Rising riches: 1 in 5 in US reaches affluence

Despite all the tears shed over the income gap in the United States this article is a reason for hope. Maybe you won’t become part of the 20% earning $250,000 or more but you just might find a path to recovery.

By HOPE YEN
From Associated Press
December 09, 2013 5:47 PM EST

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fully 20 percent of U.S. adults become rich for parts of their lives, wielding extensive influence over America’s economy and politics, according to new survey data.

These “new rich,” made up largely of older professionals, working married couples and more educated singles, are becoming politically influential, and economists say their capacity to spend is key to the U.S. economic recovery. But their rise is also a sign of the nation’s continuing economic polarization.

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Leaked Document: Military Internment Camps in U.S. to be Used for Political Dissidents

Is this a real plot or is this the work of Youtube entertainers? The link was at the end of a photo collection. The person sending me the photos apparently did not realize there is link at the end of the string of photographs. Amazon is selling a copyrighted book titled “Internment And Resettlement Operations: Army Field Manual FM 3-39.40” for $10.80. That would make this scary video a great sales tool.

Or is this real?

American Jews Get Ready for ‘Thanksgivukkah’

Thanksgivukkah: A Mash Of Two Holidays That’s Easy To Relish.

Hannukah and Thanksgiving in the USA coincide once again in 76,000 years or something like that.

What’s wrong with Thanukkah?

A New Blog

The Ted Cruz Show

http://tedcruzshow.wordpress.com/

WordPress denied me access to simply calling this blog Ted Cruz. They said it was “reserved”. This seemed like the best alternative. The purpose of this blog is to document all of Senator Ted Cruz, a new Republican senator from Texas, words and actions. It appears he wishes to become the next president of the United States. His words are better than any commentary.

Retirement Paradise

As I review the options I am horrified. The reason is that most of us do not have the funds needed to live the same lives we lived when we were employed. Social Security in the United States provides an average of $1,230 per month. The Maximum Social Security Benefit for a Worker Retiring at Full Retirement Age is $2,513 per month. So even if both spouses are eligible for the maximum benefit, an unlikely occurrence, the benefit would be $5,026 per month. You have to save significant amounts to impact your retirement income. I knew about the need to save a long time ago. Feeding the family, paying the mortgage, and all the other bills just made this a difficult assignment to fulfill.

Then I read “Baby boomers’ mobile-home paradise” in The Week magazine. I found this article depressing. Most of these people are poor. They have little to do to occupy their time. How many times can you walk on the beach? Pismo Beach is in a particularly bad spot in terms of warm days. Every time we stop there on the way to San Francisco the sky is overcast or it’s a sunny but very windy day.

When my parents moved into Leisure World in Orange County, California (now called Laguna Woods) they at least had the money to enjoy their retired years. That community has literally dozens of clubs and groups for a variety of interests. The sad reality is that most people are not as fortunate as they were. They accumulated the money by living in poor working class neighborhoods all of their working years. When I grew up we shopped at Sears and JC Penney’s. Cars were driven until their next destination was the junk yard.

All retirement communities have two things in common – 1) you are surrounded by people at least your age and 2) your next move is to the grave yard.

As long as I am able to drive my car I believe I would be better off remaining in my home. Mostly, it’s paid for. I know the neighborhood. I have easy access to shopping, doctors, and educational opportunities. When I can’t drive a car I might consider Leisure World. It’s expensive but I can’t take my money with me.

Obama the Naive

President Barack Obama “delivered an impassioned appeal Thursday for Israel to recognize that compromise will be necessary” to achieve lasting security and reverse international isolation. This was reported in an AP article.

A short review of history tells us that Israel cannot provide any more compromises than have already been given.

Tens of thousands of Hamas supporters gathered in Gaza City near a large replica of an M-75, a Hamas rocket, that bore the words “Made in Gaza.”

Hamas is the group that functions as the Gaza government. Hamas does not recognize the right of Israel to exist. Without that recognition there can be no legitimate negotiations. Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas gave a defiant speech this past December vowing to build a Palestinian state on the land of Israel. In that speech he vowed to remove every inch of Israel and that that there is “no legitimacy for Israel.”

Israel did withdraw from the Gaza strip leaving behind many buildings. They were all destroyed by the Palestinians. Hamas now uses Gaza as a base to shoot rockets into Israel and in fact was shooting rockets as President Obama spoke to Israelis today.

Precisely what compromise would Mr. Obama propose?

David Bancroft

Los Angeles Mayoral Race

This article in the Los Angeles Daily News tells that “Traditionally, voter turnout for mayoral elections is less than 40 percent for runoffs and less than that for primaries. Some city elections have drawn less than 10 percent of the 1.7 million eligible voters.”

Why vote when the likely winner for mayor is someone who cares more about the labor unions than about the city? I took the 2013 Los Angeles Budget Challenge at the city web site and to my dismay learned that the city has projected revenues of almost $4.7 billion and still cries for more. I have not heard one candidate for mayor talk about living within our means. That of course would require some straight talk and no one wants to do that. The public is disgusted and a majority see no worthwhile candidates.

My highest priorities are police and fire protection. Everything else is one, two or three steps below those priorities. At the end of the survey the results are provided with the most favored allocation of money to my choices and the current budget plans.

My choices resulted in a lower spending plan than the most favored choice and well below the current plan. Still my ideas would leave the city with a deficit of $50.1 million.

So what are the candidates for mayor and city council saying? Nothing about balancing the budget. Even worse they lack any vision for the city. The leading candidates for mayor are One Republican with no city government experience and Three Democrats all with city experience are all tied to their past and all with connections to city labor unions.

Is it any wonder that turn outs for city elections rarely exceed 50% of registered voters.

Cities With The Best Infrastructure in the World

In the past three years I have visited Toronto, Ontario, Canada – London, U.K. – Paris, France. All three and their surrounding communities had wide well paved highways and smooth city boulevards and streets. All three had excellent public transportation systems. Unfortunately Los Angeles (my home town) has old crumbling highways and streets as well as an inadequate public transit system.

Ali Velshi, on CNN’s Your Money program a few weeks ago had a segment on the ten best cities for infrastructure in the world. Not one American city made the list. The list was prepared a by a human resources company named Mercer that has offices around the world.

Here is the list:

1. Singapore, Singapore

2. Frankfurt, Germany (tie)

2. Munich, Germany (tie)

4. Copenhagen, Denmark

5. Düsseldorf, Germany

6. Hong Kong, Hong Kong

6. London, UK (tie)

8. Sydney, Australia

9. Hamburg, Germany (tie)

9. Vancouver, Canada (tie)

American cities in this list?

13. Atlanta, Georgia

15. Dallas, Texas

22. Washington, D.C.

28. Chicago

30. New York

Number 30 was the last city in the review.

Paris skyline from the Eiffel Tower

Consider some of those other cities such as Paris, France. “Paris (number 12) is one of the world’s leading business and cultural centers and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, science and arts contribute to its status as one of the world’s major global cities.”

The leaders of the United States keep telling us Americans that we are the greatest country in the world. They tell us that we are the exceptional country. If that is accurate then why are our cities so lacking?

End of the world on December 21, 2012? The end of the world has been predicted before

Suggestions that the world is about to end have been made from time immemorial. Sixteenth-century French oracle Michel Nostradamus, various religions, an astrologer with a syndicated newspaper column — even a former U.S. presidential candidate — have all claimed to know when the world will end.

On April 7, 1894 St. Louis, Missouri faith doctor J.S. Willis predicted Jesus would return to Earth Thursday March 6, 1896, at 3 p.m. (Jerusalem time). But before then, Willis promised, the world would be ensnared in a series of wars and revolutions.

During the 1950s, Jeane Dixon, an astrologer who had a syndicated newspaper column, gained fame for her psychic predictions. She wrote in the May 13, 1956, issue of Parade Magazine that the 1960 presidential election would be won by a Democrat who would die in office. (John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963.) After foretelling Kennedy’s murder, Dixon later predicted there would be a planetary alignment on Feb. 4, 1962 that would herald the world’s destruction. (She also said the Soviets would put the first man on the moon.)

Television evangelist Pat Robertson in 1980 predicted the world’s destruction, according to the book Salvation for Sale, an Insider’s View of Pat Robertson’s Ministry, written by Gerald Thomas Straub, a former producer of The 700 Club. “He’s had it up to here and the hour of His wrath has come,” Robertson was quoted as saying during a Jan. 1, 1980, staff meeting. “Now if I’m hearing Him right, things are starting to happen. What is started over in the Middle East is not going to stop short of a war.” The war, Robertson said, would herald the end of the world.

During the late 1980s, Elizabeth Clare Prophet stoked fears when she warned of nuclear Armageddon that would come with a nuclear strike by the Soviet Union against the United States. More than 2,000 followers left their homes and flocked to her church’s compound near Yellowstone National Park. There they began stockpiling weapons, food and clothing in a system of concrete and steel shelters.

Only last year, Harold Camping, who ran a non-profit radio chain, spent millions of dollars to buy billboard space across the U.S. and print millions of pamphlets warning of doomsday. Camping, who earlier predicted the world would end in 1984, said he used a complex formula relying on numbers in the Bible to conclude the world would end May 21, 2011.

In 1961, a physicist at the University of Illinois named Heinz von Foerster calculated that, on or about Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, the world’s exploding population would become so dense that everyone would be “squeezed to death,” according to the New York Times.