The Patriotism of Free Enterprise (revised)

 The U.S. economy is based on the concept of a free market and free enterprise. Consumer spending is the basis of the free market and Americans out shopping and buying the products provided by other Americans is what keeps our economy alive and our nation thriving. Therefore it is patriotic to shop. However, it is against everything that America was built on when the government interferes in the affairs of the free enterprise that is carried out in America.

Free market as defined by Investor Words, an investing glossary, is “business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy. A foreign exchange market that is not controlled by the government.” InvestorWords.com So when the government starts trying to “bail out” the economy lots of money and resources are wasted. The life and death of a business should be determined by how good the product is and how efficiently it can be distributed, not by how long the government bail out money can keep them afloat. “The role of the government of a nation is only limited to controlling the law and order of a country and to ensure that a 'fair price' is charged by the sellers.” EconomyWatch.com

Some may say that if the government doesn't step in, then people will lose their jobs and that failed businesses will be lost. Or that this cutthroat way of life is not fair to people that just want to own and operate a business. Well for every business that goes under there is usually several more that are going to take it's place. And if everyone had their own business then there would be no one to run and work the businesses that are going to make it on their own. Keeping a business open that is not making any money is not a logical solution.

When the government stepped in and demanded that banks loan money to the public for small business loans and first time homeowner loans, the result was the banks not being allowed to turn anyone down and they ended up loaning out too much money to people who were never going to be able to pay it back. This helped cause the beginning of the downturn of the economy. Now there is no more money for people to borrow and the banks are foreclosing and people are losing their businesses and homes, jobs start diminishing. As a result the general public doesn't have the money to go shopping and purchase luxuries that they are used to. So the businesses that provide these products start losing out and going under, and the snowball begins to grow.

Then come the bailouts and the tax breaks. People say yes, we need this government aid to stimulate the economy and get people back on their feet. Get businesses going again and get those jobs back on the market. But who do these bailouts and tax breaks go to? They go to the banks and corporations where the problem started in the first place. These bailouts are supposed to stem lending and help spur the economy. “ From June 2008 to June 2010, commercial and industrial lending by commercial banks declined by $222 billion or 18 percent, from $1,204 billion to $982 billion. Over the same period, small-business lending by commercial banks declined by $57 billion or 8 percent, from $661 billion to just $604 billion. The lesson is clear: Investing taxpayer dollars in commercial banks leads not to more lending, but to less lending by the banks.” Rebel A. Cole -The Washington Times In the meanwhile all of this money has to come from somewhere and where else but the taxpayers pockets or worse borrowed from other countries.

The Atlantic

In conclusion the best way to conserve the patriotic act of Americans supporting each other by shopping and purchasing American products is to allow the free enterprise to take it's course. “The key to free enterprise is that all these people, whether they start a business of their own or work for someone else, do so voluntarily. By allowing people to pursue their own interests, a free enterprise system can produce phenomenal results.” the Economy and Monetary Policy

Reckless Driving

Reckless Driving

Is Technology the Downfall of Society

In Fahrenheit 451 Bradbury's chief fireman tells our hero, Montag that the reason that the books have been outlawed and are burnt on site is that through technology the act of reading became obsolete, so to speak, and then so did the need to learn reading and thinking skills. Therefore the the well read and educated man became the minority and the unfamiliar to the majority, and the unfamiliar is dreaded. So reading and thinking became dangerous, “a loaded gun and the book was the ammunition”, therefore, burn the books and empty the gun. So the technology essentially took over the minds of the people and made them slaves of their own doing. Many people believe that technology is ruining the kids of today for several reasons. Spending too much time in front of the television watching or playing video games, surfing the net in front of a computer screen, or texting and playing on the cell phones.

The special effects of today's television and movies have gotten so advanced that they paint the picture for you and leave nothing up to the imagination. A picture is worth a thousand words, but what is the imagination worth. Many people would say that painting a picture in the imagination is worth much more. Watching television is meant to be an escape from reality, although with the ever growing popularity of reality TV I'd say an escape from one's own reality. But what if the fantasy of television takes over reality. Bradbury refers to the characters on the three wall sized television screens that Montag's wife watches as “the family”. I would be extremely concerned if the characters on a television show were more family that my own family.

Another way that people could argue against technology would be the texting and e-mailing shorthand and abbreviations. Are people taking the importance of good spelling and grammar seriously? Many would say that yes, spelling counts, and the use of the shorthand and abbreviations is affecting people and their ability to use spelling and grammar correctly. And being that almost all writing is done electronically anymore handwriting is also being affected. Will cursive writing be a thing of the past?

There is, however, an argument that technology is doing some good things for our literacy. The amount of readily available information at the stroke of a few keys makes it easier than ever to look up and validate just about any piece of information that one could think of. Entire libraries of books can be downloaded electronically to these new text readers that are becoming available. They are pretty expensive right now but I believe that text readers, like everything else that was the latest and greatest, will be quite affordable fairly soon. We are referring to these times as the information age, in fact almost everything these days is communicated in some form of text, "with so much written chatter, being able to read and write have become definite social advantages. There is simply much more pressure to know how to read than in the past when it comes to conversation, shopping, or work." Technology Review .

The statistics of people that read books these days are quite staggering. However I do not think that Bradbury was right about technology destroying the ability for people to read and think critically. I think that as long as people hold on to the importance of reading to their kids and reenforcing the ability of their kids reading and thinking skills, then it will remain intact. I do not believe that the people of this world, certainly not America will tolerate the burning of books so easily, the last time someone tried he had the world to deal with.

The Only Right Answer Is Wrong

 There are many people in this world that believe that their way is the only way that is right and no other way can work. There could be many reasons for this. People have it in their nature to want to be right, I know I don't like being wrong. Perhaps some people want so badly to always be right, or not to admit when they are wrong, that they force the issue, create evidence, or maybe misinterpret the evidence, or anything else they can do to convince others to go along with their solution. Another reason that people may think that there is only one solution may be because we were all taught this our whole lives through the use of standardized tests that we were given in order to measure the knowledge that we learned while in the class room. Maybe the desire to control a situation or even the masses is the reason that people have the need to be right, for instance who controls what the answers to these standardized tests are.

There is a major controversy in the news today that everyone has an opinion about in one way or another, that is the oil catastrophe in the gulf. Now that there has been so much damage to the environment everyone agrees that something has to be done. But what is to be done? There are many who believe that there is only one right answer, and that is to completely shut down drilling and find other resources. Perhaps we do need to find other resources for our power needs, there is definitely damage occurring to the environment even when there is not an accident of some kind. However we have been searching for other forms of energy for years and have not come up with anything that will accommodate the power needs of today's society. Therefore how is it a solution to shut down the primary source of energy that we rely on to power our entire way of life. It would force us to rely on importing our fuel and the jobs that would be lost would be countless. The other forms of energy should still be sought out, but until and alternative is found we can't abandon the energy that we have.

There are an infinite number of solutions that could work in order to ensure that this disaster off our coasts does not happen again. Of all the technological marvels that we have in our society there must be someone out there that can create one to contain a spill if something like this happens, or perhaps stricter laws placed on safety procedures ( I'm sure this one is already being implemented). It is impossible for there to be only one solution to this issue because everyone has a different point of view and they are all conflicting. A compromise of some kind is going to have to occur in order to please everyone.

The Patriotism of Free Enterprise

 The U.S. economy is, or at least used to be, based on the concept of a free market and free enterprise. Consumer spending is the basis of the free market and Americans out shopping and buying the products provided by other Americans is what keeps our economy alive and our nation thriving. Therefore it is patriotic to shop. However, it is against everything that America was built on when the government starts interfering in the affairs of the free enterprise that is carried out in America.

Free market as defined by Investor Words, an investing glossary, is “business governed by the laws of supply and demand, not restrained by government interference, regulation or subsidy. A foreign exchange market that is not controlled by the government.” InvestorWords.com And when the government doesn't let the consumer shop around to find the best price or quality in the products then this is no longer patriotic to the American way of life. The life and death of a business should be determined by how good the product is and how efficiently it can be distributed, not by how long the government bail out money, which is tax payers hard earned money that should be going to help the people and not the big corporations, can keep them afloat. “The role of the government of a nation is only limited to controlling the law and order of a country and to ensure that a 'fair price' is charged by the sellers.” EconomyWatch.com

The result of the government stepping in to “help out” the public with small business loans and first time homeowner loans resulted in the banks not being allowed to turn anyone down and they loaned out too much money to people who were never going to be able to pay it back. This helped cause the beginning of the downturn of the economy. Now there is no more money for people to borrow and the banks are foreclosing and people are losing their businesses and jobs start diminishing.

As a result the general public doesn't have the money to go shopping and purchase the products that are not necessities that they are used to. So the businesses that provide these products start losing out and going under, and the snowball begins to grow. Then come the bailouts and the tax breaks. But who do these bailouts and tax breaks go to? They go to the banks and corporations where the problem started in the first place. These bailouts are supposed to stem lending and help spur the economy. “ From June 2008 to June 2010, commercial and industrial lending by commercial banks declined by $222 billion or 18 percent, from $1,204 billion to $982 billion. Over the same period, small-business lending by commercial banks declined by $57 billion or 8 percent, from $661 billion to just $604 billion. The lesson is clear: Investing taxpayer dollars in commercial banks leads not to more lending, but to less lending by the banks.” Rebel A. Cole -The Washington Times In the meanwhile all of this money has to come from somewhere and where else but the taxpayers pockets or worse borrowed from other countries.

In conclusion the best way to conserve the patriotic act of Americans supporting each other by shopping and purchasing American products is to allow the free enterprise to take it's course. “The key to free enterprise is that all these people, whether they start a business of their own or work for someone else, do so voluntarily. By allowing people to pursue their own interests, a free enterprise system can produce phenomenal results.” the Economy and Monetary Policy