Republican Distress Self-Inflicted

 

The Republicans appear to be in disarray and acting as if they are completely unaware of the fact that they control both houses of Congress and the White House and are in the catbird seat exactly as the Democrats were the first two years of President Obama’s two terms. They are capable of setting the rules in the Senate such that they would have sufficient votes to ensure cloture by requiring a mere fifty-two votes ending any filibuster. The Democrat use of the so-called nuclear option set the precedent for adjusting cloture to fit your needs when you have the majority in the Senate. Yes, doing so would allow for the Democrats to do similarly when they gain fifty-one seats in the Senate and who does not believe they would do exactly as such anyway. The Republicans instead are fighting with the White House declaring the President’s budget dead on arrival. This is a party in need of better leadership as currently they are wasting their first and possibly only opportunity to prove they are the better option by acting as a whole to enact their vision for the United States.

 

I hear people demanding what we would propose if we think we have the answer. Well, perhaps they could actually get everybody on the same page instead of having a different set of priorities for every twenty or thirty Republicans. They need to have the Senate choose ten Senators and the House of Representatives choose twenty-five or thirty Representatives and have these people meet with the President and each Cabinet member in a series of meetings taking a week out of their schedules. Initially the President on the first day along with his preferred advisors should meet with the delegations and set a general structure for the ensuing week or even two and have the President and everyone else at the meeting express their preferences and ideas and have them discussed in a general sense setting up a framework. Then they should have meetings with cabinet members and the President each morning and then return and meet with the Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate each with their own chosen delegates such that everybody has some input and in the end they reach a consensus which is acceptable to the President and his Cabinet and advisors. Once this framework has been set, then the House of Representatives and the Senate can begin to work on the enactment of these ideas putting them into action. These agreed upon initiatives should be enacted through the House of Representatives and the Senate in quick order and signed by the President getting a basic set of accomplishments enacted and presented to the public as actual accomplishments in the next election cycle. If their ideas actually capture the minds and match the ideas of the population in the majority of the nation, then the Republicans can reap the rewards and press forward with even more action and accomplish what they promised in the first place.

 

President Trump National Security Advisor McMaster
Speaker of the House of Representatives Ryan
President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate Hatch

 

The first thing they need do is revamp healthcare. An idea we would like to suggest is to keep the choice parts of the current system adjusted to make them include competition between the many insurance companies. Much of healthcare need be taken from the employers and returned to the people such that their demand for the most and best options and the insurance companies need meet their hopes at an acceptable price, this will bring healthcare costs back down within reason. Further, the government need remove most of the regulations, reporting requirements and other unnecessary paperwork which has completely destroyed the concept of a single doctor working from their home in the neighborhood where their patients reside as had been the case before the government needlessly intervened and destroyed affordable healthcare. The government should only require that insurance policies cover major medical allowing people to decide to pay for any minor care out of their own pockets. The one idea which the government should make illegal would be controversial but in the long run would produce lower medical costs, and that is to make group policies illegal such that companies, unions, and other groups such as retirement groups or social groups from offering insurance to their workers or members. Make individual policies the sole type of health insurance allowed and only require minimal coverages. We suggest only what used to be considered major medical which would include emergency rooms treatment with a deductible, surgical procedures, any hospital or clinical procedures again with a deductible, and hospital stays with a deductible. The deductibles would depend on the cost of the coverage with the less expensive coverage having a higher deductible while there could be specialty additional coverages which would cover these deductibles but this should be banned from health insurers offering. Such a system would produce insurance affordable at any level such that younger and healthier people could take the risk of higher deductibles and with people paying for most of their own healthcare we would see prices become lower for most standard healthcare needs. The main way to cut healthcare costs would be to put a cap on rewards for malpractice suits and make one vital change, the lawyers losing any malpractice suit would be responsible for both sides’ court costs and lawyers’ fees within set limits. This would lead to fewer malpractice suits as lawyers would be very careful to only take such cases which they felt quite sure of their case and winning the case, period.

 

There are probably many other means for lowering court costs which we have not included which the Congress could enact. Removing regulations and paperwork would be one of the greatest means to relieve the burden on physicians who have had to form groups to defray the clerical costs imposed by both government and insurance companies who often are demanding additional paperwork simply because the government demands they file paperwork. Government is once again the greatest contributor to the costs of a commodity which they also demand everybody purchase. This is simply something the people’s need should have to accommodate and not employers or government as that is the current system which the people declared broken and becoming overly expensive with far too many forms. The government should never have the power to add costs beyond reason to an industry and then require the people purchase said product. As happened with car insurance, whenever the government demands people to purchase a commodity the price of such commodity will naturally skyrocket reaching the limit of what the people are capable to pay, not the actual required cost of the commodity. Simply ask yourself what would you charge for widgets if the government required every person to purchase one widget every month? You would price them set the highest price the market would bear rather than a competitive price because every other widget salesperson would be doing the same. The highest probability is all widget salespersons would agree to set an inflated price where all would become wealthy beyond what any normal competition would prevail had the government not required people to purchase your product. That is simple reality of life and not rocket science, or advanced economics. The proof of this theory has been the cost of health insurance since Obamacare hit the market. This is why competition must be returned to the health insurance markets and as much government involvement must be removed back to bare bones or less. No government involvement would be the most preferred state of healthcare. But first the Republicans need to unify and find some leadership which can work well with President Trump, both by leading when necessary and following when Trump is leading constructively. We can only hope.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Nation State or International Integration

 

The election this fall is not about Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Taliban, or other security. It will not be about most of the items the media is talking about. What it is about is the economy, jobs, employment, wages, and everything about the economy but not in the obvious ways being discussed. Where will this next Presidency balance? The main item is which way does it benefit the United States most, continuing internationalism or returning to nationalism.

 

The media and most politicians are pushing this global economy, global integration, global cooperation, global solutions while hiding a dirty little secret, they are selling global as the solution while having the United States and the advanced nations pay for everything while equalizing the global playing field, whatever that means. We had a debate last night and we heard more of the same. Clinton claimed more globalism and taxes on the rich and Trump tried and may have meant to sound like Reagan. What they were not telling the people is that Clinton was using the same internationalism where the world matters more than the United States so in order to equalize the world the United States and the advanced world has to bleed to allow the rest of the world to catch up and then all will be well and how wonderful the world can be. Trump is actually claiming that every nation take their own and put them first and attempt to allow the nations who are leading the world to continue to be the leaders and then assist other nations in making gains and follow and give them access to advances as they are able to implement these advances. So, which way will work best. That depends on which nations one decides should be permitted to advance their own interests than to share with the world.

 

Internationalism is wonderful if your country is on the receiving end and not so wonderful if you are being bled to bring the other nations up to their level. The problem with that are many of these nations that are presumably being given advances in order to raise them to the same level are led by dictators who are enriching themselves and not making their nations any closer to the advanced world as that does not directly benefit them. What these dictators are not being intelligent about is that had they advanced their nation they would have enriched themselves in the process. They are not even thinking nationally rather than internationally. Internationally is a recipe for disaster as it inhibits the leaders from leading and demands that the least efficient be granted the largess while the leaders are placed in financial straight-jackets. Internationalists place a stop sign where all nations must park their own business and park their nation by the side of the highway and wait for the rest of the world to reach an equal position. The problem is that many of these nations, which they are waiting for to reach the same point, are themselves broken and not gaining and will never catch up as they are not even making any effort to reach the next level. Internationalism believes that making all nations equal will solve the world’s problems and inequalities, despite it not ever bringing the rest of the nations to first world status.

 

 

World Map with Borders Deemphasized

 

Nationalism is the opposite view which allows each nation to advance at their own rate and still demands that the first world assist the developing nation but does not demand they try to make equal those nations so dysfunctional that they are the closest thing to an economic black hole as can be found. Nationalism rewards each nation for their efforts and allows each nation to gain at their own speed. Allowing the leaders to lead gives other nations a target and proven path they can emulate but without national gain by the wealthiest nations to blaze the trail for the others to follow. The basis for nationalism is it allows each nation to set their own monetary policies and is against unifying monetary policies as such a system is flawed and destroys the lesser productive nations which has been proven by the European Union Euro which has benefited Germany while leaving Greece behind. Nationalism allows each country to do the best for their own people and society. That does not mean that nations which are developing should not be aided and it is in the interest of the most advanced nations to assist those nations who are developing and making the right choices and allowing them to benefit from the experiences of those nations who have traveled those roads before them. But those nations which are completely dysfunctional cannot be assisted as long as their governance is broken and until the nation decides to change their dysfunctions there is no reason to throw good money after bad.

 

Internationalism is a wonderful, feel-good policy filled of kind words and low on actual results. Internationalism demands that all nations be made to give according to their ability and the funds are granted to countries according to their needs. Internationalism demands open borders allowing free immigration with no limits or criminal and other background checks or other limits or restrictions. The policies sound as if they will allow all nations equal opportunities in word while defining this policy as bringing all nations up to the same level and making things fair for all nations. The truth is that this is accomplished by tearing down the greater nations while benefitting some of the least deserving nations who are corrupt criminal enterprises more than they are actual functional nations. Rewarding the worst while impeding the best prevents progress and will constantly restrict progress and the discoveries of new technologies and new systems which would result in assisting those nations seeking a better future to implement the proven methods. To get an idea on the difficulties caused by internationalism there is a perfect example which we can observe, the European Union. How has that equal currency been working for over half of Europe who are not Germany or Britain but are Greece, Spain, Italy and even France and many of the former Warsaw Nations. The common currency has taken the small differences of economic production where the agrarian economies which work on a different production level having to survive with the same policies of the industrial and other highly developed nations.

 

World Map and Relative Wealth of Nations

 

Permitting each nation to perform at their highest level and to their full potential will set target paths for other nation to follow along the proven road set by the highest performing nations. Progress is the fuel that raises all nations in turn. Progress provides the test paths and allows developing nations to benefit from their more advanced nations but only when they decide to advance. No nation could be forced to grow their economy and advance their national infrastructure and when a nation refuses to advance itself then forcing the rest of the world to wait for such a nation to reach an equative level is ridiculous and counterproductive. Internationalism is wonderful idea if it could function as promised. Nationalism is the dirty sounding word which is accused of being selfish because it benefits the wealthy nations and prevents developing nations from ever reaching the top level. The obvious fault is that accusation is completely false. If nationalism prevented up and coming nations from ever becoming the top nations were true then China would have ruled the world, Spain would be a leading nation, Greece would be the top nation in Europe, Egypt would be the most advanced nation in construction and engineering, Persia would still control East-West trade routes, Portugal would be a great power with colonies throughout the world, and the Hittites would be the great power in the norther worlds of Europe through to Turkey. Top nations change and have changed throughout the history of the world while nationalism was the rule of the world. Internationalism has caused massive stagnation as the world as a whole is not permitted to advance because the leading nations are held back presumably for the benefit of the lesser nations. This will always be a supported philosophy as there will always be more developing and undeveloped nations than leading nations as only a few nations will be in the top ten percent, which is why it is referred to as the top ten percent. Internationalism has been working so well over the past twenty to thirty years since 1979 while the rest of history was pathetic and without economic advancement advances by all nations and we are still using salt as a currency, aren’t we? The progress from salt as money to salt as something on almost every dinner table was a result from nationalism, not internationalism.

 

Compare the two with eyes open and the preferable form, open competition or controlled advancement, the choice could provide opportunity or a slow decadence and eventual decimation. Internationalism is welfare on an international scale much in the form of the Soviet Union and the initial Plymouth Rock Colony which would have starved if not for the Native Americans who grew and hunted for surplus for the winter and had sufficient to teach and feed the Pilgrims. After that experience of all get all they need, while most gave nothing in effort, they introduced a new program where each family kept a percentage of what they grew and the remainder was shared, the amounts of food skyrocketed. That is the balance which nationalism can produce, the most advanced achieve at their highest level and those developing nations learn from those leaders and in time some will replace them as they eventually falter. That is the secret of effort based economies, the people or nations at the top changes with time when another makes decisions which make them even more profitable as the other sinks under likely bureaucratic waste. You decide.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Welcoming NORAD Back to Cheyenne Mountain

 

The United States military has decided that the conditions are currently of sufficient threat that they have decided to send NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) to scurry back to the warm confines of the Cheyenne Mountain complex and its independently supplied internal electricity generations and grounded steel walls where they have no susceptibility to an EMP pulse no matter the degree of severity, even the most fearsome solar storm which might char and disintegrate the entire North American electronic grid. Apparently the decision to reposition to Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs has struck a snag or two or more. They claimed the savings and ease of commute made the move economic and practical sense, especially as the Cold War had past and there is no overriding threat demanding they continue using a base which provides the level of protection as the Cheyenne Mountain Facility. Well, well, what could have occurred to alter that line of reasoning and should the average American be concerned, well, concerned at least as much as the military and the commanding staff of NORAD apparently are being. Perhaps if we view the reasoning we can decide exactly how much of a threat there is and whether serious concern might be necessary.

 

The reason announced by the military for returning NORAD was that it is now feared that the North Koreans and potentially their allies in Iran have perfected miniaturizing of their nuclear warheads and might place one atop a North Korean mobile KN-08 mobile launch vehicle. This sent the military command of NORAD scurrying within one of the world’s safest locations deep within Cheyenne Mountain buried deeply under a few thousand feet of rock, mostly granite, and encased in steel and concrete with two sets of blast doors unrivaled, one backing the other making a double door with a dead space between them to absorb any force which might manage to pierce the outer door. These blast doors close making the tunnel reaching the Cheyenne Mountain a perfect arc opened at both ends so as to pass and blast-wave from a nuclear or other device detonated near either entrance an easily followed natural flow-path right through the mountain, past the blast doors, and on out the other side. The Cheyenne Mountain location not only easily houses the necessary personnel to cover and maintain their functions without break along with their families and a full garrison of Marines but also hold the supplies that would permit operating completely closed-off safe from any attack, especially any nuclear or EMP attack. We described a means by which both Iran and North Korea could launch and use a weakness in the radar protection and by mimicking the orbit of a weather satellite, an orbit both nations have used previously for launches, near the end in the final paragraph of our article titled, ”Is North Korea Sabre Rattling for Attention or Real Threat?”

 

There are further reasons for moving NORAD back to its original safely, armored, buried, EMP proof and self-supporting location which they abandoned in favor of easier access as they have been monitoring since 2013 as reported by an ABC News reporting coverage from 2013 by Martha Raddatz ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent which can be viewed below. Needless to say that placing NORAD back where they should never have left will be a far cry from ending the threats from a nuclear armed North Korea, who has been threatening a nuclear EMP first strike against the United States, or Iran as they also could use such weaponry to cover far more evil intents than just striking NORAD. There is the possibility that either Iran or North Korea could launch at a closer target causing just as much harm on the global scale and have a dastardly effect on the world or the United States. North Korea has regularly threatened their South Korean neighbors and even regularly launched rockets into their waters and threatened far worse. Iran, on the other hand, has threatened not only the United States but also Israel, Saudi Arabia and other of her neighbors. Iran is currently engaged in three wars already, there is the Syrian Civil War where Iran and their terror allies of Hezballah fight the plethora of Sunni militias all having some degree of attachment to al-Qaeda or other terrorist organization, fighting in Iraq against ISIS, a Sunni terrorist organization which follows a strident version of the Quran by which they have destroyed numerous historic relics and other precious items claiming that because they were objects which they determined were un-Islamic and thus unworthy of being displayed and especially considered precious or of any value to the human race, and now Yemen where they are arming the Houthis and may even provide them with intelligence as well as command and control assistance.

 

 

 

 

The threats made by the likes of the Ayatollahs of Iran and those made by Kim Jong-un are usually merely saber rattling meant for domestic consumption and to give the people faith that their nation is able to stand against anybody. The fact that they get media coverage as well bolsters the belief making them appear more important. The other problem is that in many ways the leadership of both Iran and North Korea actually do mean those threats they make and would act upon them if they felt they were readily executable. This makes the North Korean threats to use a hydrogen bomb on the United States as an EMP generator to destroy the North American electronic grid far more serious. The fact that these leaders continue to allow their people to suffer unnecessary hardships due largely to their leaderships’ threats of warmongering which leads their nations to face sanctions is just as monstrous and evil as one can get. The further fact that they and their coterie live lives of lavish excess eating caviar, roast duck and champagne while their people, especially the people of North Korea, starve or make do with tree bark and grass soups can only be defined by Evil as the word for such extravagances and lavish life styles and the unbelievable difference between the lives of the privileged few enjoy as compared to the lives of their military members is only exceeded by the further difference approaching the same scale between the lives of apparent excess lived by the members of the military compared to the veterans and the population as a whole. The members of the military are not the problem as in many cases parents push their children towards the military such that they can have a better level of life than the parents had suffered. These radical differences exist almost as a caste system between the political leadership at the top, the military in between and the population and the elderly living lives beyond any desperations than most of us are capable of even imagining, let alone understanding. The most absolute depravity is displayed with the fact that the North Korean elite actually will make these threats and back them through actions which if ignored might actually lead to the North Korean leadership in particular to reigniting the state of war which continues to exist between the North and South Korea simply to hold talks where along with the demands from the leadership is also requests for food and other aid to be given the people to prevent even more deaths due to starvation, malnutrition, and the desperate lack of medical attention to treat and care for the people.

 

What makes these situations even more horrific is that these conditions are not all that uncommon throughout many of the third world nations. Contrary to the apparent belief, very few if any of these situations would be alleviated by changing their governance to a democracy as this would simply result in their electing the elites back into power. The first step the world needs to take also is not necessarily food aid and other such generosities as providing such aid deprives the farmers of a local market for their produce which results in their requiring aid because they are unable to sell their produce. Where aid most likely will be required to feed the entire population, the farmers must also be able to market their produce. The kind of aid which would go the furthest would be to allow corporations to set up factories and thus provide a basis for an economy and set the nation on the road towards a functioning economic base which is currently nonexistent. These factories also need to provide jobs not solely in the major cities but throughout these nations. Currently many of these nations lack even a rudimentary base for economic production which stands between them and receiving such investments.

 

Of course there are indicators that these problems may be coming to what are currently considered first world nations as the economic bubbles have begun to deflate one after the other and in some economies the house of cards is already collapsing. This is evidenced in Europe where the attempt to place all nations on a single currency has simply led to exposing the disparate economic models causing economic collapse as this unitary currency system collapses where had these nations retained their own currencies then there economies could have survived these downturns as their currency would have been permitted to respond to the change in their economic situation according to each individual nation allowing for a more favorable return on investments which cannot be had under the unified currency of the Euro. That their currency was beyond their control simply exasperated their financial difficulties and making any response simply beyond their control as they have no means of altering the value of the currency to respond to the situation and difficulties faced. This problem was unavoidable for as long as each nation was permitted to set their financial and economic policies while sharing a single currency. This removed their ability to control the single most important item in their economies, the cost of labor. Once the cost of labor separated sufficiently from the values set for the Euro itself made the problem become irreconcilable. These problems which are only growing while those nations with healthy economies are increasingly pressed to support the less wealthy nations within the European Union in particular, and to an extent throughout the third world, the difficulties are only going to be pushed to a point where the whole financial constructs begins to fray to the point where there are no longer solutions under the current systems. In too many cases simply continuing to patch the problems while ignoring the central causes will lead to what we would call the “point of exasperation” which is where the nations giving support are brought down as the cost and needs for support reach levels beyond any reconciliation and all hope is lost and the people then turn to their governance and demand relief leading all too probably to revolutions where the violence makes even the hope for investment to flee and refuse to make investments where such expenditures are the only hope for salvation and the start of normalcy.

 

Still, where is one to take the first step towards addressing the problems, and in the case of North Korea even coming to grip with the reality the people face, and after making that assessment then turning the nation around and giving the people hope. There exists no single solution though in many cases it is the leadership’s setting of priorities which has simply aggravated the situation leading to a downward cycle which results eventually, if permitted to continue, to the unsettling set of conditions in North Korea. Solutions, and not just feel-good knee-jerk reacting, must be found and those solutions are not pumping food and funds as simply feeding the hungry for a week, a month is not going to provide the hope and the means for the people to help themselves which is so desperately what is needed. In many of these situations there exists a disparity where the very wealthy live almost in a different world than do the masses. These situations are of a kind which led to revolutions which is what eventually led to the changes in the Western world though not all nations benefitted fully from the gains made since the industrial revolution and now the information age. The efforts to attempt to bring a third world nation into the information age in one fell swoop are not the solution as such an economy is unsustainable when considering the education and familiarity with such tools is taken into consideration. One needs to walk before they can run and the same can be said for national economies. The initial problems are infrastructure, both materially and by the population as a whole. When these problems are what is addressed then there can be progress but simply shipping tons of food aid which sometimes sits unloaded and goes bad rotting in place for the lack of trucks and a distribution network as even aid packages require a certain level of infrastructure before even that is of any substance. And yes we realize that in places like North Korea and Iran part of the problem is the governance though that is an even more difficult nut to crack. There is no universal solution and as far as the threats from North Korea and possibly Iran, there is no solution beyond preparing for the worst and hopefully cutting the head off the hydra and preventing it from simply replacing that bad head for another. Iran is a nation with the wherewithal to save itself if only the people can be freed to take on the challenges directly, but that cannot happen while their leadership is intent on spreading their version of Islam to the world. Such belligerence is not to be tolerated and must be opposed, something the P5+1 negotiations is apparently refusing to oppose rather than complying in the hope that things will improve before World War III is launched from the missile pads within Iran. North Korea will remain beyond help for as long as the leadership is tolerated rather than opposed and the situation resolved. Step one is provide a path to better governance through ending the state of war between North and South Korea, until that is addressed there can be no change to the situation. These are stark and difficult challenges which is why they are also the most pressing and dangerous challenges the world is currently facing with the growing gap between the first and third worlds, a gap that is threatening to become unbridgeable.

 

Beyond the Cusp