Flute and Fiddlers- Why supplying your own motivation is important!

‘Do not go chasing waterfalls: as the rivers and lakes are most common to your correlative life pattern.”

“Do not go around the muhlberry bush; as you are not a monkey, and the weasel does not posses pursuable traits.”

“Do not be like Mother Goose and get caught in others agendas: as you will find a person on your back slows your progression to the Moon”

These are some of the witty quotes I made up and put on a Facebook to see, if someone would share my “scriptures of motivation.” Why did I do this? It has come to my attention that people increasingly seem to follow those that have a metaphorical “Flute and Fiddle”.

-What I am saying?

Well I see a growing number of people that have grasped the breast of a sweet-mouthed figure that really just recites the words of others and gets praised as if they birthed the concept- you can call it repeating. People should realize that these figures are making money off of their masses-Large amounts of it! By writing books and putting on conferences. These individuals are only successful because they tell others they are not- in a positive and enlightening tone. Let’s look at Joel Osteen a predominant figure I see pass recycled quotes on social media. Joel Osteen is an American preacher, televangelist, author who has a net worth of $40 million dollars! For those that do not know Joel Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. Some may argue he is gifted by God, but we all know the real reason is because his words of hope cost money. I hope that you all get my point as I am not trying to offend but inform.

People from all walks of life, are losing the ability to find self-perpetuated drive based on their own actions. Has it come to a point where we are null of self discovery or self proliferation? Or is it that we cannot conceptualize our own journey without the aid of a consensually descript individual beating the drum that provides the tempo of just how far we will go? I say that everyone has the ability to drive their own direction and to mantle a “flute and fiddle” type person as your life guide, strongly hinders ones ability to be the purveyor of their own success. I understand that as humans we stagnate and need to be realigned and accepted and our actions acknowledged- I know this- but if all we do is look to another for a push, every time we are faced with adversity, than what precedents are we setting for our own success. As it will be owned by the person you turned to-as they always seem to seek credit for their actions. (Think about it)

Positive quotes and motivational speeches are great to read, but if you do not put action into what you’re reading and sharing than all you are doing is revving your figurative engine and causing yourself more stress. Instead, you should be creating action on the needs and wills of yourself as you are capable of anything as long as you are willing to go about it alone, and when needed, ask for advice and act on it.
You do not need the words of others to propel you to a successful life initiative or change; you just need FREE will that is unencumbered by influence and perpetuated by self-invoked emotion. As where you are in life thus far is based on decisions and actions you made (I am sure we all know this); actions and decisions that you can change with just one choice. To be your own guide.

I will stop the rant now, but leave you with a brief insertion on how this way of thought plays out in my life.

I would not say I am a successful person by any means BUT I created my own mantra of success “If you think great, you will do great” and I have lived on that saying for many years and it has kept me going in my journey. It is a self-prescribed mindset of “Do great things” and has allowed me to pursue feets that I find “GREAT”. The feets I describe range from participating in a war to achieving academic statutes that are prolific in America. It is this mantra that allows me to pursue life not chase after it.

It comes down to this. Successful people did not become successive by listening to others; they did so by listening to themselves and pursuing precisive actions that produced desired greatness. We are our strongest critic in life and action, and by relying on consensually accepted verses of direction we will only continue to clout our true direction. So live through your own words and drive your actions based on free will!

…And yes I just motivated you..feel free to give me some MONEY!!

The Decline of American Currency and the rise of Crypto-Currency!

As America’s dollar continues to lose its value in the global markets, it seems to me the pursuance of a new international currency is inevitable, and already underway. The American dollar was once a zero inflation currency that was backed by precious metals, but overtime we have distanced ourselves from tangible assets backing the USD, and instead embraced a “Faith” value system known as a Fiat money or currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith and has caused a declination in value of the U.S. Greenback.

Another well known contributor to the devaluation of the greenback is inflation, which is found everywhere in our economy, except in the government’s statistics. Take for instance corn; the most important food crop in America, is up 75% since 2008. Gasoline is up from $2.25 a gallon to more than $4 a gallon – an increase of more than 40%. The nationwide minimum wage is up by 19%- based on the increase from $5.15 and hour to $7.25. Lastly, the cost of monthly rent is up by 25% nationwide and up 40% in most urban markets, as more Americans seek renting over homeownership due to the 2008 real estate crisis which caused many to lose their home and others to have their homes drop in value.

One last example is, the base price of a Ford F-150, the best-selling passenger vehicle in America, has gone from $18,225 to $36,590 – a 33% increase. This is an arguably domestically sourced and manufactured product. Its price is completely dominated by the value of the U.S. dollar. I know many would say that these examples are not of inflation but instead the rise of Corporate creed and cost of innovative new technology – I would say you have some ground there, but the largest attributor is that our dollar is so far stretched that it no longer holds the value it once did and I will explain why in this article I hope you enjoy the read.

When did we lose control of the US Dollar?
Well it started in 1913.What changed in 1913? That was the year America adopted the Federal Reserve Banking (FRB) system and the nation took its first steps toward abolishing the gold standard and replacing it with a banking system that allowed for unlimited paper money to be created.
In 1966 Alan Greenspan described the new system as a regional Federal Reserve Bank that is nominally owned by private bankers, but more so owned in fact by the government.
Credit extended by these banks is in practice (though not legally) backed by the taxing power of the federal government. … But now, in addition to gold, credit extended by the Federal Reserve banks (‘paper reserves’) could serve as legal tender to pay depositors.”
In other words, the dollar would only be partially backed by gold, and banks could create money by lending out money secured by credit from the Federal Reserve banks (even though the reserve banks did not necessarily have gold on deposit themselves). Thus the seeds of America’s first fiat (currency not backed by gold) dollar system were sown.
At that time, however, there were still restraints upon money-supply growth because the dollar was still convertible to gold upon demand. Anyone cashing in paper dollars was still legally entitled to its value in gold, so the money supply did not balloon completely out of control.
Yet by 1934, the paper money supply had expanded faster than the nation’s gold supply, so in order to prevent the nation’s gold supply from being drained, the U.S. decided to devalue the dollar—by 41 percent. Prior to 1934, an ounce of gold could be redeemed for just US$20.67, however after the revision; the U.S. government would only part with an ounce of gold in exchange for $35. In gold terms, anyone who had a U.S. savings account lost 41 percent of its value—overnight.
Even though the 1934 U.S. currency devaluation rocked people’s confidence in the dollar, World War II thrust the U.S. dollar into a new status: the world’s reserve currency. Toward the end of the war, representatives of most of the world’s leading nations met to create a new international monetary system, later known as the Bretton Woods agreement. At this meeting, the war-torn and virtually bankrupt nations of the world decided that since the U.S. economy had come to dominate the globe, and because it held 80 percent of the world’s gold due to the war, they would tie their currencies to the dollar, which, in turn, could be converted into gold at $35 per ounce.
Yet under the Bretton Woods system there were still limits on how much paper money a country could create. Each country had to police its own currency or be forced into embarrassing devaluations. The U.S. itself was constrained from overprinting money because the dollar remained fully convertible into gold.
However, by 1971, America had again printed vastly more paper money than was backed by precious metal. According to some estimates, so many paper dollars had been created that the nation’s gold supply only backed 22 percent of them. At the same time, French President Charles de Gaulle, recognizing that the dollar was losing value, had been exchanging his nation’s collection of U.S. dollars for American gold reserves. Seeing other nations following suit, U.S. President Richard Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971, no longer allowing foreigners to exchange their U.S. dollars for gold and thus ending the Bretton Woods agreement.
From that point on, America’s dollar became fiat, not backed by tangible assets. As the Federal Reserve bank of Minneapolis says, the U.S. dollar is fiat and is valuable only as long as “people are willing to accept fiat money in exchange for the goods and services they sell”—and only as long as “they are confident it will be honored when they buy goods and services.”
Since people were already in the habit of accepting paper backed by gold, Americans hardly noticed when the U.S. greenback became backed by nothing more than faith—until it started affecting their pocketbooks. Loss of the dollar’s gold backing resulted in a U.S. dollar sell-off in which foreign nations dumped dollars on the open market. This in turn caused roaring inflation and gold to spike up into the $800-per-ounce range. After the FRB jacked interest rates into the high teens, both Americans and foreigners decided they would trust the government and continued using the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. now operates on what many refer to as the Bretton Woods 2 system. Although there is no formal central bank agreement (as was the case with Bretton Woods 1), many countries, especially those in Asia, have more or less informally pegged their currencies to the dollar.
This system is inherently more unstable than the previous precious-metal-based non-fiat system. Since the U.S. dollar is no longer convertible to gold, there is no theoretical limit to how much the U.S. money base can expand—and the U.S. has been taking full advantage of this situation to increase its money supply.

The Dollar’s Decline
During Alan Greenspan’s term at the FRB alone, America’s monetary base tripled and more new money came into being than under all previous Fed chairmen combined. As the government has massively increased the money supply—doubling it in the last seven years alone—those dollars have become less valuable.
So many dollars have been created that only the dollar’s status as a reserve currency, along with the kindness of America’s trade partners, has prevented a complete dollar meltdown. Unfortunately, these dollar supporters seem to be crumbling.
At one point, 86 percent of the globe’s transactions were denominated in dollars. Whether it was Russians and Saudis selling oil to the world, or Chinese purchasing wheat from Canada, the dollar was the primary means of payment. Thus, foreign nations needed to keep huge dollar reserves on hand. This was a gigantic plus for the dollar. Had foreign nations not needed to increase their holdings of dollars as world trade grew, there would have been a massive wave of homeless dollars roaming the world looking to be spent, and as the supply of dollars increased, the dollar’s value would have plummeted. Instead, over the years, America has been able to get away with creating the money needed to pay its bills and finance an otherwise unaffordable standard of living.
However, the dollar’s status as a reserve currency is now being challenged. In 2005, the percentage of dollar-denominated reserves held by foreign nations was 76 percent, not two years later; it is down to 65 percent. “There is a gentle and osmotic process underway,” says economics analyst Julian D.W. Phillips: “a lessening of the role of the U.S. dollar in the global reserves” (Financial Sense Online, Nov. 6, 2006).
Although an all-out revolt against the dollar hasn’t yet occurred, clear signals are emerging that the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency of choice could be ending. Several international banks have announced intentions to diversify their reserves away from the greenback: Russia’s central bank, Sweden’s Riksbank, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar Central Bank and the Central Bank of Syria. Stop and think about this- we no longer have tangible assets backing our dollar.
America’s massive monetary expansion could be about to boomerang on itself, as it did in 1934 and 1971—only this time, the number of dollars involved absolutely dwarfs all previous currency crises. As the U.S. persistently destroys the value of the dollar by overprinting (or, more correctly, over-creating, since most money created is now digital), foreign nations are losing confidence in the dollar and its role as a reserve currency. Foreign central bank sales are the first waves of a coming dollar storm. The more those central banks dump dollars, the greater the loss of investor confidence.

The rise of crypto-currency!
Many may be thinking by this point- WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN!? As I write this article hearings are being held on Capitol Hill to discuss the validity of a digital currency that has been on the rise for sometime but has not poised a threat until recent increases in crypto-currency worth. This crypto-currency has many forms but it seems that there is one that is making enough waves to get congressional attention this week and it is known as Bitcoin, and as I write this article its current value is 1 bitcoin= $544.57, and is recognized almost globally as a relevant currency. I strongly believe that this form of currency has a phenomenal foundation and will not seize to exist, but instead grow in popularity as the virtues of this fiat system values anonymity and translates well in worth globally.

What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is a consensus network that enables a new payment system and completely digital money. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen. From a user perspective, Bitcoin is pretty much like cash for the Internet. Bitcoin can also be seen as the most prominent triple entry bookkeeping system in existence.
From a user perspective, Bitcoin is nothing more than a mobile app or computer program that provides a personal Bitcoin wallet and allows a user to send and receive bitcoins with them. This is how Bitcoin works for most users.
Behind the scenes, the Bitcoin network is sharing a public ledger called the “block chain”. This ledger contains every transaction ever processed, allowing a user’s computer to verify the validity of each transaction. The authenticity of each transaction is protected by digital signatures corresponding to the sending addresses, allowing all users to have full control over sending bitcoins from their own Bitcoin addresses. In addition, anyone can process transactions using the computing power of specialized hardware and earn a reward in bitcoins for this service. This is often called “mining”. To learn more about Bitcoin, you can consult the dedicated page and the original paper.
Won’t loss of wallets and the finite amount of Bitcoins create excessive deflation, destroying Bitcoin?
Worries about Bitcoin being destroyed by deflation are not entirely unfounded. Unlike most currencies, which experience inflation as their founding institutions create more and more units, Bitcoin will likely experience gradual deflation with the passage of time. Bitcoin is unique in that only a small amount of units will ever be produced (twenty-one million to be exact), this number has been known since the project’s inception, and the units are created at a predictable rate.
Also, Bitcoin users are faced with a danger that doesn’t threaten users of any other currency: if a Bitcoin user loses his wallet, his money is gone forever, unless he finds it again. And not just to him; it’s gone completely out of circulation, rendered utterly inaccessible to anyone. As people will lose their wallets, the total number of Bitcoins will slowly decrease.
Therefore, Bitcoin seems to be faced with a unique problem. Whereas most currencies inflate over time, Bitcoin will mostly likely do just the opposite. Time will see the irretrievable loss of an ever-increasing number of Bitcoins. An already small number will be permanently whittled down further and further. And as there become fewer and fewer Bitcoins, the laws of supply and demand suggest that their value will probably continually rise.
Thus, Bitcoin is bound to once again stray into mysterious territory, because no one exactly knows what happens to a currency that grows continually more valuable. Many economists claim that a low level of inflation is a good thing for a currency, but nobody is quite sure about what might happens to one that continually deflates. Although deflation could hardly be called a rare phenomenon, steady, constant deflation is unheard of. There may be a lot of speculation, no one has any hard data to back up their claims.
That being said, there is a mechanism in place to combat the obvious consequences. Extreme deflation would render most currencies highly impractical: if a single Canadian dollar could suddenly buy the holder a car, how would one go about buying bread or candy? Even pennies would fetch more than a person could carry. Bitcoin, however, offers a simple and stylish solution: infinite divisibility. Bitcoins can be divided up and trade into as small of pieces as one wants, so no matter how valuable Bitcoins become, one can trade them in practical quantities.
In fact, infinite divisibility should allow Bitcoins to function in cases of extreme wallet loss. Even if, in the far future, so many people have lost their wallets that only a single Bitcoin, or a fraction of one, remains, Bitcoin should continue to function just fine. No one can claim to be sure what is going to happen, but deflation may prove to present a smaller threat than many expect.

Can Crypto-Currency be a danger to world economies?
Electronic payments aren’t new. Bitcoin’s only innovations are its status as an independent currency and its decentralized network design. But those differences might make Bitcoin — or rather, crypto-currency in general — an existential threat to the modern liberal state. If widely adopted, crypto-currencies would cripple government in three central functions: taxation, police and macroeconomic stabilization. That is exactly what Bitcoin’s biggest fans are hoping.
1. Taxation: How do governments collect taxes on transactions in Bitcoin? The answer is they don’t, and they can’t. Crypto-currency’s strong protections on anonymity make it impossible for any state to know who is buying what, who is paying whom, who earns what, and who has what in savings. That poses a direct challenge to the power of states to levy taxes.

The problem is that Bitcoin makes tax evasion easier. States could enforce reporting of Bitcoin income for individuals and businesses, as they try to do for cash, which is also hard to track. But encryption and the peer-to-peer network structure make Bitcoin even harder to follow than physical cash, and digital cash is much better than the physical kind for storage and transactions, so the scale of the challenge could end up being much bigger.

2. Police: It would be almost impossible for states to detect certain crimes. One of the major alleged uses of Bitcoin — though, of course, one can never truly know — is buying illicit drugs. Bitcoin’s cryptography makes it uniquely able to facilitate money laundering, insider trading, fraud, and bribery. The transactions would be untraceable, and the money doesn’t ever have to return to the bank, where the financial crime might have been detected.

3. Macroeconomic policy: A Bitcoin economy would undermine the power of real-world central banks to make monetary policy. Yes, governments can influence the demand for national currencies by requiring taxes to be paid in them. But the monetary lever on private transactions and lending would be gone if such commerce was denominated in Bitcoin. And by displacing governments as currency issuers, Bitcoin also threatens their ability to finance public debt. In a world where many transactions are anonymous, it’s unclear how governments could even compile accurate economic data, without which macroeconomic policy is impossible. Economic depression in a Bitcoin regime could be an insoluble problem.

Only time will tell if what I discussed in this article is relevant to future practices in the global marketplace, but it is evident that the USD will not play a part in global commerce as it has for decades in the future. We no longer hold the industrial prowess to maintain the standards that made America great we have sold those rights away so that a chosen few can make a big payday. What America does now to combat these rising issues will set the precedent on whether we can one day reclaim our title as a civil industrial nation.

Our Voice. Our Action. Our Nation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-05/bitcoin-really-is-an-existential-threat-to-the-modern-liberal-state.html

I am a time-traveler from the future, here to beg you to stop what you are doing.
byu/Luka_Magnotta inBitcoin

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/MarketTalk/story?id=3630951

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11/alan-greenspan-tells-us-what-we-should-be-worrying-about/281498/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2011/03/16/central-banks-dump-treasuries-as-dollars-reserve-currency-status-fades/

Shift From U.S. Dollar As World Reserve Currency Underway (+93K Views)

Living Life on High Alert

Earlier this year, I was walking out of my Management Policies class which is a night course, where I have been attending college for the last three and a half years and walked into a “high threat area” what is that exactly? It is an area in which presents an environment that produces the highest probability of a volatile situation. As I walked to my car I immediately realized that my surroundings were not “ideal”. I was alone where it is usually very busy (as where I park it is a bus transit station, and always has people milling about…but not this night), the lights were out, and an alley is adjacent to where I park. So I took this all into account; maintained an aggressive posture and continued walking to my car at an external site from my school approximately 500 meters from the university. As I crossed the four way intersection I began to walk towards where I was parked maintaining a patrol like vigilance scanning the area around me, and out of the corner of my eye I picked up a “possible threat” it was a single male, white with a slim build and a hoody, so I made note and continue walking, but reached in my pocket to locate the knife I have at all times, gripped it, and began playing out how I was going to play this scenario out if it came down to getting gritty! So with my decision made and the “threat” within my “imminent personal bubble” and about a hands length from my most vulnerable position (which would be entering my car) I made my stand! Which was to garner my pocket knife and turn and face my aggressor, and stare him in his eye displaying that I was a “take no shit kind of person” but at the same time I was in the rear of my Ford Five Hundred, and did not realize that another element was coming to my aid – my license plate which states that I am a Iraq Veteran. So I stood facing a tall, slim, white male with no words spoken by either side just pure malicious intent! He stared at me and then my knife and then my license plate about three times trying to rationalize the scenario. All the while I was postured up, and staring him in the face ready for him to make a move, but after what seemed like 5 minutes, but was really about 60 seconds he choose the flight option in a “fight or flight” situation and disembarked in the direction of the dark alley in which he started his offensive agenda. (I know many are saying why did you not chase him! It crossed my mind but I know the strategies and beginnings of an ambush and I did not posses the assets to pursue a victorious counter offensive) I made a police report the following day(I waited as it was late and I wanted to go home). As I lingered on the thought of my situation happening to someone else that may not be as well equipped to handle that type of situation, and as any tale of felonious larceny and assault in the Ypsilanti, MI area the person was never found nor a wide scale investigation completed.

Why did I start this post named “Living life on High Alert” with this particular story because I wanted you to see that what I am about to explain plays out well for my life. If you have not read my article on “Victory over Adversity” I would recommend taking a moment to read it so that you can get the full intention of this article.

I wake up everyday with a sense of high alert and internal rage, and this is something that carries with me everyday of my life, and never really holsters itself. At any moment I feel capable of reaching out and “crushing someone’s skull” as the Marine Corps so delicately taught me, or to put it as General “Mad Dog” Mattis told it “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.” I am not saying that I want to kill everyone, but simply using a reference for my current “high alert” posture, and give you another perspective outside how I was raised as to why I am the way I am.

I maintain a defensive strategy in my home at all times and without giving away all of my defensive strategies to a ill willed individual I will tell you some of my strategy of “Life on High Alert” so that you can get a glimpse of how it plays out in my daily life. It starts with locked doors at all times as a first line of defense while in home and out of it. Locked doors are supported with various weapons of “opportunity” throughout my home, so that I do not get backed into a scenario if it were to arise that I would not have the means to defend my home and family from. The locations of those items- well I will leave that to an intruder to find out, when I have to use them!(as they say to each there own) I know many probably cannot connect with me at this point, but stay with me. The Marine Corps Infantry taught me many things that translated well into my personal life, but one lesson clung to me the quickest-that in order to have a great defense, one needs a superior offense- (no, I did not divulge some secret military stratagem, but more military common sense-if it exist). I know what you are thinking what does the mean? So let me explain; in order to have superior defense you must have a sizable ferocious offense, so that no one will ever find your line of defense and want to try their hand at compromising it-makes sense right? I live this out in my daily life, as I always keep my head up and ears open in public while my eyes continually look around to analyze my environment. My posture and voice always remain firm enough to portray confidence, but also to void any suspicions that I am not able to “carry the sword I am wielding!”- A kind of …”if you jump, I can jump higher! I guarantee it” (many are probably hearing the Men’s Warehouse commercial in their head). This is my daily perspective of walking this blissful Earth, many may think I am crazy, but it has saved me many times over the course of my life. It is not tiring to operate the way I do; it is just not easy to explain to people that A.) Have not been in the Military, and B.) Have never been a victim in a scenario that did not have the tools to control.

Another scenario of “life on high alert” happened to me yesterday. I was confronted with a scenario that many would have probably played down, but I played it out. I was walking to my office and exiting an ally way in which I use from time to time to vary my routes to and from work (terrorism 101…Marines know) when I was bombarded with a series of incoherent babblings to which I quickly found out originated from a short Indian girl with a cellular phone in her hand, frantically looking for someone to help her in a low traffic area. So I took an aggressive posture preparing for bait and attack type ambush; told her to slow down, and began assessing the situation which i quickly decided was controllable and after doing a quick 360 degree scan of the area I took a position with my back about an arms distance to a all Window wall behind me, so that I would only have to control 180 degrees of the environment around me, and at this point I allowed her to come closer to me and explain herself. It turned out she had just came to America from India and she was making her way to Chicago but a relative who drove her from the Airport mistakenly took her bus pass for the last stretch of her trip. So I gave her my phone and after about six conversations on my phone (that I could not understand) she had received that information to obtain a new pass from the bus transit office. So in the words of George W. Bush “Mission Accomplished” and crisis adverted. I know many of you would not have taken the amount of precautionary measures but that is how I handle any scenario in my life of high alert. I committed myself to never becoming a victim again and I always tell people when they ask “if you do not prepare to be a victim; you will be one!” Simply meaning that if you do not have a plan or safeties in place there is a higher probability you will find yourself in a bad situation without the means to achieve a positive outcome.

So what is the point of this article? Protect yourselves, Life has a precarious way of developing and I always try to be proactive in preparation when it comes to mitigating risk, seeking positive opportunity, exposing volatile scenarios, and never going backwards in life accomplishments. I have a solemn vow to be great, and I intend to be just that and I think everyone has this ability to do the same. I live my life on high alert by choice and by the exposure of past actions in my life. I strive to live my life surrounded by positive, well directed people that want only the best for my life and theirs. I think we are drawn to negative people and they enjoy maintaining “hostages” in their life or people that cannot close with and destroy a poor influencer from their life as they do not posses the skills to do so. I want to call these influencers succubus’s of success as these types of people have to have active audiences to tell their tales of hate and discontent or they lose there power to condemn and slow lives of others. I have found that as I raised my level of “personal” security my life reaped the benefits of a better outlook and a more productive tempo. I am not championing a alert level like myself, but I want others to analyze their greatest fears and see that they can overcome them, and be better then what stops them from pursuing “life outside the wire” or life after fear. We are the purveyors of our future, and the protectors of our sanctity as human beings. I live my life on high alert as a choice and I have overcome hurdle after hurdle with this mindset. Life is not easy, but it gets easier with the right mindset and great company.

Affordable Healthcare by the numbers.

We all hear a lot of talk in regards to the Affordable Care Act or ACA or ObamaCare in the news and to me it is always so vague on details it leaves me scratching my head asking ”what is ACA really doing for Americans- holistically?” I know I am not alone in this thought as even politicians are scratching their heads wondering what they signed off on without really reading. So I did a little research based on of course the numbers and attached a graphic from the Heritage foundation on the current fiscal budget to reference as you read (if you chose to). Enjoy!

So first let’s take a look at the full scenario in America based on surveys conducted by various agencies in which I will list at the end of the article for your review.

• Based on a 2012 Census report there are 48 million uninsured Americans or 15.4%

• In 2012, about three-fourths of working-age adults with low incomes (less than $14,856 a year for an individual or $30,657 for a family of four)—an estimated 40 million people—were uninsured or underinsured.

• Fifty-nine percent of adults with moderate incomes (between $14,856 and $27,925 for an individual or between $30,657 and $57,625 for a family of four)—or 21 million people —were uninsured or underinsured.

• Adults who were uninsured were less likely to receive recommended preventive care in 2012. For example, only 48 percent of women who were uninsured during the year received a mammogram within the recommended period, compared to 77 percent of those who were well insured all year.

• Median household income was $51,017 in 2012, not statistically different in real terms from the 2011 median of $51,100

The ACA health insurance premiums are projected to be an average of $328 monthly or $3,936 annually for a Bronze package. I myself settled up to battle the Healthcare.gov (when it worked) to see if the healthcare exchange would be better for myself and family and my premium per month was $946 per month- my employer coverage is currently $115 per paycheck bi-weekly and will increase by $30 a paycheck next year so with my current high deductible plan I will pay $290 per month with additional cost going to a tax-free Health Savings Plan which I will contribute $500 to annually with an additional contribution of $800 annually from my employer. I am apart of the 85% of Americans that have health insurance coverage – my worries are what about those that do not?

Now, let’s look at the penalties for the coming years if one were not to procure health coverage for various personal reasons:

(All calculations are for perspective purpose only! Flat and null of market fluctuations based on if more Americans were to obtain insurance in this time frame, affects of inflation over time, lowered average premium cost, and amendments made to penalties.)

2014 Scenario

In 2014, the fine to remain uninsured is $95 per person (up to a family maximum of $285, or 1 percent of family income, whichever is greater) and $47.50 per child. Now most families in America will be charged the max $285 based on the above mentioned data. As most that would not qualify for subsidies as they make to much money so in the first year these charges would equate to approximately 30 million American families being charged this fee so that would be $8.5 billion collected in fees the first year and $6.8 billion paid out for subsidized beneficiaries.

2015 Scenario

The penalty will increase to $325 per person and $162.50 per child in 2015 or $925 maximum or 2% of family’s annual income; greater cost will be deducted. Penalty fees will be collected in the amount of $27.75 billion and $6.8 billion dispersed to handle subsidized beneficiaries.

2016 Scenario

In the following year the penalty will cap at $695 per person and $347.50 per child or 2.5% of a family’s income up to $2,085; greater cost will be deducted. In each of these penalty scenarios that I just discussed most family’s will pay the top amount each year for not having health insurance, so using the above mentioned number of 30 million Americans unable to procure health insurance in the year 2016, the amount of fees collected from uninsured working/unemployed Americans would be $62.5 billion and than tax funds would pay $6.8 billion for those that are subsidized with credits.

Now let me wrap up the numbers portion of this article….

In just three years, ACA will collect fines of $98.75 billion if the uninsured stay as they are and face the penalties as they have not found a affordable way to obtain health insurance at the average median income of $51,017 a year, and distributed 20.4 billion for subsidized beneficiaries based on my flat line calculations that do not include fluctuations in the market as they are difficult to predict with my level of research.

Enrollment and Exemptions

Many of us know you can sign up for health coverage on an exchange anytime between now and March 1, 2014 and your coverage would begin Jan. 1, 2014, at the earliest. If you do not enroll in that window, you will not be able to get health coverage through the insurance exchange marketplace until the next annual enrollment period unless there are extenuating circumstances. To achieve subisidies and exemptions you would have to fall under one such scenario of the following:

•You are uninsured for less than three months of the year.
•You live illegally in the United States.
•You’re incarcerated and not awaiting disposition.
•You’re a member of a recognized Indian tribe.
•Your income is officially deemed too low ($10,000 a year individual/$20,000 family).
•The lowest-priced converge would cost more than 8 percent of your household income.
•You’re a member of a recognized religious sect with religious objections to insurance, including Social Security and Medicare.
•You’re a member of a recognized health-sharing ministry

My Thoughts..

I am not sure if this program will settle the weary American woes of health insurance, but I am certain that it will cost financially weary Americans some additional money every year if they are not able to budget appropriately for Health coverage in their current fiscal scenario. My hope is that Americans look at these numbers and start to engage a plan to either go with the current ACA policy or become engaged in a solution to better our American health industry through vigorous passion and undeniable voice! What is your stance?

OUR VOICE. OUR ACTION. OUR NATION

For inforamtion verification and sourcing see links below:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/
http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2012/uninsuredintheus/ib.shtml
http://www.irs.gov/uac/Affordable-Care-Act-Tax-Provisions

The Requirement to Buy Coverage Under the Affordable Care Act

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=4d81849a-33fa-40c0-a995-e7f17b1d8a47

Ramblings of a Passionate American – America united!

I spend a large majority of my week in a four-walled office with no view to the outside world, and I often think this is what  it is like to be a blindfolded American Citizen that takes every persons word that walks into his or her four-walled world. To me a person that lives in a world where others words ballast their own opinion never truly understands the implications of their mis-appropriated action. The persons I describe live a life that is just a conversation away from being scattered in a new direction as they seek no additional consensus on facts-and vote with this mentality! Misguided and ill informed voting is one of the creators of this out-of-control, two-party political struggle we see today where Politicians muster financial backing in the billions and then use content-based marketing which is defined as “a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable action” These tactics are to get “four-walled” Americans to do their bidding because they only listen to what they are told to – just call it brainwashing.

Information today is at our finger tips every second of the day-for those that have embraced the smart phone-but yet we do not use this multiplexing, dynamic tool to encumber ourselves with relevant information on issues that alter the very direction of the American Vessel, which i describe as; America being driven by poorly equipped, highly rich Captains that have no understanding of proper use of a Compass ( or Ethics)!

We scream that our Politicians are corrupt but do not fully understand they are lawfully able to be corrupt as they just have to link contributions to a political agenda and place the funds in the hands of a Political Action Committee(PAC) and disperse the funds as necessary from this account that is lawfully able to do such a thing. This is not corruption it is sponsorship at its finest!

The President of the United States recently stated “we deserve better”-I say we got we voted for; a dysfunctional collective of party-focused Politicians to afraid to act because large contributors may pull their monies for lack of reputable action towards their cause. A group of politicians that speak about the Constitutionality of an action, but have no real understanding of what the Constitution is or the proper application of it!

American Citizens are the corrective tool for this Nation I whole-heartedly believe this! We have the power to dictate who sits in the seat with our votes and free willed research on topics that we find important. The passion of the consensus will be the attributor to this Nation’s recovery as we are willed to be just that – Proud Americans!

Our Voice. Our Action, OUR NATION.

Vacation in America-The numbers side- Can we afford it?

Vacation?

America possesses some of the most spectacular sites in all of the world with bountiful country sides, vast mountain ranges, and desolate deserts. In the last week I was able to take a quick vacation and enjoy the scenes of Northern Michigan – after a three and a half year work grind that included full time employment and full time college – As I enjoyed the fruits of my labors I began to ask myself ” what is the holistic view of America on Vacation?” – “How blessed am I to partake in such a adventure?” So I took the time this week to answer these very questions and fully grasp the discretionary leisure temperature in the Nation I love.

I think that most Americans are working and moving so quickly that most of the beautiful scenery goes by in a blur like this photo that was taken this past weekend in my car-fueled expedition. Has the way we spent our extra cash changed over the years? I believe so so lets look at the numbers!

Beauty on the go!

First, lets make sure we are all aware of what discretionary Income is; The amount of an individual’s income that is left for spending, investing or saving after taxes and personal necessities (such as food, shelter, and clothing) have been paid. Discretionary income includes money spent on luxury items, vacations and non-essential goods and services.

The typical American household has $12,800 in annual discretionary spending an estimated, 28% of Americans’ annual spending is on discretionary goods and services, including things like entertainment, dining out, personal care, etc. Over half of households nationwide (51.5%) spend less than $10,000 on discretionary purchases each year, including just over a third (34.8%) that spend less than $7,000 annually. Only 5.8% of Americans spend $30,000 or more per year on nonessential goods and services, including 2.2% that spend an impressive $40,000 or more annually.

In all, Americans spend an estimated $1.47 trillion annually on discretionary goods and services. Despite the fact that households spending less than $7,000 on nonessentials comprise over a third of all households, this segment of the population accounts for just 10.8% of total annual discretionary spending in the United States. Combined, households spending less than $7,000 annually contribute $158.3 billion in discretionary spending to the economy at large. Meanwhile, the top 2.2% of spenders (those households that spend $40,000 a year or more on nonessentials) account for fully 11.2% of the nation’s total annual discretionary spending. Households spending between $20,000 and $29,999 annually on nonessential purchases account for the largest single share of the nation’s spending: $305.1 billion (20.7%).

There was some good news for headline scanning algos this morning, when both personal incomes and spending came in modestly higher than expected, with incomes rising 1.1% compared to an estimated 0.8% increase, while spending was up 0.7%, also higher than the 0.6% expected. But while the superficial headline grab did indicate a modestly better climate for both spending and incomes, it was a look under the cover once again that revealed the full extent of the pain that US consumers continue to find themselves in, over 5 years since the start of the second great depression.

First, the bulk of the bounce in spending was driven by a surge in Non-Durable Goods, which rose by $48.5 billion in one month, and amounting to 61% of the total increase in personal outlays in February. This was the biggest monthly jump since the onset of the financial crisis: hardly inspiring much confidence for those companies which are wondering whether to ramp up capital expenditures and spending, especially since spending on Durable Goods declined by $400 million in February: a drop in discretionary spending due to the payroll tax cut. As Nomura explained, higher energy prices main reason for rise in spending last month. Gasoline, other energy goods consumption +8.07% in Feb., drove non-durable consumption up 1.88%; services spending gain driven by utilities, also reflects higher energy prices.

Second, while incomes did rebound after the plunge in January, the modest increase represented a rise in the personal savings rate to just 2.6% – the second lowest monthly savings print since 2007, excluding only the abysmal January 2.2% print. In other words, there is hardly much if any new room for additional spending with the savings rate nearly at record lows, and with US consumer continuing to reduce their outstanding revolving credit, the Q1 retail sales miracle will hardly be repeated in future months as US consumers seek to rebuild some cash buffer.

A nationally represented YouGov survey looked into how Americans spend their time off has found:

• 23% went one one vacation in the past year
• 21% went on two to four vacations in the past year
• 82% of those who went away, went somewhere in the US for their vacation
• 5% of those who went on vacation visited Europe
• 72% of those who did not go on vacation said they could not afford to
• 11% of those who did not go on vacation said they prefer to stay at home

To support this survey a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2013/ted_20130730.htm)  states the following:

During 2012, 38 percent of private industry workers who had 1 year of service with their employer (and had access to a paid vacation plan) received between 5 and 9 paid vacation days per year, and 35 percent received between 10 and 14 paid vacation days. On average, workers with 1 year of service received 10 days of paid vacation in 2012.

Among private industry workers with 5 years of service, more were in the 10–14 days of paid vacation category than any other category: 36 percent of these workers received 10 to 14 paid vacation days in 2012, while 34 percent received between 15 and 19 days. On average, workers with 5 years of service received 14 days of paid vacation.

Among workers with 10 years of service, the 15–19 days of paid vacation category was the most common, accounting for 41 percent of workers on the job with the same employer for a decade. These workers had, on average, 17 days of paid vacation in 2012.

Workers with 20 years of service were more likely to be in the 20–24 days of paid vacation category during 2012; 35 percent of these workers were in this category. On average, workers with two decades of service received 19 paid vacation days in 2012.

Now in comparison a earlier Bureau of Labor Statistics( http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2009/ebbl0044.pdf) report put out the following:

In March 2009, 39 percent of civilian workers with one year of service with their employer had 10 to 14 days of paid vacation per year.

Among employees with 5 years of service, 36 percent received 10 to 14 days of paid vacation, and an additional 36 percent received 15 to 19 days.

For employees with 10 years of service, 15 to 19 days was the most common vacation duration: 43 percent of these employees received 15 to 19 days of paid vacation annually.

Among employees with 20 years of service, 38 percent received 20 to 24 paid vacation days a year.

Notice the Difference in time off in 3 years. We are working harder, seeing nominally significant raises, and being smart with how we spend our money….now if someone we know could do the same!

Overall, I would say Americans are tightening their wallets and exploring economical means to vacationing. I know that during my vacation this week I traveled to Petosky, MI for a night and partook in what we Michiganders call “A Color Tour” and then spent the remaining vacation time staying home and playing with my two year old daughter and NOT spending  to much of my discretionary Income.

I hope that you enjoyed the read!

OUR VOICE. OUR ACTION. OUR NATION(enjoy it!)