What's the Trouble with this Country?

For one thing we are not physically responsible. We are running the country like an irresponsible kid with a credit card that is running up a lot of debt that he cannot pay. We have too many people in the country with too much money that they are making at the expense of the general public and too many rich people in Washington making the laws to benefit themselves and their rich friends that are furnishing them the money to buy themselves into office.

If we were to increase the income tax on private individuals that make over $200,000 a year from 1% for every $100,000 after the first $250,000 up to 90% we could balance the budget, pay all government expenses, take care of our social security obligations and have universal health care and have money to give back to the states to build roads, hospitals, schools and anything else that would benefit the general public.

Don't fall for the gimmick of eliminating the IRS and having a national flat sales tax of 20%. That would give the multi millionaires even more benefits than they are getting now. For example someone that is working for a living wage would have to spend all his money to make a living, so he would pay taxes on all his income while the guy who is making 100 million would probably only spend one million on taxable expense so he would be paying taxes on only 1% of his income.

At the above suggested tax rate a person making 15 million a year would have approximately 7 million left after taxes. He could spend one million and still have 6 million left to save or do with whatever he desired. That should be enough for anybody and the country and everybody would benefit because the grant money would create more jobs so more people would be paying taxes.

My Opinion by John Zilverberg

The big bail out.

Brokerage firms in the U.S. are regulated by the securities and exchange commision and your securities held by the brokerage companies are supposed to be held sepperatly from assete of the brokerage firm so if the brokerage firm becomes insolvent you would not loose your investments held by the brokerage firm, That being the case I dont see why the government should bail out the brokerage firms that got themselves into trouble. If they are not conforming with the regulations the company managers and directors should be in jail.And if they managed the company so badly as to put it into bankrupsy they should not recieve any compensation. I understand the execatives of some of these companies that the government is being asked to bail out are walking away with millions of dollars in fact as high as 140 million dollars.That is A major crime. These execatives that put the company in this condition that the government has to bail it out should not recieve any compensation,They should be investigated to see if any crimes were commited and forced to work for the minimum wage till the government (thats us) is fully reimbursed.What we need in this country is more jobs so we need to do something to create more jobs,Presently we are priced out of the world markets so all of our jobs have gone to other countries where people work for A fraction of our minimum wage.If people worked for one half the wages they are getting now our cost of living would cost us one half of what it dose now and we could enjoy the same way of life we have now.and then if we raised the personal income tax one percent on every 100000.00 after the first 250000.00 we could put the country on A paying basis and the people in the lower income bracket would have to pay less taxes. With our present tax system we are creating A class of multi millioairs at the expense of the general public, And dont fall for the flat tax or the 22 pecent national sales tax ,That would benefit the rich even more then our present tax system. My opinion by John Zilverberg

our financial crisis

Here we are in A financial crisis again and everybody is trying to put the blame on someone else,And of course in poitics the other party.I dont think any one person or party is to blame . I notice this thing goes in A kind of cycle. When everything is going good and the country is prosperous people tend to forget that what goess up usualy comes down. They are riding high and start spending money they do not have. Busines people are making money so we raise the minimum wages. now the goods we are making are costing so much that we cant compete with the goods imported from other countries where people are working for A fraction of our minimum wage.,So busineses are shutting down and people are loosing jobs. The housing busines is booming so developers are building houses as fast as they can. All of A sudden the people that lost their jobs can no longer buy houses or pay for the ones they have .So we have A housing surplus, The construction busines shuts down and more people lose their jobs.So now we are in A recession ,The people that have money decide they better not spend it. Now the financial istitutions that loaned money on all these high priced houses are not being paid ,Now we have A financial crisis,Now the government (that is we the pewople) are spennding A lot of money we do not have to bail out the financial istitutions. So now who is going to bail out the government (thats us) I am still looking for the answer MY opinion by John Zilverberg

taxes and jobs

I recently listened to A debate between Obama and Mc kains representatives where the Obama represenatives accused MacKain of wantting to give tax breaks to big copperatives and businesses.Its good busines to give them A break from taxes because they are what create jobs and people that have jobs pay taxes. we should be taxing the managers and directors or anybody else that is taking the big money out of the companys these people are making big bucks at the expense of the general public . We need these people with the ability to manage A company or bussines if they do A good job,But they are not creating the wealth. The people that are creating the wealth are the laborers like the farmers that are producing the food,factory workers that build cars and machinery,Miners that dig the coal out of the ground etc.The company managers are not creating any wealth they are just handeling it and manovering it around and in some cases taking most of the profit.Those are the individuals on whom we should raise the taxes. A recent example is the Fannie Mae and the Fannie Mac debacle that was mismanaged causing A lot of people A lot of hardship and costing the tax payers in excess of one hundred billion dollars and the CEOs are alking away with millions of dollars.I call that legal robbery if they get away with it.At least if we had my recomended tax increase of one percent on individuals for every one hundred thousand after the first 250 thousand we would get some of the money back. Give president Bush credit . He repetatly asked congress to create an overseeing board to check on their activities and lending practices but congress never did anything about it till now that it is to late.The same goes for people in sports and the entertainment industries .They make millions at the expense of the general public.Instead of concentrating all that wealth in A small percent of the population we could level the playing field,and put the country on A paying basis and that would benefit everybody. My opinion by John Zilverberg

Russias invasion

We are making A big deal about Russia invading Georgia but nobody is saying anything about Georgia invading Ossetia doing A lot of damage and killing A lot of people.It looks like Russia invaded Georgia to punish them for invading Ossetia and now we want to punish Russia for invading Georgia.If Russia honors the cease fire that was agreed to we should be thankfull to Russia. This could esculate into another world war which nobody needs. It sure would be nice if people or countries and their leaders could settle their differances peacefuly without starting A war.Wars cause A lot of hardships for A lot of people and kill A lot of innocent people,including the soldiers that are fighting the war,In most cases they didnt have anything to do with starting the war. They are just pauns of the government leadersthat are sending them in to do the fighting. MY opinion by John Zilverberg

rich folksandtaxes

I generally like Bill O Reillys column and programs and usualy agree with him But I see in his column in the july 6 plainsman that when it comes to money he is just like the rest of the rich people. He likes to keep all that money he makes at the expense of the general public.He and the rest of the people who are making the big moneyare making it at the expense of the working public. Most of these are working as hard or harder then he is to produce the wealth,like the farmer who growes the food and handal it,the people who manufacture cars and machinery,the miners who dig the coal just to name A few.Sure some people are good enough and smart enough to take most of the profit from our labor.Butwe are A democraticc country and we ought to be smart enough to take some of it back to benefit the grneral public. If we raised the present tax on individuals one percent on every one hundred thousand dollars after the first 250000.00 some one making ten million would still have apprximatly three million left after taxes . He could spend one million and still have two million left to hoard or give away if they so desire. Instead of creating more billionairs,we could pay off the national debt and put this country on A paying basis.That would put the value back in our dollar thereby benefitting the whole country and everybody in it. And dont fall for that idea of A 22 percent national sales tax. That would give the multi millionairs and the billionaires even more of A good deal then they have now. My oppinion by John Zilverberg.

was it A mistake

For those that say it was A mistake to invade Eraq,Up to now it was A well kept secret that Sadam had A stock pile of 550 tons of yellow cake used for nuclear enrichment.Imagin what he could have done if he had gotten that much nuclear material made into bombs.With that much nuclear material made into bombs he could have wiped out the whole U.S. And any other countries that wiuldnt give in to his control. Congress finaly passed the servilance program that will give our officials the ability to check up on any suspected terrorists communications and there by their activities and stop them before they manage to do any major damage.Some protesters say its an invasion of our privacy,So what. If we are not doing anything wrong what dose it matter if officials check up on our activities.And this bill will help keep us alive. My opinion by John Zilverberg