WHEN DREAMS DIE

Dreams are not just those sequence of weird events you have at night. Dreams are the life long goals you form as a kid that seem impossible but nothing is impossible when you are a kid. Several guests attending a wedding wanted to share pictures and videos more easily and YouTube was born. A bunch of guys wanted to search for "select videos" easier and google was born, a lone nerd wanted to show the world he could make them need him and Microsoft was born. It has happened and we all have some impossible dream.
My dream? I wanted to have a team of crackpot engineers and scientists inventing various inventions, some of my design some born of those who worked for me. I wanted to bring these inventions to light and expand. I wanted to be in control but also to create something that would live on with those who worked in control of a sort of employee controlled empire (Bill Gates is a sellout as they all are). I wanted to have an invention company.
There comes a point when you realize your dreams are likely (a near certainty) not to happen. I guess for the ones who come to the conclusion it's truly never going to happen it's easier, they pierce their ears, get a tattoo, buy a corvette or get a mistress. But for those of us who's dreams die hard, it's another matter all together. We can never really give up the dream but realize how impossible it really is. What are we going to do? Invent the next Google or Microsoft in our spare time at 10pm at night when the kids go to sleep? Are we going to invent nuclear fusion or discover time travel on our train ride to work. Likely not! We are over worked and under appreciated. We love our spouses and our children and God knows where we'd be without them but our dreams life locked away on some dusty shelf like our high school year book.
Childhood's end, where our dreams come to die. Who knows, some come back from the dead after years past but not many. You come to the choice between family and career and if your career is booming like a captain Kirk's you choose adventure but lament never having a family and if your family is booming like little house on the prairie you choose family and lament adventure. I guess you can't have it all.

HEALTH CARE REFORM

There is a woman I know who worked her whole life as a home maker and then when her children were grown her husband died. She had never learned a career so she didn't have the skills needed to obtain a job with medical insurance. She was a previous cancer survivor so she wasn't qualified for private insurance. She had money because her husband was prudent and had a good insurance policy in place. Her husband's company whom her husband had worked at for 30 years dropped the family like a hot potato a month later. This woman and several million like her need help. However, the package that's being put forth will not only help this woman but will also pay for tens of millions of others who can't or don't work, tens of millions of more who are here illegally and attempt to "socialize" our medical system and I'll show you how.

The Idea.
(1) Let's start by creating the best insurance the world has ever seen.
(2) At a price that's more expensive then company sponsored insurance (that will be taxed) and less expense then private insurance.
(3) Let's offer free to anyone who is at or below poverty level (15% of the country).
(4) Let's provide subsidies for up to 400% above poverty level.
(5) Let's tax the population to get back half of this money by a National Sales Tax (VAT), an energy tax (climate change), and a host of new more subtle taxes.

The Problem:
This sound great but #1 the government can't pay for it. It is estimated to cost 1.7 Trillion dollars in ten years and as we know things always cost more. The cost will just keep rising. People don't believe Barack Obama when he says he can save this money by cutting other costs down. Remember the two trillion he "saved" after spending two trillion? Remember the 150K jobs he "saved" after we lost 2 million. You can fool all the people sometimes and some of the people all the time but you just can't fool all the people all the time.

#2, most of us who have jobs will keep our own coverage. Those don't have jobs will get this new insurance for free and now you will have a situation where not working is better than working. If you are not working and are a single parent you can stay at home get nice checks, food stamps and free health care. What is the incentive to ever go back to work? When you reward the lazy, incompetents and scammers you get more lazy incompetents and scammers.

#3 jobs will drop insurance every time you switch and rather just pay into the government pool.

So what's the answer?

(1) Let's great three categories of government sponsored but not government run insurance, bronze, silver, and gold. Bronze is an HMO like insurance which sucks but at least it's insurance. Silver and Gold, well you can probably guess what those are like. Most of us have silver.
(2) Let's give away bronze to all CITIZENS below poverty level.
(3) Let's provide some subsidies for silver up to some appropriate level.
(4) Charge $50 at the door of every clinic and Emergency Room.
(5) We will waive the charge if you are unconscious and in need of immediate emergency life saving care.
(6) Do not allow insurance companies to deny coverage based on pre existing condition or age.
(7) Companies can change price structure based on #6. They have to balance out their costs somehow.
(8) Flexible Health Savings accounts roll over and go from company to company. They are like 401k's you can save up from the time you're young till the time you're old. They earn interest by investing in bonds or cd's. Hey how about that?

These solutions and many other are just so glaringly obvious and while you may or may not agree with some or all of these our congress cannot seem to see past their big heart to help everybody with everything.

"Why are we even talking about the details when we don't know how to pay for it?" -John McCain

"Everyone deserves some type of health insurance but not gold plated." -Michael Savage.

THE NEW SOCIAL SECURITY

The problem with social security aside from being insolvent is it's a social welfare program instead of a savings program. It's pyramid scheme that is about to end. It needs to be fixed and not just patched. The goals of any restructring should be long term solvency, ownership, and savings. Here is how I would restructre the plan for NEW RETIREES.

• Add up, calculate all the money someone has ever actually put into the plan. THAT IS THEIR MONEY. When they die it gets inherited.
• No spouse payments/payouts. They get their inheritence. They have their own money if they have worked.
• Payout is calculated by dividing up current amount by years and months until you reach 85.
• You can take money out due to medical emergency.
• When your money is depleted (you live a long time, med emergency) you are placed into welfare at perhaps a lower rate. Current retirees continue receiving their money.
• You have a choice where your money gets invested in only a GUARANTEED vehicle. Federal bonds, state bonds, or CD's (you choose the bank). Guess what, we have a choice whether to fund washington, our own state or a bank which will lend the money out. People will naturally have some variation of return.
• A tax is applied to simply pay for those who don't have money or who run out, ect. 1-2%
• Limits of taxation are raised to 150K/300K married.
• Allow people to save more then 7.5 / 15% currently. Whatever they save over that amount is tax free (not just tax deferred, TAX FREE) up to some % and some $$$ amount.

This will take away the advantage of early retirement because your money doesn't disappear. It will allow people another vehichle besides 401K's. It wil provide people with a safe safety net and allow people some choice and therefore some control on who gets to do what with the money.

Put GM out of our misery

Can someone please explain to me how a company that is probably the most unprofitable company in the history of the world is going to make a profit when it takes the following steps.

(1) Continue paying for 650k retirees pensions and healthcare when you only have 65k employees workign for you. that means for every employee you actually pay for you have to pay 1/2 salary for 10 more.

(2) Sell of your most popular brands and keep only the least popular brands.

(3) Close down the most profitable sales locations and keep only those sales locations that are in areas that agree with your political affiliation.

(4) Shaft real lenders thereby soley relying on the government.

(5) Keep the unions that destroyed you.

I predict they will lose twice as much money next year as they did this year.

What's the solution? Sell everything, give the government 60% of the sales, the union 20% and the bondholders 19% and the stock holders 1% of the proceeds and call it a day. Forget Canada.

People will continue to be employeed they'll just wear different hats.