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Page 20 JANUARY 9, 2011 StarNews www.starnewsga.com
Commentary
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Chaos never rests
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Sam
GENTRY
StarNews Online
editor
www.starnewsga.com
Sometimes life can get you down;
we all know that. In the blink of an
eye, stability can succumb to chaos
As a close friend of mine recently
pointed out, we constantly battle
disorder in our
lives. New
beginnings offer
'clean slates,
however, and new
opportunities for
shelter from the
pandemonium.
And as my friend said,
happens to you, it’s how you react to
it.”
In this New Year, I have a great
many things to look forward to, and
so many things to leave behind. Two
thousand and ten was undoubtedly
the worst and best year of my life so
far. It was filled with highs and lows,
but encompassed an irreplaceable
array of experiences that will no
doubt continue to shape my
existence. Life is so short; we
■ mustn’t dwell on the negatives or the
things we cannot do anything about.
We have to keep moving and make
the best of what is placed before us,
and cherish each moment we have
with those we care about most. Only
In fact, in some cases,
being overcome with
chaos in our lives can
produce a positive
effect in the long run.
it’s not what
then can we build up a strong defense
against impending chaos.
Like many people, I have often
allowed bad times to consume me.
What I’ve learned in my 35 years,
however, is that something new and
exciting could be around the comer
at anytime, so you have to_ keep your
head up. You never know when your
life is going to change for the better
in the blink of an eye. In fact, in
some cases, being overcome with
chaos in our lives can produce a
positive effect in
the long mn.
Not to share too
many details, but
my marriage
ended rather
suddenly in the
early part of 2010.
The door opened wideband disorder
reared its ugly head. Everything I
thought I knew - and most of who I
thought I was - disappeared out the
window. The fight against chaos
ensued. Through my support system
of friends and family, though, I have
been able to overcome the sudden
turmoil in my life and rebuild my
foundation. At this point, less than a
year later, I am completely happy and
healthy, and moving on. This brings
me to another important point.
I think parents should tty as hard
as possible to show strength,
patience, and compassion when
dealing with life’s varying situations,
even when we just don’t feel up to it.
See GENTRY page 24
More of the same
Harold
miles
You haven’t seen me in this space
for some time. The reason for that is,
as you might guess, the saga of my
^health. On Saturday the day before
Thanksgiving, I had chest pain and I
thought I was having a heart attack.
Wylene, my sweet wife drove me to
Tanner. I was more afraid of the way
she was driving to get there than I
was of dying from the heart attack on
the way there!
Doctor Khawaja has finally dis
covered what is wrong with my
heart. My ventricles are not working
- properly. Mind you, I am trying to
tell as best I can from my failing
memory of what I was told while in
the hospital.
I had an attack of “tachycardia”. I
am not sure I have the terminology
correct, but I think so. They saw this
^tachycardia as soon as they hooked
me up to their machine at Tanner.
While on the subject of Tanner
Health Center, the nurses on the car
diac unit at Tanner are the sweetest
most caring people I have ever met. I
' would like to thank Loy Howard for
building us one of the best health
care facilities in the country. The
nurses at Tanner are ten times more
attentive than at Piedmont.
At Piedmont, I went at least four
hours without seeing a nurse. I am
telling this like I don’t know that no
one gives a damn about my opinion
in the difference in the quality of care
between Tanner and Piedmont. But it
means a lot of difference as we fos
sils patiently wait for greetings from
the grim reaper.
Back to the matter of my malady.
The way I understand it, I am now
taking a pill called amiodarone that is
supposed to make my heart behave.
In the event it doesn’t, Doctor Dan
Dan (no kidding, that is his name)
put a device just under the skin on
my left shoulder called a
Defibrillator Pacemaker
Combination. The device is about the
size of a package of short camel
cigarettes. I am not quite used to it
yet. It still hurts a little bit, but I am
told over time I won’t notice it any
more.
I have also been told by people
who have one of the things that when
I feel an attack coming on to get
close to the floor - if not, the gadget
will knock me on the floor.
I don’t know why I have this over
whelming desire to tell people
things they simply don’t care about,
but I do.
Obama and his fat cat Wall Street contributors
I wasn’t surprised when I
learned that the guys on Wall
Street who in order to appeal to
his base Barack Obama calls
fat cats contributed to both his
and John McCain’s presidential
campaigns. Long ago I came to
the conclusion that big busi
nesses view campaign contri
butions as being necessary in
order to get favors from the
government or at least avoid
the government doing things
that would harm them. I con
fess, however, to being a little
surprised by how very much
more Wall Street tycoons con
tributed to Obama than to
McCain.
Goldman Sachs is just one of
many examples of a Wall
Street firm favoring Obama
over McCain. It and its execu
tives contributed $5,047,913 to
Democrats and only
$1,821,563 to Republicans in
2008. Rahm Emanuel,
Obama’s chief of staff’ until
recently, was once a Goldman
Sachs consultant. George
Bush’s secretary of the treas
ury, Hank Paulson, had been its
CEO. It is not at all unusual for
people to move back and forth
between Wall Street jobs and
government jobs in
Washington.
Although I didn’t believe~as
the Democrats would like for
us to believe—that today
Carole
SCOTT
Republicans control Wall
Street, I didn’t realize until I
read Charles Gasparino’s book,
“Bought and Paid For, The
Unholy Alliance Between
Barack Obama and Wall
Street,” the extent to which
Democrats now dominate Wall
Street. Gasparino, who is cur
rently a reporter with “The
Wall Street Journal,” has cov
ered Wall Street for many
years.
“.. .The deep and twisted ties
between Wall Street and
Washington have,” he says,
“over the last few decades,
resulted in a financial system
that, in the ultimate irony, is
among the less free markets in
America today - a banking sys
tem where unbelievable
amounts of risk are taken, often
by people barely out of college,
in the comforting knowledge
that the U.S. government has
always been there in the past
and will be again.” He claims
that the left-leaning media has
overlooked the role govern
ment played in “bringing about
the downfall of the American
economy and the propping up
of the same businesses that
caused the trouble in the first
place.”
Small businesses create most
of the jobs, but it is big busi
nesses that provides big bucks
to politicians. Small business
have not been bailed out, big
businesses have. Today unem-'
ployment is high, but Wall
Street’s tycoons are again mak
ing money hand over fist.
The more money the govern
ment collects in taxes and the
more it spends beyond what it
collects, the more money finan
cial institutions can make.
Some of them have become so
big that the government will
not allow them to fail because
this would bring down the
nation’s financial system.
Knowing they will be bailed
out by the government with
taxpayers’ money makes it safe
for them to make high risk
investments and finance their
investments in a risky manner
in order to make a lot of
money.
The risk to banks of lending
people money to buy houses
they really couldn’t afford was
eliminated by government-
backed mortgage-buying enter
prises lowering their standards
so they could purchase from
banks mortgage loans to such
See SCOTT page 21
Starve the beast!
Last month I expounded
about a number of things that I
thought the next Congress
should consider to address the
“out of control spending” of
the Obama, Pelosi and Reid
administration.
I fully expected to be chas
tised by those who worship big
government, but no feedback.
Perhaps it was the spirit of the
season or just maybe there is
an awakening and realization
that perhaps we cannot be all
things to all people and just
maybe some of the formerly
brain-dead electorate are
beginning to realize that, in the
end, we must be responsible
for ourselves.
So, today I explore a way to
influence those who freely
spend the money that they, by
force of arms or threat of
imprisonment, take from each
of us. Essentially we should
starve the beast.
First what are we spending?
I understand, not verified, that
the 110th Congress spent more
monies than the first 100
Congresses combined. The
federal government is currently
spending about $1.60 for every
$1.00 it collects in tax revenue.
Lets put this in a context that
C. ED
wimtN
Thoughts
While Shaving
■most can understand. Assume
that a family earning $40,000
income annually spent
$64,000. (1.6X40,000) How
long could they continue? Who
would fund their lifestyle? Is
default or bankruptcy a likeli
hood or a certainty? Remember
the “housing boom”?
Traditionally you could afford
a house costing 2 to 2.5 times
your annual income. At the
peak, US housing prices were
priced at 6.4 times average
earnings, almost three times
what the average purchaser
could afford. The housing “co
llapse” was not unexpected, it
was a certainty. China’s hous
ing is currently priced at 22
times average earnings - when
will that “boom” collapse?
The average life of a
Republic is about 200 years.
Are we on borrowed time?
Realistically a representative
democracy is a difficult form
of government to sustain.
Politicians seek popular sup
port. The electorate or lobby
ists representing the electorate
seeks benefits. Politicians typi
cally use the power of their
office to reward supporters and
punish opponents. The natural
evolution is to take from the
producers (the haves) and give
to the non-producers (the have
nots), unfortunately ultimately
the producers stop producing
or leave for friendlier business
environments and the fruits of
their efforts are no longer
available, so governments print
“fiat money”, backed by noth
ing. It does not take an econo
mist to know that fiat money
punishes the prudent saver.
Ultimately the prudent saver
trades worthless paper for
“something of value”.
Can we starve the beast?
Many financially incompetent
take great pride in getting an
income tax refund, average
over $2900 last year. What if
most increased their deductions
to approximate the expected
refund and SAVED their own
money such that they con
trolled and had the refund plus
interest earned.
What if, given the option,
See WILSON page 26
