Wealth In America

Don’t tell us “we don’t have the money.”

America is, and has been for decades, the financially wealthiest country on earth.  This can be measured by Gross National Product (GNP), the size and expenditures of federal, state and local governments, by the fact that even financial calamities that years ago would have crippled the nation are routinely avoided.   Yet one of the truest measures of American wealth can be found in how this precious resource is allocated and, from a practical reflection, wasted.

Let’s start with just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”

Next to an irrational anthropometric love for fido, Americans are absurdly smitten by athletics.  Between Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League alone, hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars are spent on the salaries for our athletic heroes, managers, coaches and administrative staffs.  Also, extraordinary payments are routine in college athletics where coaches and Athletic Directors and other athletic department personnel are compensated at astronomical levels.  That’s just one side of the equation.  New athletic facilities are routinely constructed nationwide. 

A new stadium was constructed to house the Minnesota Vikings.  It cost $1.1 billion – a “B” billon dollars - for the home town lads to play 8 to 10 games yearly.  Another football stadium was also constructed on the campus of the University of Minnesota at a cost of $303.3 million.  Previous to all this avarice both teams shared the old Metro-Dome in Minneapolis for their games.  Then we musn’t forget the Twins ballpark, built just for them, at a cost of $555 million.  They too once shared the Metro-Dome with the Vikings and the Gophers. 

Obviously, the Timberwolves of the NBA and The Wild of the NHL could never be expected to share the same facility.  SOOOO, a separate basketball venue was built in Minneapolis and yet another hockey venue was built in St. Paul.  The Twin Cities has a new soccer team.  You guessed it…they too have a spanking brand-new facility.  The only team that shares a facility is the woman’s professional basketball team, the Minnesota Lynx, the only team that wins on a consistent basis.

 To add insult to injury, much of these construction costs were paid for with taxpayer dollars.

 Now let’s pay a visit to Los Angeles, California – You’ll want to sit down for this.

L.A. has a new football stadium to house TWO NFL teams.  The Los Angeles Rams and the Los Angeles Chargers, who recently moved to L.A. from San Diego.  This goliath cost $5 billon.  This actually makes the Twin Cites appear to be frugal. 

 L.A. also embarrasses Minneapolis/St. Paul in that the Staples Center is the home to three professional teams.  The Los Angeles Lakers, The Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA and even the Los Angeles Kings of the NHL.

 These are just two of the more than 30 cities that are homes to professional athletic teams.   Those 30 plus locals, along with many other cities are also homes to colleges and universities with major athletic programs that demand funding.  To total all these expenditures would be terrifying. 

 Next, we are faced with the exclusive rights agreements to broadcast and telecast professional and college sporting events.  Fox paid $575 million ($15 million per year) for the rights to publicly air major league baseball games.  That’s just one contract for one sport.  No sense in pursuing ESPN or local radio and television contacts rights.  Baseball alone gives us a clear enough indication as to the money that is spent in this area as well.   

Let’s not forget the billions if not trillions of dollars paid to CEOs nationwide, or spent on other entertainment venues; actors and actresses, directors, studio heads and etc.; the music industry recording artists, composers, producers and record company personnel. 

These folks don’t make a living they make a fortune.

Just A Few Examples:

Ralph Lauren                      $8.2 Billion

Oprah Winfrey                   $3.2Billion

Paul McCartney                 $1.2 Billion

J.K. Rowling                      $1 Billion

David Copperfield             $1 Billion

Jerry Seinfeld                     $950 Million

  The next time you hear someone attack the safety net programs provided by the government, ask yourself why those who have the means to provide these humanitarian programs, refuse to do so.  With very few exceptions (The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) that is where we should focus our wrath and NOT on those who are continually frustrated in their attempts to provide the necessities that no one else will provide.   

The last problem we have in America is a lack of financial resources.

 We have more than enough money to do whatever NEEDS to be done.

 The problem is selfishness and ignorance.  We squander the precious resource at an alarming rate. Therefore, the vast majority of our wealth is in the hands of all the wrong people. 

 We also focus our frustration in the wrong areas.  We are too willing to conform to the excesses for our personal gratifications – NOT OUR NEEDS.  We are comfortable in allowing those with financial power to frighten us (we’ll close the doors and put people out of work - The Twins and Vikings will leave town) and ignore the continual lies and deceptions to further their insatiable greed for unnecessary opulence and overindulgences i.e.  feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, providing medical for the sick and dying is socialism – BUT – stadiums aren’t.  They are indeed the architects of this waste.  Our condemnation needs to be on their opulence and overindulgence and not a humane government attempting to ease the pain and suffering.  

Guns In America – The Second Amendment

 What would we ALL imagine our forefathers would say if they were witnessing a scant minority of Americans attempting to convince the vast majority of Americans that their right to bear arms is greater than the majorities right to life????

Any discussion on guns in American must begin with a very clear understanding of the Second Amendment to our Constitution.  It is necessary because the amendment has been badly distorted and, unfortunately, those distortions are viewed by millions as facts - as the truth.  It has been used to create the myth that guns are a right  and thus sacrosanct in America.  It is an outright falsehood.

 The founding fathers of this nation were committed to the principles of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  They emphasized time and again that “life” and protection was the primary role of government and most expressly, protection from violent and forced domination that threatened those principles. 

Our forefathers allowed for only one expenditure of federal funds in the constitution.  They created a militia or armed forces - the military - to protect American citizens from foreign intervention and attacks.  This strongly validated that “right to life” (Being the first principle) is the most sacred precept and, as such, the safety and protection of the citizenry is a paramount responsibility of our government.   

 As outlined in Federalist papers – Essay 29 – the foundation for the implementation of the Second Amendment – a national militia did not have the ability to protect each and every colony from insurrections and violent forceful domination.  As such, Alexander Hamilton proposed the creation of state militias.  The Second Amendment therefore granted the right to bear arms to a people’s militia and THAT THOSE COLONIAL MILITIAS shall not be infringed from arming themselves. 

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”  “…of the people…” is where the controversy and the contentiousness has arisen.  Those three words have been used as an argument that the amendment grants the right to ALLLL citizens to own and bear arms.  That argument demands we ignore the very purpose and intent of the amendment.  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary…”  clearly indicates that this MILITIA was to be a PEOPLE’S MILITIA.  As such, those comprising the militia cannot have their right to bear arms infringed upon. Therefore, “…of the people…” was NEVER intended to provide for the false premise that every Tom, Dick and lunatic has a right to own a firearm.  The amendment was enacted to establish individual militias in each of the thirteen colonies for their further and greater protection and NOTHING ELSE !!!! 

Today each and every state has a national guard.  That National Guard is now the “… well regulated Militia” set forth in the Second Amendment.  The amendment is therefore no longer needed or valid in protecting the states.

 Next there is the common-sense reality that our   forefathers could not have had any concept of AR   15s, AK 47s, or automatic hand guns that could be   concealed by clothing.  There were only five foot   long rifles and muskets in 1791.

 Equally as outrageous is the irrational belief that   unless we are all armed, we could never protect   ourselves from a government takeover of rights and   property or even the loss of our lives.  We have   grown from 13 tiny colonies to 50 states. This   country now has a population of over 300 million   people in a geographical size that would make it   virtually impossible for any armed seizure to be   launched by the government. 

Finally, we come to the absolute absurd notion that if the Second Amendment were repealed ALLL citizens would lose their ability to own and possess firearms.  As already seen, the amendment does not grant any, so-called, right to guns.  Like a driver’s license, gun ownership is a privilege NOT A RIGHT!!!  Unless or until there are laws prohibiting the possession and ownership of firearms, no change to that privilege can occur, even if the amendment is repealed.

Many would have us believe this repeal is impossible.  We may have serious disagreements, but let’s never forget that in America anything is possible.  We won two world wars, found a cure for polio and went to the moon.  To believe in impossible is to deprive ourselves of one of the greatest exhilarations in being an American.

Bear in mind that while change can be very slow and arduous in America, it can occur very quickly if we are strongly committed to it.  It took only ten months to secure the three-fourths majority of necessary states to repeal the eighteenth amendment on prohibition.  Can we really accept that we are NOT FAR MORE repulsed over mass murders then we were over not being able to buy a beer?  Americans are far better than that.

The Second Amendment is NOT sacrosanct.  Its implementation was driven by the circumstances and culture of the era in which it was deemed necessary.  It has no valid application in modern America. The Second Amendment now acts as the single biggest threat to our most sacred right; the right to life.  

We MUST begin to further secure our right to life through diminishing the awful gun carnage in America.  That can only begin with the repeal of the Second Amendment.

 

Guns In America – The Ultimate Solution

 The United States Of America has a population of more than 300 million.  It is estimated that more than 350 million firearms are in distribution within America.  Thousands of Americans are killed by firearms every year.  Since 1968, more than 30,000 Americans a year have been killed by guns in our country.  The high-water marks were hit in 1993 and 2017 when almost 40,000 perished by guns. 

 Wild West In Contemporary America   

No Background Checks or Bills-Of-Sale

We can study (many manipulate) the statistics in attempting to understand why America has this enormous problem.  In the final analysis, the statistics always lead us to the same inescapable conclusions.  Guns in America are too Plentiful, totally untraceable  and therefore way too easy for anyone to possess.  

 We also have learned that America will, in all likelihood, never be able to end all firearm related deaths, permanent physical injuries and paralysis or the awful scourge of psychological and emotional horror that victims and their loved ones will have to endure for a lifetime.  Yet, we know we can save lives and vastly curtail, lessen and limit the lifetime horrors of suffering through gun violence.   

We have accumulated a mountain of evidence as to what does NOT provide relief or save lives.  We have also evolved into a society where laws pertinent to the sale and distribution of firearms are, for the most part, ineffective in curbing that violence.   

 The Brady Bill was enacted in 1993.  This was our most recent effort in attempting to deny unlimited access to guns.  The bill has had little effect in saving lives nor, in any meaningful fashion, does it address our current and very unique brand of American Terrorism - spree shootings and mass murders - or gang and crime related deaths.  This daily validates that any further regulatory controls placed on expanded and universal background checks will not be effective.  Background checks will have no effect on Gun Show Purchases, private party sales or thefts.  Also, outlawing the sale and distribution of automatic and semi-automatic killing machines will do little to quell the carnage.  It is estimated that there already exists roughly four million automatic, machine gun style weapons – that we know of – on American streets. 

 That brings us squarely to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

  The NRA is strictly a governmental lobbying organization.  Like all other such entities, they are paid to represent a special interest group.  That group is the gun manufacturers and distributors in American, along with the splitter group of citizens who love gun ownership and possession.  As such, the NRA will say or do anything – even if it is deceitful or dishonest - to gain protection and support for those special interests.  They have virtually no interest in the American constitution or American rights.  They have deceitfully manipulated the interpretation of the Second Amendment.  They have done so to foster hatred for anyone who challenges their lobbying efforts to enrich the gun industry.  We have learned that we cannot place any credibility – any trust or faith – in their rhetoric.  It is dishonest and solely designed to disguise their never-ending goal of greater profits with no regard for the saving of human lives.

Examples: Slogan: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” 

We have no foolproof method for determining who may be deranged at the time they purchase a gun or who may suffer from the illness after their purchase. 

What we know is that there is no cure for mental illness.  It can occur and manifest itself due to a number of environmental and sociological circumstances.  Our laws and culture do not allow us to take any preventative or punitive measures against anyone perceived to be unbalanced.  We must wait until they have ruined or destroyed lives to take any action to protect ourselves.  We know that, even if it is possible, it will take years to further curtail mental illness and its corresponding social behavior.  In the meantime, thousands more will die.  Eliminating the methods - eliminating firearms and most especially the most vicious of these totally unnecessary killing machines from our culture and society can be accomplish in a far shorter period of time, thus saving many more lives.

 This brings us to NRA philosophy of arming every citizen as a method of self-defense.  Such a proposal encourages placing these instruments of death in the hands of the mentally unstable.

We know further, that attempting to arm all Americans is counterproductive.  The altogether volatile nature of human beings makes such a proposal absolutely absurd and very dangerous.

Under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, enacted in 2005, it became unimaginably simple and easy for residents to obtain a conceal and carry permit.  Florida resident George Zimmerman possessed such a permit under that law. 

On February 26, 2012, Zimmerman approached and detained Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.  Zimmerman thought Martin looked suspicious because he had never seen Martin on the grounds of the apartment complex before.  The unarmed Martin was returning from a convenience store to a relative’s home where he was staying.  The two men got into a physical confrontation.  Zimmerman drew his gun and shot Martin to death.  At the time of the shooting Martin was NOT breaking any laws.

Then on November 23, 2012 another unarmed, 17-year-old, Jorden Davis, was shot to death in Jacksonville, Florida because he was playing his music too loud. 

 It was recently reported that violent altercations between passengers on a cruise ship were unrelenting.  Security guards were unable to control all the violent outbursts.  As such the captain ordered the ship into the nearest port to have these passengers removed.   No one died.  The question now becomes; would the outcome have been exactly the same if any of these miscreants had access to guns?

We have now evolved into a society that is not responsible or disciplined enough to have access to firearms.  

These are the facts and realities as they have evolved in America.  Now comes the difficult task of developing a workable solution and program to deal with this daunting demands.

 New York Times Columnist David Brooks has summarized it best.  No question that his wisdom points us in the right direction.

“And so the more I look at it — and I'm not alone in this — the more you conclude the simple problem is we have too many guns in America. There's upwards of, some estimates, 350 million guns in this country. And so when you get a lonely 

young man who is detached and sociopathic, getting a gun for that person is not hard.

And so we spend a lot of time on these things like background checks and assault weapon bans. And that's fine. But a lot of effort has been put into things that aren't that effective. We just have to have a debate on, how do we reduce the total number of the guns in the country?

And other countries have done this, Australia and others, through buybacks and other things. It's obviously super difficult politically. But, to me, it's the only way to have a meaningful difference.” PBS News Hour – March, 26, 2021                                       

Yes, to be sure this will be “super difficult” but certainly not impossible – NOT IN AMERICA.

·        ·        First, we MUST repeal the second amendment. 

             Reference “Guns In America – The Second Amendment”

https://malatman-malatblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2021/10/guns-in-america-second-amendment.html 

  ·        Second, we MUST make the ownership of firearms illegal; with the exception of law enforcement officials, military personal, ranchers, farmers and anyone else who may need a weapon to protect property or life. 

The second proposal does NOT preclude the use of firearms for sportsman and sporting competitions.  IT PRECLUDES their OWNERSHIP and unlimited possession. 

Gun Club numbers and services would be expanded. Sportsman could rent whatever firearms they wished from these gun clubs.  Their rental would be predicated upon their possessing the necessary permits to handle and possess the gun they wish to rent.  It would also be predicated upon a recent background check that would, if at all possible, also incorporate a statement, of some sort, on the mental competence to possess a dangerous weapon.  The gun could then be rented for a specific period of time and MUST, under severe penalty of law, be returned on the proscribed date.    

 Training, practice, and competitions would all be conducted under the auspices and supervision of gun club personnel.  No weapons would ever be allowed to leave the gun club premises unless, of course, rented for hunting.

 ·        Third: We MUST confiscate the more than 350 million firearms now in circulation in America. This confiscation would demand we begin with the more than 200 million automatic and semiautomatic rifles and hand guns. A very elaborate buy-back and/or comparable programs would need to be developed and established. 

If the current gun massacre in America is not halted in short-order, the above agenda is clearly where we are going.  Our refusal to commit to an aggressive agenda to severely limit the number of guns in The United States unmistakably defines us as a people who no longer consider “the right to life” as sacrosanct and the cornerstone of our way of life.  

Under our prevailing and very unique brand of American Terrorism, we are not safe attending a movie, a concert, a night club, a food festival.  We are not safe in our churches, restaurants, while at work or shopping and the most hideous of all, our children are not safe in their schools. If this continues and goes unabated, can we even imagine what our country will evolve into and what awaits our grandchildren?; if they can survive. 


 

 

Guns In America –Fareed Zakaria

December 19, 2012

My Take

Fareed Zakaria

The Solution To Gun Violence Is Clear

 

Announcing Wednesday that he would send proposals on reducing gun violence in America to Congress, President Obama mentioned a number of sensible gun-control measures. But he also paid homage to the Washington conventional wisdom about the many and varied causes of this calamity -- from mental health issues to school safety. His spokesman, Jay Carney, had said earlier that this is “a complex problem that will require a complex solution.” Gun control, Carney added, is far from the only answer.

 

In fact, the problem is not complex, and the solution is blindingly obvious.

 

People point to three sets of causes when talking about events such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings. First, the psychology of the killer; second, the environment of violence in our popular culture; and, third, easy access to guns. Any one of these might explain a single shooting. 

What we should be trying to understand is not one single event but why we have so many of them.  The number of deaths by firearms in the United States was 32,000 last year. Around 11,000 were gun homicides.

 

To understand how staggeringly high this number is, compare it to the rate in other rich countries. England and Wales have about 50-gun homicides a year -- 3 percent of our rate per 100,000 people.

Many people believe that America is simply a more violent, individualistic society. But again, the data clarify. For most crimes -- theft, burglary, robbery, assault -- the United States is within the range of other advanced countries. The category in which the U.S. rate is magnitudes higher is gun homicides.

 

The U.S. gun homicide rate is 30 times that of France or Australia, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, and 12 times higher than the average for other developed countries.  So, what explains this difference?

 

If psychology is the main cause, we should have 12 times as many psychologically disturbed people. But we don’t. The United States could do better, but we take mental disorders seriously and invest more in this area than do many peer countries.

 

Is America’s popular culture the cause? This is highly unlikely, as largely the same culture exists in other rich countries. Youth in England and Wales, for example, are exposed to virtually identical cultural influences as in the United States. Yet the rate of gun homicide there is a tiny fraction of ours. The Japanese are at the cutting edge of the world of video games. Yet their gun homicide rate is close to zero! Why? Britain has tough gun laws. Japan has perhaps the tightest regulation of guns in the industrialized world.

 

The data in social science are rarely this clear. They strongly suggest that we have so much more gun violence than other countries because we have far more permissive laws than others regarding the sale and possession of guns. With 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States has 50 percent of the guns.

 

There is clear evidence that tightening laws -- even in highly individualistic countries with long traditions of gun ownership -- can reduce gun violence. In Australia, after a 1996 ban on all automatic and semiautomatic weapons -- a real ban, not like the one we enacted in 1994 with 600-plus exceptions -- gun-related homicides dropped 59 percent over the next decade. The rate of suicide by firearm plummeted 65 percent. (Almost 20,000 Americans die each year using guns to commit suicide -- a method that is much more successful than other forms of suicide.)

 

There will always be evil or disturbed people. And they might be influenced by popular culture. But how is government going to identify the darkest thoughts in people’s minds before they have taken any action? Certainly, those who urge that government be modest in its reach would not want government to monitor thoughts, curb free expression, and ban the sale of information and entertainment.

 

Instead, why not have government do something much simpler and that has proven successful: limit access to guns. And not another toothless ban, riddled with exceptions, which the gun lobby would use to “prove” that such bans don’t reduce violence.

 

A few hours before the Newtown murders last week, a man entered a school in China’s Henan province. Obviously mentally disturbed, he tried to kill children. But the only weapon he was able to get was a knife. Although 23 children were injured, not one child died.

 

The problems that produced the Newtown massacre are not complex, nor are the solutions. We do not lack for answers.

 

What we lack in America today is courage.

Social Security - Wisdom Of The American People

While we Americans like divided government, let’s be grateful that we have never been divided on one of our most essential safety net programs. The continued unity for that blessing is more imperative today than it has ever been in the past. 

In the course of my long and very blessed life two aspects in the American political scene and current cultural events have never changed. 

The first is that time and time again we have been told - ad nauseum - that the Social Security fund is bankrupt.  My generation was told we would never see a penny of that investment when we retire.  

The second is that every poll ever taken over the course of the last 60 years in which Americans have been asked which government program is most important to them they have ALWAYS said Social Security.  It has ALWAYS been the sacred cow. 

Those two facts are undeniable. 

A third repeated warning was that if Social Security survived there would only be minimal funds available.  We were told that it would only be a supplemental fund to augment other retirement investments – ONLY.   Whatever may exist will never be enough to provide for a major source of financial support. 

Over the course of the last 60 years, we have seen rising inflation on a regular basis.  The 2008 financial meltdown that dwindled and, in many cases, destroyed retirement investments (that are NEVER adjusted for inflation).  Now the Covid-19 crisis has thrown us into yet even higher levels of inflation.  This year, consumer prices have risen at the fastest rate in more than a decade spurred by rapidly rising prices for food, drugs and out of control housing costs.  According to an AARP analysis of Census Bureau data, roughly half of Americans aged 65 and older relied on Social Security for 50% or more of their income in 2019.  About a quarter of seniors 65 and older relied on the benefits for 90% or more of their income.  Social Security is NOW a lifeline for survival NOT a supplemental fund. 

After 39 years (not since 1983 - the year Ronald Regan saved the fund from insolvency) of paltry Social Security COLAs, 2022 will provide a decent increase badly needed by MOST of the 70 million (1 out of every 5) Americans who are now forced to depend upon the fund for financial survival. 

The same doomsday prophets are still among us.  We still hear the same old tired, fear mongering lies and deceit contrived 50 years ago. Let’s make certain we are thankful for the enormous wisdom of our predecessors in demanding Social Security be regarded a sacred cow.  Let’s make certain that as the middle class in American continues its erosion that we take a page from our ancestor’s book and rebuff the doom and gloom; that we continue to demand Social Security remain a sacred cow, recognizing that it will be far more essential to America’s wellbeing tomorrow than what it is today.  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-security-cola-increase-2022-11634067648 

https://apnews.com/article/social-security-cola-increase-4f2cd7b763371b91923227be883e367e