French gov’t to suffer consequences of socialism

According to British newspaper The Telegraph, socialist-lead France is fast approaching a “full-blown hurricane” as punishing tax rates and disastrous government policies are forcing French businesses and investors scrambling to avoid the legalized confiscation of their wealth.

French bankruptcies have skyrocketed over the summer and, according to Laurence Parisot of the MEDEF group in France, consumer confidence in the economy is quickly dwindling. Worse, the French government does not appear concerned, or even aware, of the gravity of the looming crisis.

A message to the U.S. government: learn from the mistakes of other nations. Big government destroys incentives to invest and succeed and punishing taxes provide little in the way of long-term economic success for virtually any economy, especially one built upon the principles of capitalism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9610717/French-business-erupts-in-fury-against-disastrous-Francois-Hollande.html

Forget “Get out the vote”; if you don’t care, don’t vote

Posted by Steve Adcock

Popular wisdom seems to suggest that “democracy” in this country is somehow assisted when more of the population robotically get themselves to the voting booths each election cycle and pull the lever for [generally] one of two political parties. The more people who vote, they say, the better off our country will be.

But that’s fundamentally wrong on virtually every level. Encouraging more people to vote – for the sake of increasing voting numbers – contributes nothing positive to this nation or our way of government. In fact, I would argue that it is downright harmful.

People who are informed enough about the current state of our nation and our system of government do not require convincing when it comes to making their voices heard through our electoral process. When people care, votes naturally follow. In the absence of a genuine desire to participate in our voting system, all that is left is a breathing carbon-based entity who’s vote is no more meaningful than that of a monkey’s.

I hold no innate ill will towards those who choose not to exercise their right to vote. In fact, I personally respect the notion of not swaying the results of the election by placing an ill-informed vote for a politician of any party. If you cannot be bothered to pay attention, that is fine, to each their own.

But, when those people are encouraged to vote under the presumed nonsensical guise that somehow an uninformed vote helps our Republic flourish, it directly effects our nation’s future and helps support the idea that voting is an act that need not be taken seriously. Just vote for somebody, right?. This turns our electoral process into a mockery.

Want to help improve our nation’s future? Forget voting. Instead, focus on getting more people to actually care about the future of their children, their grandchildren and our nation. Easier said than done, no doubt. Convincing people to put down their game console remotes, or unbury their faces from their cell phones long enough to observe their environment and reflect on how our government influences their lives, is a monumental undertaking. But, it’s one that needs to be taken, for this is how true reform is achieved. Throwing votes around does nothing. Paying attention to our government, however, contributes to something real.

Let’s start a “Put your phone down and pay attention” initiative instead. Focus on providing the resources and incentives necessary to build a more informed population first before approaching the issue of voting. Once we have an informed populace, I can guarantee you that an increase in voter turnout will follow soon after. We will get that for free.

Obama campaign distancing itself from healthcare ad

Posted by Steve Adcock

The Obama campaign is quickly distancing itself from a new super PAC political ad that falsely accuses the Bain Capital shutdown of the GST Steel plant of causing the death of a former steel worker.

The ad features Joe Soptic, a steel worker who was laid off after the GST plant closer. He claims in the ad that he lost his insurance after the layoff, and shortly thereafter, his wife was diagnosed with cancer. 22 days later, she died. The ad does not mention, however, that Joe’s wife remained employed for some time after his layoff and even maintained health coverage. Further, it neglects to reveal that his wife’s unfortunate death came 5 years after his layoff.

The Obama campaign team claims to have no knowledge of the situation, even though Joe’s story is highlighted on the Obama campaign’s own web site (as of August 9th). Further, Joe Soptic actually spoke with the Obama campaign several months ago regarding the story of his wife’s illness.

The Obama campaign responded by claiming they have no control over what Super PACs do and cannot dictate the ads that they run, and added: “The important point here is that Mitt Romney’s campaign is based solely on his experience as a corporate buyout specialist, and while he has been quick to claim he created jobs, he refuses to accept responsibility for the jobs that were lost and workers that were impacted.”

False. The important point here is this PAC attempted to use an inaccurate report of a woman’s death to further Obama’s campaign, and this so-called “husband” apparently let it happen.

Obama chides business owners’ success

Posted by Steve Adcock

President Obama apparently finds himself with the requisite business credibility to lecture successful business owners on how much of their success is owed to others rather than their own hard work and determination.

“There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.”

Well yes, President Obama. While certainly there is some degree of help provided by others that cannot be denied, successful businesses are rarely spawned by the brains of dumb people. Why is our president, who has nothing in his past that could even be remotely tied to business experience, lecturing the American business community about success?

“The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.”

Clever. Linking the services that our tax money goes to fund for the protection of all people and owning a private business designed to make money and hire portions of the population. The point is, Mr. President, that businesses succeed because of sheer will and determination of the business owner. It is easy to give up, but it is not so easy to remain steadfast in pursuit of bigger and better things. Help is wonderful, no doubt, but help cannot make up for laziness, and it is definitely no substitute for mediocrity.