Arab Spring and the Euro, patience is the key.

There is a lot of talk around the world that the Arab Spring has failed. People are worrying that it has failed because Egypt is under military rule, people are being massacred in Syria, Yemen is still having protests, Bahrain is seeing protests, Libya is still waiting for elections, and this is one year after the movement started. Very few movements have lasted just over one year with positive results for freedom. The overthrow of Communism lasted from 1989 to 1993 from the first protests in to the overthrow of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. That the revolution is not over should not surprise anyone, this is the natural state of the world going back through history. It took Germany 45 years from the overthrow of Nazi Germany in 1945 to Wiedervereinigung in 1990. The people of the Arab world need our support in the West where we have already gone through our own changes (The American Revolution lasted from 1775 to 1783, the final system of government was not in place until 1789, 14 years after the Boston Tea Party). So, be patient, revolutions hardly ever happen overnight, and history shows us that the most successful revolutions take years to happen, and the Arab Spring is one of those revolutions.

This also applies to the Occupy movement. I must divulge my personal bias, everybody has bias, and say that I am proud to be a member of the Occupy movement. The Occupy movement has similarities to the protests of the late 1800s in response the Industrial Revolution which ended the Gemeinschaft economy and replaced it where people were no more than tools, and the wages people got were worth nothing. It took a few decades before the poor Irish and German immigrants (who were biased against because of their nationality, but that's a different topic) were able to get recognition as full Americans as you can see now by many of America's elite having roots in these immigrant populations, for instance the Kennedy family among others. Their demands were simple. They wanted a fair day's wage for a fair day's work. They wanted to get benefits that would allow them to live good lives and to be treated as more than just gears which is what was happening. After several decades laws were made in response to the General Strikes and other important events. These include minimum wage laws, people need to be paid in real money and enough to live on, OSHA requirements, people need to be safe at work, the right to form unions to negotiate with employers, the right to have a work day of 40 hours a week along with overtime for work past 8 hours in a day, to prevent people from being overworked and keep their health. Occupy has similar goals, a fair tax code, eliminate or decrease campaign contributions, destroy the power of lobbyists, and other things that give politicians to vote in ways against the interests of their districts that as Democratic representatives of the People (We the people in order to form a more perfect union...) to move away from the system that has been in place where politicians do not represent the average American but only the richest people in the country and are able to win through smear campaigns year after year. This is why I expect Occupy could take several years to fulfil the goals. This could be different from the others in this country (remember there are Occupy movements who self-identify as being in solidarity with the protests in New York across the world) and other countries with Democratic principles if we did just one thing, we could win in less than a year. We could go to the polls and vote for the candidates who will represent the interests of the American people. The Republican Party is scared of this, and they are putting barriers to vote in the Deep South and now the Midwest that make it so that many Americans who have lived here their whole life will be unable to vote. I won't go into detail, but Amnesty International has excellent reports. This shows the power of Occupy if the far-right party of the richest and most corrupt Americans are invalidating votes that will undoubtedly go to the more progressive (yet still conservative in many aspects) Democratic Party. They also both have made registering candidates in all but two states (Washington and California) near impossible if the candidate does not have support of one party's leadership or the other. We need nothing less than full election reform to deprivatize the methods our elections are done. The first step is to demand of our leaders that we want a change in how our leaders are selected and how our government is being run, which has been done. The second step is to vote for the candidates who will fulfil our goals as Americans the most. The third step is to hold them accountable and not give up on the United States of America. Nothing else is needed. Victory is in our grasp, and they know it.

The Euro, the third and last current event with the same characteristics, has been completely created by the media. The European Union has debt rates and unemployment rates less than the United States. My previous post was untrue, there are some countries in Africa that have defaulted on their debt and seen their currencies decline, these tend to be authoritarian African nations which have "Presidents" with no fair elections and are dictators, with destructionist economic policies, no industry, negative economic growth, rapid population growth, and no social safety net of any sort from the country. Europe is a totally different story. The governments of Italy and Greece have been replaced, the governments of France have everything to lose no matter what they do, and there is no pleasing the loud racist noise machines in those nations (or ours for that matter. I am referring to the people who hate Turks and believe that Eastern Europeans are coming to destroy their countries, Eurosceptics in other words). So no matter what they do Sarkozy and Merkel have already lost their next election, do not bail out parts of Greece and Italy's debts and they will lose for the economic catastrophe that can happen, bail out parts of Greece and Italy's debts and they will lose for helping their political neighbours. There is no way they can win the next election. It is not possible. Their least destructive course of action is to pay off maybe 10% of each country's debt to boost faith in investors in Europe so that demand doesn't continue to plummet, because when demand plummets the price plummets, and a panic happens because most people do not understand what is happening and the noise machines hate Europe. The Euro will continue, the cost of implementing currencies for each nation is just not worth it, and the future benefits of having a single market will benefit everyone. Since the European Community (the predecessor to the European Union) was formed there have been no conflicts among those nations in Europe and racial stereotypes between the oldest nations have diminished. International around the European Union for every nation is less expensive because of no tariffs, helping the economies of everyone. For the first time in history for the past ten years Europeans have had a stronger currency making it easier to travel around the world through better exchange rates.

Again, patience. The situation will resolve by working towards it. FDR was right when he said "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" because when faced with a daunting challenge cowardice is never rewarded.

On Ron Paul

On Ron Paul

His policies, his speeches, and his true friends.

In light of Ron Paul recent success in Iowa, let's look at his policies.

I am using the sources Wikipedia uses, to save space here they are the same interviews wikipedia uses from all sorts of news organizations.

Ron Paul’s beliefs

Foreign policy

• non-intervention in both peaceful and military matters
• Lift the embargo against Cuba
• Withdraw from all international organizations
• WTO is a “barrier to free trade”
• States he supports Free Trade, but opposes all free trade agreements
• Patrol our borders
• Policy with Mexico is in line with Republican Party of building a fence and deportation
• No birthright citizenshi
• Opposes hunting terrorists who do us harm.

Economic Policy

• End the Federal Reserve (bad idea, see below)

Social Policy

• Opposes Gay Marriage, Supports DOMA, says he opposes efforts to define marriage.
• No separation of Church and State
• No flag desecration
• No gun laws
• Opposes torture
• Opposes the Draft
• Opposes Affirmative Action, meaning Colleges are allowed to scan applicants for their background.
• Opposes adoption.
• Supports Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
• While stating he supports State’s rights, he has proposed to define life as starting at conception in the US House several times.
• Supports Stem-Cell Research
• Opposes Universal Health Care
• Supports tax credits to cover medical costs
• Supports Marijuana use
• Supports legalizing drugs.
• Opposes Department of Veteran’s Affairs
• Opposes FDA
• Opposes the 1965 Voting Rights Act (2005)
• Opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act
• Opposes direct election of Senators
• Supports direct election of the President

Environmental Policy

• Opposes Federal emissions standards
• Rejects Global Warming

Overview of inconsistencies

He is inconsistent with his policy on direct voting, by opposing the electoral college and supporting the original method to elect Senators.

Why the Occupy Movement Cannot Support Ron Paul

The first reason is, of course, economical. The Federal Reserve is a Federal agency that is appointed by Congress and approved by the President, despite what Ron Paul says. By removing the power of the government to manage its currency it will go back to where it was during the last period of no central bank from 1869 to 1913, the largest banks in the country will print their own currency with no regulation from the Democratic government. This is what happened then, and that is what will happen now if Ron Paul becomes able to do that. He has been paid by banks, there is no other reason he would support it short of insanity. Having worked for the Federal Reserve he is the perfect member of Congress to make this case for them.

While being a libertarian he supports the government prohibiting federal recognition of gay marriage. Many people make this out to be a libertarian argument, but a Libertarian would not support the Defense of Marriage Act or Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy, calling them “government intervention”, but Ron Paul does no such thing and has consistently voted to uphold those two policies. He supports a state religion, and to have religion and state intermingle, something a true Libertarian would not dream of supporting. His Abortion policy is directly opposed to Federalism. He opposes giving military employees pensions and lifetime health care after going to war. He opposes free trade, meaning he is a Mercantilist, someone who believes very strongly in the Government sanctioning trade. He has consistently voted against the Federal Government renewing the 1960s human rights legislation that gave African Americans the right to vote and other rights, along with having racist newsletters go out in his name in the 1990s. He supports the Federal Government building a fence with Mexico.

Ron Paul is not a libertarian. He is just another Republican, his policies are all Republican, and his attitude is a Republican attitude. He usually  votes along with his Republican colleagues on important issues unless if it has to do with the Federal Reserve System.

Ron Paul supporters do not know Ron Paul. Ron Paul supporters do not know what Ron Paul stands for. Ron Paul supporters treat Ron Paul as a Jesus figure, and he is the leader of their religion, just like Ronald Reagan has been made into a religious figure by the Republican Party. Follow, and be blind.

If you are part of the Occupy Movement, you cannot support Ron Paul, because he will privatize our monetary policy. The big banks whose practices we oppose will control the United States dollar and you can believe there will be a really rocky ride with many bank runs as soon as this would be done, because that is exactly what will happen. Keep the Federal Reserve, it is our only protection against the banks. He supports expanding government into our lives and leaving our economy to the power of mercantilists. Because that is the economic philosophy Ron Paul follows, Mercantilism.

Do not vote Paul. He is not our friend.

The ideal election system

The ideal elections system would be designed so that every person has an equal vote, and no individual person or party has absolute power over the candidates in the final election.

This is exactly how America's decentralized unregulated election system has been designed. It is confusing, many people's votes don't count, and they can easily be stolen from us through unfaithful electors. The best system is currently practiced in Washington State and it works extremely well. It is popular among many people in both the Democratic and Republican parties. The People own the election. Direct election of our representatives has been done.

What is most important is this could be done on the Federal level, hopefully 2012 will be the last unregulated Federal election which is where people can donate unlimited amounts of money if they own a large corporation and the Primary System is unregulated and owned by the heads of the Democratic and Republican parties together. Neither one is truly our friend in this respect.

The Presidential election should work like this:

1. All candidates will appear on the same Primary Ballot in August. They will sign up on January 1st of the year of the election to slow a constant election cycle that is currently done here.
2. The two candidates who do the best in the Primary Election will face each other in the General Election in November. The winner of the election takes office on January 20th of the following year.

Simple, clean, effective. That is what we need in the United States. Let Freedom Ring.

HOW TO DESTROY THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND HOW TO PREVENT IT FROM FAILING

HOW TO DESTROY THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT AND HOW TO PREVENT IT FROM FAILING

I could never state anything as well as he has.

An open letter stating concerns with the current path of progress the Government is taking in pursuing high-speed rail.

Dear USHSR, I am curious why we would need to rebuild our existing train tracks to replace them with high-speed trains like Acela. I see that is runs on the same grade as the rest of Amtrak, and as a temporary push why couldn't the United States government pay an initial cost to replace the existing trains with new trains as a temporary fix and then use the generated revenue to build new tracks that would connect America's major cities that currently do not have access? From a political angle this might make sense for two reasons, 1. We would show Americans outside the already liberal Northeast how fast they really are, and 2. It would give undebatable proof that when given access Americans will use the train to go around the country when it is competitive, which Amtrak really isn't today. When I look at how AMTRAK is currently set up, it was designed to fail. Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Kentucky all have no access to their capital cities to AMTRAK. Las Vegas, Nashville, Green Bay, has no connection. No wonder Americans don't use AMTRAK as a primary way to travel on rail, it doesn't go where they want to go, and it doesn't get them to where it does go in a timely manner. The second problem is easy to fix, we have Acela approved by DOT (amazingly) and we need copies of that train to be used on the existing track. The increased revenue will give enough money to build more tracks to the cities I just mentioned which will bring in more revenue, and create more routes that will give people a way that is cost-competitive and, more importantly, time-competitive to get around America. I completely agree we need more tracks, but I don't understand why we are building them where we already have the tracks we need, like between Bakersfield and Fresno. It seems like a ploy from some lobbyists to slow down the process. Sincerely, Matthew Stidham www.ushsr.com

How to Make Electric/Fuel Cell hybrid cars the Cheapest Vehicle In a Very Short Time

There is a lot of discussion in America about electric and fuel cell cars, and the reason why they are not doing well always comes down to only three valid arguments, 1. There are not enough stations, 2. Electricity is too expensive The other arguments are about fuel cells which question their efficiency and safety, but they are already the dominant choice for people in Iceland who invested in the infrastructure 10 years ago and are now energy independent which nullifies all of these injected concerns from the powerful oil lobby who own a large stake the majority of our media. (source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/car-of-the-future.html with Click and Clack the Tappitt Brothers from Car Talk) There is no reason on earth why fuel cell cars cannot be made hybrids with an electric function, just like hybrid cars that use gasoline. They will increase the distance you can go on a single fill-up which will save the consumer money and stops to charge. There is also no reason why these fuel cell hybrid cars cannot be plug-in cars from the beginning, if you can just plug it into the grid when you are at home then except for a few cases you might never need to fill up on hydrogen if you are a short commuter if you plug in at work and at home, that will save money and more importantly, TIME. Now I get to the two major issues with implementation which are the only reasons we do not already have these already. We do not have hydrogen fuel stations across America. This would be really easy to fix. If we gave a 50% tax break to every owner and worker of an individual gas station who implement this technology for one year only we can have the infrastructure across the country in every major city quickly, save money that goes to OPEC, and have more money to spend on things that make a positive difference in the national economy. People LOVE TAX BREAKS. We could speed it up by making it so that if a corporation that has gas stations (Chevron, Shell, Costco, etc.) installs these in every single station of theirs across the country the people who work for and own the company will all receive 50% tax breaks. This will make tax revenue go down slightly, but the amount of money overall that people will be spending on other things besides gasoline will be massive. The only other issue, electricity is too expensive is because of what we get our electricity from. In the Pacific Northwest we get our energy from hydroelectric and we have the cheapest electricity in the world. In the Midwest they get their electricity from coal, oil, and other fossil fuels, and their electricity is a lot more expensive. This is not a correlation, this is a causation. Every part of the world has a way to get cheap renewable electricity, solar panels, wind turbines, hydroelectric, geothermal, these are all useful and completely inexpensive tools to get cheap, reliable electricity. The current technology which is being developed has a ways to go so far, but it is close to being competitive with oil, and once this happens we need to have the market so that we can quickly use this great technology.

On how Subsidizing education fully is the least expensive option (with some simple economical analysis), another chat with a friend

I was chatting with a friend in response to a facebook listing today which i lost my temper and went all spock on them. We are both college students, he is a freshman and I am a sophomore on opposite ends of the country.

If people are choosing degrees that don't convert to jobs than that is there fault. For those of us (including myself) that desire jobs that are high in technology in the sciences, or the future programmers, lawyers, and other jobs that give massive payback to society and are looking forward to having to pay back the equal amount in taxes instead of buying things that would stimulate the economy (good economy = money flowing, bad economy = no money flowing) it is a burden and keeps us from giving back to society that we want to. Look overseas and we can see many different solutions to the problem of education debt and compare this number to GDP growth and you will see a positive corrolation (China, Japan, Taiwan, Sweden, among others vs. the USA) of increased government college spending and GDP growth rate. This will take about 15 minutes of your time, are you willing to do that for your country to make a more educated vote?
bam! right to the nose!

Sounds good, but you can make a much simpler economic argument:
1. Education increases income.
2. Income is spent and spurs economic growth.
Conclusion: Education spurs economic growth.

yeah. simple. Some people are so d**n stupid!

Yes. Yes they are.

and lazy
the lazy is the really important part

And horribly ignorant of basic economics.*

yeah.. which you will not learn unless you have the guts to learn them yourself... now that is the real shame
someone else argued on how government spending increases college tuition!
bullshit
because state schools are massively less expensive than private schools
that is out of state cost

Also, private schools are a competitive market. Even among different "grades," like Ivies, mid-range liberal arts colleges, etc., there's enough competition that anyone charging too much won't get any students. The market price tells you what a college degree is worth to the student.

exactly

Now, the economic arguments break down when you say government should pay *entirely* for *everyone's* college.

and the education at state schools is still really, really good in my experience

That's fair.

would those be the economic arguments against a system with full funding
?
(just to clarify)

No, the arguments in favor of subsidizing higher education. Consider this: there is a higher demand for legal services than there is a supply of lawyers. Therefore, lawyers are ridiculously expensive. If more lawyers are trained, society as a whole benefits because people save a ton of money on legal services.

yup
supply v demand, lesson #2

However, the principle of diminishing returns dictates that the benefit of having 1.5 million lawyers instead of 1.4 million is much greater than the benefit of having 40 million instead of 39.9 million.
In fact, the benefit of each additional lawyer will at that point be less than the cost of educating them. Therefore, paying for it is silly.
However, this is just a rephrasing of the argument from "education is a basic right" to "society benefits when the government subsidizes education in certain industries."

so we would run into a situation where only a certain number of people could sign up to study to be lawyers in any given year which fixes the problem you are talking about of oversupply, by cutting supply

So yay util?
xD

pretty much. It really works
I use it for all my arguments

Oh, you don't need to limit supply. If the wages get too low, people will simply stop going to law school and supply will self-regulate.
Of course, that's not a perfect example because the Bar Association actually does limit supply, and with the very specific purpose of keeping pay high.

exactly, which means it would solve itself and would balance out in, oh, lets say a couple decades
so lawyers is a terrible example

In the status quo, but it illustrates the main point since it is undersupplied.