May, 2013 Political Class Insanity, Part 3: Fixing Unemployment In Serbia, Obama Phone Fraud, The Collapse of Detroit, and More

This is the third in a series of posts covering the latest political class insanity. In the previous two posts we have reviewed such lunacy as the U.S. defense budget which is now over a whopping $700 billion a year, the fact that the Federal government hands out over $115 billion a year in contracts that have no competitive bidding involved, the monstrosity that is Dodd-Frank, and other lunacy, which continues today.

1) A Wall Street Journal article that was summarized in the March 22, 2013 issue of The Week magazine reported that Americans are less active than ever. A new Federal government study estimated that Americans’ sedentary time outside of work has increased by about 40% between 1965 and 2009. On average, Americans take 5,117 steps a day, about half than the 10,000 steps recommended by the American Heart Association.

No matter how much health insurance is provided to Americans under Obama Care, unless you can get Americans up and walking and active, you will not eliminate one of the main root causes of skyrocketing health care costs in this country. Rather than setting up massive government bureaucracies that will never work and strangling the economy with taxes and regulations, the far better, simpler, and more effective approach to high health care costs is a public relations and public health drive to get people moving.

However, better, simpler, and effective are three adjectives rarely associated with the American political class.

2) Another Federal welfare program that has gotten out of control and is riddled with waste is the so-called “Obama Phone” program:

• The original program was started way back in the Reagan administration and provided minimal landline phone service to poor rural Americans so that they could make a call during an emergency.
• Back then, the annual cost of the program was about $146 million dollars.
• In 2008, cell phones were added to this so-called Lifeline program and the usage ballooned.
• The program, which is supposed to be only for people on food stamps and welfare, costs the American taxpayer $2.2 billion a year.
• This makes it 15 times more expensive than when it was truly for emergency use only.
• The fraud and inefficiency of the program has gotten so out of hand that even Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was offered a free phone under the program: “I got solicitation for a free phone at my apartment, which is certainly not a building where you’re going to have people who are qualified for free phones. … There is clearly money being wasted here.” You think, Senator?
• The waste the Senator so eloquently believes to exist is staggering.
• The FCC says there are more than 270,000 people who have more than one welfare phone, which is not allowed in the program.
• The top five companies that provide phones under the program readily admit that 41% of the people who have the phones may not be eligible for the program but still get them anyway.
• Arkansas Republican Congressman Tim Griffin recently asserted: “I hear from law enforcement that these phones are often found at crime scenes and are used in drug deals. Why? It’s because you can’t trace them.”

Great program. Almost half of the participants are getting the phones illegally and fraudulently. They are being used for criminal activities, courtesy of the American taxpayer. And those that are actually entitled to a free phone may actually be abusing the privilege by asking for AND obtaining more than one free phone.

If you could get just the 41% fraud under control, you could save the American taxpayer about $900 million a year. Those savings could operate the discontinued White House tours for over 900 years or give each American household about $7.50, enough for a movie ticket or a few gallons of gas, certainly more worthwhile uses than supporting crime and fraud.

3) Detroit used to be one of the largest, most vibrant, and wealthiest cities in America. However, decades of political corruption, fraud, incompetence, and political criminal activity have resulted in the following Detroit condition:

1. Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and it was once home to close to 2 million people. However, according to the 2010 census, only 713,000 people now live in Detroit.
2. The population of Detroit has declined by about 25 percent over the past decade. The last time the population of Detroit was this low was back in 1910.
3. Back in 1960, the city of Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the United States.
4. Today, the unemployment rate in Detroit is more than 18%, which is more than twice as high as the nation as a whole.
5. According to a report that was just recently released, approximately 60% of all children in Detroit live in poverty.
6. Approximately one-third of Detroit's 140 square miles are either vacant or derelict.
7. The city government of Detroit has closed dozens of schools and has decided to cut off public services to the heavily blighted areas.
8. According to one estimate, there are 33,500 empty houses and 91,000 vacant residential lots in the city of Detroit today.
9. The median price of a home in Detroit is just $9,000, and there are some areas of Detroit where you can still buy a house for $100.
10. The murder rate in Detroit is 11 times higher than it is in New York City.
11. Due to budget cutbacks, most police stations in Detroit are now closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

Note: the original sources of this data can be accessed at:

http://www.isthatbaloney.com/11-shocking-facts-about-detroit-that-dont-fit-obamas-so-called-economic-recovery/

You have to work hard to be so incompetent. It is hard to fathom that a city’s politicians could be so crooked and so inept to allow a city of this magnitude to fall so far. It reinforces the fact that just because someone is in a political position, national, state, or local, does not mean that they are honest, bright, and hard working. Detroit is the personification of this.

4) Everyone knows that it has been a rough five years for the U.S. economy. Persistently high unemployment with over 23 million Americans unemployed or underemployed. Worse employment conditions for minorities and younger Americans. Record high food stamp enrollment.

Thus, one could consider the recent announcement that the Federal government was looking to grant upwards of $300,000 for an effort for “workforce development.” Although small in budget terms, anything to get Americans working might be considered a good idea.

Oops, the $300,000 was not for unemployed Americans, it was to be used to help Serbia get its unemployment rate down. Yes, Serbia. How many Americans do you think could pick out Serbia on a map? Talk about bad priorities.

The Federal government’s International Development (USAID) organization recently announced that it will award up to $300,000 for “workforce development” in the Republic of Serbia:

“Currently, there is a mismatch between private sector needs and the capacity of the existing workforce, which continues to contribute to the high unemployment rate, especially among youth.
Therefore, USAID/Serbia has identified workforce development as a means to address the broader problem of unemployment,”

Serbia??? Consider the unemployment and other economic conditions currently in place in this country as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in early April:

• The unemployment rate is about 7.6% in America, in itself very bad but much less than the combined unemployment rate and underemployment rate.
• 9.46 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce since Obama was first inaugurated in January 2009.
• The unemployment rate for African Americans in America is 13.3%.
• The unemployment rate for Latinos the rate is 9.2%.

I am sure that Serbia has some significant problems but we do also. Wasting even the relatively small sum of $300,000 is money well wasted on a Serbian problem, given our own dire economic workforce problems.

Serbia??? More political class insanity tomorrow.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

the Slime, The Sleaze, the Immorality, and The Corruption Of The American Policial Class -Part 2

Yesterday we slimed our way through 20 different instances of the American political class members who had acted in less than statesmanship ways. From cheating on their wives, one of whom was dying of cancer, to cronyism to encouraging false testimony to using the the processes of government to improvement their own personal lives, the slime, the sleaze, the immorality and the corruption of the political class was on full display.

Unfortunately, we could not fit all of the bad behavior into one post. We will need at least four more posts to get it all covered, certainly a sad commentary on what passes for leadership in Washington and elsewhere within our politics today:

1) Let's start today with a former governor from my home state of New Jersey. Jim McGreevey was the 52nd governor of New jersey but was forced to resign in 2004 after admitting lying about an extramarital affair with an Israeli citizen.

One disgusting aspect of the affair was that by naming his lover as the homeland security interface for the state government of New Jersey, he placed the citizens of New Jersey in potential danger from terrorist attacks since the FBI and Department of Homeland Security were forbidden to share its intelligence information with non-citizens, temporarily leaving the safety of New Jersey citizens in the dark relative to the latest intelligence information.

2) Let's stay in New Jersey and talk about a former U.S. Senator, Robert Torricelli. After getting elected to the Senate from New Jersey in 1996, he was forced to withdrawal from a reelection effort in 2002 after it came to light that he knowingly received illegal campaign donations from a North Korean businessman. 
His problems continued in 2007 when he was again the subject of controversy in 2007 when it was revealed that he spent some of the $2.9 million left over from his Senate campaign on donations to political candidates with ties to his business interests.

3) But can New Jersey really hold a candle to Illinois when it comes to political slime and corruption. First, three out of the past five governors of Illinois are currently or have already done prison time for their convictions on numerous counts of kickbacks, corruption, etc.

But consider the following news item from the March 2, 2012 issue of The Week magazine, reporting on a Chicago Tribune article: since 1976, 1,531 public officials from the Chicago area have been convicted of corruption. This simple math works out to the following, depressing conclusions:

•On average, more than one Chicago area public official was convicted every week for 27 years in the Chicago area for corruption.

•These are CONVICTIONS, not arrests, no indictments, but  CONVICTIONS.

•This conviction rate was only in the Chicago area, it did not include the entire state of Illinois or any other sub part of Illinois, just the Chicago area.

This number does obviously not include those corrupt public officials that got away with their crimes and corruption.Very depressing but a simple math explanation of why our government at all levels, is ineffective, inefficient, and a disgrace: those that are in office are ineffective and inefficient because they are looking out for only their self interest which makes them a disgrace relative to being a public servant. Hats off to Illinois politicians: they do corruption better than anywhere else in the country.

4) In a July 1, 2009 Washington Post article, U.S. Senator Sen. Daniel Inouye's Senate staff directly contacted Federal Treasury regulators to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that Inouye had helped to create and into which he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was not a prime candidate for a Treasury program designed to support healthy banks. The bank's losses were depleting its capital reserves and its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn't meet the rules for receiving a favorable recommendation for a bailout. 

Nonetheless, two weeks after the inquiry from Inouye's office, Central Pacific announced that the Treasury would inject $135 million into the ailing bank. Coincidence or corruption, I'll let you decide.

5) Apparently, if you are a member of the U.S.Congress, you are not allowed to receive direct cash gifts or many other kinds of gifts from unions, businesses, lobbyists, etc. These types of gifts are seen as potential bribes to get legislators to vote favorably on pending legislation relative to the gift givers, even if it is not in the best interests of the American public. I wholeheartedly agree with this type of restriction.

However, as a member of Congress, you are allowed to participate in what is usually lucrative IPO offerings of a company, i.e. Congressional members can be on "the inside" when it comes to IPOs. According to a recent piece on "60 Minutes," no one in Congress has leveraged this loophole any better than Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House.

"60 Minutes" reported that Ms. Pelosi participated in upwards of nine corporate IPO opportunities, including one for the VISA IPO. VISA was somehow able get revenue restriction legislation delayed in the House Of Representatives when Pelosi was the Speaker of the House until after the IPO happened, resulting in a $100,000 profit for Ms. Pelosi's insider IPO participation in just a few days.
6) That same "60 Minutes" expose' reported that Congressman Spencer Bachus had successfully shorted the financial sector of the stock market just after getting warnings of a financial meltdown from the Secretary Of Treasury and head of the Federal Reserve Board, days before the information became public.

7) The "60 Minute" corruption piece also showed how former and current members of Congress, including Dennis Hasert, John Boehner, and Harry Reid, had also used their insider information positions to influence government behavior that benefited themselves personally.

8) According to an October 22, 2010 article in the Boston Herald by Dave Wedge, Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, accepted $40,000 in reelection campaign donations from financial institutions that received bailout/TARP from the government. Two things make this action so despicable. First, Congressman Frank was at the center of the whole taxpayer bank bailout activity since he was chairman of the lead House of Representatives committee that was determining which institutions got how much taxpayer money, if any.

Second, in 2009, Mr. Frank told the Washington publication, Roll Call, that he "won't take any PAC money from banks that took TARP funds, nor would I take it from the top executive." However, according to Mr. Wedge's research and article:

•"According to Mr Frank's own campaign disclosure reports, he accepted a campaign donation of $7,000 from top executives from Bank Of America. Bank of America received $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds."

•He received $5,000 for Bank Of America's Federal PAC fund.

•He received $10,000 from the Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation which received $3 billion from the bailout fund.

•He received $2,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC that includes representatives from TARP recipients Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chase, and Wells Fargo.

•He received $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp's PAC which received $6 billion in bailout funds.

9) According to an article in the June 30, 2009 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, Florida Congresswoman Ginny Waite-Brown invested in various banks based on non-public, secret information she received as a result of her membership on a House banking committee, the very committee that approved taxpayer bailout money for the very same banks the Congresswoman invested in.

10) Oh, we are just getting warmed up. Consider a whole slew of corruption and slime that came to light in a Business Week magazine article within their Spring, 2011 Government Insider Special report:

•New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez recently "championed" a plan to provide a temporary tax cut for small companies, a tax cut that would allow them to offset investments these companies might make in research on therapies to prevent and treat chronic diseases. Oh, by the way, the pharmaceutical industry in New Jersey just happened to contribute $434,043 to his 2010 reelection campaign and PAC.

•Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow sponsored a bill to give a tax rebate for consumers who purchase a gas/electric car or truck. The recently available Chevy Volt from General Motors certainly falls within this category. Oh, by the way, General Motors employees contributed $84,635 to Stabenow's reelection campaigns between 1995 and 2010.

•New York Senator Charles Schumer has been accused by other Congressional members of making a proposed tax on carried interest of private equity managers so difficult that the measure never was passed into law. Oh, by the way, Schumer has received $8.8 million from the security and investment industry since 1989, an industry that certainly includes private equity managers.

•Montana Senator Max Baucus obtained a provision in a recent farm bill "for tax exempt forestry conservation bonds to help purchase a 500 square mile patchwork of land owned by Plum Creek Timber." Oh, by the way, Plum Creek Timber has spent $3.7 million in lobbyists fees from 2006 to 2010 and its employees have contributed $19,100 to various Bachus reelection campaigns.

•Iowa Senator Charles Grassley has backed tax credits for domestic production of corn based ethanol and tariffs on imports of ethanol. It just so happens that his home state has 40 ethanol plants that generate 3.5 billion gallons of ethanol each year. Oh, by the way, Grassley received $290,250 in reelection campaign donations from agriculturally based PACs in his 2010 election run.

•Arizona Senator John Kyl is a major proponent of cutting taxes on inherited wealth, having been instrumental in the one year hiatus of the inheritance tax in 2010 and cutting a deal with Obama to keep the reinstatement of the tax at 35%. Oh, by the way, eliminating the estate tax is a major priority of the Club For Growth, which just has happened to donate $155,753 to the Senator's election campaigns since 1989.

•Texas Senator John Cornyn has opposed Obama's attempts to repeal oil and gas industry tax breaks besides opposing the President's ban on Gulf oil drilling. Oh, by the way, oil and gas industry components have given the Senator $1.7 million since 2001.

10) A Bloomberg.com report, that was reprinted in an October, 2010 issue of The Week magazine, reported that six dozen Congressional staffers had traded in stocks of companies that their political bosses were actively involved in. One staffer heavily traded in Bank Of American stock when he found out early, before the rest of the world, that Bank of America had successfully passed its so-called "stress test," i.e. it was deemed a healthy company. Conflict of interest, being a parasite off of a politician style.

11) Former Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, was caught in an adulterous affair with an Argentinian woman while still married and still governor. The sad, but funny part of this escapade was that for a while no one knew where the Governor was, giving the excuse he was out in the woods in the U.S. on vacation by himself when he was eventually caught in Argentina with his lover.

12) Former U.S. Senator from Nevada, John Ensign, resigned his Senate seat after it became known in June, 2009 that he had an affair with Cynthia Hampton, who was his political treasurer and was married to Doug Hampton, Ensign’s administrative assistant. The Ensign and Hampton families lived in the same neighborhood outside Las Vegas and were considered the best of friends. 

In an interesting twist to the whole genre of political adultery, Ensign’s parents, wealthy casino executives, paid the Hamptons $96,000 in what was labeled gift income for tax purposes, the precise amount legally permissible without triggering taxes. Conincidence or cover-up money? 

13) John Kerry is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and probably one of the richest members of Congress, having married into the Heniz family fortune. Despite living in Massachusetts, serving the state of Massachusetts in the Senate, and being filthy rich, he decided to bypass his legal tax obligations to the state of Massachusetts relative to his yacht.

According to a July 23, 2010 Boston Herald news article by Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa, the Senator had recently purchased a luxury 76 foot, New Zealand built boat with "glossy varnished teak interior, two VIP main cabins and a pilothouse fitted with a wet bar and cold wine storage." Obviously, this is not a row boat.

However, rather than berth the yacht in Massachusetts where he lives, wealthy Senator Kerry decided to berth the luxury ship in Newport, Rhode Island. This action allowed him to avoid paying almost $440,000 in Massachusetts sales tax and an annual Massachusetts excise of about $70,000. Rhode Island does not levy those types of taxes on boats. Nice example of non-integrity from a ranking member of the Washington political class.

14) Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri also has had some corruption and integrity problems. In late March, 2011, she announced she was selling her private plane and paying the owed back property taxes on it of over $287,000. Apparently in Missouri, an airplane owner has to pay property taxes on any plane that they own, something that the Senator did not do.

But that is not her only potential integrity problem. First, according to Politico, she also had to write a check to the Federal government when she billed her Senate expense account for purely political trips she made using the plane. This cost her to refund over $80,000 to the government.

Second, the plane is registered to a shell company that is registered as an LLC in the state of Delaware, a state that does not charge property taxes on private planes. Was this an attempt to shelter the plane from Missouri property taxes? Given that the Senator lives in Missouri, is a Senator from the state of Missouri, used to work for the state government of Missouri, and keeps the plane in a hangar in Missouri, it certainly gets suspicious when her plane gets registered in Delaware.

Finally, the Senator served as the state of Missouri auditor from 1999 to 2007 so claiming ignorance of the state laws on property taxes is not a viable defense. Makes you wonder how a smart, educated, politically savy individual could forget or neglect to pay over a quarter of a million dollars of property taxes. Corruption or incompetence, neither being a good adjective to describe a U.S. Senator.

In a final bit of irony, earlier in 2011, McCaskill signed on as a co-sponsor of Senate legislation that would fire Federal employees if they are “seriously delinquent” in paying their own Federal taxes. Looks like maybe we can add hypocrite onto the charges of incompetent or corrupt.

  Ashleigh Brilliant once insightfully said: "I either want less corruption in government or more of a chance to participate in it." Based on just the two past days of political class corruption, it appears most of politicians opted for the participation option offered by Ms. Brilliant. The sleaze train of corruption continues rolling along tomorrow.

Please visit our Presidential website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

Planes, Trains And Automobiles (And Boats!) - The Continuing Corruption of The Political Class

Definition of corruption - impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle

I was moved to find the definition of corruption recently, given the rampant and disgraceful behavior of the American political class in various situations. These situations are so varied, and yet so common to our politicians, that they reminded me of the 1987 movie featuring John Candy and Steven Martin, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles."

In that movie, Candy and Martin, two completely different personalities end up on a cross country trip of misadventures, both trying to get home to Chicago for the holidays. Their misadventures  include various disasters on planes, trains, and automobiles. Their plight reminds me of the corruption trip of our politicians that also includes plans, trains, and automobiles with an additional misadventure into boats. All of which fulfill my above definition of corruption, the impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle.

Planes

I find it hard hard to believe I missed this political crisis of corruption and impairment of integrity from earlier this year but I did. It involves Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri. In late March, 2011, she announced she was selling her private plane and paying the owed back property taxes on it of over $287,000. Apparently in Missouri, an airplane owner has to pay property taxes on any plane that they own, something that the Senator did not do.

But that is not her only potential integrity problem. First, according to Politico articles from earlier this year, she also had to write a check to the Federal government when she billed her Senate expense account for purely political trips she made using the plane.  This cost her to refund over $80,000 to the government.

Second, the plane is registered to a shell company that is registered as an LLC in the state of Delaware, a state that does not charge property taxes on private plans. Was this an attempt to shelter the plane from Missouri property taxes? Given that the Senator lives in Missouri, is a Senator from the state of Missouri, used to work for the state government of Missouri, and keeps the plane in a hangar in Missouri, it certainly gets suspicious when her plane gets registered in Delaware.

Finally, the Senator served as the state of Missouri auditor from 1999 to 2007 so claiming ignorance of the state laws on property taxes is not a viable defense. Makes you wonder how a smart, educated, politically savy individual could forget or neglect to pay over a quarter of a million dollars of property taxes. Corruption or incompetence, neither being a good adjective to describe a U.S. Senator.

In a final bit of irony, earlier in 2011, McCaskill signed on as a co-sponsor of Senate legislation that would fire Federal employees if they are “seriously delinquent” in paying their own Federal taxes. Looks like maybe we can add hypocrite onto the charges of incompetent or corrupt.

Trains

Reuters reported on October 27, 2011 that Federal authorities arrested and charged eleven people in connection with an alleged $1 billion fraud involving hundreds of railroad workers from the Long Island Railroad filing false disability claims. Some of the workers claimed that they were unable to work even though investigators found them playing golf, playing tennis, riding bikes, shoveling snow, and doing other strenuous activities.

Among those arrested were several doctors who participated in the scam. The doctors would write up false medical reports stating that the railroad employees were disabled and when the employees were approved for disability payments and disability retirements, the doctors got a kickback from the newly "disabled" employees.

How does the political class figure into this? Consider the following:

• This fraud has been going on for years and years, even before the New York Times reported on it back in 2008. Why was it not handled sooner by the New York political class? One billion dollars is a lot of money to lose, one would have thought it would have been visible much sooner.
• The Reuters report stated that just about every long time Long Island Railroad employee was on disability, far higher than other railroads. Thus, this should have been another glaring red light for those in charge of protecting taxpayer wealth and assets. If, as the New York Times reported, "almost every longtime LIRR employee was receiving disability payments, resulting in a disability rate sharply higher than other railroads," why was the political class so delinquent in its duties to punish the fraud?
• Finally, in the two examples cited in the Reuters article, both persons were receiving well over $100,000 a year in disability payments. Even if these were legitimate disability cases, why were the payments so high, almost double the average household income level of the average American household.

Thus, not only were the politicians delinquent and irresponsible in identifying the massive, $1 billion fraud, they were also irresponsible in allowing disability payments to be so out of whack with the reality of life in America.

Definitely impairment here, allowing a disability system to be so corrupt and wasteful of taxpayer wealth.

Automobiles

You have to love the Obama administration's Energy Department and their ability to constantly throw good money after bad when it comes to "green companies." The latest waste comes to us courtesy of ECOtality. ECOtality is another California based green company (why do all of the Obama administration's alternative energy failures seem to be in California?) that received another Federal government backed loan, this one valued at $115 million.

The objective of ECOtality was to install 14,000 plug in charging stations in 18 cities around the country so that consumers with electric vehicles could pull up and juice up their electric car batteries in a convenient, local manner.

However, things have not gone well, even though the company was mentioned in the President's state of the union message and touted by the head of the Energy Department, Steven Chu:

• The SEC has recently opened an investigation into the company related to insider trading.
• In the first six months of 2011, the company lost $12 million, $3 million more than the year before.
• Half of its first quarter income came from the Federal loan, not from operating or sales success, implying the financial losses were worse than $12 million from an operating perspective.
• The installation is behind schedule and the company may be asking for an extension to their original installation timeline.

I find it hard to believe that the company was to install 14,000 charging stations for a market that probably has no where close to 14,000 electric vehicles on the road. The logic escapes me. Even if all 14,000 were installed, how was anyone going to make money off of them?

How corrupt and non virtuous is your thought process for no one in government or the political class to understand how poorly this math works out: build out infrastructure across the country to the tune of 14,000 charging stations to handle a market size that is far less than 14,000 users of the 14,000 charging stations?  The corruption of their thought process makes your head spin.

Boats

Although Candy and Martin did not involve a boat in their travels to Chicago in the movie, the political class, as usual, goes one step further when it comes to corruption and impairment of integrity. We reported on this incident a while ago but it is worthwhile going over it again, given the theme for this post.

John Kerry is a U.S. Senator from the state of Massachusetts. He lives in Massachusetts and serves the state of Massachusetts. The Senator is one of the wealthiest people serving in Congress since he married into the Heinz family fortune, probably easily worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

However, as reported by the Associated Press in July, 2010, the Senator seemed to have had a little integrity and moral impairment back in the time frame when he purchased a new yacht worth about $7 million. Rather than berth it and maintain it in Massachusetts, he took the New Zealand built boat across the way to Rhode Island where he would not have to pay both Massachusetts sales tax and annual Massachusetts excise taxes.

These are not trivial sums. The Associated Press report estimated that the home state of the U.S. Senator was missing out on $437,500 in one time sales taxes and $70,000 a year in excise taxes. I would say this corruption puts him in the same class, using the same cheat-my-home-state out of legally due taxes, as the good Senator from Missouri did with her airplane registration in Delaware misadventure.  Just another instance of political corruption, a major impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principle.

The good thing about the movie is that it was funny and the misadventures were happening to someone else. The unfortunate thing about political class version of "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (and Boats)," is the the misadventures happen to the taxpayers and the associated waste of taxpayer wealth. There is nothing funny about that.

This type of behavior needs to stop, it is a disgrace to the country and a waste of money that could be used for some many other good purposes. That is why Step 38 and Step 39 from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are so important.

Step 38 would require every politician to sign off on a shared value statement every year of which integrity would be a prime component. Hopefully, if they at least read and sign off on the promise to remain in integrity, we would have a chance of seeing behavior that does not remind us of  the political misadventures of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles."

Step 39 would impose term limits on every Federal government politician. We have to find a way to reform our political processes so that we get people into elected office that want to serve us, the citizens, rather than how can they improperly use government resources to keep themselves in office or use their position and knowledge of the system to avoid paying the taxes they rightfully owe.

Integrity, virtue and moral principle. Wouldn't that be a nice way to describe our politicians and leaders? It is certainly not the case today and that makes for a very sad movie ending.




Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com .It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:


http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/

Two exmaples cited in the Reuters article stated that the two people involved int he fraud were receiving over $100,000 a year in disability payments. Even if they were legitmate disability claimants, how does the polticial class and the Long Isldan Railraod jsutify such high disability payments, almost twice the average income form an average American household?

In all cases, it is quite apprent that the polticial class has fialed in its fiduciary resonbitilies by not delaing with the fraud sooner and allwoing disapbility payemtns to be so high relative to average hosuehold income in the country.

Automobiles