Manly’s Blog

The things you don’t read about Barack Obama
Sat. May 2 - 5:46 AM
Will Rogers famously pleaded that all he knew was what he read in the papers. If all a person knew of Barack Obama’s first 100 days as president was what they read of them in this newspaper, it would seem to be a very charmed young presidency.

The Chronicle Herald recently made space for an urgent Associated Press dispatch from Washington informing readers the Obamas had chosen a Portuguese water dog. Not original reporting, of course, but an AP rephrasing of a White House-arranged scoop in the Washington Post online.

That was followed by a crack Canadian Press report, drawn from such gumshoe news-gathering as reading the Huffington Post, on the “hillbilly” Republican governor of Alaska: her “family and political theatrics that would do Jerry Springer proud,” like “the arrest and indictment of her sister-in-law on break-and-enter charges” and “the sordid revelations of her daughter’s ex-boyfriend.”

The Portuguese water dog and Alaskan “hillbillies” news beats apparently leave little time for anything remotely skeptical of the president of the United States. And they wonder why folks aren’t buying the papers like they used to.

So here is a small selection of news on the most powerful man on Earth which has been deemed unfit to print:

•Obama’s first two major bills alone, the “stimulus” and “omnibus,” cost nearly twice as much as was spent on Iraq over six years – $1.2 trillion vs. $650 billion.

•Obama abandoned his campaign promise of “a net spending cut,” his first annual deficit – not counting bailouts – being three times the worst deficit under President George W. Bush.

•Obama’s objective in his first G20 summit – commitments to spend our way to prosperity with massive stimulus boondoggles across the G20 – was rejected out of hand.

•Obama’s objective in his first NATO summit – commitments to combat troops for Afghanistan from “our European allies,” which Obama and his party imagined were ready and willing to fight if only someone “enlightened” like him were running things – was predictably refused, with some more European non-combat contingents offered as a token.

•Obama’s Defence Department announced cuts of $1.4 billion to missile defence, the day after North Korea test-fired its long-range, multi-stage ballistic missile.

•Obama’s economics were criticized by Warren Buffet, whose endorsement had been candidate Obama’s highest economic credential.

•Obama reversed the free trade Bush policy that had allowed about 100 Mexican tractor-trailers into the United States, which the Mexican government immediately used as an excuse to levy tariffs on 90 American goods amounting to $2.4 billion in U.S. exports.

•Obama’s “tax cuts for 95 per cent” turned out to mean $13 a week from June to December, to be clawed back to $8 a week in January – as compared with President Bush’s 2008 tax rebates of $600 to $1,200 plus $300 per child, which were notably scoffed at during the election campaign by Michelle Obama.

•Obama’s campaign promise of a $3,000-per-employee tax credit for businesses that hired new workers – repeated ad nauseam for weeks before the election – was discreetly retired even before inauguration day.

•Obama abandoned his campaign promise that “lobbyists won’t work in my White House,” waiving his no-lobbyist executive order or conveniently re-

defining his appointees’ past lobbying work to allow 30 lobbyists into his administration.

•Obama abandoned his campaign promise to reform earmarks, signing the omnibus bill which contained 8,816 of them.

•Obama took more money from AIG than any other politician in 2008 – over $100,000 – and signed into law the provision guaranteeing the AIG bonuses which later had him in front of the cameras “shaking with outrage” and siccing the pitchfork crowd on law-abiding citizens who had fulfilled their end of a contract and had their payment upheld by Obama’s own legislation.

Why should these points, and many more like them, have to be made by some obscure contributor to The Chronicle Herald’s opinion pages?

Fox News Channel is the butt of jokes and the target of attacks like no other media outlet in the English-speaking world, not least by people who fancy themselves the guardians of a free press. But Fox News is today the lone television news service in the English-speaking world capable of serious skepticism and scrutiny of the sitting president and the Congress of the United States.

Fox News is also the second most-watched channel in all American cable television. It long ago became by far the most-watched cable news channel; more Americans watched Fox News than CNN and MSNBC combined in every time slot from 6 a.m. to midnight in April. Now, while The New York Times is $1.3 billion in debt, Fox has expanded its operations with a business channel and a juggernaut Internet presence.

There’s a lesson there, though Fox News will be just as well pleased if the impeccably “mainstream” news business remains clueless about it.

The people need a Fourth Estate, not yet another adulator of Barack Obama, yet another smearer of Sarah Palin, yet another patrician editor to keep out anything disagreeable to progressive sensibilities, yet another laptop-and-latte journalism-schooler to spit on everything pre-dating 1968. And they wonder why the news business has come on hard times.

Andrew W. Smith, from Cape Sable Island, N.S., writes and resides in Tulsa, Okla

Couldn’t have said it better myself.  I don’t agree with everything but the general principle that goverment is here to secure our rights and stay out of our way is dead on.

Manly

From Tcoverride.

“We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

That’s why we have a government in DC.

As to what I want them to do, that is outlined in the specific, enumerated powers of the US constitution.

The most important thing the framers established in the constitution was the idea that rights were not granted to the people, rather rights belonged to the people, and could not be taken away by the government, either by force or legislation.

They even went further, to say that any right not specifically enumerated in the constitution was left to the states, and if the states didn’t cover it in their constitution, then it was left to the people.

How amazing is that? Anything they or the states didn’t think of, is your right to do! Gay Marriage? is it illegal on the books? Then go for it! That was the idea the framers had. The government that governs least is best, we should be left alone to live our lives at our peril. We should be responsible for our own actions, and our own choices, and however good or bad those choices are, it should be left up to our communities, through charity, to help us should we fail.

The framers thought the idea of a federal tax on the people directly should be abhorrent, as even a 1% tax could some day, some how, be raised to 2%! What would they do if they saw our current tax rates? Their idea was that the fed was funded by the states. The states elect the president, not the citizens. It wa sup to the states to decide how their votes were cast, either through popular vote, fiat, or whatever means that individual state’s citizens chose.

Having said all that, what do I want my government to do?
I want them to stop social security and all other social welfare programs. Let local charities do that. Let people be responsible for their own lives.
I want the government to get out of the classrooms. I want schools to teach the ethics of the community.
A note on morality. All morality is wedded to religious beliefs. Government should never talk to morals, only ethics. Same goes for schools. Kids need to learn morals at home and at church.

I don’t want the federal government ever considering “bailouts.” What right does the government have to give my tax money to a private company? It’s why we have bankruptcy laws.

Moreover, I want a government that realizes they have no place in the economy beyond printing the currency. The free market is the surest path to success, as it is the only path that leads to constant innovation and growth.

I want a government that is accountable to its citizens other than during campaigns. I want politicians who are humbled by the responsibility of public service. I want federal politicians think “how is this best for the country” before they think “how will this get me reelected?”

I don’t want a government that tells me what I can or can’t put into my body, I want a government that ensures I have the means to know what I am putting into my body and lets me decide on whether or not to do it. (This applies to drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and Twinkies.) I want a government that knows it has no business in a woman’s uterus. I want a government that doesn’t care what you do in the bedroom, as long as all parties consent to it, and it stays in the bed room.

I want a government that defends our borders and national interests, that works to establish favorable trade with other nations, that encourages trade between the states, and places the needs of our nation before the needs of any other.

I want a government that doesn’t shy away from enforcing its own laws because the task is too hard. I want a government that realizes that NASA was a great idea, but the government has no business reaching out to the stars. Sputnik worried us because it meant the reds could range us with MIRVs. We can do likewise. Everything after that (including manned space flight) should be in the hands of private industry. How many times has the government just shrugged and gone back to the drawing boards when a multi-billion dollar craft carrying multimillion dollar satellites just goes up in smoke, or crashes because someone forgot to convert meters to feet?

How many times would that happen if the project was being run by a private company? (Good luck finding investors after posting a multibillion dollar loss. It generally teaches us to be very, very demanding and exacting in our results.)

I want the government to protect all of our rights. When is the last time a politician supported speech control?

Mostly, I want a government that is afraid of its citizens. A government that knows if they so much as try to impede on our rights, we will either imprison them or hang them.

I want a government of, by, and FOR the people. Not a government that exists for itself.

OBITUARY FOR COMMON SENSE

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain; Why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn’t always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers:

I Know My Rights

I Want It Now

Someone Else Is To Blame

I’m A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

“My definition of social justice: those who refuse to work deserve to go hungry.”

Manly

It pretty much sums up my feelings on the current trend of entitlement and wealth envy.

Manly

“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the
wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working
for, another person must work for without receiving. The
government cannot give to anybody anything that the government
does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people
get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half
is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the
idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going
to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end
of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”

~~~ The late Dr. Adrian Rogers , 1931 to 2005 ~~~

I don’t agree with everything Michelle Malkin says and I am sure the libs hate her with a passion but she is DEAD ON with her post below.

In this case, I agree with pretty much everything she is saying.  I am so sick of having to pay for the bad behavior and stupid decisions of everyone else.

I have worked my tail off to nearly have my house paid for and now I get to bail those out that were greedy and/or just plain stupid.  Ignorance is no defense for stupidity.

The fact that the government seems to want to turn all renters into homeowners is completely asinine.  People rent for a reason.  They don’t have the money or the discipline to own a home.

Manly

Questions & answers and more questions about O’s massive mortgage entitlement

By Michelle Malkin  •  February 18, 2009 11:28 AM

The White House just released the dirty details of Obama’s massive mortgage entitlement program.

Bottom line:

Refinancing for Up to 4 to 5 Million Responsible Homeowners to Make Their Mortgages More Affordable

A $75 Billion Homeowner Stability Initiative to Reach Up to 3 to 4 Million At-Risk Homeowners

Supporting Low Mortgage Rates By Strengthening Confidence in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

In addition, there will be forced mortgage modifications (bad idea when GOP pitched it, bad idea now) and unprecedented new meddling in private loan contracts, including a $10 billion “insurance fund,” $100 billion more for Freddie and Fannie (rewarding failures again), and a provision to “Allow Judicial Modifications of Home Mortgages During Bankruptcy for
Borrowers Who Have Run Out of Options” (pushed by Dodd and the Dems for more than a year now).

More details:

“Pay for Success” Incentives to Servicers: Servicers will receive an up-front fee of $1,000 for each eligible modification meeting guidelines established under this initiative. They will also receive “pay for success” fees – awarded monthly as long as the borrower stays current on the loan – of up to $1,000 each year for three years.

Incentives to Help Borrowers Stay Current: To provide an extra incentive for borrowers to keep paying on time, the initiative will provide a monthly balance reduction payment that goes straight towards reducing the principal balance of the mortgage loan. As long as a borrower stays current on his or her loan, he or she can get up to $1,000 each year for five years.


Reaching Borrowers Early: To keep lenders focused on reaching borrowers who are trying their best to stay current on their mortgages, an incentive payment of $500 will be paid to servicers, and an incentive payment of $1,500 will be paid to mortgage holders, if they modify at-risk loans before the borrower falls behind.

Home Price Decline Reserve Payments: To encourage lenders to modify more mortgages and enable more families to keep their homes, the Administration — together with the FDIC — has developed an innovative partial guarantee initiative. The insurance fund – to be created by the Treasury Department at a size of up to $10 billion – will be designed to discourage lenders from opting to foreclose on mortgages that could be viable now out of fear that home prices will fall even further later on. Holders of mortgages modified under the program would be provided with an additional insurance payment on each modified loan, linked to declines in the home price index.

Now, before we get to questions about O’s plan, let me remind you of the basic questions I had when Mitch McConnell proposed the GOP’s moronic mortgage entitlement plan two weeks ago:

Question: Why should government be guaranteeing mortgages? Isn’t that what got us into trouble in the first place?

Question: Why should government be setting mortgage rates? Aren’t those supposed to be set by the market?

Question: How can Republicans on the one hand argue that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mae, and other interventions in the housing and mortgage markets were bad and then at the same time propose a doomed policy along similar lines?

Question: Have Republicans learned nothing from the housing meltdown? “Credit-worthy” borrower = anyone with a pulse. Who will pay when these borrowers default on their loans? Taxpayers will.

Question: Who will sell these mortgages? Probably the banks. What incentive do they have to ensure the credit-worthiness of borrowers, since they will bear no risk if the borrowers default? Sounds like a formula for another mega-subsidy to the banks…to go along with all the others.

Question: Why do Republicans continue to believe, as Democrats do, that the number one goal of economic policy should be to prop up housing prices? (Recall McCain’s moronic $300 billion mortgage plan.) Why not let the market determine the correct level of housing prices? Clearly, in many parts of the country, housing prices are still too high.

The proper response by government is to let the market allow prices to decline.

The problem is too much borrowing, too much artificial inflation of home prices.

On what planet should the Republican/conservative alternative be to encourage more borrowing and to prop up prices so they don’t fall “too much?”

This is more of the same old, same old: Kicking the can down the road. Real change — fiscally repsonsible change — means sucking it up, allowing housing prices to fall, and getting the government out of the home-lending business.

What a disaster and — coming from Sen. McConnell — how sadly, utterly predictable.

More than a year ago, I called for the GOP to distinguish itself from the Big Government Democrats running for president and demagoguing this issue. Remember?

MakeStickers.com

The bipartisan meddlers in Washington are going to make the housing “crisis” drag on for a decade when, if they had adopted the suck it up plan in the first place, it would have been over by now.

You remember what the response from Senate GOP staffers was to my questions? They rationalized their support for this disastrous “solution” by explaining to me that Republicans needed to be “for something” because they didn’t want to look obstructionist.

Now, just as I warned, Obama has picked up the mortgage entitlement ball and run with it — with the muscle of ACORN thugs behind him. How is the underlying premise of his plan any different than what Senate Republicans foolishly championed two weeks ago?

At least the House Republicans seem to have a clue. Here are questions about O’s plan they’ve released this morning:

1. What will your plan do for the over 90% of homeowners who are playing and paying by the rules?

2. Does your plan compensate banks for bad mortgages they should have never made in the first place?

3. Will individuals who misrepresented their income or assets on their original mortgage application be eligible to get the taxpayer funded assistance under your plan?

4. Similarly, will you require mortgage servicers to verify income and other eligibility standards before modifying mortgages?

5. What will you do to prevent the same mortgages that receive assistance and are modified from going into default three, six, or eight months later?

6. How do you intend to move forward in the drafting of the legislation?

Chris Kinnan of Freedomworks adds a few more questions:

Will people who cashed out their equity with a refinancing be eligible?

Will borrowers who never had any equity in their homes be eligible (people who financed 100%)?

What is the upside for taxpayers if housing prices recover? Who gets the gain?

And mine:

How is this fair to renters and home owners who had the foresight to take on loans they could afford?

Will illegal aliens be eligible for the program?

Why is it government’s role to take my money to fund someone else’s property value preservation?

Answers, please.

For all the geeks out there like me.

Many people believed that by “change”, Obama intended to:

su - President
del /SpecialInterests
cd /newUS
./configure
make
make install

Unfortunately for them, by “change” he meant:

su - President
mv /SpecialInterests /opt/agenda2009

and they never expected to see

 cp lobbyists /home/whitehouse/cabinet/

  or

cp taxcheats /home/whitehouse/cabinet/

Most people who are well educated and interested in economics know who Keynes and Friedman are.  I keep hearing people mention Keynes in the news lately.  Few really understand his theories or his thinking.

What is more important, in my opinion is understanding the difference between Keynes and Friedman (who’s work came a long much later and is more widely accepted).

It interests me that the differences between the two are also basic differences between Liberals and Libertarians/Moderate Conservatives.

I.E. Government is everything to the Liberals, it will provide for our every need and save us from every problem we may encounter.  In contrast, Libertarians view government as a necessary evil and believe in personal freedom and less government intervention.  Low taxes, small but strong government, limited regulation.

Cato Stimulus

Will this guy ever get it?  Handing out money taken from the pockets of taxpayers to every Tom, Dick and Harry does NOT stimulate the economy.

I have to believe that Obama actually understands this.  He simply cannot be that stupid.  If he does understand this then it’s almost as bad.  He is now just paying back the special interests who put him in the White House.

If I were in charge of this mess, I would offer a little relief to homeowners, extend unemployment benefits and health care and do NOTHING ELSE.  The wheat needs to be separated from the chaff in times like these.  Sparing everyone the pain they NEED TO FEEL does little to prevent this from happening again.

Manly

Taken from the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama has started to play the “catastrophe” card to sell his economic stimulus plan, using yesterday’s terrible January jobs report to predict doom unless Congress acts. No doubt he’ll get his way, but the tragedy of this first great effort of the Obama Presidency is what a lost opportunity it is.

AP

Everyone agrees that some kind of fiscal stimulus might help the economy, and that running budget deficits is appropriate in a recession. The stage was thus set for the popular President to forge a bipartisan consensus that combined ideas from both parties. A major cut in the corporate tax favored by Republicans could have been added to Democratic public works spending for a quick political triumph that might have done at least some economic good.

Instead, Mr. Obama chose to let House Democrats write the bill, and they did what comes naturally: They cleaned out their intellectual cupboards and wrote a bill that is 90% social policy, and 10% economic policy. (See here for a case study.) It is designed to support incomes with transfer payments, rather than grow incomes through job creation.

This is the reason the bill has run into political trouble, despite a new President with 65% job approval. The 11 Democrats who opposed it in the House didn’t do so because they want to hand Mr. Obama a defeat. The same is true of the Senate moderates of both parties working to trim their $900 billion version. They’ve acted because they can’t justify a vote for so much spending for so little economic effect. You know a piece of legislation is in trouble when even its authors begin to deny paternity, as economist Martin Feldstein has recently done.

Speaking to a House Democratic retreat on Thursday night, Mr. Obama took on those critics. “So then you get the argument, well, this is not a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is? (Laughter and applause.) That’s the whole point. No, seriously. (Laughter.) That’s the point. (Applause.)”

So there it is: Mr. Obama is now endorsing a sort of reductionist Keynesianism that argues that any government spending is an economic stimulus. This is so manifestly false that we doubt Mr. Obama really believes it. He has to know that it matters what the government spends the money on, as well as how it is financed. A dollar doled out in jobless benefits may well be spent by the worker who receives it. That $1 of spending will count as economic activity and add to GDP.

But that same dollar can’t be conjured out of thin air. The government has to take that dollar away from someone else — either in higher taxes, or by issuing new debt in the form of a bond. The person who is taxed or buys the bond will have $1 less to spend. If the beneficiary of that $1 spends it on something less productive than the taxed American or the lender would have, then the net impact on growth will be negative.

Some Democrats claim these transfer payments are stimulating because they go mainly to poor people, who immediately spend the money. Tax cuts for business or for incomes across the board won’t work, they add, because those tax cuts go disproportionately to “the rich,” who will save the money. But a saved $1 doesn’t vanish from the economy, unless it is stuffed into a mattress. It enters the financial system, where it is lent to others; or it is invested in the stock market as capital for businesses; or it is invested in entirely new businesses, which are the real drivers of job creation and prosperity.

At the current moment, amid a capital strike, the latter is the kind of fiscal stimulus we really need. Yet there is virtually none of it in the bills now moving through Congress. Senate moderates may succeed in cutting $100 billion or so in spending from the bill, which is political window dressing. Even they aren’t talking about adding the kind of tax cuts that would really help the economy now.

We should add how different this is from the 1980s or even the 1960s. Democrats added business tax cuts to the Reagan package of 1981, while Jack Kennedy’s chief economist (Walter Heller) promoted marginal rate tax cuts on stimulus grounds in the 1960s. Yet Mr. Obama, on Thursday, dismissed any such tax cuts as “the same tired arguments and worn ideas that helped to create this crisis.” That’s rhetoric for a campaign, not for a President hoping to rally bipartisan support.

The biggest gamble with this stimulus is what it means if the economy doesn’t recover. Monetary policy is already as stimulative as it can safely get, and the Obama Administration is set to announce its big financial fix on Monday. Stocks rallied Friday on expectations of the latter, despite the job loss report, with big bank stocks leading the way. If done right, this will help reduce risk aversion and gradually restore financial confidence.

We hope it does, because the size and waste of the stimulus means we won’t have much ammunition left. The spending will take the U.S. budget deficit up to some 12% of GDP, about double the peak of the 1980s and into uncharted territory. The tragedy of the Obama stimulus is that we are getting so little for all that money.

I keep hearing people say that we have a Democracy here in the U.S. or that we need to “save” our Democracy.

When I hear that I think WOW.  Are most people that uninformed?  Have we corrupted the term “Democracy”?  Has the meaning somehow changed?

We do not live in a Democracy, we live in a Constitutional Republic.

Watch the video below for a more eloquent explanation of this fact.

Manly

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

Barney Frank is a symbol of all that is wrong with the far far left.  What an idiot.

I sure hope we all realize that judicious use of private planes by CEO’s of large companies makes a TON of sense.  From the safety/security standpoint for certain.  It’s also not in the best interest of a large corporation to have their CEO wasting time in airports when his time is worth thousands of dollars per hour.

Add to that the fact that it’s not the government’s job to run the day to day activities of any company.

Once again, Barney is playing to wealth envy.

Article below:

— cut here —

By Silla Brush

If House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass) has his way, companies with corporate jets will not receive any future bailout money.

President-elect Obama has asked President Bush to seek the remaining $350 billion before he takes office. Meanwhile, Frank introduced legislation with a wide range of restrictions on how the rest of the funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) may be spent.

One provision in Frank’s legislation specifically prohibits companies that own, lease, or hold an ownership stake in private planes from receiving money, unless they can show the Treasury secretary that they are in the process of getting rid of their access to the planes.

The restriction on corporate jets would apply as long as the company receives federal money under the bailout package.

Lawmakers scolded the heads of the Detroit automakers for traveling to Washington aboard their corporate jets as they sought billions of dollars in taxpayer assistance.

This letter was written by a man in East Texas as an open letter to Senator Obama. He really does exist and says anyone can email his letter around, just don’t change it. 

“Mr. Obama, Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me “Cory the well driller”. I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn’t go to college like you, I was too ready to go “conquer the world” when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in East Texas was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80’s oil boom. I didn’t get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. 

From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn’t afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck). A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. 

Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time… $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all. I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in East Texas. 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn’t work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. 

No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business. 2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business. A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going. 

Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in East Texas. Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers’ pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers’ product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. 

No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that’s ok, I didn’t expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me. Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn’t it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys’ (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. 

You see, at the very time when I couldn’t get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It’s funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country. 

You see, Mr. Obama, I’m the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I’m the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I’m the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn’t want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I’m the guy you characterize as “the Americans who can afford it the most” that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution “to spread the wealth” to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. 

I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What’s worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land. What is so terribly sad about this is this. America was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. 

If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of America could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn’t it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government. What’s remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn’t need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life. 

You see, I know because I’ve had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture. 

Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I’ve seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce “politically motivated”), you averaged less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else’s money you are giving to them. I won’t say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden. combined (don’t you just hate google?). Tell me again how you feel my pain. 

In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of America from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year. 

God help us… 

Cory Miller just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be. 

P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American… www.cmillerdrilling.com “

During these times, Veteran’s day has a special meaning for many of us.

Being at war brings out the patriotism in many people.  The other side of the coin are those that oppose the war and show their patriotism in different ways.  

However, on Veteran’s day it is time to put aside differences and remember those that are currently serving in the armed forces, those that died for your freedom and those that served honorably in the past.

I had the honor of serviing the the military and it was one of the best experiences of my entire life.  Even though there were many times I would have rather been somewhere else, I still look back on my 8 years with fondness.  I will never forget what it was like to share fear, pain, commitment, laughter and a great love for my country with the people that I served with. 

Those who make the commitment to be there when their country needs them deserve your thanks, make sure you take the time to offer it to them.

Manly

Amazing.  I agree with everything that Neal says below.

Number 17 below hits closest to home for me.  I am deeply saddened by the apparent lack of individualism that we have seen in this election process.  No more are Americans asked to provide for themselves.  It seems that they want a Nanny State government to provide for their every need.

Original post HERE.

A few thoughts for our next President and Congress, whoever may win.

1. You should run our country like we do our own households, live within your means.
2. Spend what you have, not what you’d like to have. When in doubt, just say no.
3. Just because the benefits of a policy are good, does not mean they outweigh the costs.
4. Just because the credit crisis is real, does not mean we need more regulation. Different, yes, more, no. As with most things, less is generally more.
5. You do not create jobs. We create jobs. But you do have the power to destroy jobs. Don’t forget that.
6. When it comes to taxes, the more you take, the less we make. In all senses of the phrase.
7. Energy is life. Our country has been built for 100 years on plentiful energy resources. We need cheap energy. Clean energy. And safe energy. All three, not just one or two.
8. Climate change and our environment are a problem. This is an area you owe it to your constituents to deal with.
9. Free trade is a good thing. Whether you understand it or not. If you don’t believe me, two words: Smoot Hawley.
10. Change is sometimes good. But considered change. Not change just for the sake of change.
11. Sometimes the best policies are the ones we did not do.
12. Making promises to win an election is all well and good, but in policy, compromise always wins. But please make sure that compromise does not mean pork. You work for all of us.
13. My generation faces a looming crisis in social security and medicare entitlement costs. Don’t make it worse.
14. Those who seek power are generally the last people who ought to be granted that power. Make sure, when your time is done, that you do not remind us of this axiom.
15. We really do live in the greatest nation the world has ever seen. We set all time world records every year. So when you are trying to “fix” our economy and foreign policies, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Ask why things have worked so well before you complain about what’s not working. And certainly ask that before you tell me that another country is doing it better than we are.
16. What makes us different than all other countries? A profound respect for property rights. The rule of law. The Constitution. The Bill of Rights. The belief that each of us has the power to change ourselves, and our world. Faith in God. Each of these, and all of these.
17. And finally, Who is John Galt?

-Neal Dikeman