all those images were frauds:  Science fiction created by the devil to draw us down a false path.   Their children questioned the moon walk--the first one, although they were no more fond of Micheal Jackson's version years later.    They didn't have my LIFE books or my Childcraft books when they were 7.  They did not share my perception of history.

History, as taught in public school in the United States was always very patriotic. It always started with Columbus discovering the NEW WORLD. Then we were a continent of people that came here to escape religious persecution and find freedom.  It was taught as if the 284 years between discovery and the beginning of the United States of America becoming a nation was a short little moment.  The only thing of import being that central America was taken by those greedy Spaniards for the gold, and the first thanksgiving with Indians and Pilgrams sharing a meal.  Then it was time for the revolution and the signing of the declaration of Independence. 

Two hundred and eighty four years.  That is 14 generations (with the standard 20 years per),  a single chapter in my high school history book.  From first grade coloring of turkeys and pilgrams to second grade"s singing program of patriotic songs like "this land is your land" (no one explained who wrote that or that he was from my state or that he was controversial at the time) to "america the beautiful", to "the star spangled banner" and others, so many others.  Then we started history as such, and it always started with Columbus, then conquering of the Aztecs (or maybe I remember that because our neighbors vacationed in Mexico City and brought back slides of the Aztec artifacts and stories of people being sacrificed and the conquistadors vanquishing them.) and then the Mayflower, and the revolution and the civil war and we never actually made it past the civil war.  I took the second half of US history in college because I had never heard anything about it except from old relatives. We also had Oklahoma history and that started with the conquistadors traveling through our state and then skipped to the trail of tears and the Land rush.  Then Statehood and stealing the capital from Guthrie and, well it was taught by a coach, and I did learn a little about football.

College history was better, at least once it was classes chosen and not classes required.  History professors do like history.  Even the required class required me to look a little more deeply--or perhaps that was also due to the time, we had just pulled out of the 60's and demonstrations and civil unrest.  Such things can cause thoughtful people to question what they have always been told.  My socialogy teacher was a self-proclaimed socialist.  If he had been less irascible and annoying it might have actually made me examine my supreme hatred of that system.  We were still in the Cold War and socialism was just another name for communism.  That was about as bad as a government could be.

Perspective.

Things I never heard about in my public education in the U.S.A. 

• The french revolution
• Cromwell
• The science and arts in the Ottoman Empire.
• The Cause of the Russian Revolution
• The Cause of the fall of China and Rise of "RED" China.
• Why we were in Vietnam
• Why we were in North Korea
• Why we went to fight in WWI
• Why we were so slow to go to fight in WWII
• Why we ended up fighting with Japan (that is still a little unclear, but they seem to have fired the first shot--Pearl Harbor and all)
• Who was on the land that was given to the Jews after WWII to become Israel
• The colonialization of Africa, India, South America, Australia.
• Local things like--tribal schools, reservations, small pox infected blankets,

 So what was the goal of my history classes in my public education?  Was it to make me think?  Was it to make me understand how we had all reached this place in time we call today?  We all heard about communinist countries that rewrote history and made it seem as if the communists were the good guys and the government that they had destroyed was the enemy.  We have now heard of Europe history buffs telling us that Hitler did not try to destroy the Jews.  He have heard that North Koreans believe that their Leader is divine.

What do we really know.  What has history taught us. 

We know that whoever is in power controls history.  We know that teaching people a story that makes those in power out to be all good and making those that were destroyed, overthrown, misused all bad or in some way inferior makes  us feel we are on the side of winners.  We identify with the powerful.  We are loyal.  We are patriotic. 

I have talked to people that live in this country and that have their own family history which does not jibe with the current story of history.  People that remember their grandmother telling them of punishment for speaking the language of her family while living at an Indian school.  People that remember when Korea was one country, or that are here as Zorastrians and are afraid of the christians in their neighborhood because religious freedom only goes so far.  People that have heard stories of slavery and are still seeing the effects of being treated as if they are not part of this country.  People that came here recently from another country and found that we are not really that free, that equal--that the land of opportunity is more bumper sticker than truth.

Public schools were created at the beginning of the industrial age to help educate and indoctrinate a rural and uneducated group of people that had been living on farms and ranches and otherwise "off the land" so that they would make good workers in their factories.  The factories needed people with the ability read and do calculations, to follow directions and submit to authority.    Public schools were made, not for the good of the common man, but for the good of the rich and their newest money making enterprises.  The children of the moneyed had always had access to education.  They didn't learn to sing patriotic songs and color turkeys.  They recieved a "classic education"  which we would now equate to an expensive prep school. 

History, if it is to keep us from repeating it biggest mistakes, must be a truer history.  It must include the history of those places we, in the nation, have ignored.  It must tell the story of the oppressed as well as the glory stories of the oppressors.  We must all seek out a more complete, more global, story if we are to avoid the mistakes that have already been made repeatedly. 

Snobbery and Assumptions

I passed the video with the large, scruffy-looking man talking about racism for several days without opening it.  It had "gone viral" according to the comment by the posting.  I still skipped it until my own insomnia made me look.

It was a selfie-video from a pickup truck.  His accent was thickly southern, self-proclaimed "redneck" and admitted racist.  That last part was not "I'm a white supremacist and proud of it"  It was more of an admission of self awareness.  He spoke at length about the USA, its past, its dominant culture, the effects of that on our country--he called us a white supremacist nation.  I was a little horrified.  Not that he said it while looking like he might just pull down a white pillowcase with eye holes when he finished speaking (my original assumption when I saw the post) but because he was so correct.

Those of us that consider ourselves well-educated, well-spoken, above the hoi polloi, frequently dismiss that earthy majority as if having certain accents, being part of the more "common" culture in some areas of the country makes them incapable of intelligence, of self-awareness, of goodness.

Why would that be true?  I am offended by women in my age group that still make comments about how scary it is to be alone in a hallway at work with someone that works in housekeeping because they are a male of another race or act as if they are in some way at the mercy of poor people in general so never drive to anything that takes them through neighborhoods that are "not like mine".  I suspect my own neighborhood would qualify as one of those, though it is so far out in the sticks that they are more likely to have trouble with the snakes and coyotes than "those people".  A lot of my neighbors or their children look like that "good ole boy" in the video.  I'm not friendly so long talks and discovery of unmined wisdoms and cognitive gold has not happened.  I have not assumed they were RACISTS as I have seen no evidence of that.  I always assume some lowercase racism with everyone.  We--humans in general--are so prone to the "us vs them" mentality that it is just part of the background noise of life.

So my shock was not so much the idea that our nation, our melting pot nation that started with colonialism and the eradication of the native cultures of the land and built using the slave labor of people that were treated like the natural resources of another continent that colonialism ravaged, was as racist in its own assumptions as the old apartheid system in South Africa.  (we all decried that as wrong--so much easier to identify wrong when it is them than when it is us).  My shock was that I had so rapidly dismissed the value of anything that man could say due to his appearance.  And yes, I almost turned it off again when he sounded so much like Billy Bob in Slingblade, (a movie I love, by the way)

I do not consider myself a snob.  I try not to make negative assumptions about people based on their appearance or their specific culture.  I try to keep an open mind.  If I didn't try so hard, with so much self-examination of my own motives, I might still be passing over that video.

What else have I missed due to my own snobbery and assumptions?

surprising and remarkable!

I embarrassed a new co-worker and had to examine my own meaning last week when I pronounced the newly hired person "surprising and remarkable" in front of the boss.
The new woman stammered.  The boss gave me the stink-eye and asked "exactly what does that mean"

I had no idea, but that didn't make it less true.

SO at 0100 this morning, I woke up from a cat attack (some cats are more wild than others and can't seem to control that urge to stalk and kill) and then couldn't turn off my brain.  I pondered and questioned and thought.  I ruminated and worried. 

This is what I came up with.
Surprised is like startled or shocked, but generally pleasant, like an unexpected gift or a birthday party in which you actually have fun or a day off all to yourself when it is beautiful outside and you have nothing better to do than wander about aimlessly.
Remarkable is, well, able to be remarked about.

I think that neither adjective meant much when I was 8 years old.  I was not jaded.  I had not seen it all.  chocolate ice cream, a movie with fairies, a box of crayons would all be describable by "Surprising" and "remarkable".

In my teens, I could add things I didn't understand, like sexual innuendos and Rock and Roll and gossip.

In college, both were used when the conversation turned to ideas, plans, things never thought of before.   Experiences that had never been experienced before. 

By my twenties, work was more time consuming, life more routine.  Those words could probably not be used often, and twenty-somethings that used them would have been highly suspect.  (Pod people? body double? what is up with her).

After a while, life was rather mundane, conversation was only intimate with very close friends and when you know someone very well, surprising is not as common.  Remarkable is frequently replaced with "have you seen my socks?"  Responsibilities and day to day activities consume conversation and that reallly is life.

At work it is worse.  Weather as a conversation topic is usually safe.  What you and your family (substitute friends, loved ones, pet, club, etc) did last pm after work or on the weekend is always fair game to share with a coworker.  (Leave off arrests, affairs, illegal substances and acts of vandalism.)  If you are a good listener, those individuals that always want to vent will find you and tell you everything.  E--VERY-Thing!  Frequently, they forget they already told you  that and will  come around again and tell you-- again.  The good thing is they don't really want interruptions.  If you nod or say "uhhuh" or "right" periodically, they don't even insist you stop doing your work. 

That is neither surprising or remarkable.

So what made this new, thirty-something employee both?

She thought before she spoke.  What she said was honest even if it wasn't in agreement with what other people were saying.  She was aware of current events and was not just spouting her parents' opinions, she could explain her opinion and give cogent reasons for having it.  She was not what I refer to in my own head, as the "humiliatingly unhumble new expert".  They come in with the attitude that they already know everything and are here to fix all the problems before they have had time to even know what the problems might be.  She was also not the newbie that expected everyone to not expect anything out of her for 6 months. 

She was open about what she knew and what she didn't know.  She did not try to "yes-man" the old-timers. 
She was unapologetically herself. 

I really hope she stays around a while.

Profiteering

This is from Wikipedia--which we all know is not the most accurate source of information all the time, but makes a great jumping-off spot.
(Capitalism is an economic system and a mode of production in which trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned and operated for profit.^[1][2] Central characteristics of capitalism include private property, capital accumulation, wage labor and, in many models, competitive markets.^[3] In a capitalist economy, the parties to a transaction typically determine the prices at which assets, goods, and services are exchanged.^[4]
The degree of competition, role of intervention and regulation, and scope of state ownership varies across different models of capitalism.^[5] Economists, political economists, and historians have taken different perspectives in their analysis of capitalism and recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire capitalism, welfare capitalism, crony capitalism and state capitalism; each highlighting varying degrees of dependency on markets, public ownership, and inclusion of social policies. The extent to which different markets are free, as well as the rules defining private property, is a matter of politics and policy. Many states have what are termed capitalist mixed economies, referring to a mix between planned and market-driven elements.^[6] Capitalism has existed under many forms of government, in many different times, places, and cultures.^[7] Following the demise of feudalism, capitalism became the dominant economic system in the Western world.)

I have always been in favor of Capitalism!  (my parents were for it, scared of being bombed by the USSR or RED China and made sure we got that our way was the only good way)  Well, except for that short period in college when I had the strange little sociology grad. student teaching freshman intro to soc.  He was weird, so he didn't make me change, but he did a good job of adding some questions to my mind.  So I then was almost sent to a camp for deprogramming for asking those questions during the following summer--"what if everyone got to choose their own job according to what they were good at  and and what they wanted to do, but we all made the same amount of money?"  The horrified answer was  "dammit, then we'd be commies"

I dropped that.  Went on with my life constantly trying to find a job I liked and that paid enough to live on(in my world, it was never the same job, sometimes it wasn't even the same two jobs), all the time watching what TV showed as middle class existence and my own world which was more of a BET series or maybe an HBO look at the struggles of a down and out family.  That was a time in which just getting by was all consuming.  The world went through a lot of changes, and all I noticed was I still couldn't keep all the bills current AND get my kids the clothes they thought were necessary to compete with their classmates.  The bills won and the kids still complain about that.

So what does any of this have to do with profiteering.

EVERYTHING!

Capitalism is all about making a profit.  What no one tells the students in class learning about it, is that most of us are not in the group that receives the profits.  Most of us are under the expense column.  We are skilled labor or unskilled labor.  We are in marketing or accounting.  We are in research and development.  We are in the technology budget.

 The profits go to the stockholders.

So, while capitalism runs our nations, most of us are not stockholders, we are expenses to be controlled.
That explains why, despite making a profit, the raising of the minimum wage is fought tooth and nail and giving better benefits is not seen as helping the company.  It is all about how much of the money obtained from sales goes back to the stockholders.

Amazingly, stockholders didn't have to do any work, they just had to buy stock.  And if all those expenses perform well and at a low enough cost, the profits go up.  And the people that created that profit, profit not at all.

Right now, we have huge income inequality and a huge fight to keep that inequality as it is.  The same thoughts that made my own parents teach me the evils of anything but capitalism are still using the same methods---only the names are changed because---names and borderlines change.

Currently in the news:  We are having a major fight on the political, economic and street fronts for/against raising the minimum wage.  If all the jobs had increased evenly, by percent, the current minimum wage would be $21.00/hour. (I used my own wage, but am in a field with a high demand right now.  If I had used the increase in CEO pay, they would need to be $75.00/hour.  The $15.00 currently being suggested is based on what is should be by cost of living/inflation increases.  And yet there are people making less than that claiming it is too much.  (now who needs deprogramming?)

We have people in healthcare griping about Obama care, which would get rid of all that unpaid healthcare that has been wrecking havoc on hospitals due to loss of payments by people without insurance.  So, who is actually complaining and why:  well, there is more government over site and pay is going to be more standardized.  Selling patient's drugs and procedures and hospital stays to increase profits will be identified and stopped.  A dying patient does not need a $200,000 surgery unless that surgery can save them, yet patients with stage 5 lung Cancer have had major heart surgery, only to die without every making it home.  That is what oversight is about.  People that are blind from glaucoma will not profit from cataract surgery and annual colonoscopies for diverticulosis does not help the patient, they just bring in money.  The people talking bad about Obama care are insurance companies (more oversight and thus fewer of those ridiculous clauses they don't pay on) pharmaceutical companies (more oversight of those high cost meds that are no better than their cheaper cousins)  physician Lobby groups (sooooo powerful, there is a reason that physicians make more money than all other Doctorate prepared people)

In the news was standardized test companies pouring money into lobbying for their company and "for profit"  jails/prisons with quotas that the states/cities have to reach to keep their contracts (how is more people in the prison system really good?) there is a proliferation of career and internet colleges with tuition higher than the highest Ivy League school that promises to make everyone, no matter what their difficulties a successful person. For Profit career colleges have been doing this for thirty years but when that degree cost so much that you owe more than you can ever make per year, that is more scam than education. (brings to mind my fathers "smart pill" joke).

We have lawmakers making laws that determine what is science, using greed and wishful thinking as their conscience.  We have the ability to clean up our environment but while it is do-able, it will take profits from a giant industry--petroleum.  Rather than using this time to find other energy sources and becoming the front line in those, they have focused on keeping their own power just as it is and damn progress and the environment and the future of the planet.

We have a War on Drugs, and there is so much under the table money being passed around to keep that war going that it makes prohibition look like a minor error in law making.  Legalize them.  Pull the teeth of the criminal enterprises and tax the addicts and recreational users, and stop filling the pockets of the stockholders of the For Profit Prisons and Jails.  And Get those drug users and dealers with no violent behavior back out of those prisons.  Those three strikes for drug crimes are lives that don't have to be lost.

And the big bear--the WAR MACHINE.  Weapons manufacturers, military suppliers, and that includes all those "meals-ready-to-eat" makers and uniform factories and combat boots and hanger's on industries that profit most highly when there are people being killed in the name of a country and its wants.  Any company that can only profit during a time of war is not a successful company.  If they can't make a profit without someone dying, they should quit.

Perhaps the worst of the profiteers are our lawmakers.  The old "fox in the hen house" comes to mind.  When the ethics of those determining the fate of our country is up for sale to the biggest SUPERPAC, the whole checks and balances system is thrown into a tailspin.  When the people being voted in no longer fight for those people, but rather fight for the money that backed them, only the profiteers win. 

There is nothing wrong with making a profit.  If I sell what I make for the cost of the materials I used to make the thing, I will starve.  A profit is not unfair.  Profiteering is beyond that, it is when we change the system, use the emergencies, use the fears, create a system in which the only important thing is the profit.

We need our ethics back.