On the NPR Firing of Juan Williams.

There has been a lot of controversy over the past few days about the firing of Juan Williams after saying, "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb, and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous." [source] This is scapegoating. There are one and a half billion Muslims in the world. Muslims follow the Quran today like Christians followed the Bible 600 years ago, and that means that women will wear headscarves. The terrorists are definitely a small minority of Muslims, and saying this shows him to be explosive and not clear-thinking. If an African-American said a similar thing about European-Americans in the 1960s because the person thought that they would be a member of the KKK, they would become inaccurate immediately because it shows an unclear method of thinking and explosiveness. If I was a news station manager I wouldn't want to have someone who is saying inflammatory things on my station because it would be giving the wrong message and I would want people with a clear head on my airwaves so that I would be 1) as accurate as possible and 2) giving non-hateful messages. Because of this, I must support NPR in their decision to have people with time slots be clear and respectful towards everyone. It once was called cultural respect.

Another thing is that NPR is being accused of bias. I disagree with this. NPR does have radio shows that appear to obviously have liberal bias to many people, like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and it is an immensely popular radio show, but people know it is biased, and people listen to it for a good laugh at anybody political. When you listen to them they will bash any politician. Hardly liberal bias, they will poke fun at anyone, from Obama to Limbaugh. That is the only radio show on NPR that is consistently accused of having bias (for a somewhat understandable reason). They have the BBC on the air, and when they air their own news, they will interview people from pro-choice to pro-life and sometimes have a debate between the two side. This is hardly bias at all because they have interviews with not just someone who is hired to give a conservative or liberal spin on it, the people are from groups like Focus on the Family, Westboro Baptist Church, Republican Congresspeople, AND people from PFLAG, Freedom to Marry, and Democratic Congresspeople, ALL IN THE SAME HOUR, SOMETIMES THE SAME TIMESLOT! Now if that is biased, there is no neutrality. This movement applies to all other issues. The people they bring on believe strongly in their cause, are the best speakers for the movements, and are not interrupted. I disagree completely with this accusation.

These two arguments tell me that the far right is just looking for anything to bash other people on, no matter what. They need to cool their jets and start thinking before they say that someone who is saying something incredibly racist is right. That FOX is hiring him now after showing how unstable he is makes me distrust their method for hiring people.

Relations with Cuba

I have thought of the issue with Cuba and wrote the following comparison that makes the answer apparent to me:

The embargo on Cuba is based on the old fear of America against Communism. The laws Cuba has that are the most draconian are drugs, the trade must be stopped in the world, politics, it is a Socialist state afterall, and porn, it is a Roman Catholic society. The first and third are things that are prosecuted in America, and the second will definitely change someday. If Cuba had visitors from America and were able to visit America, they could bring back our ideas to their home country the same way President Saakashvili did in Georgia. That would improve the lives of Cubans. The United States would not be damaged either, because the tourists from Cuba would bring in money as much as money is brought in to Cuba. In fact, the increase in tourism would create a boom that would benefit our economy! It would be beneficial to both countries. It would make Cuba an even safer place to travel.

    Another factor is that after The United States began relations with China, they got more money in their economy and started to build their country up to the point where today their trade has made them one of the most powerful states in the world. The problem with Cuba is they don't have enough trade for the people to make enough income to improve their standards of living. Allowing Cubans to travel between America and Cuba will make the amount of information available in Cuba higher, which will make the people able to stand up to information restrictions through travel. It would continue to allow Cuban dissidents to migrate to America for political asylum, and the draconian laws will decrease and wither, just like China. In fact, it would be faster because Cuba is only 90 miles from Miami, a distance shorter than from New York to Washington, DC!

Why High-Speed Rail is a good idea for America right now!

Everyone has heard the President talk about high-speed rail and many other people. They say that this isn't the time to spend on improving infrastructure because the economy is bad and unemployment is high. They say it will cost too much.

To quote the President, "Their memories are short." Most of America's current infrastructure was built in the 1930s, a decade of unparalleled unemployment and economic slump. President Roosevelt decided to spend on infrastructure, be it the dams of the Columbia river, providing all the power and water needed for Eastern Washington, and the famous Tennesse River Valley Authority, bringing millions of jobs to two of the nation's most impovrished districts. Providing electricity for the booming 50s, and the water for the farmers of America.

If Roosevelt had not done this, the power grid in the 50s would probably not have enough to support all the new appliances.

It is better than that even, as a teenager looking for work, I have read "What Color is your Parachute?" and the most important lesson I learned from that book is to KEEP YOUR REFERENCES UP TO DATE. By putting in public works, it gives Americans opportunity to get money, so they can spend which drives an economy, and it keeps their references current so that they aren't bought out by someone else and business runs smoothly.

The Republicans like to say that it will be too expensive, and yes, it is 10 billion dollars. Compare this with the 231 billion spent in the DOD this year. Anyways,that 231 billion will not be paid back. This 10 billion dollars will create revenue for the government, making the deficit slightly smaller in 5 years, aka it will pay for itself!
Assume that the New York-Philadelphia, Miami-Tampa, Seattle-Portland, LA-San Diego, Chicago-Milwaukee, and Philadelphia-Washington trains all have a seating capacity of 500 each, a long train. Each of these people pay $20 to bypass the rush hour and go on the train above the freeway, (which I think would be the best) and these mass-transit corridors are filled daily, twice a day, going to and from work. That would mean every morning each of the 6 trains I mentioned will be filled 2 times per day, earning $20 from 500 passengers, creating a revenue of $12,000 per day for all these trains. Over 365 days (people work weekends, and people would take the train when going on a day trip, it's a lot faster.) that would give you $4,380,000 generated during one year on only these trains. Wait a minute, only one train going in the morning and one train in the evening? That's far too conservative because there are far more people using these trains than 500 per day! We need to multiply this statistic by at least 3 because there will be at least three trains going city to city, and they would be maybe an hour apart each because people work different hours in today's world. That gives us a total of $13,140,000 earned on these trains alone.
But that is completely inaccurate because according to http://www.ushsr.com/hsrnetwork.html there will be 24 trains running independently by 2015 running twice a day every day. Keeping our extremely conservative statistic of a $20 fee and running 2 times per day, filling 500 seats each way, twice a day gives us a revenue of a whopping $175,200,000 of income per year. This is still too low. You have to remember all the money that these 1000 commuters would have spent on gas, in the millions saved, not being sent to OPEC and Exxonmobile, and BP, and instead going to the government which is paying for DOMESTIC POWER. That stat is important showing the money saved by these users, being spent in other parts of the economy, boosting the American economy. You have to remember that there would be at least three trains per day because of the sheer amount of commuters in SUBURBIA who would LOVE to save THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS EACH IN GAS MONEY! Their is no way these trains will not be filled. Multiplying our earlier stat in this train of thought gives us $525,600,000 of income in 2015. This will pay for itself.
Wait a second, I only calculated the amount made in 2015-2019.  Before 2020 there will 35 more trains built, giving a total of 35 trains, times 500 seats, times 2 times per day, times 3 trains, times a fee of $20 per person times 365 days. This is a huge total of $766,500,000 of income per year for the years 2020-2024. This will be a self-sustaining program given my extremely conservative statistics. They are definitely going to run more than twice a day, what about noon? It is absurd that an American would oppose this development because of the benefits we will reap every day for the next 50 years! The money wasted in rush hour will decrease by 500 cars (at least) for each of these trains, making everyone save money. To oppose this is ridiculous. It will help us as much as the Interstate highways did, making America a more prosperous society.

One only has to look at the other countries that are investing in this technology. Europe already has. This has Spain, France, Germany, UK, Italy, and the recently wealthy nations of China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan have invested in this wonderful technology and are reaping the benefits today because of the investment made 5 years ago. This is obviously a wonderful choice for America because it is completely domestic, and it requires no fossil fuels which are going to be scarce in 50-100 years when I am going into retirement.

International Economics, part 1, international money transfers

I have been looking, and thinking, about economics recently, and have written a lot out.

Most people invest their money in some way or another. Most do it by buying bonds from a government, buying stock from a company, or putting their money in a bank in their own country. These are good ways of investing. There is one way though that can be better than all three given the right economic environment. That would be investing in foreign banks. By investing in a foreign bank you get the following benefits.

1. When you go to that country, you have a guaranteed amount of money to draw upon that doesn't have to be exchanged which gives you a precise amount whenever you go there.
2. Assuming that the country you put your money in protects bank accounts, it is guaranteed to be protected.
3. By investing in a developing nation their economy can be expected to grow which means there will be more demand for their currency which will cause their currency to go up in value compared to other currencies. This means that by investing in these countries you are able to while getting interest have your money's value in your home's currency go up at least 100-300% which is far more secure than stocks, which when you take the money home means that the value of your home's currency will then appreciate in value, making everyone better off and better to travel. This would make the entire world eventually become more even if the currencies were allowed to balance.

This is illegal in many countries because the leaders fear that the money won't come back to their country there are several arguments against this however.

1. The person investing will eventually bring the money back home which will make their home country more wealthy.
2. The amount of money transferred comes back which is completely different from outsourcing manufacturing to countries like China and southeast Asia. The money that is sent to these countries has been shown to not come back which is part of the reason why the American/Canadian/European/Australian economies have become potentially unstable recently is because of the loss of money. This is far worse than investing in foreign banks which makes the argument against overseas investment mute.

Basically, regulating international banking is pointless, except that it is often used to move to countries to fund drugs or terrorists. Then their should be an alliance of countries that allow money to be transferred within their borders as long as:

1. The money is kept away from drug and terrorist organizations and if moved outside the union will be inspected.

Countries I would look at joining are: the USA, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the Eurozone, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway, UK, and several others that have shown their intentions to fight drugs and terrorism.

Why we need to crack down on the drug trade

We need to crack down on the drug trade in our schools. They ruin thousands of people's lives year after year and makes it so that we lose valuable workers of our economy. It wastes America's money year after year and sends money to drug dealers so they can send more drugs up here. This hurts us deeply and it is becoming obvious something has to be done. I think that prohibition on the less dangerous drugs should be revoked. This is why:

1. Prohibition made illegal consumption of alcohol skyrocket and we spent millions trying to stop it. Consumption didn't stop.
2. Smoking. We have smoking legal if you are over 21 and you can only do it in certain places. If smoking were illegal than a lot more people would smoke because there would be no regulation and it would add to the cartel's profits. By making it illegal it makes it so teenagers have a harder time getting it. If it was illegal, that would not be true.
3. If we allow authorized sellers to sell the drugs and taxed them the taxes could go immediately to rehab. People would be paying for their rehabilitation when they use it which would benefit all Americans. They are taking the drugs anyways, so if they were made legal and regulated consumption will drop. It will lose popularity with people who use them to be bad, and our prisons would have fewer people. That will benefit everybody. The drug cartels will lose power and the violence in Mexico will subside saving millions of lives.
1. Proof: Canada has legalized marijuana and other less harmful drugs bringing the illegal drug trade there down. Unfortunately, they don't have enough people to make a big enough dent on the world market. We do and we must.

The drug I would look at deregulating is

• Cannabis, which is useful in medicine.

Another thing, besides that the way we need to do it is by fighting the use in high schools, because that is probably their biggest market. That could save thousands of lives and keep billions from the cartels. That needs to be regulated to save lives.

Free Trade Part 1: Overview and NAFTA

Free Trade. Say this to different people and you will get both acclaims of praise and disgust. I personally am in favor for free trade. Here are the reasons:
1. It allows people in different countries to have their wealth level out over time. If there is more trade between countries, the currencies will level out. this will happen because the demand for different currencies will equalize. This is why the American and Canadian dollars are always close to each other.

2. It allows people to get the best deal on goods. If you want apples in the winter in America, you need them from the southern hemisphere and vice verse. German beer, Russian Vodka, Indian carpets (leaving child labor out of the question), these are all produced at certain times of the year at one place or another, and to not get them is silly, because it limits citizen's choices on what they want to buy. It will mean that people will have access to the best materials throughout the world.

3. If people are able to go other places to get work than the money in the super rich countries will start to level out to the really poor countries. Look at it this way. The American dollar is inflated because there are too many dollars floating around. If you made trade with the rest of the world go up, the dollars will go to other countries and prices that are extremely high right now will shrink because the value of the dollar will rise. The other bonus is that countries that are havens for crime and drugs right now will become more wealthy and be able to crack down on criminal acts, be it trafficking of persons or drugs. Everyone will benefit.

Oh America, hear my plea

For 30 years we have been complaining how the government is so corrupt, never listens, always bribing, and cutting essential programs. Lobbyists from Wall Street bribe politicians, steering clear of the occasional representative.

We get depressed, wondering if it will ever end and we listen to our spin and our party's propaganda. Yet, we never analyze and listen to two sides of the argument.

We listen to hate radio, spewing false information, "America is doomed," never quoting, always lying.

We don't vote responsible, yet we complain. How can we solve our problems without doing such an easy duty. How can you say "I love America" without ever spending time to read the news? We read the tabloids, yet we never read the news.

How do we fix the problem? We make an honest effort to read a reliable realistic news source. If they talk how we are doomed, they are selling. If the airtime is not equally divided during and election, the "news" channel is propaganda. We find the channel  that gives both sides and keep the commentators and comedians in a different time slot from the news, otherwise, they are propaganda.

When we trust the theory of democracy and participate.... Then we are free. Only then can America survive.