Discussion

Einstein said that....

Kia Ora Robert,

well thanks to you I see they are trying the same old solutions. Our previous NZ government for all intense purposes started repeating the same mistakes you identify as the US government.

I see in an article in our local Newspaper that the retirement commisioner saying we need more financial literacy. I thought great finally, but when I read & all the others with their five cents in it was a repeat of all those failed ideas or ideas that worked for the last depression. Next to that was a much hearalded author on finance here saying buy shares, shares & shares & diversify.

true it is hard for me at present but I believe from all the study I have done that going with your ideas will see me not only through but one of those on top.

today I went grocery shopping & see some of the regular items I worked out had risen by 7%, even though they claim there is no inflation as such.

try to explain what I am learning but people do not want to know. in fact those promoting the old ideas are being hailed as the new leaders within our Iwi(tribe).

My concern with that type of thinking we are going to go from a very successful business based Iwi to broke.

Our "new" government (still the ANC, but controlled by the Communist party and Trade Unions who bullied their way in at "Polokwane December 2007") have come up with what could be plagiarism of what you described above about the forthcoming medical system and taxation thereon.

There's a wonderful phrase "if it's not broken, don't FIX it"........acgrred the private health system in SA covers a small percentage of the population, but IT WORKS. The public health system has been in utter total undeniable CHAOS for at least the last 12 years. Doctors all over the country are currently on strike to endeavour, not only to get realistic salaries themselves, but also not to be working with less than 30% of necessary personnel.

Yet the "Public Servants (Disservants) get four times as much salary for being unqualified to even sit behind a desk - let alone drive all the smug 4x4's that hog the road. The doctors risk their lives daily to use taxi's (and I KNOW you know about them, cos I'm the idiot who muttered about that too near the mike at the Port Elizabeth breakfast in May 2007).

I work for an NGO which is at the forefront of Advocacy in uplifting civil society, urban AND rural, and encouraging them not to be afraid to express their opinions. The poverty and destitution in the Eastern Cape is indescribable, and we use the ABCD approach of upliftment - "Asset Based Community Development" - whereby we guide civil society to explore their own potentials and then work around those potentials to uplift communities. Needless to say, we get NO government support... my personal opinion is that government doesn't want to encourage folks to have opinions, let alone express them - does that sound familiar - it's called democracy, but it doesn't work that way.

Democracy needs to be bottom-up, not top-down ... society's tired to death of being "told" - seen any TV coverage of the multiple outbreaks of "service-delivery" protests since yesterday .. it's growing by the day. People who've successfully learned to HAVE AN OPINION AND NOT BE SCARED TO EXPRESS IT.

Advocacy is not all we do - we are very hands-on and currently developing an NGO Hub for the Eastern Cape. We are the ECNGOC (Eastern Cape NGO Coalition), currently comprising close to 400 member NGO's - that's a powerful "voice" and able to MAKE THINGS HAPPEN.

And the current issues are SO SIMILAR to what you describe that it's scarey, very scarey indeed.

The US IS the world leader - your phrase "if America survives" is even more scarey. Leftist, rightist, centre-ist ... they ALL make the same mistakes - is it cos they disregarded Plato, about the independence of judges/administrators/senators....way back then, the me-and-mine concept was identified as a major source of corruption.......WHAT'S NEW???

Why oh why oh why is a History Major not a requirement for elected officials.... they happily go along repeating the mistakes.


Let's start an international advocacy campaign........???

"A HISTORY MAJOR MUST BE A PREREQUISITE FOR PUBLIC OFFICE".

There is an extra a in the sentence "I will share a simple a diagram of our financial statements to help explain what I mean." I suppose this is a typo....

Einstein was referring to the 2nd element. Introducing the 2nd element as the solution introducing that which is beyond the reach of the problem to effect the problem. When the bomb was dropped on Japan conventional weaponry was no match for it. It was a paradigm shift in destructive power. But it compounded the problem and ushered in the nuclear age the age of worldwide fear. Now according to the Rand Corporation war deaths are down 85% in the last 15 years. When war becomes obsolete within a year or two it will because of the introduction of the 2nd element. The 2nd element in this case is by purifying the collective consciousness by enlivening the Unified Field which is millions of times more powerful than the nuclear field. We just need 8 thousand Yogic Flyers in one place [square root of 1 percent of the world's population] to create permanent world peace. Read Manual for a Perfect Government. http://hagelin.org/

In Fall 2008, I took an undergrad Financial Management class at a very interesting time.

The United States decided to bail out the auto-makers by infusing more cash when their credit had run out. In the spring of 2009, the government (with our money) decided to loan more money to the auto-makers, which of course is harder to pay back when you go bankrupt.

The problem is the "Uncle Sam" only ever really talked about accountability of these companies. They pressured the "Retirement" of Rick Wagoner (GM's CEO), but let the companies continue to operate as usual.

When the credit market dried up for these giants, I was screaming for them to learn Rich Dad's lessons about cashflow.

Many of these large giants in the auto industry use operating funds provided almost exclusively on credit. The bailout money should have gone to tiding them over while they re-organize their financial planning to allow them to generate a real positive cashflow that can be USED for operating the business.

Without a financial education that included cashflow management (the base of the B/I Triangle), these giants were doomed to fall with a thunderous crash.

Oh, I think you saw my Einstein quote from twitter. ;)

It's similar to what rich dad would say:"What you know get you into this problem, do you think what you know would get you out of this problem?"

Examples of of problems are all programs that are administered by the bloated governmental behemoth. Health-care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are sterlingly corrupt examples. Another example is Social Security, which Ponzi scheme you have elaborated upon extensively. The new SCHIP program will generate the same results--more dependents who can not pay into a program that is paying out for their benefit. The nipple is enlarging.