Jamaican's Don't Like Taxes Very Much

I thougth that Jamaican's were happy free-spirited people. Perhaps not when it comes to taxing:

Jamaican Amry Deployed Ahead of Tax Increases

I'm curious how long it will take before this starts to happen.

Self Defense....Congo Style

Are you ever in a situation where you have roving armed rebels coming into your neighborhood and no hope for police or the military? A village in Congo is.

Congo Town Mounts Own Defense Against Rebels

Instead of crying for help from their government or from outside sources, they solved the issue with their own hands

Many people may think I am out to lunch on this one, but this hits the core of self-reliability and sufficiency. When government fails (and it does) people will have to fight for themselves. While this here may be about defense, it occurs in all aspects of government, including economy, health care, and education.

Hence another important goal of government: get people to rely on themselves instead of the government, since one day it won't be there to take care of everything.

I love New Hampshire

I've only been to New Hampshire once, and I technically never made it off I-95. So I can't really say I love New Hampshire. But I do love the 4 NH State Representatives who introduced HCR 6: A Resolution affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/HCR0006.html

Basically, it is a statement saying that the Federal Government only has authority which is specifically detailed to them in the constitution. Anything and everything else should be left to the states.

To understand this, we must first see the powers of the federal government. These are those powers specifically given to Congress, which are detailed in Article One, Section 8. These powers are:

• to levy and collect taxes needed to pay debts, provide defense, and support the general welfare,
• to coin money and regulate its value,
• to provide for common defense and promote the pursuit of liberty,
• to regulate commerce with foreign nations and amongst states,
• to create post office and post roads
• to promote progress of science and useful arts
• to create courts inferior to the Supreme Court
• to define and punish piracies and felonies
• to declare war, raise and support the military
• to exercise exclusive legislation in the District of Columbia,
• and to make laws necessary and proper to execute the powers of Congress.

Anything that the Federal Government does that are not included in this list (and a few others from the executive and judicial branches), are clearly unconstitutional.

Anything about stabilizing the economy and creating jobs? Nope.

Anything about regulating education? Can't seem to find it.

And what about regulating firearms? Hum...not there either.

That's why I love those four state reps from New Hampshire.

FEMA Doing Good? Interesting

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090203/ap_on_re_us/winter_storm_fema

This is for Travis who wanted to hear something good about the government. This article shows that the agency can do it's job when the politicians be quite and stay out of the way of the trained professionals.

$819,000,000,000

A sad day for government. A sad day for this blog, since this is supposed to be about good government.

$819 Billion. Here are just three simple reasons why I can't stand it. I could go on and on, but I'll leave it to just three:

1) The government has debt. The only way to pay for this is to print more money. Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply add a few zeros to your bank account? Shouldn't the Federal Government be saving money like everyone else is forced to? There is no control over how much they can do this. Nothing. We need to go back to the gold standard (or at least some standard!)

2) Inflation. Simply put, prices will rise, and my net worth will decrease. Lets say that there is $100 in the country of Sherman. If I were to have $50, I would own half of all the cash. Pretty impressive. But what happens if the government of Sherman needs money and prints $100 more.

• Total money in the country = $200.
• Total amount I own = $50
• My new share of the total money = 25%.
• An extra $100 in society = more demand for goods = prices will rise

3) Vote Totals. Remember all this talk about the new administration and congress being bi-partisan and all? All this 'Change' happening in Washington? Apparently someone doesn't care, since they couldn't get a single Republican to vote yes. This reminds me why I can't stand a two-party system (please, don't get me started).

• Democrats: 244 yes, 11 no
• Republicans: 177 no, 1 no vote.

Simply ridiculous. I've worked for all levels of government, have seen ramped corruption myself. But this isn't corruption...it's simply ridiculous.

Oh, and did you hear that California might have to start issuing IOUs because they will soon run out of cash? It's too bad they can't just start printing their own currency to pay for things like the Feds do.

Mayor of Flint, MI Sued the City

http://www.mlive.com/flintjournal/index.ssf/2008/06/flint_mayor_don_williamson_and.html

More on this later

State & Local Governments Must Deal with E-Waste

http://www.governing.com/articles/0806env.htm

Some state and local governments have implememnted various mechanisims to combat E-Waste. All those fancy big screen tv's, iPods, and computers take up landfill space. Even worse, they have toxic metals that shouldn't be thrown in the landfill.

It's pretty common for certain automotive parts to have disposal fees (you have to pay $10 to recycle your old battery). Some states are charging PC buyers or manufactures a small fee to pay for the recycling of electronic items.

As with many user fees, I like it.

Food for Peace...Finally Someone Gets It

Developed nations have helped poor and hungry nations for some time. One way this was done was through dropping tons of food into these countries.This has two interesting features: it decreases the demand on the country receiving the aid. Thus, farmers in these nations are less motivated to increase production because food demand decreases; and the food is given to the governments who are then given control of the food (governments who aren't always the most honest of all folks). Giving food aid to these nations old makes these people dependent on the food aid itself, and prevents them from becoming sustainable.

Good news...this food-as-aid may end to money-as-aid. This may seem worse to just give them money, but many, including those at the aid agencies, believe it will work:
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/content/opinion/epaper/2008/06/09/a16a_blackburncol_0609.html