Disclaimer

Prefix: The Legal Stuff: All opinions expressed in this blog are mine and may have been previously disseminated by me either accidental or knowingly. My opinions are just that my opinion, and should not be relied upon as such. Past performance of a stock or fund is not indicative of future results. No guarantee to any specific outcome or profit is meant or implied. My investments or strategies mentions in this blog may not be suitable for you and you should make your own independent decision regarding them. My material does not take into account your particular investment objective or objectives, financial situation or needs and is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for you. You should consider seeking advice from your own investment adviser before making any purchase or investment. I am expressing opinions; I am NOT inducing you to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only expressing an opinion. I am doing this mainly for my children and friends, you are reading this with my permission. I change my mind and opinion and will do so without notice, you need to be aware you have real risk of loss in following any strategy or investment. You may get back less than you invest, negative return or loss. I want you to use what I have learned and make independent decisions regarding investments or strategies I mention before acting. You always need to consider whether it is suitable for you and your particular circumstances.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Part II GOP Half Truths, or Falsehoods


Don’t Get Fooled Again Part II
In review you now have 5 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.  Last pick was an oil or gas my recommendation was Chevron Corp (CVX) but any oil sector stock would do.  Remember you can own any stock in the sector not the one I recommend.

By the way have you have you purchased your 5 stocks?  That is the purpose of this blog.  Moving myself and readers from the ones who have to wait to get trickled on, to the position of being the ones letting money slip through our fingers because we have so much.  After you have your first 100k invested you should have 4k of annual income by dividends.  If you are not paying off your debt and saving for your own move into the upper classes, why read?

This is in response to overwhelming demand why voting for your own class is what you must do?  Please understand the Bail Out worked.  If all the Money Center Banks and the auto companies and auto parts companies would have gone bankrupt then we would have been in the Great Depressions Part II.  Almost all the taxpayer money has been paid back at a profit.  The criminals on Wall Street should have been thrown in jail, and a claw back of the bonus monies and salaries they got while turning the economy into a casino.  Did not happen but they are rich and the rich never go to jail.  Vote for the president not the GOP who are blocking the economic recovery.

The stimulus worked.  It did not get us back to the healthy economy we want but it increased the GNP by 2 to 2.5% and kept (not created) 2 million Americans in work with jobs.  Read this book if you don’t believe me.  http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-players-abc-news/did-800-billion-really-buy-country-112720315.html 

The middle class has been crushed by Romney type budgeting fantasy.  Making no mistake the Romney / Ryan  will do wonders for you if you are one of the upper 5%.  It will continue to crush the middle class though.  A society is defined din history by how it treats its most valuable members. The GOP is not doing the right Christian thing.  Ana Rand’s philosophy is the diametric opposite of Christianity.  http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-middle-class-20120822,0,4728951.storyhttp://www.examiner.com/article/middle-class-shrank-income-declined-during-the-last-decade http://www.indystar.com/article/20120825/BUSINESS/208250303/Middle-class-share-America-s-income-shrinking?odyssey=nav%7Chead
Seems the GOP are not telling us the truth.  http://news.yahoo.com/most-americans-rich-dont-pay-enough-taxes-160833705.html   Why is this all so they can lower their taxes?

Monday, August 20, 2012

GOP @ it Again, don't get Fooled


Don’t Get Fooled Again


In review you now have 5 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.  Last pick was an oil or gas my recommendation was Chevron Corp (CVX) but any oil sector stock would do.  Remember you can own any stock in the sector not the one I recommend.

The GOP is at it again.  As the lyrics of The Who song says; “Just like yesterday. And I'll get on my knees and pray.  We don't get fooled again.  Don't get fooled again.”  “Change it had to come…. There's nothing in the street.  Looks any different to me…. Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss.”  Romney’s tax plan is another look at Bush’s tax plan, in simple language a welfare plan for millionaires.  Because Governor Romney has not specified how he would increase the tax base, it is impossible to determine how the plan would affect federal tax revenues or the distribution of the tax burden.  Currently Apple pays 3% taxes in the state of California, do they really need to pay less taxes?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b1g07uq4y8

 “Romney’s tax plan would Romney’s tax cuts would predominantly favor upper-income taxpayers. Those earning more than $1 million would see their after-tax income increased the most, by 8.3 per cent.”  Those making less than $75,000 a year would see their taxes increased.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/us/politics/romney-like-plan-would-tax-lower-income-households.html  “A tax system overhaul along the lines that Mitt Romney has proposed would give big tax cuts to high-income households and increase the tax burden on middle- and lower-income households, according to an analysis from economists at the Tax Policy Center.”  http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/

“As a result, middle- and lower-income households — the 95 percent of the population earning less than about $200,000 annually — would have to make up the difference, according to the review by the center, which is affiliated with the Brookings Institution.”  It's just about making our tax code more fair and making our tax code more helpful to the middle class, which is the backbone of our country and backbone of economic security and economic growth in our country.  Not about give away welfare programs to the über-rich Mr. Romney!  I worked for a millionaire as his accountant once.  He did not pay the taxes owed because he knew what would get him audited and what he could pad the company expenses with making personal expenses business expenses.  His kids had trust funds and created no jobs.  The GOP tax plan is all about keeping the idle rich idle and rich, not about jobs.  Without a strong middle class who spend all their income no one will create jobs.  You see when you start a business you want to invest your money to make more, taxes do not play a role in the decision.  As the middle class is being lowered less jobs are created since the middle class not the rich are the backbone of the economy and what we owe our prosperity to.


Why hasn’t Romney released his taxes.  Because his taxes are an embarsement.  Just like the tea party.  Where was the Tea Party when Bush had 2 unbudged and unpaid for wars and spent the county into the debt problem in the first place?  Since the GOP was in they did not care!  Romney has tricks at his disposal to avoid paying taxes. He has exploited many of these loopholes, stashing his money in secret, overseas accounts in places like Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.  His taxes are an embracement Romney is hiding something.

Trickle-down economics are good only for the über-rich, it is not good for you and me.  Mitt will promise to perform miracles with the economy that is what the GOP has been doing since time immemorial; they can usually do it for a while, or at least appear to have done it.  They have inevitable brought losses to the general public (everyone below the top 3%).  Their administrations are usually accompanied by flagrant manipulation and misleading reports and politics like the tea party now.  The performance of trickle-down economic policy is a poor one.  Unless you are one of the über-rich on government welfare.  Clouded by a motherhood, flag-waving rhetoric.  Now it’s the tea party (patriotism), the Constitution (patriotism), family values (Motherhood).  Actually motherhood was the battle cry when it came to the 800 billion drug company welfare program added to Medicare the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (P.L. 108–173), the GOP that talked about it said, “I love my Mother” during their speeches.  I love my Mother too; let’s just give her health insurance like every other industrial country, healthcare for the common man not healthcare for the rich. (During a visit to the Statue of Liberty my mother fell down and broke her arm.  She was flown to a hospital in New Jersey.  During that two weeks nothing was done because she had left her Blue Cross & Blue Shield insurance card at home.  She is crippled now.  My brother flew to New Jersey put her on a plane and flew her home and a week later she was operated on.  Wouldn’t have happened in Canada, to a Canadian citizen in Canada GOP!)  In Canada they refuse to pay high prices for drugs and don’t need an 800 billion giveaway program George, and I bet they love their Mothers up there too.)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=894XHp_NMks  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8yR7KeKbSA&feature=relmfu






The Bush years proved that tax cuts for the rich don't generate a vibrant economy!  A healthy middle class is the key to job growth and a healthy economy.  The Bush tax plan is the key to a weak middle class and a recreating of the 1880’s robber barons.  Employment growth as fueled by the surrounding conditions, it's driven by the general economy.  Bush destroyed the economy, Romney is more of the same but on steroids. 

Do not vote for the GOP or the Tea Party.  They are in the process of destroying your economic future if you are one of the 97% of Americans who don’t make 250k per year.   They just don’t care about and want to tax so they can keep the rich on the government dole.  They will only make it harder for you to join the upper class with the stock market and real-estate investing from this blog.

The first Bush destroyed the economy.  He just lacked enough time to destroy it completely.
Clinton repaired the damage of the first Bush years, and was paying off the National Debt.
The second Bush wanted to complete his father’s programs and correct his father’s mistakes.  Thus a wasted war in Iraq and a destroyed economy took 8 years not four to destroy the economy with Trickle Down Economics. Plus he squandered the Clinton National Debt program to pump the economy so he could put billionaire’s on welfare.
David Stockman, who championed this theory under Reagan, has referred to the Romney plan as Paul Ryan’s fairy-tale budget plan.   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html 
Thomas Sowell has written that the actual path of money in a private enterprise economy is quite the opposite of that claimed by people who support to the trickle-down theory.  He writes from a conservative and libertarian perspective.
Tax cuts directly targeting those with less income would be more economically simulative, than welfare to Romney’s class.  The wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy.  Kind of like Mitt’s tax deduction for a dancing horse?  Or, Mitt’s tax havens overseas in countries there the rich like to hide income to cheat on their taxes.
Trickle Down Economics has destroyed the economy each and every time it was tried by the same party, going as far back as the disaster in 1890.  So why vote for the programs 2 champions?  Vote for the middle class with  Obama.  And, vote out the jokers in Congress who are in the Tea Party they are blocking the recovery and destroying the economy. 

Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Limits of Growth


The Limits to Growth

In review you now have 5 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.  Last pick was an oil or gas my recommendation was Chevron Corp (CVX) but any oil sector stock would do.  Remember you can own any stock in the sector not the one I recommend.

In a controversial environmental study released in the 70’s at MIT, by a physicist Graham Turner in Smithsonian magazine April 2012.  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html 

The author found that growth cannot go on forever.  There is a limit and resources are not unlimited.  For my next two stock recommendations I am going to use this study to make you money.  In my next posts I am going to recommend you get a non-renewable resource stock and a production of food stock.  So again I have my own sectors slightly different than the professionals.  I believe they offer a valid diversification strategy.  So along with my recommention on an oil stock in the post titled “Oil”, I want you to get other resource supply stocks.



The dark band is the actual vs the estimated graph from 1970 to 2000 as observed.  The modeling is of unchecked economic and population growth with finite resource supplies.  Although it seems logical it is largely dismissed by critics (GOP who always want business-as-usual) as a doomsday prophecy. The scary thing is it is on track today, remember the Bush adminstration and global warming?  Scienciests agree global warming is not if, but when.  Logacally we can’t grow forever, so like Jim Cramer says if we can’t fix it we can profit from it. 
So let’s profit from the limits to growth.  Just because the GOP doesn’t believe in it doesn’t mean it isn’t true, we can’t grow streight up it is as simple as the elementary school science experment of a banana and half a dozen friut flies in a closed jar.  Did you do that in school?  Try it!  The banana can represent avalible resouces, the fruit flies the population or growth your choice, and the jar the closed system of the planet.  At a point the fruit flies die off due to a spoiled environment and pollution.  So in the future bogs I plan to add a two materials stocks, one from the Fertilizers, Agricultural Equipment & Agricultural Chemicals to play the growing human population.  And, a Mining stock to play the growing industrial output and production.


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Intelligent Investor

The Intelligent Investor

In review you now have 5 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.  Last pick was an oil or gas my recommendation was Chevron Corp (CVX) but any oil sector stock would do.  Remember you can own any stock in the sector not the one I recommend.

In Benjamin Graham’s book he teaches value investing.  First of all I read a book written by the author during his lifetime.  (May 8, 1894 – September 21, 1976) I am not sure who is updating his work but I wanted his pholosphy not current theroies.  pg 40 “the rate of return … be dependent, on the amount of (time) intelligent effort the investor is willing and able to bring to bear on his task. … the alert, enteprising investor who exercises maximun intelligence and skill.”  Warren Buffett, who is considered most successful investor of the 20th century is a value investor and uses the principles taught in this book, and what I talked about in my last post. 
“it is absurd to think that the general public can ever make money out of market forcasts.  … There is no basis either in logic or in experience for assuming hat any typical or average investor can anticipate the market movements … successfully”  In this blog I am suggesting that you disreguard the Mutual Funds and junk ETF’s.  Invest for yourself in good high quality companies.  Watch the market for the general direction.  Use market tools, and follow the stocks you invest in.  Use value investing and follow the free advice on CNBC from Cramer and Fast Money.  (sorry closed the book before I got the page number)
“Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the investory.  They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal.  … he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his company.”  pg 109  I used this durring the 208 market melt down and the flash crash.  No one would have lost money during the flash crash with Procter & Gamble (PG) using a stop loss becaue you would never use a stop loss on your stocks following this investing approach. 
During the 2008 crash on or about 3/09/09 I sold all my stocks and purchased better stocks at a fraction of their value.  The stock were unloved and out of reach in some cases before the crash in March of 2009.  Home Depot (HD) was out of favor and the stock pickers were recommending Lowe's Companies Inc (LOW).  Altria Group Inc. (MO) was unloved due also to a lawsuit.  U.S. Bancorp (USB) being a bank was hated.  All examples of broken stocks not broken companies I picked two were recommended as stocks not to purchase.  Pfizer Inc. (PFE) was the most broken company I picked.  Unloved at the time now it is recommended at least once a week by someone on CNBC.  Pfizer Inc. (PFE) is the most risky of the three in my view and still is.  My point is I watch it closer and am more ready to sell it, even thought it is now loved.  The main point is you can buy stocks the Hedge Funds and Mutual Funds can’t and make a lot of money when the stocks become loved, also stocks flip flop being loved one year and hated the next. 

Go to a used bookstore and buy the book.  Start your own list of value stocks to pick up.  Spoiler this book is written like a college textbook.  You will learn what Warren Buffett has used to become rich.  You can do this too.  In conclusion 50% of the gains to investors on the stock market are from reinvested dividends.  Use value investing to increase your wealth.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Limit Your Risk


Limit the Risk 

If you have been following my blog and advice you now have 5 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.  Last pick was an oil or gas my recommendation was Chevron Corp (CVX) but any oil sector stock would do.  Remember you can own any stock in the sector not the one I recommend.
I know Jim Cramer recommends you own only 5 stocks and research each one a hour a week.  I saw a graph like this in the Charles Schwab investor magazine “onInvesting”.  This graph shows the number of stocks owned on the vertical line is the risk and the horizontal line that runs parallel to the x-axis is the number of stocks you own.  With one stock your risk is at the upper left almost off the chart.  The more stocks you own the lower your risk.  In essence you become a mutual fund.
My recommendation is make sure you own only good stocks watch the company specific news and be willing to explain to someone why you own a stock.  If you can’t expain to a disinterested third party the logic behind why you own a stock, then you must sell that stock and buy a new stock in the same sector.  You can make love to your wife, making love to a stock is very unsatisifating and you can loose a lot of money money. 
I recommend you own a good stock in every sector.  Spend your 5 hours a week researching the market.  Remember half the movement of your stock is the market.  Flaten out your risk curve, follow the market.  In the next post we will explore new purchases.  Your goal is to own one stock the best stock in every sector.  Be your own Mutual Fund.  By being your own Mutual Fund you can outperform Mutual Funds because you can hold out of favor stocks with good fundimentals and hold them long enough to make good returns.  In effect you become your own Hedge Fund.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Oil

Next Stock

You are investing in stocks not the GNP.  If you have been following my blog and advice you now have 4 stocks.  Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) or another utility, Kraft Foods Inc. (KFT) or another food stock, Eaton Corp (ETN) or another industrial stock, and U.S. Bancorp (USB) or some other financial (Bank) stock of choice.

You now have somewhere from 20 to 40 thousand dollars saved, you are following a plan.  You are getting rich slowly.  Keep it up; it is now time to buy your fifth stock.  Again do it in another sector.  I call the oil and gas stocks a sector, unlike many other investors.  Maybe not correct but I have my reasons as I will explain below.  All oil and gas stocks move with the underlying commodities. 

I think the best oil & gas stock to invest in is Chevron Corp (CVX).  Just because I like CVX there are many oil and gas companies you can invest in pick one.  Pick one and invest in it.  Again 100 shares and again sell upside calls.  You get a 3.4% dividend of 90 dollars a quarter, and with a upside call out 3 months you can get an additional either 200 or 60 dollars depending if you sell the call 3 dollars higher than you purchased CVX at or 7 dollars higher.  I would take the 7 dollars higher call at 60 dollars.  So now you get 150 dollars return for the quarter and a total return with the call at about 5%.  At the current price of the stock (7/3/12) and if the stock is called away from you, you will make an about an additional 6% on your investment.  (Sorry I am not going to do the math to get the exact percentages.)

In 1956 a geoscientist who worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas prodicted the U.S. would become a oil importer after oil production peaks in the 60’s and 70’s See the Graph.  He received harsh criticism at first, this prediction proved correct in 1970.  Hydraulic fracturing changed the bell curve some see the chart in this post, but there is only so much oil underground and this investment will pay you a dividend return for the rest of your and your childrens lives.  That is why I put oil and gas in their own sector.  Let this trend of downward oil inventory pay you dividends for the rest of your life and your childrens lives, and build your wealth.  I am not sure exactly where or when oil will drop off and you see in the graph that new technologies can shift the bell curve upward, but there is a finite supply on earth.  There is an infinite demand for engery on this planet. 
Just look at the war in Iraq for a good example of the importance of oil.  The United States did not intervene in Sudan, Uganda or Tanzina over human rights violations or to bring democary to their people, those countries killed more of their own citizens than Iraq did.  These African countries remind me more of Nazi Germany and Hitler than Iraq did.  Engery is in our strategic national interest.  This war was about oil and gas, you don’t think we would have stayed for 10 years in Tanzina if the terriorists were from Africa do you?  There is always at least one carrier battle group over in the Strait of Hormuz.  We don’t guard the Gulf of Aden and the trade route through the Seuiz Canel and fight the pirates in Somalia like we protect the Strait of Hormuz do we?  It’s oil not human rights George Jr. be honest.  Besides if human rights violations mattered to us at all, George Sr. would have taken out Iraq during the First Gulf War when the Iraqian troops started killing the civilians who had supported the United States and democary.  Just as long as the oil flows and the proper people control it the two George’s were happy.  I always felt bad that we allowed all those people die under George Sr.  And, I will feel bad until the day I die about U.S. troops torturing and tormenting the enemy under orders from the president.  Christians don’t torture George.

The United States will fight for oil now and in the future, like it or not.  At least until we have an alternate engery source.  Do you really think a oil billionare from Texas wouldn’t use any excuse?  There were better ways to take out the terriorists if they alone, were what we were after.  There are other countries that would accept democary better and who have nasty dictatorhips in them, other than those two middle eastern countires we are in garrisoning now.  One for a pipeline project and one for oil. 
 
Do you really think the oil companies need special tax treatment?  Since we are going to put oil companies on government welfare.  Since we will go to war for and use our troops to garrison oil countires.  Since we have now tortured for oil.  Looks like we will do just about anything for oil.  You need to put your money where your government and special intersts put their money!  Ride the coattails of a trend that is here to stay, and build your wealth.  Ride this major wave of a needed commidity and build your own net worth.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Get Rich Slowly


Change your attitude change your life.

You are never going to get rich quick.  You can get rich slowly but most Americans don’t have the patience to get rich slowly.  It takes perseverance and staying power, putting off pleasure for today to save for tomorrow.

The fairy tale told by Horatio Alger to every American is that; by your bootstraps you can pull yourself up, and join the upper social class.  Alger was from the upper class he wrote about something we would all like to believe is true, but is not truth and has little basis in reality.  Horatio Alger wrote fairy tales to children about impoverished boys and their rise from humble backgrounds to lives plenty.  The tragedy is this fairy tale has entered into American culture as a truism.  Your odds of raising your class up one level are more than a million to one; your odds are better buying a lotto ticket.  The truth is the greatest influence on your social class is the family you were born in, not your intelligence, not your job, or your talents.

You can become an entrepreneur?   Really, what bull crap!  The odds are stacked against you.  At least 80% or entrepreneurs fail the first year, and of the 20% that go on to their second year half fail during year two.  I will take the opposite side of that trade any day.  You take your startup money and we can roll the dice, I have a 90% chance of winning.  You will not get into the upper class by making more at work or getting promoted.  The best jobs are all spoken for by those in the know, or who know someone.  The odds are you will get laid off first.  You will not get there by inventing the new great got to have gismo in your garage.  You most likely will not get there by being a contractor, and building homes, roads, fences, etc.  Odds are you will go bankrupt once or twice.

There are only two sure ways I know to raise yourself upward in the social food chain, real estate and stocks.  Please read Dave Ramsey’s “The Total Money Makeover” for instructions on the real estate route.  You need a positive cash flow to be a landlord.  I have known people who are successful landlords and they all have a positive cash flow.  Positive cash flows equal you own your own home and your rental property, so that when you get a bad renter you can repair and keep your real estate.  Everyone I have known lately has lost their rental property and in some cases their homes too.  Many try the easy way flipping houses.  Again like being an entrepreneur and opening your own business flipping houses looks like it is the fast and easy way to wealth.  The system is rigged for the few with money, can you buy the house you are flipping and fund the repairs yourself?  In the past twenty years the top 1% have improved their net worth by a gargantuan 157% while the middle class has improved theirs by a tiny 10%.  Twelve years of oil millionaires from Texas in the White House, and their economic policies for the rich.

Read Jim Cramer’s books on stocks, real estate is more mistake prone than stocks.  There are other good books on stocks that read like college textbooks, Jim’s are easy to understand.  Have a plan and the discipline to follow it.  In ‘The Intelligent Investor” by Benjamin Graham it says “If you want to speculate do so with your eyes open, knowing that you will probably lose money” Chapter 8.  I have made money speculating on stocks and real estate; got out too early, or too late, or rode it up then down to zero.  In comparison I purchased Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED) 4 years ago and it is up 55%, I have 28.6228 shares of stock from dividends and I forget how many times I sold upside calls that have expired as worthless.

The only way I know for you to raise your social class is to slowly work on stocks or real estate.  Pay off your house and buy a new one rent the old one, or buy high quality stocks with dividends with one or two growth stocks.  Pay off all your debt.  I know it takes years and is not quick and easy.  People like the quick easy fix, thanks to Horatio Alger (who was in the upper 10% himself at birth).  This way is slow and steady.  It means going without to save and invest. 

It also should mean voting for people who will build up and not destroy the middle class, for that is where you are now.  Vote for the 99% of Americans not the 1% über-rich, if you looking for a positive change in your financial life.  The GOP is only interested in lowering the percentage they pay in taxes and increasing your tax bill.  Be aware that when you pay more in food and gas that is a tax, when you pay more for healthcare and insurance that is a tax.  The only thing you need worry about is your disposable income, not your net income.  Our taxes when up under Bush Jr., we pay the gas pump and the grocery store.  Food and gas matter little to the über-rich it is a small percentage of their budget, look at your budget, food is probably number 2 in where most your money goes, healthcare number 1 or 3?  Come on W raised your taxes and lowered his own, and his billionaire friends.  The GOP candidate for president pays 15% in taxes, and hides his money in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands.  Do you think he cares about you or his über-rich friends?

The GOP wish to move your job overseas and see that you pay the greatest percentage of your income to your healthcare costs in the world.  The Healthcare in the US is between 27 to 37, why are we so low?  The GOP is the reason.  In Education the US is between number 25 to 30.  How can we be competitive if we don’t invest in our children?  I am a Christian and believe if we are really a Christian nation we will treat our poor better, (sell all you own and give it to the poor Matthew 19:21 & Mark 10:21) and how we treat the sick (Luke 10:25-37 the GOP are acting like the priest and Levite) and how we treat children (Matthew 18:6 – 18:10 GOP build the Department of Education don’t tear it down “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven” )  Time to be the best nation for all not just the 3%.