I am not sure how many of you out there follow the notion that the government is the pinnacle of efficiency….well if you do, please just ignore this story. Because for the rest of us, we’re living in reality and almost all are painfully aware that governmenthas more of a, “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality. By honestly, why should they care about conserving energy when they aren’t the ones that have to pay for it? Honestly, if you put yourself in the money is not an issue mentality, then a lot of government programs make plenty of sense, because money magically grows on trees.
This newest blunder of the government comes from the report (found here)of the inspector general, that the department of energy is actually the worse at conserving that energy. The Department of Energy failed it’s recent energy audit, which is strange because they are big advocates of conserving energy. This is where, there suggestions only refer to the peons (you and I) and not to the people in government.
The report states that the DOE keeps things running all throughout the night to make sure things are comfortable for when they get in the next day. Who cares that running the heating, ventilation and air conditioning after hours (which they recommend) could save the taxpayers estimatedly $11 million dollars per year (that’s no chump change). This isn’t the first audit that DOE has failed, back in May they were caught leaving computer monitors on, which cost us about $1 Million dollars.
I would think in a perfect world, that an organization telling me to conserve energy would be the kings of conserving energy themselves. It’s like being told that the people at the top levels of PETA wore fir and ran a fur shop on the side. It’s just one of those crazy things the government can do that we just side with and let it go, because it’s the government and we expect that. Yet we shouldn’t because if all government organizations where forced to become energy efficient we might be able to get some serious cash back in our pockets.
Even the White House is having problems with energy efficiency, being attacked for using too much energy. Which means that most likely that every government building is energy inefficient, and could improve. Imagine that one department in the government could save tax payers 100 Million a year, what all these departments can do. So the green movement doesn’t need to target the average consumer, it needs to hit the government. They are the leaders of inefficiency….not us.
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Goverment Can’t Follow its own Enforcement…again
July 24, 2009 // Posted in Broken Systems (Tags: Department of Energy, DOE, Energy energy efficiency, Government, Jim Guckin, Jim Guckin Show) | No Comments
Credit Cards Go Up…and Congress get’s down!
July 16, 2009 // Posted in Broken Systems | No Comments
Many of us aren’t even aware the levels that congress has learned to screw us…and make themselves look good at the same time. For example, I’ve already received, and you either have or will receive, a letter in the mail soon with new terms on your credit card. When I got the letter, I honestly thought very little about it…other than damn…there’s more I’m going have to pay. Well good thing that I learned, that the increase in my payments have gone up thanks to my buddies in congress. How does congress cause your credit card payments to go up? Well they pass legislation and ignore the consequences, and I chose the word ignore for a purprose, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
This series of events was put in place when congress was debating on a bill which would force banks to give the same rate to people with good or bad credit. There is a reason that the banks devised the current system, to make sure their loans get repaid and they hedge their bets. Most banks assume when they make a loan, there is a chance that you may not pay it back, and they are always aware of it. Their was a way that they could look at your borrowing and repayment history, by looking at your credit score. Your creidt score would numerically show a bank how likley you were to pay back you loan…the more likley you made you payments ontime and fully, the less risk and they less they charge. Some people (like myself) ran into some hard times and have a less than perfect repayments, and their score is lower…banks are sure that we will pay them the money on time like we owe them. Banks see us as risky, so they charge more…to get more money faster. It’s something we all know happens, and it’s part of the agreement that we sign.
So back to Congress…they wanted to pass this bill that made people with good and bad credit pay the same amount. This means to hedge their bets and make sure they make some money, they would have to raise everyone’s rate…good or bad, so they make sure the people not paying aren’t hurting the people paying. Infact they warned congress, if you put this bill in place…we’ll make every rate equal and recover the money from everyone….not just the deadbeats. What did congress do? If you guessed stick their fingers in their ears and go, “la la la…I can’t hear you….la la la”…then you are right…because even with the many warnings from the banks…the embeciles in congress are amazed that the banks raised the rates.
Now like the usual “heros” of the day…Congress is outraged at these banks and already looking for some way to restore order to the system they messed up…well everyway except for removing the law that put this in motion. I always thought that this congress and this president wanted everyone treated equally…well not we are…we are all being screwed because of their laws. Congress doesn’t even have a right to get involved in the workings of the banking business…they are a government…let the banks do what they do best and stay out of it. If we think their rates are unfair, we can cancel their cards. What ever happened to personal responsibility? I guess we gave that up when congress first started passing laws to protect us…it was their job now. This is why I always make the point to people, do you know how much the government costs you? Not just the yearly taxes, but all the sales taxes and all the legislation that causes buisnesses to raise their rates. We would all be alot richer…if they would keep their nose out of our buisness….and stop passing laws just to do something.
1 State down….49 to go!
July 6, 2009 // Posted in Broken Systems, Politically Thinking, Problem Is... (Tags: California, Congress, Conservative, Democracy, Democrat, Government, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Guckin, Jim Guckin Show, Liberal, Libertarian, Liberty, Moderate, News, Recession, Representative, Republic, Republican, Spending) | No Comments
“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.”
-Thomas Jefferson
As many of you are quite aware now, the state of California is now broke. The politicians are turning to their same old games once again on blaming each other so as to keep us well distracted. The state in order to operate is now passing out IOUs, the same ones we use to hand out as children. I am lucky to not live in California at this time, because all an IOU really is, is leveraging this money on the children of the state. These young children in grade school, playing kickball have no idea the debt that we are shoving upon them or the poverty which we are going to shove upon them. The even sadder news is, this isn’t just California many states are being forced into the same situation, and California is just the first in the series of dominos.
The major problem is, is that the states want to help everyone, and as they stretch their dollars thin, they need more taxes to fill the gaps. Now rather than cut their plans and ideas down, they opt for the more destructive plan, they tax more. The problem is that at a certain tipping point, the voters fight back, and they hold off. This is where we currently are at, politicians have pushed taxes as high as they were going to go, and we don’t want to pay anymore. State recently tried taxing the rich more, and the rich have moved from those states, causing less revenue. This situation has run into the proverbial end of the line, they are running out of money, yet they just keep spending. To me it seems like they just can’t help themselves, they are spending themselves out of existence. Their amount of IOUs will only keep growing, and when people realize that they are worthless, they will stop accepting them. Once the IOUs are gone, then they have two actions, tax more or cut spending drastically….and if history dictates, they will tax more until the politicians and the absolute poor are the only ones left.
This isn’t just a state level problem, even though many states are experiencing the same problems, the federal government is doing the same thing. There is just one catch though, the federal government can just keep printing the money and keep circulating it…this doesn’t solve their problem, just makes it harder to see…though we’ll all pay when the dollar is worthless. Our politicians spending are ruining this country…and we are the ones who all pay. Why should children playing in a school yard today be held with the frivolous spending of us currently? When did they agree to be saddled with our debt and our mismanagement? I think politicians need to wake up slash all spending by 75% and cut their juicy benefits. Then get this country out of debt and make sure I, you, and our children get as much of our hard earned money as possible. Politician’s pet projects need to be stopped, and instead of adding more laws they need to be cutting useless laws.
We need to watch California, so that we all don’t make the same mistakes in our states. With the Governor blaming one and the democrats blaming him…and nothing gets done. With the 4th of July that just passed, think about freedom, because freedom and protecting everyone’s liberty will cut spending…even if we don’t agree with it.
Placeholders in Passed Bills?
July 1, 2009 // Posted in Broken Systems, Politically Thinking (Tags: California, Congress, Conservative, Democracy, Democrat, Government, Henry Waxman, HR 2454, Jim Guckin, Jim Guckin Show, Liberal, Libertarian, Liberty, Moderate, Representative, Republic, Republican) | No Comments
By now most of us are use to the fact that congress doesn’t read most of the bills they pass, and how could they? They pass so many laws, that if they were to stop and read them they’d get nothing done. They generally get some staff member to glance through the bill, make sure they won’t get attacked the next time for elections. Well this has been surpassed by and even scarier trend that is even less known…the ability to put stuff into a bill, after it has been passed. Yes you read that right; congress now has the amazing ability to place “placeholder” text into a bill. When that bill gets passed with the “placeholder” in there, congress can then add text in that placeholder spot, once they have everything figured out.
Right now there isn’t much misuse of this special “placeholder” ability that congress has apparently just granted themselves, they generally just use to for pointless nonsense. Yet, I can only imagine some time where a congress person (I’m sure trying to be helpful) will put a placeholder in a bill and then, force a law down our throats. Now I’m not sure how many congress people are aware of this new special ability, but I do know that one of them is…Representative Waxman of the 30th district of California, because this placeholder appears in his bill.
Below is an excerpt of HR 2454 (entire bill can be found here). In the table of contents you can find this little gem:
Placholder in HR 2454
Now I thought that was weird, but when you actually go to the section mentioned, you can see that it indeed is part of the bill:
Well there you have it; obviously it still is in the bill. Though like me, you must think that I am making this us…but the link to government web page can show you I’m not making this stuff up (link). Well like me, you think, hey this bill didn’t pass yet and is still a work in progress; no one would sign a bill where anything can be inserted? Well you’d be wrong, according to govtrack.us; the bill has passed the House of Represent ivies on June 26th, 2009 with a roll call vote of 219 for and 212 against. “The American Clean Energy and Security Act” passed one of the steps needed to become a law…and it isn’t even completed yet.
To find out who voted for an incomplete bill…or really a bill where they can insert whatever they want if it passes, you can visit this site: opencongress.org to see the roll call vote on this. Though this generally falls along party lines, this is a scary prospect and shouldn’t happen in future bills. I wouldn’t go above to call for all these politicians to resign for letting such a threat to liberty get through their ranks. To me, this seems a treasonous act, to leave something so open that anyone can add anything to a passed bill. Not sure how long this was going on, or how many bills have this placeholder in it, but it’s scary. It’s only a matter of time, until this is used against the American people as a weapon against our freedoms.
The healthcare debate
June 17, 2009 // Posted in Broken Systems (Tags: Congress, Government, Healthcare, Insurance Companies, Jim Guckin, Jim Guckin Show, President Obama) | No Comments
With Congress warming up the debate on the future of healthcare in this country, I though it was a good time to go over why this is a bad idea. To name one, nothing that any congressional session or presidential office, that has made things easier and better, it will be a long time before you can think of something. There are many out there, who would want to argue that fact and may try to point to some minimal example of where they may have made something better.
The easiest point to make in this argument against government intervention is this simple point: government has no incentive to make things quick and more efficient. This is just a very simple and very powerful statement against this, the government will pay no more or less in healthcare for increased speed and better diagnosis. So under the extra amount of more people who would be visiting the doctors and hospitals, you will have added delays in the time it takes for diagnosis and treatment. There are incidents in other countries where care of people has been affected due to high volume. I did a show last year, which in Europe there had to be a law passed that you couldn’t sit in an ambulance pass four hours. That isn’t a problem that we currently expierance in this country in our current system.
“Government Healthcare will be good for everyone” - Well this saying is easily disputed by looking once again at other countries where healthcare is government. In Japan there was a story that the government enforced a weight limit for healthcare. Now this wouldn’t be a first step in the US Government run health care, but as time passed and people complained about the increase in taxes, they would have to find ways to cut cost, I think that overweight people would be dropped first. “Well it’s their fault for being overweight!” is an argument many of people would say. The problem is that it’s a disorder, and these people would need to be covered just as well. While people who currently have to avoid doctors could go, people who need doctors would have less access to them, causing issues. In fact some people actually come to this country from Canada to have surgeries done, because there isn’t a reasonable timeframe for them to be done in their own country.
Now I don’t want people to think I’m pro-HMO or current system, because I’m not. In fact I agree with people that the system is broken, and government paying for it won’t solve it. I think the opposite is true, that companies and government need to be out of healthcare. I think that we should pay for healthcare, the same way we would with getting glasses or laser eye surgery. I remember looking into laser eye surgery when it first came out, and it was so expensive that I would never be able to afford it. Though after time, and as the procedure has gotten better and gotten more affordable, the same would happen with the healthcare system as a whole. Now the savings wouldn’t be immediately, but as doctors competed for customers. This also would take the decision making power out of government (proposed) and insurance companies (current) and put it in your hands. Because you’d choose what you wanted to pay for and what you didn’t. Even though you hear the government would take your decision away, you don’t have that decision currently. Let’s make healthcare affordable and take it out of everyone else’s hands and bring it back to ours. I bet we’d see better healthcare now, because your doctor would need to compete for your business.