Gentrification And Economic Change

We have heard a lot about how a few New York residents fought off Amazon from building a new headquarters in the city. There were a lot of arguments as to why they thought the new headquarters was a bad deal for the city. There was one aspect I thought was bad—The city was going to give Amazon $300 million in grants. No city should give away money and assets to lure corporations to the area, even if it would mean huge economical gains for the area. The only exception might be if citizens voted for the assistance, such as when they have referendum votes to build sports stadiums.

Amazon was promised $3 billion in tax breaks. It seems impossible to explain to leftists that a tax break is letting someone keep their money, not giving them money. I wrote in Reasoning Behind Eliminating Business Taxes how a business doesn't pay any taxes, because they pass those costs on to the consumer. For this reason a tax break shouldn't matter. For some reason, democrats seem to believe the city will lose $3 billion if Amazon comes.

A World of Followers

I think I finally understand the world around me – or at least why it is traveling in its current direction. It was a simple post on Facebook that made me become aware of the entire picture. The graphic to the left apparently circulated enough that Snopes saw fit to add it to its long list of internet myths. When it came to my attention, I was shocked that any single individual could believe that Facebook legal staff could pass laws.

Each day there is something new about which people become outraged. Some of it is fact, some a blend of fact and fiction, and some obvious mis-truths. We have Alex Jones who has a huge following. There are those who accept everything he says as gospel. There are the Art Bell followers who do the same. I'm not here to say what is and what isn't truth from either of those. All that interest me is why do others believe almost 100%.

People love a conspiracy. People love a good mystery novel. I'm sure science can point to an area of the brain that is stimulated by such things. But I think there is more to it than simple mind stimulation. There are the people who are skeptical of everything – to a fault. There are those who often look at events with cold logic.

The Three Little Pigs Meet Government

Glenn Beck inspired me to write my own fairy tale about the three pigs.

A week before, a hurricane destroyed the first little piggy’s home in which he had barely been able to make payments, much less buy expensive federal flood insurance. Once the water receded he began to gather piles of straw that had been left scattered by the storm. He used that straw to construct a small comfortable home. He was proud of his little house and found it to be very dry when it rained, and warm on cold nights. Even though it wasn’t near as nice as the home destroyed by the storm, he was happy and there were no monthly payments.

One day the piggy had just come home from work when there was a knock on the straw door. He opened it to find a man wearing a suit and a frown on his fat face. The man asked unpleasantly, “Is this your straw house?”

The pig, proud of all his hard work, squared his shoulders, and replied, “It sure is, built it myself.”

The man pushed the pig out of the way and began looking around the small straw house. He stopped, began writing on a sheet of paper, and said, “This house doesn’t meet our stringent hurricane building codes. If we were to have a hurricane this house would be destroyed.”

Equality For All (Revised)

This is a revised version of a piece I wrote in November of 2010.
Let’s begin with that the fact that no group is for equality for everyone. If we look deep within ourselves we will find prejudices, or just unknowingly create inequalities. Progressives are always talking about taxing the rich to help pay for those less fortunate. If everyone is truly equal, how can you make one person pay more in taxes than another? The answer is simple—you can’t.
The left will ask, “How do you help the poor if you don’t tax the rich?” You help them by getting out of their life. I was talking with a gentleman in South Africa and he mentioned Shanty Town. This is an area that is government owned land where the poor began to build small shanty homes in which to live.

This made me think about how in America the Federal government is making gigantic land grabs, while at the same time taxing the so-called rich, supposedly in an effort to help the poor. I watched as local governments began to ban or greatly restrict mobile homes because they provided fewer property taxes. These are homes that the less fortunate can easily afford.

Our government decided they didn’t want people living in shantytowns or mobile homes, so they came up with the Community Reinvestment Act and began to throw around terms such as affordable housing. The federal government used its might to force banks to give house mortgages to people who could barely afford them. When the economy declined and interest rates dropped these people began to refinance their homes with the lower variable rate. In time those rates began to rise, so much that these people lost, or will lose, their homes. In some cases monthly payments doubled.

If the same people had lived in a cheaper mobile home, or some cheaper home of their own design, then the collapse of the US economy might have never happened. If people were truly free to live their lives, economy down turns would be more local than national.