Harry S. Truman: A good wartime president

Harry S. Truman was a liberal democrat. And this makes sense, considering he was Vice President to FDR, among the most liberal Presidents we ever had. But I thought it was neat to learn, that while he was liberal on domestic issues, he was very conservative when it came to foreign policy.

I also found it very iinteresting to learn that he apparently had no knowledge of the Manhattan Project, or that the world's best scientists were working to develop an atomic bomb. Some say this was because he had basically no contact with President Roosevelt during the short time he served under him. However, it may also be a testament to the secrecy of the project, and the success of the nation amid a war to keep it a secret.

He also was unaware of what was happening inside the Soviet Union regarding their development of weapons and their development of a socialist government. So, two of the most significant markers of the Truman administration evolved around events Harry S. Truman was not even aware of prior to becoming President: The nuclear bomb and the Cold War.

On April 12, 1945, shortly after becoming the only President to be inaugurated President for a fourth term, Roosevelt died as a result of a stroke, and Truman became the 33rd President. A few months later, on May 8, 1945, victory in Europe was declared. Britain and the United States celebrated, and this day became known as Victory in Europe Day, or V-E day.

War with Japan was coming to a close, please were sent to the Emperor of Japan to surrender, and the alternative was "complete and utter destruction."  The Emperor ignored the pleas, and so the war in the Pacific continued. The United States and Britain were preparing for a very costly invasion of Japan.

This prompted Truman, under the direction of his advisers, and with the permission of the British, to drop atomic bombs on Japan's military cities. After papers were dropped on the cities warning the people of what was going to happen, giving them plenty of time to get out, the bombs were dropped. On August 8, 1945, Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima.

Truman issued another warning for Japan to surrender, or a ruin will fall from the sky like no other seen in history. Japan still refused to surrender. So, on August 9, 1945, Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. There were orders for two more bombs to be dropped if necessary, but this wasn't needed, as Japan finally got the message.

The effects of the bombings were huge. Around 90,000-146,000 were dead or dying in Hiroshima, and 39,000-80,000 were dead or dying in Nagasaki. This is not even to mention all the other damage to Japan made by these horrendous bombs. This time Japan finally got the message, and on August 15, 1945, the Prime Minister offered Japan's complete surrender.

The majority of Japanese were happy the war was over, because they had suffered much loss and suffering. However, there were reports of some Japanese warriors continuing the fight in the Philippines and other places.

According to David Powers, the Japanese Emperor made his first broadcast to the Japanese people on August 15, 1945. He never spoke of "surrender" or "defeat," and so many soldiers would keep on fighting. This was testament to the importance of using the atomic bombs. If they had not been dropped, it would have come at grave costs to the United States and its allies.

In retrospect, many people still criticize Truman for dropping the bomb. They say it was a senseless act of terror on many innocent civilians. However, we must also consider the fact that the people are responsible for the people ruling over them. Truman later said that attacking Japan saved thousands of both American and Japanese lives. Estimates had a war on mainland Japan lasting over a year, and costing 250,000 to 500,000 American lives

So, the war was over. There was much celebrating. But there was also a lot of destruction caused by the war and rebuilding to do. Of course, there as also the fact that the Russians had created the Soviet Union and were pent on spreading Communism around the world. Hence, this began the reconstruction of both Europe, Japan, and the Cold War.

References and further reading:

• Weekly Standard: The Inconvenient Truth about Truman
• whitehouse.gov: Harry S. Truman
• David Powers Japan: No Surrender in WWII

Obama Was Only President To Never Sustain 3% Economic Growth

In my article, "Obama: The Abysmal Statistics," I shared with you the following economic statistic: 

"First president not to see a single year of 3% economic (GDP) growth. This makes Obama the forth worst on record. This is sad, because "The rate of real economic growth is the single greatest determinate of both America’s strength as a nation and the well-being of the American people."

So, every U.S. President from George Washington all the way to George W. Bush saw an economic growth of 3%. Obama kept telling people how many jobs he created. He kept telling people how well the economy was doing. And people accepted this.

Think of it this way. People with jobs who are under the age of 30 have never had a job in a booming economy. So, to them, it was easy to accept what Obama said. Because, to most people, history starts the day they are born. So, when you tell these people the economy is doing great, even when it isn't, they don't know any better. So they accept what they are told.

People who lived through the 1980's saw real economic growth and prosperity. Even people who lived through the 1990's and through the Bush tax cuts in 2000 saw it. And many of these folks tend to accept Obama's statistics: they are told that this is the new normal.

We are told this is the way it is in a progressive world. That in a world where you have to fight global warming with high taxes and regulations, this is the new normal. That is a world where you have to create needy people and solve their problems so that you can be seen as loving and caring so you can get re-elected, this is the new normal.

Trump came along and said it doesn't have to be this way. His economic plan is to get the economy running at the 3% clip again. This is not to say that GNP needs to increase, it's saying that economic growth should be running at a 3% clip, at least once in a while.

When this happens -- when we get to 3%, it will mean that the economy increases by 100%. When this happens, every person living in the U.S. will see it. Businessmen and entrepreneurs will have an incentive to take risks, because there will be a good chance at getting a return on their investment. You will see businesses expanding, you will see new businesses going up. You will see jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs galore.

You will also see wage and salary hikes. During the Obama years, much like the economy, wages were stuck in stagnation. They did not increase. In fact, they didn't even increase to keep up with inflation. So this meant that the value of the dollar decreased. For instance, a dollar could have been used to buy one loaf of bread in 2000, but now a dollar will only buy you a half of a loaf. I'm not saying those were the actual prices, I'm just giving you an example to explain the value of the dollar.

This would explain why our grandparents and parents were able to get by on just my dad working, or just my grandpa working. They also lived in huge houses. Today, I have to work and my wife has to work just to afford to live in a small run down house.

You can't just blame this all on Obama, but there were quite a few people in Washington, both republicans and democrats, who let him get away with it. There were no efforts by republicans to fight Obama's budget increases. I mean, they said they would do it when they ran for office, and they were voted in because they said they would do it. But once they got into office they never did anything.

And this is why Trump was elected.

There are no budget cuts in Trump's proposed budget

So, I have friends emailing me left and right, or texting me, or Facebooking me, telling me how they are going to lose their jobs, or how we will lose libraries, or how the environment will become polluted, if Trump's tax cuts go through. Here is my response to all of them.

You know (so and so), the media kind of blows this out of proportion. Trump's budget doesn't cut anything. There are no budget cuts. It's just cuts in the rate of growth. The way the government is run, budgets increase every year (unlike how businesses are run, where the rate is determined by income). So, labor might get an increase of 2% as opposed to 6%. And, by the way, that's the cutest baby I ever saw.

I don't tell people this, but my friends who tell me they are afraid they are going to lose their jobs. What I want to say it, "Millions of people sacrificed their lives for our country." But, in our politically correct world, in a world full of snowflakes, I'm not sure they would be able to handle that.

But it's true. My grandma, my mom's mom, could have collected Social Security if she wanted to. In fact, she earned it if anyone did. And I asked her about this once, and she said, "I put my country before myself."

We don't seem to have people like that anymore.

I get tired of the media blowing things out of proportion. I think they hate Trump so much they that they have gotten lazy in their reporting. They have gotten emotional. Seriously. Even Fox.

It's almost as though one person says something and everyone else repeats it without doing any fact checking. I quit watching the news because I started thinking: "If everyone is saying the same thing, then no one is thinking."

If I wrote the same thing as everyone else on my blogs, no one would have an incentive to read my stuff. I want to be different. I want it to be factual, but unique. I think this is why media ratings are so low. If I said the same thing you did on my blog, no one would go there either.

One of my friends sent me a picture of his baby. He did this as if to show me that it's my fault her daddy might be out of a job; to make me feel guilty. If these people truly want to be mad at someone, they should be mad at the people who created the spending problem (democrats) and the people who did nothing to stop it (republicans).

Trump is trying to fix the problems of the previous administrations. And, of course, someone is going to have to lose a job. I'm sorry, but that's the way it has to be. It's no different than if you are running a business. If you are operating under the red line, you have to make cuts. 

Radical Islamist Terrorism: The Enemy In The War On Terror

We have been in a war with terrorism for 16 years now, and we are not even close to victory. The reason is because, when you are at war, you have to change your perspective.

For one thing, you have to recognize who you are at war with and call them for what they are. And, for some reason, nations run by progressives -- which most western nations (France, England, the U.S. before Trump) are, refuse to do.

Why? Because they are afraid to offend Muslims.  For some reason, they are under the guise that Muslim is the religion of peace. If this is true, if Muslims are peaceful, then why are we so afraid to offend them?

I actually got that quote from Rush Limbaugh from his May 24, 2017, show. The full extent of the quote is this:

I have a question, ladies and gentlemen. If Islam is so peaceful, why is everybody so damn frightened of offending them? And on the other hand, if Christianity is so violent as people like Whoopi Goldberg and others tell us, why is nobody afraid to offend Christians? People laugh at, make fun of, and mock Christians all day long with no fear whatsoever. But you so much as think anything offensive about Islam, and they descend on you and they accuse you of violating political correctness and they beg you to shut up.

After the terror attack in the United Kingdom, the Mayor of London said that terrorists were nothing more than a nuisance, or "part and parcel" to living in a big city. That they will just have to learn to deal with. Suck it up!

This is poppycock! Tell that to the people who died as a result of this terrorist act. Tell that to all the people who died in the many, many, many acts of terror perpetrated by Muslims over the past 16 years. It's ridiculous.

Here is another example of the ridiculousness of how the left responds to terror. In an act of solidarity to the victims of terror, the French turned out the lights in the Eiffel Tower one night a few days ago. This is the extent to their war on terror, an effort to show solidarity to all those who died due to the effects of terrorism, of which they refuse to admit is caused by Radical Islamist Terrorists, by the way. They can't do it.

They can't say those words due to political correctness. And they are so intent on being politically correct that they have no ideas for solving the problem. That is why there are so many acts of terror. It's because we aren't doing anything to stop. Of course, until Trump comes along.

Then you have people like Trump actually calling them out on it, actually blaming them for the acts of terror they commit, and he is scalded. Trump. You know why they get mad when we speak the truth about Radical Islam. Because in their minds, they somehow see the United States, the west, as the bad guys. Rather than blaming Islam for acts of terror caused by Islamists, they blame the United States.

In fact, they just blame us. Progressives don't want to credit Muslims for their terror acts, they blame us. They blame us. They say we are too arrogant. We are too successful. So, they believe that if we open our borders and let in more Muslims, they will like us more. If we appease them, they will like us more. That is the whole premise behind open borders. That is the whole premise of their political correct policies to these "random acts of terror," as they call them.

So, we have had 16 plus years of open borders. We have had a massive influx of Muslims in to western nations. We have been politically correct to them for 16 years. What has been the result? Less terrorism? No. It's more terrorism. And worse, many of these their heinous acts are insidious: done right side the walls of western nations. Terrorism from within.

Do you want to know the safest country in the world? Do you want to know what country has had zero acts of terror? It is Poland. Poland has a no-Muslim policy, because it has acknowledged who the enemy is. Nearly all the acts of terror are within country's that openly admit Muslims. No offense, but it's just true. It's a fact. And if you don't want to hear the truth, you are a snowflake.

This is not racist to say that. The people who say you are racist for admitting the truth, for stating a fact, are simply politically correct idiots. They are snowflakes.

We know full well who the terrorists are. Nearly 100% of the time they are Muslims. Liberals are afraid to say who they are for fear of being seen as racist. But it is not racist to say that 100% of the acts of terror on U.S. soil were the result of the works and evil deeds of Muslim people.

That is not to say that all Muslims are evil people. Okay? It is saying that some Muslims planning acts of terror against western nations, and they must be stopped. It doesn't even matter why they are doing it: they are. It's a fact. They, for some stupid sick reason, want to kill people. It's not random acts of terror, like Obama said. They are not random. They are planed in cold blood. They are all done under the name of Allah.

The part of this that really boggles my mind is: why don't you ever hear peaceful Muslims speaking out against the acts of terror. Truly, the true radical Muslim's are those who don't speak out. It's obvious that only a few Muslims are evil. So, I ask, why don't the ones who are peaceful stand up and speak out against their brethren?

We are at war. This is not criminal action. When you are at war the rules of engagement must change. You must create border security to keep radical Muslims out. This is not racist: it is smart.

And face it, world leaders beside for Trump do not want to face radical Islamist terror. They don't want to do it. They have no balls. And that is why terrorists continue to get away with it. 

Tax cuts for the wealthy? Busting The Myth

You hear a lot from democrats about how unfair it is to give tax cuts for the wealthy.  One thing that is interesting about this is that most wealthy people do not even pay taxes. You have men like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet chiming that they don't think tax cuts for the wealthy do anything to stimulate an economy. Yet they don't pay taxes, so they don't care if taxes stay high.

Isn't that interesting? And this entire premise that tax cuts are for the wealthy is poppycock to begin with, considering you cannot tax wealth.

Let's use Buffet and Gates as our examples. They do not have jobs, per se. They have their money invested in various places, such as the stock market. That's where they make their money. They do not receive pay checks. In this way, they do not make income. Therefore, they do not pay taxes.

What they do is they collect capital gains. They are affected by the capital gains tax. But they are in no way affected by the income tax.

So, you see, the wealthy, like Buffet and Gates, got wealthy because they made good investments. They did not get wealthy because they were paid a huge salary or wage. So, you can raise the income tax to 90% on the top income bracket -- which is where it was before the John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan tax cuts --, and it will have no effect on the truly wealthy.

So, given our economics 101 lesson here, you can see clearly that there is no such thing as tax cuts for the wealthy. Wealth cannot be taxed. They might make some income, but the majority of it is accumulated wealth which cannot be taxed.

So, people that are wealthy, like the Kennedy's, like Warren Buffet, like Bill Gates, they champion for higher taxes, or at the very least don't argue against them, because they don't have to pay taxes anyway. They believe in social justice, where you solve problems by spending other people's money, not their own.

Interestingly, say Donald Trump gets his tax cuts through Congress. It won't be a tax cut for the wealthy. It won't even be a tax cut. What it will be is a tax rate cut. Anyone who pays taxes will see a cut. We discussed how tax cuts increase revenue to the government, they do not decrease revenues in my last post.

If Trump cut taxes, it would not be on the wealthy, unless you consider the 48% of people in this country who actually pay taxes to be wealthy (and, by the way, that's not even possible).

Further Reading:

• Articulating Ideas: What is Trickle Down Economics, a.k.a. Austrian Economics?
• Articulating Ideas: Trickle Down Economics (a.k.a. Reaganomics)
• Articulating Ideas: Who Pays All The Taxes?
• Rush Limbaugh: Why Rich Guys Like Gates Say Their Against Tax Cuts

Tax Cuts Do Not Cause Reductions In Federal Income -- They Increase Revenue

In order to put people back to work, Donald Trump has proposed legislation that would drastically cut taxes for both individuals and businesses. But democrats, and some republicans too, say this might backfire as it will also reduce income to the Federal government. Where did this rumor that increasing taxes increases Federal revenue come from anyway? It's a fallacy.

Rush Limbaugh gives a perfect example of how lowering taxes generates more government revenue thatn tax increases. He said,

"If it’s hard to understand lowering tax rates and increasing revenue, let me ask you this. Have you ever seen a store put things on sale? Obviously you have. Why do they do it? Why do they lower the cost of certain things to entice you to come in and buy them? Well, because they’ll sell more of it. The lower the price of an item, the more likely people are to buy it, and the more people that buy it, the more are sold, by lowering the price. When airlines are feeling the heat of competition, what do they do? They lower fares. If one airline lowers ’em, they all have to on the same routes. Or they’ll throw you off, right, or kill your rabbit, but don’t confuse me here.

On a government-run transportation system, what happens? When the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is in a crunch and it’s not collecting enough money, what do they do? They stupidly raise fares. They do not try to get more people riding; they rip off the people who still are by charging them more. Does it ever work? Why don’t they reduce fares? Why don’t they lower the price of going across a bridge or getting on the subway? They never do. Well, I can’t say never. But you know as well as I do that mostly those costs increase. When a business raises the price of an item that you’re used to paying X for, are you more likely to go out and buy it again, or less likely, maybe look for someplace else to get something like it, something close to it? 

Look, this is simple math. It’s not even arguable. The Democrats have so corrupted our understanding of economics and productivity that lowering tax rates is now considered to be some kind of sop to the rich. I mean, it’s just profound to me, the damage inflicted on this country by the Democrats in their pursuit of perpetual power.

So true.

References and further reading:

• Rush Limbaugh: Democrats Know That Tax Cuts Increase Revenue, So Why Do They Lie About the Facts?
• The Washington Post: White House unveils dramatic plan to overhaul tax code in major test for Trump

Free College Will Not Work

Bernie Sanders has proposed making college free.  He says, per his website, that no one should be denied a college education due to lack of ability to pay. And no one should leave college with a mountain of debt. Then Hillary Clinton jumped on the bandwagon.

I would like to contend, that while this sounds nice on the surface, a further inspection reveals that it would not work, and would essentially make your education worthless.

First off, let us assume that the supply of teachers stays the same. It is already hard to get qualified people to teach, so if the number of students increases, the number of teachers should also increase. If the number of teachers increases somehow, there's a likelihood you will be watering down the education people get, and it will be worthless on that face alone.

Assuming the supply of teachers stays the same, and the demand for sitting in a class with these teachers increases (which it will, because it's free), then going by economics 101, the price will increase. Schools need to make a profit, and if they see there is an unending supply of students, then they will simply make those who do attend their schools pay more. This is just how it is in a capitalistic society.

Now, on the other hand, say Bernie or Hillary decides to solve this problem by setting price controls for schools. If this happens, professors won't make as much money, and the incentive to become a teacher will be eliminated. Now no one will want to be a college professor.

Assuming the most qualified professors are already on the job, and other qualified professors choose some other higher paying job (or just stay put where they are), that means Universities and Colleges will be forced to hire less qualified professors, thus diminishing the quality of education, making it worthless.

If you're saying colleges won't raise the cost of education, just consider the states that have already provide "free college."  If you think college is free, then wait until you get the tax bill. Do your own research here and let me know what you learn.

All these aside, there is yet another reason free college would make your education useless. One of the reasons you get paid what you do is because the supply of those seeking to do what you do remains relatively low. However, if there is an influx of people wanting to become what you are or want to be, this will cause employers to lower the price.

This is economics 101 here. If the supply goes up, the price will go down. Your college education will be useless. You might as well just skip college and get the best paying job you can that doesn't require a secondary education.

If the progressives get their way, everyone should make the same wage anyway, as this is the entire premise of socialism -- equality for everyone. They see it as if everyone is equal then everyone is a winner. However, the reality of it all is, if everyone is equal, then everyone is also a loser. If everyone is equal, then everyone gets paid the same and everyone will end up in poverty. Worded another way: if everyone is equal, everyone is poor.

And there you have socialism. In a nutshell. This is another example of how socialism fails everywhere it's tried. It looks good. It sounds good. It probably even feels good. But it never works. It has never worked, and I'm certain it will never work.

So, if you think you don't get paid enough already, just wait until the price to become what you are drops. And if any or all of this happens, what's the point of getting an education?

FDR: How he kept getting re-elected

FDR raised taxes to unprecedented levels. He ordered Americans to sell their gold or face prosecution. He jailed people who spoke out against his policies. He put Japanese Americans in Concentration camps. He threatened businessmen with even higher taxes if they didn't support his programs.

Utterly said, despite what we learn in schools, FDR was a scary President. And many people knew he was scary, and knew his programs were making the economy worse rather than better. Despite this, he kept getting re-elected. How?

I have the answers:

1. He used the IRS and FBI to prosecute people who did not agree with him, and therefore many Americans were simply too scared to oppose him
2. Many Americans were afraid if they opposed him they would have their federal relief funds taken away.
3. Many business men were threatened with higher taxes if they opposed him and he won, and therefore they were threatened to vote for FDR.
4. FDR pushed up his opposition and therefore the people were unable to learn about the fact FDR's policies were contrary to improving the economy.
5. He created his programs to buy votes, and used his programs to shut up those who spoke out against him. By doing this, he won re-election three times.
6. Local political opponents of FDR had to keep quiet lest FDR hunt them down with the IRS or FBI or cut other programs to their liking.
7. He used subsidies and political capital, money and tools to get re-elected. He was first to buy votes with the very programs he created. So, however, unpopular his programs were, he kept getting re-elected.
8. He also used political subsidies to punish enemies and reward friends.
9. Special Interests who lobbied in favor of FDR got special subsidies and were favored for government loans.
10. FDR used government expenditures to persuade voters. He was the best at doing this.
11. In 1936 before the Presidential election, FDR added 300,000 to the work relief program (WPA). In the months following the election, 300,000 were removed from the WPA.
12. Work Relief expenditures increased sharply -- 268% increase from fall of 1935 to the fall of 1936 -- the biggest increase of 3,663% was in Pennsylvania, a swing state that Hoover had carried in 1932, and FDR specially targeted in 1936.
13. A plan was in place to make sure the Soil conservation Service checks arrived in Farm households before the election of 1936 to ensure votes for FDR -- 4 farm states were in the balance.
14. Alf Landon said "If he (FDR) did not have $5 billion (of WPA money to dole out) his election would be very much in doubt.
15. FDR ran on this issue with signs saying, "Relief for Votes," subtitled "will the American people accept the imputation that their votes can be bought with relief money." Another leaflet said, "If we don't stop the New Deal the nation will go bankrupt.
16. Funny thing, Landon tried to win votes by denouncing government programs, but he had to do it without alienating the increasingly large number of voters who had Federal jobs, or hoped to have them. In this sense, republicans couldn't get re-elected even though FDR's programs were unpopular.
17. Landon hailed before cheering crowd at Madison Square Garden that it was bad to use "public money for political purposes" as FDR was doing. He said, "I am against the principles of the AAA and... the concentration of power in the3 hands of the Chief executive."
18. Republican problem since 1936 was that they risked offending the 10,000 voters working in federal programs if they hailed for cutting government programs to balance the budget. (this is actually a problem that is ongoing to this day). This is also why many republicans get caught in the trap of increasing government programs to buy votes.
19. He got people excited about voting who normally don't vote, such as young people and blacks

In a sense, the progressives of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson and FDR started a slippery slope that resulted in an Obama Presidency with our Trillions of dollars in debt and so many government programs we have to borrow from China to pay for it.

Quite often the Presidency is not won by character alone as it was in the past. Now, once elected, a president can buy votes by creating and doling out subsidies.
Material for the above posts came from the following sources:

Further reading and references.

• New Deal or Raw Deal: How FDR's economic policy's damaged America, by Burton Fulsom Jr.
• The Forgotten man: The new history of the Great Depression, by Amity Shlaes