Category: Doc Thompson

Rich Hart Explains the Strange World of Economics: The Devil is in the details

One of the most perplexing aspects of human culture is economics. Most people do not enjoy economics. Economics is a large, confusing tangle of numbers and obscure facts. This is the reason that thieves, looters and other predatory parasites linger in the midst of economics, because there is money to be made in the obscurity. When the average American would prefer to stand in their garage with their friends or family and watch football or NASCAR on a TV sipping on a beer, they are all too happy to just throw money at the government and hope everything works out. But it doesn’t because waiting in the confusion, in the rules and regulation, are the hands of many devils hoping to pull a fast one over on people everywhere to gain wealth themselves.

Paul Ryan’s economic plan is trying to solve this problem, and save the country from financial ruin. Many like Ryan on the inside understand that the looters who are putting America in the financial situation it is currently in, have little loyalty to the United States. The looters would be just as happy to live under United Nations control on an island in the Bahamas or in Nigeria, so long as they are wealthy. Those are the people who are against Paul Ryan’s economic plan.

I had the pleasure of meeting recently Paul Ryan’s economics professor, Rich Hart of Miami University. I was very impressed with Mr. Hart’s knowledge of Keynesian economics and overall ability to take a very complicated topic and explain it in a relatively simple way. So it was a pleasure to get Mr. Hart on with Doc Thompson to give half a million listeners a basic, free class in economics that some of the brightest in this country could only get by taking Harts class at Miami University, as Paul Ryan had.

In my mind Paul Ryan’s plan doesn’t go far enough. To me, if the goal for a smaller government is desired, then naturally employees of the federal government will be decreased dramatically, which has to happen. As proven with the school budget issues, it is labor costs that are the big budget breaker in public school. Unions took advantage of the housing bubble. But people were willing to vote in favor of higher taxes because the value of their property showed high on paper, so because Americans are generous by nature, they passed their local levies. They didn’t pay attention to the outrageous pay increases the teachers gave themselves, or the police and firefighters. That group of public employee is no different from congressman and city council members that give themselves pay increases. Yet here we are, in a budget crunch, the housing bubble burst so taxpayers have to look at the actual value of their money, and are learning that they’ve been scammed, and the feeling isn’t pleasant.

On top of the high cost of the public employee, there is the cost of corruption. Lobbyists are a major problem. But waste is the worst. Medicare alone costs over $60 billion each year. There is simply no way to balance any kind of budget when so many people are benefiting off the waste and corruption of these major government programs. You can read the source article for the $60 billion in waste here:

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medicare-fraud-costs-taxpayers-60-billion-year/story?id=10126555

 

If you want to know who the thieves are, just listen to the people who criticize any kind of reform such as what Paul Ryan proposed. Paul built his plan based on the sound economics of one of the countries finest economics professors from one of the countries finest universities. Are those critics against Ryan’s plan because the economic theory is wrong? No, it’s because the critics are using Keynesian economics to plunder money for themselves and they want the money train to keep on rolling at tax payer expense.

Keynesian economics also called (Keynesianism and Keynesian theory) is a macroeconomic theory based on the ideas of 20th century English economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesian economics argues that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes and therefore advocates active policy responses by the public sector, including monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government to stabilize output over the business cycle.[1] The theories forming the basis of Keynesian economics were first presented in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, published in 1936; the interpretations of Keynes are contentious, and several schools of thought claim his legacy.
Read the rest of that article here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was a British economist whose ideas have profoundly affected the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, as well as the economic policies of governments. He greatly refined earlier work on the causes of business cycles, and advocated the use of fiscal and monetary measures to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions and depressions. His ideas are the basis for the school of thought known as Keynesian economics, as well as its various offshoots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes

Keynesian economics does not work as explained by Rich Hart. It can now be officially declared that Keynesian economics is the economics of socialism which Britain was experimenting with under thinkers like Keynes. Public officials like Obama, and those who work in modern government know that Keynesian economics does not work, yet they support it because they either desire the results of a collapsing economy, or they have no stomach for the change in the status quo.

This isn’t hard to imagine. Most people work in an occupation where they know things are wrong, but they proceed on because they don’t want to upset the applecart of their income. In politics, we’ve made public service so lucrative, so highly paid, that politicians will lie, steal, cheat, manipulate, whatever it takes to keep their job. They’ll do this because they tend to be low quality people to begin with, and could not in their wildest dreams perform a private sector job and make as much money as they can in government. Look at Anthony Weiner and how he’s holding onto his job with both hands. He’s doing that because he simply couldn’t work anywhere else. Who’d hire him? A lobbyist? Maybe one of them, but he couldn’t work for any legitimate company. And he knows it. Weiner like the rest of his co-workers in congress and the senate know that Keynesian economics is their ticket to salvation and the good people who pay their salaries don’t want to deal with the complicated nature of economics, so the scam is never dealt with, and the looters know it.

If there is ever to be any real reform in the United States, American’s have to take some interest in economic activity. Citizens need to push to simplify the terminology so they can understand economics, they need to force the budgets to become smaller so waste and corruption cannot be so easily hidden in the details, and this is something that must happen, if any preservation of America is to take place.

So go back and listen to Rich Hart again, and again and begin your economic education so that you can begin to understand the forces that are working against you and why, because it will take more than one or two people to fix this problem. It will take a majority of the nation. This is why the looters fear the Tea Party, because if the nation begins to pay attention, the game is over for them. They’ve already made their bets that people will openly chose to stay asleep. Only time will tell what fate delivers.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Carbon Party, Wine, Motorcycles and the Tea Party: Why Environmental Wacko’s are big business con artists

It was a glorious June 12th, 2011 afternoon. Doc Thompson was hosting a Carbon Party, a gathering that was needed in order to off-set all the greenie weenies as we’ve come to affectionately refer to those pushing a political green movement. Listen here to Doc Thompson speaking with radio personality Matt Clark  talk radio host on WAAM Talk 1600 from Michigan the night before.

It was ironic that this carbon consuming event was held at a winery, a place that would typically be associated with environmentalist. But then when logic presents itself, all the people present were celebrating nature. Trees and all plant life consume carbon-dioxide. In fact, the more carbon dioxide produced the better for all the plant life shown in this video of the event where Doc Thompson was the master of ceremonies and spoke of some of the hypocrisy involved in the green movement, which was quite funny.

As I watched Doc’s speech and spoke with him throughout the afternoon, and spoke with others that were present, it was apparent that here, with the 200 or so people who showed up for an event in the middle of the countryside on a Sunday afternoon when there were thousands of other things to do with that time, these are the guardians of America in this modern age. It was those people as I mentioned in my report from the Glenn Beck event in Wilmington, Ohio that are the hope for America’s future.

The people came from all backgrounds, there were young, there were old, there were bikers, there were yuppies. There were politicians, business men, and nature enthusiasts. What we all had in common was a memory and recognition of all the B.S that the environmental advocates have professed with such religious fervor that logic has been abandoned.

What came to my mind was Al Gore, the pot smoking hippie congressman from Tennessee that seems to have lost all his brain cells during his college days and has lost the opportunity to think. All he seems able to do is repeat what is told to him, and he’s turned the green movement into his hippie quest established in the haze of marijuana smoke. One would hope that a grown man would have evolved like most people do in their lives to a level of higher wisdom gaining an understanding of the symbiotic relationship that humans play in the greater scheme of the environment. Such childish notions as those espoused by Gore and his financial backers can only see life from the point of view of the environment. And the reason is that they really see profit for themselves in the green movement, so like most things, the environmental wacko’s, the greenie weenies, the hippies, the dope headed geeks, the burnt-out politician that cooked their brain in college over drug use see the environment as their ticket to prosperity and a method to achieve their childish world view.

Al Gore would be virtually useless as a human being if he did not enter politics, loot money from the tax payer using emotional jargon, or allowing his name to be used by the socialist oriented green movement to be a mouth piece and front man for their aims.

I recently watched The Social Network, which is about Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of Facebook. Zuckerberg is obviously a highly intelligent guy that was able to write code for computer programs. But there are a lot of geniuses out there. Mark wanted revenge on a girlfriend that found his personality, like many did, repulsive. Without Facebook, Mark would just be another obscure geek. However, because the code of his program was able to crawl through existing data bases and match up similar people with interests he invented something that was highly lucrative to the snoopy aspect of human nature, that desire to be an exhibitionist but doing so behind a curtain of protection. Meanwhile users willingly provide information about themselves that companies would spend millions to get a hold of, spending habits, behavior patterns, demographic information, and family relationships, Facebook is that ant trap where the sweet nectar of the trap proves too lucrative for the logical mind to resist. Mark and his partners didn’t know how to make money with Facebook, until he met the ambitious Sean Parker who had worked with Napster and had extensive experience with the consequences of taking on the music industry with free downloads. The money wasn’t in the free software, it was in court settlements and the threat of what that software could do to existing companies. In effect, Sean Parker was nothing more than a pirate that Mark picked up on and learned to use to his advantage. Zuckerberg sold out to a company of investors that saw more money than just advertising revenue in Facebook. It was the databases that Facebook could create on people who made Facebook worth 25 billion dollars. Think about it, 25 billion dollars for a free service. It’s an ant trap people, sorry.

But this isn’t about Facebook. It’s about looters. Zuckerberg to this day is Time Magazines man of the year, President Obama has private conversations with him, but in reality he is simply a looter that made a free service out of revenge against his girlfriend. He made a weapon that makes it easier for other looters to gather information they can use to exploit the public. Does that make Zuckerberg a bad guy, no. He’s a computer hacker, just like his friend Sean Parker. They are thieves that just like pirates took their plunder, and they had something valuable to other looters, which is an information gathering service. I use the Zuckerberg story because everyone can relate, because most people use Facebook and know who Zuckerberg is. With that definition of a looter established, then my feelings about Al Gore can be illustrated.

I remember when Gore said he invented the internet. It’s been a joke for years. I find it bewildering that in Gores mind he could even say or believe such a thing. But he says it, and seems to believe it. He has the mind of a looter, so truth has no value to people like Al Gore. All that matters is images and how people like him can use images to loot money from people, or better yet, convince people to give him money without bloodshed, or violence. The worst kind of looter is the type of person that convinces people to give away their money while believing they are doing it for their own good.

I remember back in the 90’s when Al Gore was vice-president when the Ohio River flooded heavily down in Cincinnati. Al Gore came to town to show “federal concern” over the queen city. When he arrived the TV cameras were rolling down by the river where a large dry area along the river bank provided plenty of room for cameras, reporters and other VIP’s had gathered. Al Gore showed up and wadded out into the water with his shoes on and suit, knowing that the cameras would capture his action and exaggerate the situation. The people present all scratched their heads and wondered why Gore was standing in the water when there was plenty of dry land. But they were thinking with logic, not with the mind of a looter. Gore, the looter, later went on TV to say that the Ohio River was flooding because of global warming.

Years and years of this kind of looting from people like Gore has went on, and people scratch their heads but don’t take the time to put two and two together. Why would a government even be involved in selling carbon credits? Because it’s a scam, just like Facebook is a scam to get people to put their personal activity and personal connections into a giant data base daily, the green movement is a scam to steal money from people over nothing.

One of the reasons the Carbon Party was such a great event was because it was attended by people with common sense, who all behaved with a level of intelligence and an ability to think, so the wine tasted better because the company was good.

Before I left the event that day Doc Thompson and I were talking, he was holding a large cigar in his mouth as a line of his radio fans were gathered next to him to meet him, hungry for his attention. “I don’t want to tie you up, Doc. Your fans are waiting. But I’m glad you put this whole thing together. It’s a wonderful day, people have a chance to taste what America is supposed to be,” I said to him.

Doc rolled the cigar in his lips so he could properly articulate speech, “Great isn’t it.”

Yes it was. The smell of hot dogs, hamburgers, beer, wine and the gentle breeze that blew in from the west which we could see over the horizon of the earth filled our senses. People were happy, and nature was something we all were openly enjoying. But I realized that the primary reason we were having so much fun was because the event was free of looters, lairs and other manipulators of the facts whose true motive is to steal money for their own plunder, and using the mask of a legitimate cause to do it.

That’s what the Carbon Party was celebrating, truth, relaxation, and understanding in an environment that was the best and most pristine that planet earth and the mind of man can create together. It was a wonderful event.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Thank a Rich Person: How Wealthy People Make American Society Better

One of the things that is wrong with America, it’s this marketed notion that one should aspire to be poor, meek, or average. No. Nobody, anywhere at anytime in world history are happy with being average, unless of course they are perpetually lazy. For such people, they are the mouths behind the communist movement in America.

It is the rich man who moves the world. Doc Thompson of 700 WLW covers the topic of how to think like a rich person on his morning show which is a broadcast everyone should listen to.

A man does not become rich by just making money. They become rich by having an idea that nobody else has uncovered yet. The lure of treasure and financial reward is the engine that drives such a quest, and society benefits from that quest with new invention. The wealth and jobs created from those ideas are what makes American society great.

And the sum of those elements give American youth something to aspire to.

Take for instance Orlando, Florida. Back in the 1950’s there was nothing in Orlando but a few buildings. I’ve revealed my admiration of Walt Disney more than once at this site. I’ve talked about how successful he’s been, and what a self-made man he was. He did not even graduate high school, yet he created one of the most dynamic companies in the world. Orlando is the city it is today because Disney had the vision to build Walt Disney World there, and over the years, the entire economy of Orlando has thrived because of Walt’s idea. Disney wanted to build a park dedicated to the films he produced, where imagination had no limit. That was his premise. The result was explosive.

On November 12, 2009, The Walt Disney Company reported $10.667 billion in theme park and resort earnings for fiscal year 2009, ending October 3, 2009. This figure includes earnings from the Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland, Disneyland Resort Paris, Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, Disney Vacation Club and Disney Cruise Lines. A majority of that income is centered around the Orlando operations. 36% of the entire GDP of the state of Florida which is the state Orlando resides in, and most of that is tourism that started with an idea from Walt Disney.

Sea World did not set up its park in Orlando on its own. It went there because of the success of Disney World. Universal Studios did not set up in Orlando with their two parks, Universals Studios and Islands of Adventure on their own. They went there because of Disney World. All the interesting restaurants, hotels and shopping establishments on International in Orlando and Kissimmee all are there because of Disney World.

Not a single building was put up in Orlando because of a creative union, a teacher, a cop, firefighter, an SEIU worker, a president, a congressman, a senator. All those types of people are employees to the originator of the idea, and that is Walt Disney.

For the mind to wrap itself around just how important Walt Disney World in Orlando is to not just the state of Florida, but the entire United States have a look at these numbers from source article at the link, a majority of the text is below however:

http://disneybythenumbers.com/wdw/wdw.html

When you read this, think for just a second of all the companies that exist just to supply Walt Disney World with material, whether it be food, wrappers, steel for construction, concrete, you name it.

30,500 acres or 43 square miles of property is what is considered the original area centrally located in Florida and is considered the largest of its kind in the world.

1965 is when the public was told about the Walt Disney World Resort Plans

52 months of construction were needed to build Walt Disney World back in 1971.

8 million cubic yards of earth were moved to build Walt Disney World.

2,000 acres remain open for development by the Walt Disney World Company.

$180 an acres was a great price for the Florida land, until Disney was named the person buying the land then the price went to $1000 an acre.

27,258 acres of land were purchased for WDW

$5,018, 770 was the cost of the 27,258 acres

18 months of moving dirt were used to just prepare the Magic Kingdom site to be built.

8 million cubic yards of earth were moved to build the Magic Kingdom.

2,600,000 chocolate covered Mickey Mouse ice cream bars are sold every year at Walt Disney World (WDW)

4 colors make up the official colors of WDW, lagoon blue, mint green, pumpkin orange, lavender.

450 acre area is Bay Lake and located near the Magic Kingdom.

4.5 miles of beach line the Seven Seas lagoon and Bay Lake

2.385 billion gallons make up the volume of water that is Bay Lake and the adjoining Seven Seas Lagoon.

3.8 million pens are purchased by WDW each year.

600 tons of steel helps make up Cinderella’s Castle, and not a single stone.

4 inches is the distance the driver of the armored car has between the door and the wall of the Utilidors, which is the only gas-powered vehicle allowed in the Tunnel.

9 acres of tunnel are under the Magic Kingdom.

14 feet below ground are the 9 acres of tunnels servicing the Magic Kingdom.

2 times a month the horse shaped hitching posts on Main Street, USA are scraped and painted.

20 minutes is all it takes to fill Splash Mountain and 5 Minutes to drain it.

47 square miles is the original property size that was purchased for Walt Disney World.

7,500 acres were set aside as Conversation area in 1970 and developed a system of more than 43 miles of canals and 22 miles of levees to control the water level.

70,000 fingerling bass were originally stocked in Bay lake when WDW first opened.

4 trains are part of the WDW railroad; each train has 5 cars and can hold approximately 360 Guests and 2 wheelchairs. The train names are: Walter E. Disney (red), Lilly Belle (green),Roger E. Broggie (yellow),Roy O. Disney (blue).

10 miles per hour is the touring speed of the WDW railroad trains travel at while taking you on your scenic journey around the park.

3,000,000 are how many passengers the WDW railroad carries each year.

100,000 guests is the max capacity for the Magic Kingdom. The parking lot closes at 75,000 to allow room for Hotel resort guests arriving on buses, boats and monorail.

11,000 firework shows per year makes WDW the largest consumer of fireworks in North America.

2,300 wedding are estimated to take place at WDW in a year.

15,000 weddings have taken place at WDW since September 1991.

7 million hamburgers are sold in the park each year

5 million hotdogs are consumed each year in the park

1.4 million barbecued turkey legs are consumed each year at Walt Disney World

58,000 employees are employed by Walt Disney world as of 2006, spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million in benefits each year

5,000 employees are dedicated to the maintenance and engineering at WDW including 750 horticulturists and 600 painters.

$100 million is spent each year to maintain the Magic Kingdom.

10 of the 12 trains can be stored in the maintenance shop on its upper level (the bottom level houses the four steam locomotives that circle the Magic Kingdom). On any given night, two Mark VI trains are parked outside the gate of the Magic Kingdom. No train will ever be left outside two nights in a row.

150 truckloads of holiday decorations adorn the Walt Disney World Resort and 300,000 yards of ribbon and bows drape over 1,500 Christmas trees during the yuletide season.

72,000 ticket holders at the FedEx Orange Bowl National Championship game in Miami each receive a surprise free ticket to any Disney theme park in the world. The largest Disney theme park ticket give-away ever was part of the launch of the Happiest Celebration on Earth, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Disneyland and Disney theme parks.

50,000th child to have a Disney theme park wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Disney. This event took place on October 6, 2005.

2,500 different Cast Member costume designs make up a working wardrobe of about 1.8 million pieces. Approximately 13,000 costume pieces are manufactured each year at Walt Disney World.

15 million miles are driven by the Walt Disney World bus fleet each year.

3,421,399 (approximately)famous “Mouse Ear” hats sold each year at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando to cover the head of every man, woman and child in Portland, Oregon.

30th year anniversary for Walt Disney World was celebrated October 1, 2001. Happy Anniversary !

392,040 square feet of space under the Magic Kingdom creates the Utilidors and are bustling with action. Beside navigation information the walls are covered with motivational information, such as the 7 rules of a Cast Member.

750 watercraft makes Walt Disney World the 5th largest fleet of watercraft in the world.

14 feet deep is the Seven Sea lagoon, but Bay lake is only 12 feet deep.

2.5 million garments(pieces) exist in Walt Disney World costuming department.

150,000 gallons of paint were purchased in 2004 enough to cover 7,500 average size homes.

263 buses are in service at Walt Disney World.

50 million soft drinks are sold annually at WDW.

9 million pounds of French Fries are sold annually at WDW.

194,871 miles of toilet tissue are used annually at WDW.

24,409 miles of paper towels are used annually at WDW.

319,353 lbs. of chocolate are used annually at WDW.

1.2 million pounds of watermelon are used annually at WDW.

741,150 pounds of sugar are used annually at WDW.

1.8 million pounds of flour are used annually at WDW.

245,000 pounds of fruit filling are used annually at WDW.

38,000 pounds of white icing glaze are used annually at WDW.

2.9 million pounds of eggs are used annually at WDW.

606,000 pounds of bananas are used annually at WDW.

510,000 of grapes are used annually at WDW.

1.5 million soft pretzels are served annually at WDW.

639,000 pounds of macaroni and cheese are served at WDW.

337,000 pencils are purchased annually to use at WDW.

148 million sheets of recycled copier paper are used annually at WDW.

730,102 gallons of bleach are used annually at WDW.

214,000 bandages were provided to guests during the year 2004 at WDW.

20,000 different colors of paint used in Walt Disney World.

14.25 pound largemouth bass is the largest ever caught on Bay Lake, but we’ll never know since it is catch and release fishing.

3 circle vision films play at WDW. n the Magic Kingdom, take a trip through time in Tomorrowland’s “The Timekeeper.” The other two films using the Circle-Vision technology are both found in Epcot’s World Showcase. They are O Canada!, and the Wonders of China.

175 different outfits are in Mickey’s wardrobe closet, including a scuba suit and a tuxedo.

200 different outfits are in Minnie’s wardrobe closet, including a cheerleader costume and various evening gowns.

15 million gallons of water are used each day at WDW.

5,000 plus performers, (not counting the 500 doves that were released), joined in the Grand Opening Celebration of Walt Disney World at the Magic Kingdom on October 25, 1971.

1,076-piece band (including 76 trombones) was led by “Music man” Meredith Wilson as part of the Grand opening parade up Main Street, USA.

51,000 employees work at WDW, this number changes with the seasons and peak park seasons.

11 miles of garland, 3,000 wreaths and 1,500 Christmas trees are spread around during the holiday season. The tallest is a 70-foot tree in Disney’s Contemporary Resort. In addition, trees, which range in height from 45 to 70 feet, are placed in prominent positions in the theme parks.

500,000 character watches are sold annually mainly Mickey watches, are slipped onto wrists from Walt Disney World gift shops each year. At any given time, there are more than 200 different varieties of character watches. The most popular timepiece: a gold-tone relief of Mickey Mouse.

100 pairs of sunglasses are turned in at the Magic Kingdom lost and found alone. There have been enough “shades” submitted each year in the Magic Kingdom to outfit every resident of Sun City, Arizona; Sun City, California; and Sun City, Florida. Since 1971, an estimated 1.5 million pairs of glasses have found their way into the “lost” bin.

6,000 different types of food are served at WDW.

350 or more chefs are employed at WDW

150 semi trucks of decorations are used to decorate WDW during the Christmas season.

15 miles of garland are to decorate at WDW during Christmas season.

300,000 yards of ribbon are used for decorating at Christmas.

1,500 Christmas trees are used all around the WDW property for decorating.

8 million lights are used to decorate the 4 parks for Christmas.

18 towers are on Cinderella’s Castle.

2 times the size of Manhattan Island is the property of Walt Disney World.

200 feet is the maximum building height in Florida, so the building does not have a red light installed for aircraft.

1st guest entered Walt Disney World on October 1, 1971

50,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on March 2,1976

100,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on October 22, 1979

150,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on April 7, 1983

200,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on July 20, 1985

300,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on June 21, 1989

400,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on August 5,1992

500,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on October 13, 1995

600,000,000 guest entered Walt Disney World on June 24, 1998

4 million guests of Walt Disney World Resort hotels have used Disney’s Magical Express since the airport shuttle, luggage delivery and airline check-in service launched May 5, 2005

250,000 Guests at the Walt Disney World Resort ride the Various forms of “mass transit” every day, which include monorails, ferryboats, bus services and water taxis.

100,000 to 200,000 photos of guests are taken each day by Disney’s PhotoPass photographers

4 % percent of all amateur photography is estimated to be taken at Walt Disney World and Disneyland

3 times the park has been closed, once resort wide in September 1999 for Hurricane Floyd; resort wide on September 11th, 2001 due to the terror attacks on America; and Epcot only on July 17th, 2002 due to a power outage.

72,000 individual AudioAnimatronic functions per second are controlled by the Digital Animation Control System (DACS)

800 different variety of trees had been acquired, moved and acclimated and transplanted at WDW as it was reported in 1970

2.2 million travelers were bused from Orlando International Airport to either a WDW resort hotels or cruise ships in 2008, That works out to about $1.6 million a year in payments to the airport

80,000 high school seniors will celebrate graduation during the annual Grad Nite party at Walt Disney World Resort. Disney has hosted the event for 36 years with a variety of acts from KC and the Sunshine Band to Jessica Simpson.

Now, even at such a creative place such as Disney World, or the company of Disney overall, Walt Disney’s ideas are still paying dividends.

In the resent adventure film The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, it was Jerry Bruckheimer and a team of creative writers and other artists that brought that great film to life, and produced a marketing machine that has been very successful. But even that started with an idea from Disney, a rather radical idea if you think about it, of putting a pirate ride in a kid’s park where the heroes are thieves and hoods that rape and pillage entire towns and kill all the authority figures of England and France. The idea started with Disney and was proven with his theme parks over time, and now a new generation is taking it to a new level. To date the film has produced $810,904,120 worldwide. Think of all the theaters that employee people who are being paid out of that money, advertising firms, media personalities, popcorn manufactures, and beverage companies. All that money generated from an idea. The consumer exchanges some of their hard-earned money in trade for the message of the film, which if you get down to it, is a love of freedom. People bought a ticket to feel freedom through the characters of the pirates. Walt Disney knew it over 50 years ago, and still, to this very day, that primary idea is still being exploited

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $196,004,120 24.2%
+ Foreign:
$614,900,000 75.8%
________________________________________
= Worldwide: $810,904,120
Domestic Summary
Opening Weekend:
$90,151,958
(#1 rank, 4,155 theaters, $21,697 average)
% of Total Gross: 46.0%
> View All 3 Weekends

Widest Release: 4,164 theaters
In Release: 20 days / 2.9 weeks

If you take the time to think about it, Walt Disney alone is responsible for all the numbers spoke about above. It was his mind that created the platform from which all else was launched.

Using Disney as an example is easy because everyone knows who he is. Most people have seen a Disney film and many people have or desire to go to Disney World. So it has universal appeal.

But taken on a smaller scale I could say the same for some of my developer friends that work with me on the No Lakota Levy campaign. I heard during the last levy campaign constant uttering’s that because they are rich, that it was somehow their social obligation to pay higher taxes on the properties they’ve either built or plan to build to a school system that obviously has no concept of expense. Schools are reflective of all government because they think in a socialist fashion. In their mind they believe that the wealthy owe them something. That’s preposterous!

Where would a community be if the developer did not build homes, if they did not have a vision for the community that lured a certain type of demographic buyer to an area? They are what make a community, through the architect that knows what certain types of home owners desire to buy, and the developer that invests their money into a property to start the process of building. The politicians that loot off those developments with fees, building permits, and other regulations under the guise of “quality control” do nothing to bring an idea into being. They only scoop money off the top of an idea.

And that’s how it usually goes, someone like Bill Gates comes up with a great idea in their garage, build a successful company that changes the life of everyone for the better, then the looters in government come after them. It was the government that decided that Microsoft had become “too big” and sought to break up its monopoly. Good thing the government didn’t break up Walt Disney, because Walt wasn’t making an actual product. He was in the business of creating ideas, so the government wasn’t sure how to destroy that type of business, otherwise they would have.

One of my child hood heroes was Howard Hughes. I saw the Spruce Goose in Los Angeles at the dome when I was a kid and I loved it. I was the only kid in school that wore a Howard Hughes shirt to school while other kids wore their favorite rock bands. When I think of Howard Hughes I think of an innovator who pushed aviation to the absolute limits. He successfully used his wealth to advance aviation to the levels we are accustomed to today.

Source article about Howard Hughes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes

In 1939, at the urging of Jack Frye, president of TWA, Hughes quietly purchased a majority share of TWA stock for nearly US$7 million and took control of the airline. Upon assuming ownership, Hughes was prohibited by federal law from building his own aircraft. Seeking an aircraft that would perform better than TWA’s fleet of Boeing 307 Stratoliners, Hughes approached Boeing’s competitor, Lockheed. Hughes had a good relationship with Lockheed since they had built the aircraft he used in his record flight around the world in 1938. Lockheed agreed to Hughes’s request that the new aircraft be built-in secrecy. The result was the revolutionary Constellation and TWA purchased the first 40 of the new airliners off the production line. It was Hughes control of TWA that intercontinental airline travel began, the world became suddenly smaller and it was because Hughes pushed to have better planes built.

As the major airlines continued to compete over various routes through the 1940s, TWA gained a reputation for banking its future on the most advanced aircraft available. For example, as United and American began using the DC-6 aircraft, TWA responded by introducing the Lockheed L.1049 Super Constellation on September 10, 1952. The new aircraft had a 35 percent greater passenger carrying capacity than its predecessor. TWA was the first airline to inaugurate regularly scheduled nonstop transcontinental service between Los Angeles and New York on October 19, 1953.

TWA also entered the international market. At the end of World War II, the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), the organization that distributed routes for U.S. airlines, decided to allow other airlines to share in Pan American’s monopoly of international routes. TWA was one of the airlines granted this right, with permission to fly to Europe and India. TWA began regular New York-to-Paris service in February 1946. This route was later extended to Cairo, Egypt. TWA battled hard with Pan American for various international routes, but it initially failed to exploit its key advantage of being able to connect international flights with domestic ones, a handicap for Pan Am, which did not fly any domestic routes. TWA was also late in introducing jet service internationally, preferring instead to focus on domestic jet services. TWA’s first regularly scheduled jet flight took place on November 23, 1959—a New York-London-Frankfurt flight – a year after its main rivals. It took several years for the airline to regain its competitive advantage lost because of this delay.

Source article:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/TWA/Tran14.htm

For fun facts about Howard Hughes check out this site.

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Movies/Aviator-The-13606.html

Howard Hughes drove the industry forward, but as he went along, there was no shortage of parasites that threw themselves in his path to rob from him his wealth in order for their meager lives to profit. Hughes was brought before a congressional committee as a war profiteer because he refused to submit to Senator Brewster’s blackmailing, where Brewster tried to force Hughes to sell TWA to Juan Trippe of Pan Am. The criticism of Hughes was over the Spruce Goose, a plane Howard was developing for the military. Brewster declared that the plane would never fly, and used the hearings as a way to leverage Hughes to sell his shares off. Hughes flew the plane himself and proved them wrong, thereby defeating the take-over by Trippe, and the predatory senator.


The very rich are the heroes of modern American society, and the government looters are no different than the thieves from Europe that sought to tax the colonists in the 1770’s. The common goal is to suppress ideas and keep people under control by using taxes to control behavior. When the very wealthy still strive to achieve success and freedom, there are labor unions, government agencies and other trolls of impropriety that seek to make a name for themselves off the labor of the rich.

America would be far better off if it just stopped feeling guilty for the wealth it has achieved in such a short time. It would also be better off to admit that most politicians do nothing productive. All they make are rules, and rules are not productive. Rules do not make wealth. Therefore, government cannot make anything productive. When the lure of being rich and therefore free of some sort of entity which seeks to control individuals is not present, imagination dies, and imagination is the fuel to innovation which creates productivity.

It is time that Americans stop feeling guilty about whom they are. Work hard, make your money, and buy nice things with it. And guard yourselves from the unproductive government looter. Live your life as well as you can, and look at each day as yet another possibility of limitless opportunity. And when you hear a looter demanding they deserve the wealth of a rich person, defend that rich person as a fellow American, and as an example of the best that America has to offer. Don’t be a jealous fool. Be happy for those that have made it, and as for yourself, keep trying, because as long as America is what it is, there’s always a chance for you. Don’t allow yourself to be the worst that human kind produces and that is a looter that just scrapes through life on the products of others and expects as a divine right, “equal justice.”

My favorite modern company in the entire world is Industrial Light and Magic. To me, they are what every company in America should aspire to be. EVERY COMPANY! And Industrial Light and Magic was born because of Star Wars.






It took a very wealthy George Lucas to bring this gift to the human race.   And George didn’t become wealthy with a hand out.  He took risks, worked on ideas and never settled into a comfort level.  He pushed and pushed and pushed, and still continues to push the limit in everything he does.  This is perhaps the greatest example of how the wealthy should be thanked in every way possible. It is the wealthy, the very rich that shapes our world. It is through less regulation, less government that more companies like Disney, Industrial Light and Magic and many others can emerge. It is a shame that because of government it is our American entertainment companies that succeed the best. That is because entertainment is mostly in the mind and government looters have difficulty regulating the mind, as they have every other industry, agriculture, science, aviation, energy production, transportation…………………imagine what kind of world we could have if government would just GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Public Housing Nightmare: But a dream for socialist looters and social reformers

The Federal government is threatening to cut off federal money to communities that do not accept the spread of public housing development. Listen to Doc Thompson cover this fatal issue on 700 WLW.

This move is a progressive agenda item, the idea of public housing, loss of identification of towns and boundaries. The progressives are implementing the strategy of the 10 Planks of Communism which is like their Ten Commandments. They follow those 10 Planks of Communism very closely. Public housing is a progressive platform. Click here to see those Ten Planks of Communism if you are not aware of what they are.

The reality of public housing is it brings about the worst in human nature. Progressives have a fundamental lack of understanding of human nature and believe as many of the college professors who advocate the progressive platform do, that human nature can be engineered, and that the actions of the human being are not innate. They believe that through education that they provide they can control those innate desires.

History proves otherwise. Everywhere that there is public housing, there is failure. There are out-of-wedlock child births, welfare is endemic among the public welfare culture, drugs are a major problem, crime is up in almost every category, public housing is a dismal failure in public policy. That is unless that public policy is to weaken the human state of the participants to bring them down to the level of the rest of the world, which appears to be the desire.

As this video will show, public housing is filled with looters, not in the people who inhabit the homes, but in the people who run them.

This move by public housing advocates is precisely the same as that of the proposed health care bill otherwise known as Obama Care. They are the type that has been abusing the “commerce clause” of the 10th Amendment to impose congressional will on states and cities for decades. These are also the same people who claim there is a “supremacy clause” in the Constitution that claims a foreign treaty supersedes the wording of the United States Constitution. The threat to cut federal money to communities that resist the spread of public housing is a threat by the federal government to impose its socialist will on its citizens.

All governments by their nature will tend to flow toward socialism. This isn’t out of some sinister design by them, but simply out of survival. The government worker just like any worker just wants to work and get paid, like anybody else. The problem with government is that it is often unproductive and draws the weaker personality types that society has to offer. Without management controls, and given power, these people will vote themselves unlimited increases, unrestricted budgets and easy responsibilities and they’ll pay themselves top dollar to perform the task.

To feed this monster government will always be on a continuous push to justify their existence. They will over dramatize the jobs they perform. They’ll ask for more employees, and they will work as slow as possible in order to make their jobs seem more difficult. And politicians since they too are government workers are quick to give the tax money we send their way away to programs that expand government. They do it for survival, to increase their bloc voting ability.

Public housing is all about bloc voting and fulfilling the goals of the 10 Planks of Communism. It is strictly for the benefit of government. Not for the rest of us. Nobody wants to live near public housing. Public housing brings down home values. The people who live in those places tend to vote for higher taxes because they don’t have to pay as much tax as the rest of us, so they can only benefit from more handouts which politicians must take from the taxpayer to give to the politician in order to buy their votes in the next election.

For those of us that take care of our property, mow our grass, paint our homes, fix our decks, we don’t want public housing anywhere near us. But government doesn’t care because one of the 10 Planks of communism is to remove private property, so to their view, we’ll get used to it. They don’t care if we maintain our property or not because left to them, they’d hire government workers to do it for us. All we have to do is give up our property and turn it over to them.

So that’s the plan. That is what we are dealing with regarding public housing. Like public education, it is a big government plan to expand the role of government in everyday life, secure their livelihoods, drive up taxes to pay for everything and achieve the aims envisioned by Karl Marx which many, many academics adore. Many of those academics and experts that end up advising government are those Marx types, because they would not survive in a private sector economy not run by government. Government employees tend to be failures at life, so the products of their labor fail repeatedly. We see it in public education, we see it in public housing, we see it in every branch of government, every township, school board, and city council. Government fails at everything they do. Everything!

So why do we want more of it? Why would we allow government to dictate to us that we will have public housing in our communities? Why do we even need the federal money?

Forget socialism and their stupid square homes with corrupt politicians running them. Every American should embrace capitalism, because in America every person that works, saves their money and has an idea can strive for a home like the one in this next clip. If you want to see what democracy looks like, look at the riots of the poor looking for a hand out. If you want to see what a republic looks like, talk to someone who lives in a home like this one.

My answer to that is the same that I say for public education. If government at the federal level and the state level cuts the money to the schools, then we must cut the wages and number of government employees to balance the budget. We don’t raise taxes. And with public housing, we need less of it, not more, and all the people who support it should be removed from office. Because they are perpetuating a bad program that cost society in many more ways than just money. And if federal money is cut, then that means government jobs must be cut to balance the budget. That’s the only way to play this game, and that’s the answer to a domineering government that wants all the things that are bad for the rest of us, even if it is only for the naive desire of their own survival. Let the government workers perish so to save what is left of America, because like a cancer cell, government will always try to grow if allowed to impose themselves upon the taxpayer, because they feed off of what is healthy and thrive in what is broken and dying. That is why they fail.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

What a Nasty Little Weiner: Why progressives support polygamy, power, religion, and the sexual playground

It is really up to Huma Abedin how much of Congressman Anthony Weiner she wants to put up with. Abedin who is married to Weiner is a practicing Muslim and a very close aid to Hillary Clinton, so it is entirely possible that she doesn’t care about all the pictures of Weiner’s weiner that is all over the internet. It is possible that while she seeks counsel with Hillary she might say, “What should I do?” Hillary will probably say something like, “Huma, I love you very much and trust me, all men are pigs………just accept it. Men just can’t keep their pants on so don’t even worry about it. The important thing would be to ask yourself, what do I want. Can Anthony help you achieve your professional goals and the answer is yes. So stay with him. Let the media drive the story into the ground, and within a couple of months, everyone will forget about it. In the meantime, stay traveling with me, don’t appear in public with your husband and leave him hanging out to dry. It’ll serve him right.”

At that point Abedin might say, “But it’s embarrassing, everywhere we go together, people will think I’m not a good lover. Or they’ll think I’m weak because I let him get away with it.”

Then Hillary will say, as she looks out the window of her plane while it’s en route over the Atlantic Ocean to the United Arab Emirates in Africa, “No they won’t. People don’t think like that. They’ll be jealous that it is you that holds the title to power while the other women are just concubines to your man’s wishes. That’s what counts. It’s the title, Huma that is important. That’s what people will see when they look at you in public standing with your husband. This Christian notion of monogamy is outdated and proven problematic. Believe me, I have years of experience. Men will cheat on you no matter how much sex you give them, no matter how attractive you are. Many cultures accept this, superior cultures, such as your Muslim faith, and even in Japan it is quite common for the wife to arrange pleasure with other women for her husband. Think of it as a way of appeasement, such as you might do for your cat when you give it some cat-nip to play with and roll all over it’s body. You do it to keep your man coming home to you every night, to keep the title of wife in your court where you have control over it. At heart, Americans are evolving beyond this silly Christian notion of monogamy, so all will be forgiven if you’ll just let it play out.”

Now I wasn’t on the plane with Hillary Clinton flying over the Atlantic on our way to Africa listening to what she told Huma Abedin as the young woman greaves over the embarrassment of dealing with her husbands sexting exploits revealed on Monday the first full week of June 2011. Progressives, like all these people are, do not think like the rest of us. They might as well exist from some other planet, because that’s just the way their mind processes data. I know the content of that conversation because I’ve heard it before from progressives. I’ve watched their behavior for years, and I understand how they think. So I have no problem providing the details of that conversation, because it is so predictable the contents aren’t difficult to witness even without being there.

The deeper, much more problematic issue is that Anthony Weiner was so arrogant in his ability to deceive the public that he lied to the face of America without any trace of shame. Over the last week, as this story was breaking, he stood before all members of the media and lied to them. He lied to us all, claiming that his Twitter account had been “hacked.” He used his office equipment for much of this, equipment we all pay for as tax payers, and he thought he’d get away with it. Even as the story was breaking, he continued to push the issue by contacting more women with erotic pictures of himself. He was literally speaking to members of the media claiming that some hacker broke into his account, then turned around and engaged in the kind of activity he was trying to hide.

This is entirely too reminiscent of Bill Clinton who openly lied to the public then tried to turn the whole argument around and claim that his private life was off-limits, in no way reflective of his professional life. That led to the famous quote, “It’s just sex.” Spoken like a true progressive.

Weiner has already tried to make that distinction; it’s just my private life. “I made a mistake. I will not step down because I can still perform my professional job.”

So here’s the deal, and I’ll say this only once. This is why this guy is a supreme scum bag that I wouldn’t hire to hand me a towel in the bathroom, every interview that Weiner gave about Health Care, or the time he attacked Glenn Beck about supporting gold on his Fox News show, and every debate that Weiner had with every media personality or fellow congressman, now has to be discounted. We know now that you can’t believe a thing this guy says. Nothing he says on the floor of the House can be believed. Nothing he says on behalf of the White House can be believed, because we have all seen that he is more than willing to lie, about virtually nothing, in order to meet his personal agenda. What would he lie about if the issue actually mattered, like issues of National Security, or the true intentions of the Progressive Party, disguised behind the Democratic Party. What would he lie about when there is really a risk? Because if just taking naked pictures of himself and talking dirty to a bunch of women online is really a nothing issue, then why did he lie about it? Why did he stand before the world and talk to everyone like they were the idiots and he was the only person right in the world.

Anthony Weiner is a dangerous man because he has no moral compass. He is a power-hungry little man who will undermine anyone over anything. If he wants government Health Care, he’ll say and do anything to get it. If he wants to smear a Republican, he’ll say and do anything to perform the task. If he wants to take down a media personality that stands in the way of the progressive agenda, he’ll utter any word needed to manipulate those around him to commit his purpose. That is why Weiner is the arrogant embodiment of pure evil. He should receive not one fraction of a cent that I send to Washington in tax money. Anthony Weiner makes at least $174,000 a year for his work in Congress, that’s the money I know about. As an American Tax Payer I don’t want to pay his salary one day more. We could hire anyone to lie to us. We could hire a con man from prison to fill the American media with lies. He has no authority and should not serve one more day in congress.

Doc Thompson of 700 WLW hits the nail on the head really well here. Click to listen to a collection of clips about Weiner’s history of contention.

These guys are scum bags. Bill Clinton is because he’s a manipulative liar too. And Weiner and his wife have more in common with Bill and Hillary than they do with the average American. As I’ve stated on this site, these people don’t give a care about American life. They are aiming for a world government ran by the United Nations, of which they are all polarizing for their own grabs for power in that not yet formed power of world affairs. They don’t care about affairs, sexting or even monogamy. They don’t care about the United States Constitution because they are all lawyer types that seek to bend the law to suit their needs at the expense of everyone that pays their wages. They are crooks and thieves with no moral compass or care. People like Weiner are no different from the weiner’s they take pictures of. They simply rise to the occasion to screw the taxpayer for their selfish pleasure. At all other times they are simply limp collections of flesh that just hang around and are only useful for disposing of bodily waste. In other words they are virtually worthless appendages intended for only one function of human endeavor, and that is to penetrate something else with the intention of pleasure and self-gratification. An entity of pure biology and no mind what-so-ever.

I think now we understand why there is such a push among progressives to embrace the Muslim faith, because the men want to practice polygamy, and the women don’t want to feel alone in public when their men sleep around on them.

http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/720291-The-Truth-About-Polygamy-In-Islam

 

It certainly seems to be the desire of Bill Clinton, and the king progressive thinker himself, Congressman Weiner and his multiple online sex partners. There’s always more to the story than what you see on the surface.


Good luck with that progressive lifestyle. If you’d ask me Abedin, I’d say find a real man to be the father of that baby, and not a weiner. But it’s your life.

Rich Hoffman

https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

I Love Jimmy McMillian: Gas Prices are TOO DAMN HIGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When gas prices are too high, one of the first things people will give up are luxury items. That’s what’s happening to the Liz Claiborne facility in West Chester, Ohio. High gas prices which are ruining the economy are having an impact on businesses like this tremendous distribution center.

President Obama is now in his third year and while he did inherit a bad economic situation, he has now shown that his economic plan was only to perpetuate the negative economic conditions to advance his green jobs agenda, which has only exacerbated the economy in even more negative ways. As of June 7, 2011 a poll in the Washington post reveals that only 40% of respondents approve of Obama’s handling of the economy, and only 33% approve of his handling of the deficit.

At the start of last summer, in 2010 gas prices were over a dollar less than they are now, as they were just shy of $3 per gallon. In fact, over the winter I wrote an article here about how preposterous gas prices breaking the $3 per gallon mark truly were and how any amount of money over $3 would cut into America’s disposable income, and would cause devastating economic conditions.

Now gas is flirting with $4 per gallon and going up. The fault rests exclusively on the green freaks, progressives, and wealth redistribution advocates. Obama is directly guilty. He has openly discouraged oil drilling in the United States, but has openly embraced it in Brazil, helping that country with a collaborative effort to get their feet in the international economy at the expense of the United States. The blue print for all this activity is exactly the plot line out of the book Atlas Shrugged.

The progressive power grabbers however, while they are working the strategy implemented by Cass Sunstein discussed in his book “Nudge” they seek to sidetrack America on silly stories like racism, and plights in favor of the poor, which only achieves their bloc voting goals, while the cost of their strategy is showing up in the increasing gas prices.

Many of us see through the scam though, and Jimmy McMillian is one of them. Jimmy is the guy who ran for Governor of New York under the mantra, “The Rent is Too Damn High.” I love Mr. McMillian. He is what a great American looks like. I have no idea what his political affiliation is, and I don’t care. All I know is that he speaks the truth, and he does so with passion. For America to be great, it needs people like Jimmy McMillian to be in the majority, not the extreme minority. But if you want to know what a great modern American looks like, then watch Jimmy McMillian go to Washington to announce his “The Gas is Too Damn High” campaign.

Here is Jimmy’s website where you can visit and send him your pictures of fuel costs that are too high.

http://www.gasolineistoodamnhigh.com/

There is only one reason that gas is so high, and that’s because of the mismanagement of our resources by our government. It’s a lack of drilling for shale oil, it’s a lack of drilling for off shore reserves, and the lack of energy exploration in Alaska, all of this resistance is purely political. Click here to read a great article about this topic.

The Obama administration now and Al Gore all during the 2000’s kept pressure on oil developers to stop drilling citing environmental concerns. Yet those same politicians are embracing the same drilling techniques in China and Brazil. The reason is because the United States energy policy has nothing to do with the environment. It’s about wealth redistribution. It’s about helping the economy of Brazil and other South American countries, and China so wealth redistribution can be implemented. American’s are forced to swallow this pill with the glass full of bull-shit called “environmental concerns.” The green movement is purely about money, money for developing countries, and disarming the United States so to give those countries a head start on the economic play ground.

The high gas prices are also in place to “nudge” American’s into buying “green tech” vehicles. That’s those stupid little glorified golf carts that we’re starting to see on the roads these days. The cars are small, underpowered, and pathetic, they are not what America is about. They have little place in our culture, but the Obama administration has hung it’s hat on this technology, this is what Barack Obama wants to be remembered for in the context of history, which is a pathetically short-sighted goal.

I stand with Jimmy, and you should too. Send your pictures into Jimmy’s website and learn the truth of why the “Gas is too damn high.” It’s not to help America. It’s not even to help the Earth. It’s all about some pathetically short sighted politicians that want to be remembered for forcing green technology jobs which force Americans to drive slower, embrace public transportation like high speed rail and trolley cars, and robbing the wealth of America and giving it to other countries.

But why would “Americans” like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Cass Sunstein do such a thing? They are Americans too……..because they are more loyal to the United Nations than the United States, and they are hedging their bets that in the future, a position in the UN will have more prominence than even being President of the United States. In their view, a president in the future will simply be another governor of just another country equal to Brazil, China, Germany and all the others. The real power, and the real prestige will be to lead the United Nations, and they’ll gain their reputations, and votes by robbing from the United States it’s wealth, because the whole world is jealous of America anyway, and giving it to the voters of the New World government who will elect them to rule the entire world.

That’s why gas prices are “TOO DAMN HIGH.” It’s a grab for power at our expense and it should make every American very angry. And it does Jimmy McMillian which swells me with American pride. So what about the rest of you? Where’s your outrage and what are you going to do about it!

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Eric Deters Terminated: Now he is playing the smear game

When Eric Deters left 700 WLW early this past week, I didn’t comment on it even though many expected me to since I always feature WLW very highly in my own work. I had my suspicions with The Bulldog but kept my opinion to myself regarding the kind of material he put on the air. His termination from WLW did not come as a surprise to me. However, after I received an email from Eric which talks about people I like beyond just the realm of professionalism it is appropriate to comment now that the facts from that murky incident are cleared up.

What got the Bulldog into trouble at 700 WLW were videos like this one.

For those who don’t know who the Bulldog is here he is with Tracy Jones while on the air.

I have had the misfortune of terminating a lot of employees and it’s never fun. But you can often tell as an employer, even if you like the employee that must be terminated, that the day will come when you will have to do the deed. It’s hard to look a person in the face when you are their source of income, and tell them they are no longer needed by you. It is a rejection very similar to breaking up with someone that is in love with you. It is very hard to do.

For a long time I’ve known that this day was coming for Eric Deters at 700 WLW. In the email I received from the Bull Dog he indicated that he intended to bring financial hardship to the station, he spilled secrets on just about every host that works at the station, and he was very disrespectful to the management at the station. Worst of all, he called my buddy, Doc Thompson a dork. Since I know that I’m not the only person he sent this email to, context must be established. He reminded me of a woman that had just been dumped by a man she loves for another woman or worse yet, for no woman at all.

Here is the Bulldog in his famous cage fight. People that crave constant attention can be good personalities for something like radio, but at the same time be destructive to the employees around them because to them anyone that isn’t over-the-top flamboyant is boring, or otherwise, a dork.

Out of all the terminations I’ve been involved in, and it’s so many that I can’t count them on the hands, and toes of four people, there is a small percentage that become violent, because those employees build the illusion in their minds that they are the greatest employee to ever grace your presence. There are traits that you, as the employer can readily see while they are in your employment that indicates trouble ahead. The sooner you can deal with that trouble, the better. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be later.

Here Eric Deters does his stand-up comedy act at the Funnybone Comedy Club down at Newport on the Levee. There is a line between being ambitious, and arrogant that is difficult for a person of many talents to navigate. Eric has been struggling with that thin line and it was obvious to everyone but him.

It was only a couple of months ago that I ended up in a physical altercation with a former employee in the parking lot of a courthouse broken up by attorneys and court house appointed police. I was furious with this employee because I had extended a long rope of trust because like Eric Deters, he made himself very available and helped fill the gaps everyone in management must deal with, he was always there for the staffing problems in the odd hours, and even when he showed signs of trouble, in getting along with other employees, I was tempted to overlook those problems because he helped cover all my problematic staffing deficiencies. The conflict was over the crushing understanding that he wasn’t as good of an employee as he thought he was. It was all in his mind, and there was no place to go with that anger but to lash out. Conflict is the usual result, and the need for this extends beyond the fear of the law.

The employee in question took this reluctance by me to mean that he was invaluable. In his mind, he convinced himself that he is doing me a favor and his tasks were irreplaceable. I knew I had a problem with this employee based on how he interacted with other employees, and when I noticed he was taking liberties with the rules because he had developed a sense of entitlement that I would have to act soon. I didn’t address those problems as I would other employees because in my mind I was waiting for him to make that terrible error which would allow me to cleanly terminate his employment. This provides a clean separation that stands legal scrutiny and is necessary in this day and age with all the legal maneuvering that goes on. You hope as the employer that the employee will see that you haven’t taken an interest in the actions of their obligations because it is a kind of warning sign to them that they are on the cusp. But in some of these people, their egos take that kind hearted warning as an act of endorsement and they fail to see the truth because they build up in their minds an image of themselves that is of much higher value than reality reflects.

I could tell even from a distance that Eric was in one of those types of situations. In his email to me, he complained about management and how he had been overlooked for the 9-12 night spot and how he had been overlooked for the 3-6 spot with Tracy Jones. Eric was very upset that he was always ready on a dime to come in and cover for the hosts when they were off, so he felt that just by his work ethic he should have had a chance. In his anger he knocked the station for their ratings, their management decisions over the last year, a year when he had received many opportunities at the station he wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, and in general made a real butt of himself. He was shameful to say the least. Yet it was obvious to everyone that something was wrong with Eric Deters.

On June 1st, a few days after WLW surprisingly pulled Deters from the weekend spots, this video was put up. It tells the story of Eric Deters putting up the controversial video called “White Women and Pot” then realizing he went too far, called this guy and asked him to take the video down. Eric made several bad errors here, he crossed the line in the first place with the original video, but then he made it worse by calling up this guy and leaving a message on an answering machine that would end up being used against him. So as a radio personality on the powerful 700 WLW this was the kind of act that sealed the Bulldogs fate with management. It would have done it for me, even though I like Eric, this kind of behavior just pulls down the image of the radio station. I would have fired him too. There is that fine line of controversy, and putting into the hands of a predator, ammunition that can damage everything a radio station builds as a reputation, costs more than money, it costs credibility.

In this video, Eric made himself vulnerable by committing one error on top of another which snowballed into a tragedy. Ironically, in these tape recorded messages, Eric makes the case for himself why he can no longer work for 700 WLW, because it was just a matter of time before he stuck his foot in his mouth and he really did in this recorded message. WLW would not have been responsible if they hadn’t acted, even if they had to do so with a heavy heart.

I have listened to WLW for decades now. I have seen many radio personalities come and go. From what I can see, 700 WLW was doing their best to find a home for Eric out of pure loyalty. WLW as a business is first about the news, then about Reds baseball, and just behind those things is talk radio where hosts must fill the mind of the listener in that delicate art form of mind theater. Eric was a natural self-promoter, but lacked credibility, which a talk show host needs. Bill Cunningham for years walked that fine line carefully; his role is now a comedian. Nobody takes Cunningham very serious, and that’s the path he chose. He is the Jerry Springer of WLW. Doc Thompson has the difficult act of being the straight man for the station. Doc works hard to get to the facts, and he calls things as they are. In this next video, Doc gives a review of the Bulldog comedy routine while ironically doing an interview with an author who wrote a book about why celebrities crash and burn.

Speaking from experience, any time an employee that lacks natural talent but is rich in ambition confronts another employee of genuine talent, the first employee will seek to undermine the second with various forms of ass-kissing. That ass-kissing will win employment opportunities but it will not win respect. Shooting straight may not get the instant, easy ratings, but it will build the audience over time, and this is the path Doc Thompson has chosen. He spent most of his career in Cleveland but has also worked full-time in Lincoln, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque. He is a 5 time Marconi Award (the Academy Award of radio) winner for radio excellence. He’s at 700 WLW because he has to fill the role of Mike McConnell who played the straight man for a long time in Cincinnati. Doc is the real deal and a guy of genuine talent.

A man like Eric Deters made his bed and it is disgusting to attempt to bring down other radio personalities like Doc Thompson to cover the sins of his own doing. Doc’s criticism of Eric’s actions reflected my own opinion, that Eric was crossing the line in so many ways that he was embarrassing, not only to the station, but to himself. But the Bulldog was such a hard worker, and a guy that was always available for any shift of coverage which made it difficult for them to part ways with the Bulldog sooner. They did what they could to give Deters all the support they could afford to give. Behind the scenes they were probably doing what I was doing and that was scratching their heads wondering if Deters was even a stable enough individual to handle 50,000 Watts of responsibility.

In the end, Eric proved he couldn’t handle it. What every self promoter must understand is that you can sometimes cross the line, and when you realize it, you step back across it. What you don’t do is cross the line, then claim that there isn’t a line. And when you realize that you can’t convince people that the line isn’t there then try to back-track and erase the evidence. Bill Cunningham crossed that line often, but when he noticed it, he quickly corrected himself and would cover the flaw with humor. Because Deters was completely copying the extreme behavior of Bill Cunningham without the sense and humanity, the Bulldog wasn’t sure how to deal with the deeper and deeper grave he was digging for himself with his wild antics. The ultimate ending to living life over-the-top is you eventually go over.

But to call Doc Thompson names because he’s working on not just one station but two stations, 6 hours a day every day of the week and is very successful in the radio business, is preposterous. Doc’s ratings will be fine as he overcomes the shadow of Mike McConnell, whom he will surpass, because he’s more talented. The criticism of Doc is not justified. I wouldn’t spend as much time rendering Doc’s recordings at this site if I thought he was anything but excellent, and a credible, reliable personality that will not embarrass me with my loyalty at some future time, as the Bulldog has done with his fans.

Getting fired when the world was laid at a man’s feet for continued embarrassments is an incredible disservice to the fans that invest their time into that personality, and that is the unfortunate circumstance here. That station gave Eric Deters a platform that he wouldn’t have had otherwise, and he pays them back with ill-will due to actions of his own making. And that is sad.

I’ve had to fire employees for less than what Eric did. I’m sure it’s with a heavy heart, and without doubt the people I’ve fired spoke the same way to their family and friends, attempting to make me out to be the bad guy. But in the end, the guy who is still getting the checks is the one who knows best. Opinions are……………………well everyone has them. Only results matter and results come from the heart. Antics are like shots of caffeine. They may give you a boost, but you have to sustain the boost with an equal heart, otherwise it ends up becoming just another phony stunt on the back of a laugh less, thankless, comedian.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Just Earn Less Money: The history of progressive insurance and power grabs

One of the things that has come up over the Obama Care debate, particularly in Ohio is that since the state requires mandatory automobile insurance for drivers in the state, than isn’t it natural for the state, and the government to force residents to purchase health care.

Anyone who wishes to argue the merit of Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged will feel betrayed when the representative for the government arguing the constitutionality of Obama Care in front of Ohio’s 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati will find the shocking revelation admitted confidently that the way to get out of the mandate of buying insurance is to simply make less money. Doc Thompson explores this devastating view into the minds of a government looter in these action packed clips from the floor of the debate. Listen to that clip here:

The looters of the government, and to my view, most every employee in government is a looter, because they take from producers, so their entire value is contingent upon those of the producers, including those in law enforcement, have progressively robbed us all of freedoms in order to fill themselves over a long period of time. When in the late 1980’s Ohio made it mandatory to have automotive insurance in order to drive a car, people didn’t understand why I was so upset.

Making it a law to have every driver in Ohio have insurance seemed like a good idea. After all, it made sense from a legal point of view. If you wanted to drive a car, then you must show responsibility for the damage you could do on the road. This was an idea that started in Massachusetts in 1927 and progressively moved to most every state in the nation. To date, New Hampshire is the only state to not have compulsory auto liability insurance. Every other state has adopted the mandate.

The reason this was a bad thing is it created an oligopoly in the insurance industry, meaning insurance companies were guaranteed that out of every driver in the state of Ohio, the insurance companies were assured that all they’d have to do by way of competition was simply divide up all the residents in the state and compete with each other for those people. All drivers had to have insurance so choice was no longer an option. This of course drove up costs and was the intended goal of the insurance lobby in the state and nation. Under the umbrella of safety, a powerful organization used law enforcement to obtain for the insurance industry revenue literally under the force of law. The power behind the force of the law is imprisonment or the barrel of the gun so this was quite tyrannical legislation, which is why it upset me so much.

A few years later it became mandatory to wear a seat belt. At first it was only a finable offense if a driver were pulled over for another driving violation. But just a few years later, it became law that all an officer had to do was pull over a driver for not wearing a seat belt. It’s called the “Click it or ticket,” campaign. I discussed this in great detail in an article I wrote about Memorial Day weekend where there were driving check points that were citing specifically for seat belt violations.

It takes time, but since the very first person in the nation purchased auto insurance in Dayton Ohio in 1897 progressives and government looters have used such devices as insurance to propel their grabs for power.

Now, we see the same thing happening with Obama Care where the government is making a huge grab for power in dictating what people must and must not do. It is the ultimate first step to a complete loss of any kind of freedom envisioned by the architects of America. Obama Care was created on the backs of all the other progressive legal movements, such as the auto insurance mandates. And it’s all summed up in the words spoke on the floor of the testimony. “If you don’t want the manadate, then make less money.” In other words, produce less so you can qualify for assistance.

It’s no wonder welfare doesn’t work because like all government programs the philosophy is just the same, make everything affordable for the poor and do nothing to reward the producers. And if the government imposition is too great, then become a dependent. The failure is that government never seems to consider that if they create a society of dependents, who will do the producing?

Obama Care is laced with these infantile thinkers and looters of productive resources, and the truth is difficult to hear even among those with ears experienced enough to hear it. It is truly shocking to consider that the very people we employee to run the government are so devastatingly stupid that it is contemptible to even fathom as relevant behavior, yet it is.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Giant Spiders and other Parasites: Repealing Obama Care in Ohio

I am proud of the many who have gathered nearly enough signatures to put the Obama Care issue on the fall ballot. Obama Care is one of the most sinister power grabs the government has attempted in many years. Disguised as a well-intentioned program to help all people everywhere achieve affordable health care, the reality of it is a massive government expansion that takes America several steps away from the principles of our country.

Doc Thompson interviews a supporter of government health care on 700 WLW. It is interesting to listen to what supporters of government health care think. Doc tackles the tough topic with boldness. Listen to that interview here:

The end result of Obama Care is corruption. Every bureaucrat at every step of the process in the health care industry will look for every opportunity to pocket some extra funds because the money comes from the government, so no direct person will be responsible. It happens in public school. It happens in the military. It happens in the IRS. It happens in every single government body large and small across this nation, corruption breeds like algae behind the nameplate on a desk. The more government, the more the corruption, because there will be less direct responsibility.

It is a relief that Ohio has taken a lead in repealing Obama Care. Getting that issue on the ballot is important for two reasons. First, it will separate Ohio from this tyrannical government mandate from a run-a-way progressive administration in what Barack Obama has presented in freedom’s worst nightmare. But the other issue of concern is that when the union interest in this state puts S.B.5 on the ballot, which they have a deep reserve to on the ballot for November will get the voters from our side out for more than one issue that they feel passionate about.

This November Ohioans will be able to show up to get the federal government out of their pocket with Obama Care, which is a direct violation of the 10th Amendment. And their second is Ohioans will have the opportunity to get the national union interest out of their pocket books with S.B.5. Both bills are an opportunity to set Ohio on a course of freedom that is essential to the move toward smaller government that many who support the Tea Party movement crave so strongly. Anyone that wishes to turn the tide of all the tax culture that we have all inherited will have the opportunity to turn those tides this coming November.

Health care is one of those topics that innovation is changing quickly. If government gets more involved in health care, where they adopt the model of Europe, the innovations under development right now, will cease. Human beings are on the brink of completely rebuilding the human body using its own genetic material. The current topics that health care embodies, such as high blood pressure, all the various diseases, illnesses directly attributed to calcium reduction, all are preventable. But government is in the way of that innovation, because their goal is not to make it possible for human beings to be free of the services they offer. Government wants nothing more than to survive, and will do anything they can to do so.

Over the weekend I opened our swimming pool. As I was taking the cover off, the water was rich with algae growth from all the leaves that had blown into the water over the long winter. This created an environment that many insects had sought as a refuge. Wading through the water was like wading through a slimy swamp. As I pulled the cover off and my wife drug it across the edge of the pool, a very large wolf spider jumped off the cover into the water and was swimming toward me seeking dry refuge. Swarms of insects that had their nests destroyed by my removal of the cover swarmed all around my head. Several other smaller wolf spiders also jumped into the water and started crawling over my arms.

By the way, if you want to see what a wolf spider looks like, this one is almost as big.

It was shocking to see such large creatures swimming around me in my swimming pool, especially when the water was so thick with green that I couldn’t see what lurked beneath the surface of the water. I helped the spiders out of the pool. It was obvious they had taken up residence there to feed off all the insects about to hatch for the summer. The spiders were visibly upset that their easy supply of food was now destroyed.

For a minute I felt bad that I destroyed the spider’s food. I also felt bad for the food of the spiders, all the poor little insects they were eating in massive droves. But, I want to swim in my pool, so to preserve the spider’s environment, I’d have to sacrifice my pool, and that’s not going to happen. As I poured the chemicals into the pool I realized that I was killing millions of small algae plants and other various insects that were living in the water, and would soon be scooped up by the filtration system.

The government is no different from the algae, the insects or the spiders. They have set up shop living off our tax dollars as their source of food. And the more they can eat, the bigger and scarier they’ll get. That wolf spider was as big as my hand, easily. She was so large because the food was easy and plentiful. It not only supported this very large spider, but about 10 others that were of normal size.

Government is a parasite to our intuitions as free loving citizens. Sure, we created them, just as I created the pool that the spiders resided in. I created the whole environment, including putting the water into the pool. But it was a neglected environment due to the hard winter, and that neglect breeds these parasites. It is also our neglect of our political environment that has bred all these parasites that just want to consume our taxes and get bigger.

When Ohio gets to go to the polls in November to protect Senate Bill 5, and repeal Obama Care it gets to reclaim what has always belonged to Ohio, its sovereignty. It has the opportunity to drive the parasites from its water and to clean the pool so we can all swim once again in the clear waters of freedom.

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com

Laura Sanders: My answer to your waltz of words in The Pulse Journal

Just like many people didn’t want to believe that anything was wrong with Ohio State football, Jim Tressel resigned amid a wave of controversy.  Our statewide school funding issue isn’t far off from the Jim Tressel controversy where little white lies that is in the context of the program, insignificant, the evil is in the cover-up.  And with school budgets, the cover-up is in the contracts extorted by the teachers unions. 

The apologists were out again in this past week’s Pulse Journal.  Another letter attacking me was placed in that paper proving the vast intellectual deficiencies of a certain percentage of the population.  When reading these things I almost feel sorry for those people.  I mean how do they live?  How do they make decisions?  Surely they aren’t so mentally challenged, because if you read letters from apologists like the author of the editorial below, that is the only conclusion a person that can actually think would conclude. 

Before I tear this letter to pieces, read it for yourself.  It isn’t my intention to make these people feel bad, but they do it to themselves.  They vote after all, and it is through apologists like the author of this letter that the teachers union uses to propel their strategy, which has worked because people like me couldn’t believe that there are actually people who can’t think critically enough to see through the façade of deceit. 

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Teachers aren’t just educators

Dear Richard Hoffman: You can rejoice now that Lakota’s teachers have agreed to a three-year freeze in step raises and a much less comprehensive health care plan. Or, is that not going far enough? Oh, that’s right…you believe our teachers are overpaid, even though 100 percent have bachelor’s degrees, and 68 percent of those have master’s degrees. I guess with six-hour workdays and summers off, they really aren’t deserving, huh? Those daily lesson plans and graded papers must magically appear on their desks each morning. 

I have friends who are teachers, and let me tell you, they are worth every penny they earn. Not only are they educators; they are counselors, role models, mediators, chaperones and disciplinarians. They perform a balancing act every day in the classroom, having to be assertive yet compassionate; formidable yet sensitive; strict yet respectful.

Instead of recognizing the commitments to our children put forth by Lakota staff members, you, Mr. Hoffman, are spending all of your time blaming unions, threatening school board members and charging “overpaid” teachers with taxpayer abuse. Your arguments are weak at best, accusing school administrators and board members of mismanaging school funds when it is well-documented that Lakota only spent $9,806 per pupil during the 2009-10 school year — less than most other comparable statewide districts. As a matter of fact,Westervilleschool Superintendent Dan Good was quoted in a February 2011 article as saying, “We’re going to be looking at what’s going on in those communities (Lakota and Fairfield) that’s allowing them to keep those high ratings along with such a low-cost per pupil.”

Our school system relies solely on levies being passed so that our teachers can be compensated. The reason for Lakota’s continued success is because of our teachers. They should be lauded, not punished.    

Laura Sanders

LibertyTwp.

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Ok, where to start? There are so many problems with this letter.  First off, I am not spending all my time blaming the unions.  I spend about 2% of my time fighting taxes, which began about 9 months ago.  The other 98% percent of my time is quite productive.  Of the 2% of my time I do spend on fighting higher taxes, it is the reasonable conclusion that unions are to blame for the overall funding problems.  They didn’t give themselves any budget limits.  Unions aren’t any different from teenagers, if you give them a $100 dollars, they’ll want $200.  You can never give enough because the teenager hasn’t learned the value of money. They don’t value what comes easily.  And neither do union members.  As a producer, and a capitalist, I don’t like unions.  I don’t want my money supporting them.  I’m fine if they can exist in the free market, but they can’t.  They have succeeded in driving up wages to the point that China,India, and Indonesia are now doing jobs that used to be done in the United States.  I blame the unions for that.  Labor costs are the unifying factor in the overall manufacturing problems our country is facing.  I think people should be paid a fair wage, but if it’s excessive, and drives up the cost of the product to where the consumer won’t buy it, or simply can’t afford it, then the victor of that wage level negotiation is not the union that extorted the higher wage, because the union killed the job in the long run. 

This is what the teachers union has done to the cost of education.  They have driven up the cost without a care in the world to the end result.  Their solution to everything is simply to raise more taxes, which isn’t a successful formula for prosperity.  That mentality has run the Norwood General Motors plant out-of-town, it shut down Fisher Body in Hamilton.  In fact it has practically decimated the economy of Hamilton.  It drove up the costs at Cincinnati Milacron down in Oakley.  The list goes on and on and on.  Those were all production jobs, and most of that work is now out of the county. 

I’ve employed people who worked for AK Steel in Middletown, several of them that wanted jobs while they were on strike during their labor dispute that went on for over a year back in 2006-2007.  I learned a great deal about the hard union mentality from those employees, since AK Steel is one of those mob type unions where they actually beat-up people who crossed the picket line during labor disputes.  A lot of my local motorcycle friends in and around town are big time union types.  I have made my feelings known to these guys.  I have told them, “You wouldn’t have a boat, and you wouldn’t have a Harley Davidson parked in the garage if not for the union, because you guys are too stupid to earn that kind of money on your own.”

“We ain’t got those head smarts like you do, brother,” is what they say to me.  “Thank God for the union.”

“You’re working yourself out of a job with the wages you guys demand.”

“Just so long as it don’t happen till after I retire.”  (they typically laugh at this point.)

Teachers are absolutely no different.  They are like anyone else.  They believe their job is the most important job on the face of the planet.  It’s up to someone like me, (in management) to let them know that their job isn’t quite so important, that someone else can do their job, and the show will go on without them if need be.  It’s my job in management to not be liked, because nobody likes to be told they aren’t that valuable. 

But for a manager to know the value of a job, they need to know something about the job.  I’ve worked in just about every endeavor someone could imagine and I know how difficult teaching is.  To me, teaching is worth a range of about 40K to 60K tops, because it is a degree position.  But a master’s degree has no value to me.  A doctorate has no value to me, not in public education.  I just want kids to be able to read, write and be productive citizens.  If parents want all that other stuff they can hire a private tutor, or a private school, and make sure that kid gets to college.  It’s an insane law to pay 68% of the teachers at Lakota more money because they have a master’s degree.  What’s the value in that?  Does it make them better?  The union will tell you it does, so where are the results?  Where are the test results that prove otherwise?  There aren’t any, its pure speculation.  What do a master’s and doctorate degree do to justify higher labor costs? 

I know a woman who is going for her doctorate.  I asked her, “why is that so important to you?” 

She said to me, “I’m a professional student.”  At least she was honest.  This particular woman is the really cautious type.  She is the kind that will put her kids in a helmet when they are riding their bicycles, and in her professional life, she doesn’t care much for competition, so she enjoys the security and pace of academia.  I know personally, as I look down the list of the top 625 highly paid teachers at Lakota that many of those teachers fit the same description.  Only in government does their vision for reality work, because the tax payer picks up the bill. 

The only reason a lot of the laws that school boards are constrained with regarding school budgets exists, like the run-a-way labor costs mentioned with the master’s degree ratio are because the OEA lobbied to get laws passed that completely benefited them. 

It is insane to create policies that drive up your labor costs then turn around and continue to ask for more money from tax payers to fund them.  With as much money as I spend in taxes, I expect Lakota to be the greatest districts in the state.  But don’t be a fool and ask me to pay for infinite amounts of money for it.  That doesn’t make any sense.  At some point there’s a diminishing marginal return and we’ve hit that point. 

As to grading papers, what?  A teacher is under contract for 7.5 hours.  Grading papers if a teacher has to do it every single day shouldn’t take more than 4 hours per day.  So that’s a 11.5 hour day.  So what.  Why was such a statement spoke about as though it were something special?  I average a lot more than that per day. I’m on call 24 hours a day, and most of the time 6 days a week, or 7 if I have people working all weekend.  And I don’t have summers off.  I would expect any employee that I hired for over 40K per year to do everything said in that letter and more.  I don’t understand the emotion.  Is all that money needed to pay these employees and a pat on the back too required?  What kind of fragile people are these teachers that think such talking points even dictate special merit?  It’s expected! 

It is well-documented that Lakota only spent $9,806 per pupil, but so what.  That’s too high. How do I know it’s too high?  What criteria?  Well, if the district asks for more money for a levy, that means they aren’t working within their budget.  When the average tax bill in the Lakota School District is between $3000 to $4000 per year and the district is still asking for more money which does not mean Lakota has done a good job.  It doesn’t change anything if another district in the state thinks Lakota is doing well.  All that tells me is that education costs everywhere are too high.  The teachers union and the school board need to find a way to bring that number down to $8,000 per student, or even $6,000 per student.  If it were up to me, and I were running the district I wouldn’t be happy till the cost per pupil was under $5000.  We’re talking simply about labor costs here.  Not helping children. 

The union is solely responsible for pricing themselves out of the market.  It is unreasonable to ask tax payers to fund this ridiculous perception that these radical teachers union members have about their value.  Are teachers valuable, sure.  But they aren’t more important than the kid’s parents, and many of the traits listed are not the job of the teacher.   If they wish to be mentors, that’s the teacher’s choice.  If they chose to be counselors, role models, mediators, chaperones and disciplinarians, that’s fine. But they are paid to teach the basics.  I don’t want to hear about all those other traits, because those are the aspects of living that kids should be getting from their parents.  The union types will say that the parents are not doing the job.  Well, who are they to say?  Who are they to take it upon themselves?  Who are they to impose on the sanctity of a family?  Is it their job to impose on every parent the policing that only a fraction of truly bad parents deserve?  Is it justice to extend those traits outside the classroom, which is what a lot of teachers mistakenly believe they have an obligation to indulge in.  No, because all those tasks cost money, money that is inflated for a role that is overly dramatized in order to justify the money spent. 

So to answer the question, am I happy?  No, because the contract was a ploy to gain an edge with the public to over-turn Senate Bill 5.  It was not genuine; otherwise the union would look at the financial situation with more intelligence.  It would have advised its members to reduce their cost to the district.  They would have sought to make themselves more marketable. 

I was happy to see the superintendent and school board members happy for a change.  It was nice to see them feeling good about their jobs.  I did like that.  But I know what they don’t want to admit to themselves, because they are stuck dealing with that crazy union every day, that this concession is just another manipulative scheme orchestrated by the union. 

I see through this labor debate.  I have employees that constantly lobby for more overtime, raises, less work hours, you name it.  I’ve heard every over dramatized excuse in the human vocabulary for why an employee thinks they are valuable.  The trick is knowing which ones are telling the truth, and which ones aren’t. 

I hope to God that the author of this letter about me is not a teacher, but is in fact just another neurotic mother that is overly emotional about all topics in her life.  I really hope that’s the case.  Because if this person represents the kind of employees that we are paying over 60K per year, which is the average wage at Lakota, then we are wasting our money much worse than even I have pointed out. 

 I see from experience that the labor situation at Lakota needs to be dealt with, in order for Lakota to remain excellent.  Labor does not make a school great.  Management of resources does.  Lakota has shown that it can manage resources better than other schools, but that’s not enough if it is asking for more money.  If the state cuts it’s funding, if the federal government cuts its money, and there’s less money to go around, then the school needs to find a way to do more with even less.  It’s insane, and highly ignorant to assume that the tax payer will shoulder that responsibility directly.  I’ve heard it said that Lakota needs new sources of revenue.  Well, how’s it going to do that when it doesn’t produce anything?  The product is the education of children, and the results of that education have not placed the United States in first place in the world, so why would we spend more than what we’ve spent at this point?  Why should personal property taxes go up over $4000 per property, what is the value?  So a public teacher can take a 5K vacation on their 3 months off?  Isn’t that what it really comes down to?  Because if it wasn’t, the union would have been more responsible in what they demanded, and we are where we are because of the demands on the community.  When the school levy passed, it wasn’t asked for, it was demanded. 

In 2005 I fought the school levy back then too.  For all the same reasons.  The money kicked in during 2006.  As soon as the money hit the district, and the union knew the receipts were in from assessed property value, after owners paid their taxes, they threatened to strike in 2008.  The teachers union pushed its members to strike, to walk off the job.  I will never forget that.  The strike was over money.  As soon as positive cash flow was shown to the district because of the levy passing, the union went after the excess money.  That is the path that brought us to the financial situation we’re currently in.  It’s my money they want, and it’s my money they squandered away like drunken sailors. 

Unlike a lot of people who live in the district, I have lived in the Lakota district for a long time, and I plan to stick around.  And I have a great memory.  I know that these are people who are attempting to scam my neighbors and children that I genuinely care for.  And that’s bullying, it makes me very, very angry.  And I will not stand for it!

So you apologists can figure out where you want to be on this position, but remember, there isn’t any negotiation.  There is right and wrong.  I’m right, and those asking for more money are wrong.  And that’s the end of the story.  Live with it……get an education and learn a couple of things, then talk to me when you figure out that you agree with me.

 

Rich Hoffman
https://overmanwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/ten-rules-to-live-by/
http://twitter.com/#!/overmanwarrior
www.overmanwarrior.com