Friday, March 21, 2014

The ACA and abortion.

Are Corporations people? Do they have religious beliefs that can be violated? Am I crazy? Well you would probably think so if I believed that!
More likely is that the "Beliefs" are simply political.
So the ACA provides contraceptives. Abortions are against some peoples and some corporations beliefs. But :  -
For one thing the use of contraceptives do not cause abortions, even in the way of causing a fertilized egg to be aborted, because contraceptives don't do that, they prevent the egg from being released in the first place! So there is no egg to be fertilized and "aborted". And if the egg has been released a contraceptive does not affect it at all. The purpose and the way that contraceptives work has been shown to be that they stop the egg being released. So there cannot possibly be any form of abortion.
This has been shown in Europe and even the Catholic Church is OK with it! No egg, no possibility of conception, no baby to be aborted - and in any case contraceptives don't cause abortions. As I said before they prevent the eggs release.
The next step for conservatives would be to declare that an abortion has occurred after the first or second or third date, even if sex did not happen!
Just saying.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Tax cuts for the rich.

Tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich. Then they will make jobs. We keep hearing this cry Well we have cut taxes to the rich over and over and over again - where are the jobs?
If we look back in history we can see that tax cuts to the wealthy have never worked to produce jobs. Exactly the opposite. The only thing that has cut the unemployment rate has been increasing taxes on the rich!!! True. Look back in history and check it out.
The average American pays 30% of his income in taxes. But the top 2% pay just 16% on average, and the very rich like Mitt Romney for example, income last year $21 MILLION, paid just 12%.
Under President Eisenhower the top tax rate was 80% and we had full employment and no deficit and hardly any National Debt!
To clarify, an  80% tax rate does not mean that a rich person pays 80% of his/her income in tax. They pay the same rate as any person up to a certain income for example 10% up to an income of $25,000. Then income over that and up to say $50,000 is taxed at say 20%. This means the income ABOVE $25,000 is taxed at 20% NOT the first $25,000 which is taxed at the 10% rate. Then the next $50,000 is taxed at a higher rate but again ONLY the amount from $50,000 up to $100,000 NOT the amount under $50,000 For some reason most people don't seem to be able to understand this and insist that we should not take 80% of their money etc etc .This continues until we get to say $1 million at which point any money over $1 million is taxed at 80% - but not the amounts under that.
My step figures are not accurate, they are just for examples. It might be an income of $2 million or 3 or even 5 before people under President Eisenhower started to pay an 80% tax rate, but the point is that once individuals reach exorbitant amounts like this they are not Earning it. There is no way that anyone can earn millions. You and I work hard for 40 hours a week and earn perhaps $25,000 or $50,000 or even $100,000, how can someone like the CEO of my bank for example EARN $53 MILLION? But that is what he is paid! And there are more than 400 "Executives" in that one bank who "earn" more than 1 million EACH! Some make $5 or even $10 million each! So that is probably One Billion paid to the executives of that one bank! Why is it do you suppose that when I put my money into that bank they can only pay me .001% interest? Virtually ZERO! Because basically the "executives" are stealing the money from us. There was even some discussion, which never came through apparently, yet, to CHARGE us for keeping our money in their banks!!!
Yet Americans, especially poor ones, object to taxing the rich! The wealth gap keeps increasing with the poor and middle classes paying higher and higher tax rates while the rich, who are getting richer and richer, pay lower and lower tax rates! Why would we agree with this? It does not make sense, not to me anyway! If I were making $25,000 AN HOUR - that is what the CEO of my bank makes! I cannot imagine that I would object to paying a higher tax rate. $53 million a year works out to $25,000 AN HOUR if I work a 40 hour week! Can you even begin to imagine that? And still there are people who want these incredibly, ridiculously overpaid greed mongers to pay LESS TAX!!
Just saying.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Ironing.

An ironing board sits in our utility room, actually there are two there. I am not sure why because I don't think we have ironed anything in at least 10 years. Certainly I have not, and I'm not sure that Julia ever has. Well not since that first week after we got back from our honeymoon when I walked into the room and she was ironing. I asked her what she was doing and she replied, "I am ironing". My immediate answer was "Well don't."
Since then, to my knowledge she hasn't ironed anything, with the possible exception of a special dress or two and maybe one or tow of my dress shirts. I credit myself with having added years to her life with that simple statement.
My sister still irons everything, as do a few of our friends. My sister irons the hankies, sheets, socks - everything. I can't imagine that it takes her less than 4 hours a week. So let's use that as a guide to how much time I added to Julia's life. Four hours times 52 weeks = 208 hours per year, times 50 - the years since we got married = 10,400 hours. Now divide that by 24 to give the number of extra days afforded her. And you get 433 days or 1 year 2 months and 8 days! BUT, if you break it down to 8 hours days which would be more realistic you get more than three and a half years! Even better divide the 10,400 hours saved by the 40 hours in the normal work week and you will find that I personally by my small, considerate, thoughtful, kindhearted act added a full 5 years to her life - thus far!
As another item of interest I don't know where our iron is, or for that matter if we even still have one!
Just saying.