La Shawn Barber was gracious enough to allow me to guest blog for her today.

See my post: Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood. The US Supreme Court should have spent only 5 minutes on this case!

Although pyramid scams were deemed illegal, when such scams are approved by Unions and/or Government the scam continues!

As we all know a pyramid scam is based on the principle that building a mass of workers under you over time allows you to reap major benefits from their labor. You promise those people under you that they will also get the same benefits in time and they just need to get a mass of workers under themselves. The problem is that those new workers never are able to amass enough people under them to support the promised benefits. And the whole thing crumbles.

Here’s a good reference on Pyramid Scams. Just think of Pensions and Social Security as you read this.

Likewise, Pension Plans and Social Security are also based on the premise that the first group of workers into a company or nation’s labor force will pay into a system and then be paid benefits via additional money put into the system by a larger mass of workers after them. Like Pyramid scams the people paying into pensions and social security expect big returns when they’ve put little in to begin with. With social security the rate of return is often lower than with pensions, but in each case the beneficiary gets paid via other workers putting money into the system. Pensions and social security are always underfunded, because the money is pooled and then spent by the managers of the money. In the case of pensions the money is spent by company executives on other things and with social security congress spends the money on other things. But the pool of money is always short! Just like with a pyramid scam, where the pool of money is mostly given to the people at the top! In all these cases the pool of money is always underfunded and the claims of a “secure” plan have always proven to be a big fat lie!

So in order for these plans to continue paying, the institution behind them must continue to grow! With pyramid scams, all is great so long as everything is growing. With pensions everything is great so long as the company is growing. With social security everything is great so long as the national work force is growing! And with all these plans they eventually stop growing! No company or national labor force grows to infinity! But these “pay as you go” systems require it! And so they all eventually collapse!

So with Social Security, of course private accounts makes more sense. Because then the individual puts in their own money and reaps the gains of interest made on their own personal investment. I agree with Starr Parker who recommends that we End Social Security! What she says is applicable to everyone!

With Pension Plans, new companies are already learning from the mistakes made by old ones and not offering a pension plan in many cases. Most new companies offer personal retirement account styled plans like a 401(k). If the company matches employee contributions it is done in real time, no waiting till retirement for the worker to see the money in their own personal account!

So let’s be done with these “we will pay you later for your hard work today” scams! Let people put money away for themselves. Give them their money to save in their own accounts with their name on it! Now if someone wants to be a FOOL and not save the money given to them, that would have otherwise been placed into one of these SCAMS! I say that’s what charities are for! Charity is not the role of government! Let them live off the donations of individuals that desire to give to charity cases! Charity is the role of the church, not government and I’m sure we’d have more people thankful to GOD if churches were doing the charity instead of GOVERNMENT! Or as I’ve heard a friend say god-verment!

GM’s CEO knew that pensions are a scam! That’s why he setup a separate retirement plan for himself! Shareholders should have balked at this when it was first announced!

Fellow Conservative blogger A Black Conservative Perspective tells this one like it is!

That’s similar to what I mentioned in this post.

I am SICK of hearing about this mess! I’m surprised every time a news station spends a single second talking about it! Stanley “Tookie” Williams is not an innocent baby in the womb of a mother that should not be killed! He is a killer! A destroyer of family order because of the lives that he “took”! The co-founder of a gang that ravages communities across the nation even now! And one of that gang’s “home boys” Snoop Dogg is out there trying to save this killer! Any second spent by news companies on this is time spent in foolishness! Governor Schwarzenegger is a fool and embarrassment to the word Conservative for spending a moment even considering excusing killer “Tookie” from the death penalty! (If I lived in CA I would have voted for McClintock! As I’ve said before Schwarzenegger is nothing but a Liberal Republican!) In fact, lethal injection is too kind a way for him to die! He’s going to die a much more calmer death than the people he killed!

I was trying not to say much about this, but this matter has stayed in the news for far too long! This story needs to die and Tookie with it!

I’m sick of seeing people defend these killers an destroyers of communities now that they claim to be “better”! Kill murders like Tookie and let criminals know they won’t get off easy when they commit a crime! If God wants him to live, like Daniel in the Lion’s Den or the 3 Hebrew boys in the fiery furnace he will survive! Don’t count on that happening!

update (11/28/2005 11:02AM ET): In response to the link at blog Booker Rising to this thread, a commenter pointed out this response from the LA County DA to Tookie’s clemency request. It is standard procedure for this response to be issued, but what is mentioned in the document is nothing less than STUNNING!

Without a doubt, American automotive companies made a lot of mistakes, that hurt those companies in the long run. But Unions are proving they will be the force that keeps these companies down.

Blog African American Environmentalist Association has a good post about this and mentions:

Usually environmentalists sicken me, but when a blog tells it straight I acknowledge it no matter who they are!

GM made a lot of mistakes over the years. But now the company needs to make drastic changes to get that ship in the right direction. And guess who is holding things back?… As always, the UNION! Be sure to read all of that blog’s post. I’m glad they said it straight, because it saves me the trouble of having to say it all myself!

And I know allowing the CEO’s secondary pension plan was one of the many mistakes GM has made. I’ll be covering that in another post that I will release tomorrow titled “The Pension Plan Scam!”. You can always search for it using the search feature on the left side of the page if you want to read that one.

Hat tip to Booker Rising for this find!

After ordinary American citizens worked to help the effort to stop illegal immigration with efforts like the Minuteman Project, President Bush finally starts talking about illegal immigration!

You can read the text of the speech here and The Political Teen has video.

The President covered many of the issues related to illegal immigration. And he pointed out the FACT that he has been doing things to improve border security. He’s done a heck of a lot more than the President before him ever did!

The President also mentioned:

He mentioned that we will protect our borders and there will be no amnesty programs! The President also mentioned how he wants to change many of the processes used today. So that the processing of illegals is more efficient. He brought up a lot of common sense changes that will be good to implement. He also mentioned how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has tried to inhibit the effort to reduce illegal immigration.

Then after all the good he mentioned, he tried to get away with saying some very stupid stuff!

First he tried to bring up his “guest worker program”. As if that will result in immigrant workers that want to go back home upon request . And then he said what I consider to be the worst statement of all:

This is the biggest lie I’ve been hearing in relation to this entire illegal immigration issue! AMERICANS WILL DO THOSE JOBS AND USED TO DO THEM ALL!!! The issue is NOT that Americans will not “do” the jobs. The issue is that employers are not able to remain competitive and offer a wage that most Americans would find acceptable! This same issue happened back in the old colonial times when people would not work for 2 shillings a day! And the result was slavery, to satisfy the desire for cheap labor! What Bush is trying to do is satisfy the current desire for cheap labor, with a work force that will accept that lower wage. The problem is that they are not Americans and they will not go home! They will continue to burden state resources after their assigned job is done, by running to other “under the table” work and living in America illegally! Since Bush announced plans for a guest worker program, illegals have been jumping the border thinking that Bush will give them a means to stay! And that is exactly what they will continue to think! Bush needs to scrap his guest worker program and I hope Congress does not allow it!

Close off the border by a wall, troops or other means. Then the issues employers have could be resolved via one or more of the following:

• Employers offering an acceptable wage. This would result in higher prices, but employers would have the workers they need. The inflation in prices would not destroy the nation and we would be fine.
• Government doing away with many of these social programs, that allow poor people to feel they can refuse work, while they continue to collect working tax payers money! Without the social programs they would realize that they are not in the position to call the shots and they will accept the lower wage work in more cases! Just as poor people did when there were no social programs! It built character in children to see their parents working, so there was not generational dependence on social programs!
• Increase the number of legal immigrants allowed yearly.

Personally I like the 2nd option! And America would do well with it! As in the old colonial times, if a wage really is too low, even without social programs people will refuse the work. (And if they refuse one job they will find better paying work.) Then the employer will have to resort to option #1 in my list above. This would allow our nation’s market to work properly! Option #3 could be exercised at times, to ensure the market flows smoothly. Some might claim that my suggested changes might result in additional outsourcing, but many of the jobs done by illegals are not easy to outsource. Otherwise they would have already been outsourced. Besides, American citizens are already not the ones doing that work!

Now back to the President’s speech. He said one thing near the end of his speech that was great!

And yes it is time to make English the official language of this nation!

Michelle Malkin mentions how the administration’s actions have yet to match the President’s current words!

Euphoric Reality mentions some other issues related to illegal immigration.