Accomplishment!

Posted on 18/11/2008 by Grumpa Joe

Trees Over PacificSorry for the delay in writing new posts. I have been trying to catch up on my “other” projects. My Lions work has suffered through the pre-election days, and now I must put it in gear to give the Lions their due.

I find it useful at this time of the year to reflect and prepare an accomplishment report of my activities. I just completed one for the Lions Club. I will begin preparation of my personal accomplishment list soon. Why is an accomplishment list useful? When I worked for a living, the list served to remind me of what I had completed for the company. I had fresh recollection to remind my boss at “review” time just what I did for the company.

 Usually, at the end of the year, I beat myself up thinking that I have not accomplished any of my goals. It is natural to remain unsatisfied when the new year stares you in the face, and asks “what’s next?”  Disappointment takes over as the predominant emotion, and a feeling of despair follows. I begin to question why I wasted a year without any hard fast results to show off. That is why I began to list my personal accomplishments. It is encouraging to recall, and see all of the “baby steps” I did take, and all of the projects I did complete.

It is easier than you think to do this. Just sit in front of your computer, and start. I use the word processor, and begin by listing the first thing that comes to mind. Such as “I initiated a BLOG. I BLOGGED 85 times. I set up a new website for my club, etc. The list goes on for a couple of pages until I run out of recollections. I number each item on the list to give me an indication of progress. Usually, I don’t run out of ideas until I reach one hundred and fifty.

 If you chose to start a list of your own, I recommend that you include all the important areas of your life. I recommend using your “High Payoff” activities list for this. When you concentrate on how you spent your time in a specific arena, the recall flows, and your accomplishments build. Of course, if the list in a specific High Payoff activity is short, it points to an area for improvement.

By the time I have finished this excercise, I am energized and ready to begin planning another year of goals.

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We May Indeed Be Nuts!

Posted on 12/11/2008 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

I am almost over the election. I haven’t blogged because the need to do so dried up when BO won. This week, however, I have to speak my piece on the latest of Uncle Sam’s idiotic moves. Why do we want to bail out GM? This car company has consistently thrown poor quality, and reliability at us in the name of “Made in the USA.” The same goes for the UAW. I tried my best to hold out by buying American for many years. I owned an Oldsmobile Intrigue for eight years. It was without a doubt, the best GM car I ever owned. I bragged about it’s reliability and performance. I tried in vane to get my kids to buy “American.” No amount of reason or guilt worked. Two of my kids  don’t even know that there are cars made in America that are not Honda or Toyota. They grew up on Honda, and Toyota. They are brand faithful. At the same time I was bragging about my Intrigue with 110,000 miles on it, my daughter bragged about her Honda with 180,000. All she ever did was change oil, and put brakes, tires and gas in it.  At 111,000 miles my Intrigue crapped out. It leaked fluid into the cyclinders and locked the engine tight. After I spent $1800 to replace a leaking intake manifold, I learned on the I-net that GM cars are notorious for this failure. They have had the problem for years, but have never taken any steps to fix it. 

The US car companies, management and the UAW, have let the Japs take them down. Now GM wants the tax payer to bail them out. The argument is that if they are allowed to go bankrupt, many thousands of jobs will be lost, thus fueling the recession.

The truth is that filing for bankruptcy will not be a loss of jobs. They can go on making crappy cars as is their usual business. The difference is that they won’t get any “free money,” from the taxpayer.

A few years ago, GM divested itself of a division called Delphi. Delphi makes electrical systems for GM and other car companies. GM gave Delphi as much pension debt as they could. Eventually, Delphi filed for chapter eleven. They couldn’t make a profit with all the baggage GM dumped on them. I know, because I am a stockholder. Want to know what happens to the stockholder when a company files for bankruptcy? The old shares become worthless, meaning the stockholder loses his investment. GM didn’t give a hoot about losing Delphi, it became Delphi’s problem.  Even though Delphi filed for bankruptcy, it has continued to operate for several years. They keep on shipping orders. They even entertained the purchase of another electronics company. How can a business that is in bankruptcy buy another company?

What GM is afraid of is all it’s incompetent managers losing their options and bonuses paid in stock.

The capitalistic system rewards companies that can design, make, and sell useful products that buyers want. GM does not do any of these things. They design cars that have a shorter life than their competitors, their designs are ugly, and they are made by the most unproductive union in the world, i.e. the UAW.

If we reward GM and the UAW with a government bailout, we are indeed nuts. Let the system work, we’ll all be better off for it. We won’t have to worry about BO turning the country socialist. WE will hand a socialist government to him on a silver platter.

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Sitting On a Huge Pile Of Coal

Posted on 03/11/2008 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

The state of Illinois sits on enough coal to provide one hundred percent of the power needed by the entire country for two hundred and fifty years. Given the right incentives to clean the smoke from coal, we could make a huge dent in reducing our dependency on foreign oil.  Illinois is the state from which BO launched his political career. How can he be so dense as to want to bankrupt the coal industry in his own state? How many dense ideas will he inflict on us as President? If we vote him in, we deserve every assinine policy he imposes on us.

Filed under: Election, family, Funk, Garden, Government, grief, Lions Club, Memories, Motivation, politics, Travel, Uncategorized, Warm and Fuzzy, Writer | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Simple Choice

Posted on 03/11/2008 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

We have a very simple choice ahead of us tomorrow. We vote for one of two philosophies. First we have to decide if we want Uncle Sam, or Uncle Obama to take care of us from cradle to grave. If we do, we are admitting we are unable to do so for ourselves. The second choice leaves us free to choose how we are to live, make a living, worship, and spend our money.

Its easy for me to make that choice. My parents taught me a lesson in self dependence. Both of them came to this country seeking a new life. They were sixteen and seventeen when they arrived with a single bag of belongings. They didn’t speak the language, they had about a fourth grade education, they were a thousand miles from the closest friend or relative. Somehow they managed to get to Chicago, meet each other, marry, have four kids, educate them in parochial schools, and retire. They didn’t have Uncle Sam to care for them cradel to grave, they had something better. They had their God given talents, and the motivation to live. They brushed aside the bigoted references to “Greenhorn, or Hunky. They had a desire to raise their kids to have a better life. They loved each other “for better or for worse.” They didn’t even think of divorce. They might have thought about  how to kill each other once in awhile, but never divorce. If they were alive today, they would vote Republican for the first time in their lives. Why? Because the Republican philosophy of small government aligns with the way they lived.

Mom and Dad taught us to be self sufficient. They advised us to own land, because “if you have land you will never starve.”  As I write this, I am dreaming about the vegetable garden I will plant in 2009, to sustain us in the coming financial crisis. That is, if I can still afford to pay my mortgage and I still live here. 

The choice is easy, vote for someone to take care of you. Or vote for the liberty to care for yourself. Remember our history. It is filled with stories of “pioneers,” who left their countries and their homes to live free! Use your vote wisely.

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BO Really Believes We Are Stupid

Posted on 02/11/2008 by Grumpa Joe
My Flag Flies Everyday

My Flag Flies Everyday

In the summer before Barack Obama enterred Harvard he spent time visiting his relatives in Kenya. He had to reunite his soul with his black family. During that visit he and his sister Auma went on a safari. BO writes very eloquently about the journey to see wld animals is Kenya’s National Park. His driver, a Kenyan named Francis, related that he worked for a travel agency that sponsored the tour they were on. Francis and his family of six children lived on a small farm. They raised coffee. Francis complained about the taxes he paid. Even though he was a small business owner in a small African country he had a hatred for taxes.

Here is the dialog from “Dream Froms My Father,” (pp 352-353)

“Francis looked into the fire, combing his mustache with his fingers. “I suppose it is not only the government’s fault,” he said after a while. “Even when things are done properly, we Kenyans don’t like to pay taxes. We don’t trust the idea of giving our money to someone. The poor man, he has a good reason for this suspicion. But the big men who own the trucks they use for the roads, they also refuse to pay their share. They would rather have their equipment break down all the time than give up their profits. This is how we like to think you see. Somebody else’s problem.”

I tossed a stick into the fire. “Attitudes aren’t so different in America,” I told Francis.

“You are probably right,” he said. “But you see, a rich country like America can perhaps afford to be stupid.”

I do believe BO got the  idea to raise taxes from this comment. Even in Africa, small business owners hate to pay taxes. They consider the rich countries “stupid,” for doing so.  Is this why BO had to destroy Joe the Plumber? Poor Joe asked him a legitimate question about taxes and BO let it be known that he was all for raising taxes on small businesses. BO really believes we are stupid.

BO will destroy this great country with his plan to socialize us. He has hypnotized too many people into believing that he can give us everything. He has promised it will cost you nothing. He will take it from the very “stupid” rich companies who already pay well over half the bill for Uncle Sam’s excesses. BO thinks these “stupid” rich companies are a bottomless well. They are not, and when the well runs dry, guess who will get the bill? Shortly after you get a benefit, you will pay tax on the things he gives you.  If you don’t believe that, look at the Democratic record of dealing with Social Security. The only ones to win in his plan are the fat cats in Washington who will be paid exhorbitant salaries to administer the new give away programs. In the mean time, the citizens of foreign countries will benefit from our “stupid” rich companies who have fled to avoid paying taxes.

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