Here is a fascinating interview and rant by Rick Santelli.  Rick Santelli has had enough of subsidizing behavior that we wouldn't tolerate in our own children.  We don't artificially boost up our children's grades when they fail to perform nor do we lower the bar for them.  Instead, we boost up the discipline level and reduce the privileges until the bar is cleared.  When have we ever helped anyone by lowering the bar and thus communicating they are helpless to help themselves?  Whatever you reward is multiplied.  Rick Santelli has had enough and tells it like it is on CNBC.  I wonder what an internet vote would really communicate to our bureaucrats in Washington.  We do not want equality of results, just equality of opportunity. 

At 19 years old, I left my mom and dad's house with nothing but a dream.  I had less than a thousand dollars to my name and 3 months of my rent covered.  I was going to school at GMI-EMI (now Kettering) and working at AC SparkPlug (now Delphi if it isn't bankrupt or being bailed out.)  I would get home from work in the winter time and immediately go to GMI-EMI even though it was work term and wasn't going to school.  It was the only place that was warm because I had my heat set at below 55 degrees Fahrenheit to keep the bill down.  I ate one boiled potato and one hot dog for dinner and would splurge on weekends with Kraft macaroni and cheese.  I didn't care, because I knew it was temporary.  I had a dream in my heart and knew that I wasn't lazy.  I knew my friends drove their fancy cars and had school paid for, but that only made me hungrier.  When the going got tough, I knew that I would be ready.  I didn't ask, nor did anyone volunteer to lower the bar for me.  It is the tough times that make people tough.  Our country must be willing to remember the dreams, struggles and the victories of our ancestors - not just the victories!

Thank you Rick for shining some light into the darkness and helping people see clearer.  I think you shared some things that have been on many hard working American's minds. We all play a part by educating ourselves and each one reaching another with anything they learn.  This is the time for all American Patriots to rouse themselves to education and action!  I will not stand by idly and let our country fall, how about you?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is a super educational video on the credit crisis by Jonathan Jarvis.  Easy to understand and captures the underlying principles masterfully.  This is a "must watch" video for anyone wanting to understand where Wall Street and the Banks went wrong.  Loaning money is not immoral, but loaning money that you know is a bad risk and passing it off to a third party is grossly immoral.  The government getting involved and guaranteeing the money lenders immoral activities is beyond unreasonable.  In other words, the government gives permission to the money lenders to loan money to bad risk customers with a tacit agreement to be bailed out if anything goes wrong.  What a deal!  The government allows all the money lenders to keep all the profits and the USA tax payer gets to absorb all the risk! 

OPM - Other People's Money

Allowing one group to spend OPM has the same end result thoughout history.  People will spend OPM much more aggressively than they will their own money.  Never get involved in a situation where your money is being spent at the whims of a third party.  Disaster assuredly awaits!  The government intervening in the markets passes the risk off on the taxpayers and the gains to the business community.  This is why big businesses do not mind abandoning free enterprise - they love to reduce risk and when Washington intervenes in the free markets, a monopoly of sorts is created.  The business person reduces risks and passes it on to OPM - the American tax payer.  How many more business entities will Washington (the American taxpayer) bail out because of tacit promises of protection.  Another perfect example of why Washington should not intervene.  Let the business people take the risk of their loans and you will see a more conservative standard on the loans.  The OPM principle will be eliminated and the entrepreneur will have to take the risk and the reward. 

You cannot insure everyone in business and therefore; you should not insure anyone in business.  There should be no special deals at the taxpayers expense.  I am afraid that the wrong lessons are being learned here.  Intervention caused the problems in the first place.  But instead of getting Washington out of business and forcing the risk and rewards to be entirely shouldered by the business community, Washington is now a full fledged partners with the business community and absorbing the business risk on the backs of taxpaying Americans.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and even Alexander Hamilton would stand against this blatant abuse of governmental power. 

Where are the leaders in our society now?  We are witnessing a moral breakdown in business and government of unprecedented proportions and the answers I am hearing are more government intervention, not less.  We are about ready to take OPM to a new level and our current plan looks amazingly similar to Nazi Germany's plan to regulate the economy of Germany.  As long as business does what they are told, the Nazi government would absorb the risk for the business community.  Hitler would have never come to power were it not for the complicit actions of the business community.  The business community of Germany bought into Hitler when he promised to absorb the downside risk and allow the businesses to keep the upside reward - all secured by the taxpayers of Germany. 

Remember a beginning entrepreneur loves free enterprise and the right to compete based upon allowing the best ideas to win.  But an established multi-billion dollar entity likes intervention better because it cost money and time to follow government regulations and this inhibits new entrepreneurs from freely entering the competitive landscape.  The established business community benefits and the new entrepreneurs along with the market customers are denied new ideas, methods and products.  The larger a company gets, the less they like free enterprise and the more they like a partnership with the government.  The government will assume the downside risk and inhibit new entrepreneurs from entering their markets.  We can get mad at the business owners all day long, but the only way to stop this is to get government out of intervening in the market in the first place.  If they stay out and only play the established role of government as an umpire, not part of the team, then free enterprise will take care of the rest!  Let freedom ring and let the best ideas win.  Let ideas be judged on the merit in the marketplace and if an idea doesn't fly, then let the entrepreneurs that had the poor idea suffer the consequences.  It is called Creative Destruction and it made America the envy of the world!

America was once the largest creditor nation in the world with its ideas and products serving nearly all markets.  We are now the largest debtor nation and in bondage to those we owe!  We do not lack talented people, we do not lack the right ideas, but we do lack leaders of intestinal fortitude (guts) with moral courage to call out these abuses of power.  I am not a pessimist and believe in my heart that America can and will fix this, but not until we return to the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Allow the American ingenuity the freedom to accept responsibilty for their own lives and we will prosper.  America can show its critics what a freedom loving, principle centered, responsibility oriented citizenry can do!  I love America and what it stands for.  Will we learn from history or have we chosen to repeat it?  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

David C. McCullough:

History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.

Edward Gibbon:

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

Etienne Gilson:

History is the only laboratory we have in which to test the consequences of thought.

George Santayana:

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Harry Truman:

The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

Pearl S. Buck:

One faces the future with one's past.

Thucydides:

History is Philosophy teaching by examples.

Ludwig Von Mises lived through WWI and WWII.  He saw the socialistic ideas and what it did to Germany and Austria.  This video is an intriguing look into the man who stood by himself against the onslaught of statist power.  The courage of Von Mises to speak truth in an age of lies should be celebrated and honored.  The Bible states to give honor to whom honor is due.  Ludwig Von Mises should be honored for his ground breaking work in economics and liberty.  Do we understand the price that civilization has paid to have the freedoms we enjoy today?  We have a responsibility to educate ourselves on the principles of freedom.  We must understand the roots of freedom in order to protect those freedoms.  Enjoy the video and watch for the parallels in the history of Von Mises's time with the current events in our time.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

Here is an informative video that describes our American form of government.   I believe that the more we learn about our past, the less susceptible we will be government promises.  Government has a few specific task to ensure life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  But government was never designed to provide for their citizens.  I will paraphrase what the founding father's said, "Any government big enough to give you everything you need, is also big enough to take everything you have."  Our local communities must learn to work, think and provide for ourselves.  If someone needs charity, then let's provide this through private funding - not government funding.  The only thing saving us from the totalitarian power of our government is its inherent bureaucratic inefficiencies!  The Bible is clear on providing for those in need, but nowhere does it tell the government to take from one group and give to another.  It needs to be freely given from those who are blessed by the fruits of their labors.  Charity must be freely chosen or it is not charity.  To have the government create laws that give them permission to steal from one group to give to another is a double loss.  Three things wrong with this: government siphons off most of the actual money intended for those in need, it steals the sense of giving from those who desire to give, and it steals the thankfulness of those who receive the love offering.  It turns the people who receive the charity from a thankful spirit into a posture of charity as a God-given right provided by the paternal government.  Charity is not a right, but should be a gift from those who have to those who truly need. 

The long-term plan should be to give them a hand up not a hand out.  The fact that third and fourth generations of welfare recipients are now multiplying is clear evidence that government handouts do not work!  The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing while expecting a different result and based upon the overwhelming evidence - our government is insane!  It is time for the citizens to demand a balanced budget and force the politicians to lead as they were elected to do.  Every single family reading this article understands that they must balance their family budget or face the consequences of debt and eventual loss of freedoms.  Debt is a form of bondage and ought to be treated as a cancer in the body.  Debt in the home must be eradicated.  Debt in our government must be eliminated to ensure our children and grand-children enjoy the same freedoms that we have.  How can any honest American believe that it is right to hand over trillions of dollars of debt as our the only inheritance that we leave to the next generation?  God forbid that we behave so irresponsibly!  These are points to ponder as we slide closer and closer to an all powerful government.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward