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Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.
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Spent

 

$4 trillion ago, President Obama took office. The economy fell into deep malaise as liberal economics were applied, and failed to spawn anything but retreat.

His answer now, more taxation. Supposedly, that's for "deficit reduction," but the Senate is already moving to increase the debt ceiling by a third of what would, in theory, be raised by these new taxes.

Raising taxes reduces the economy, which lowers incomes, which therefore lowers the income tax collected, which prompts the liberal economist to want to raise more taxes.

What's more less is that for all of his purported rhetorical flourish, he no longer has any influence. Zero.

Like everything in liberal economic theory, you spend and spend and spend on things meaningless and unfruitful, until you have no more to spend. And then you're spent and you have no resources remaining and there is no incentive for anyone to create new resources.

Leftists wanted a return to liberal economics. Ta-da! We have that today in all its glory. The rest of us want a return to sanity.

And for all the pining for Hillary lately, her domestic policies would be no different than Obama's. Her foreign policy might be better, but that wouldn't assuage the hurt in our economy. She's as economically liberal as he is.

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/19/2011 7:33:12 AM
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Today's Beauty

 

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/18/2011 11:20:38 PM
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Today's Beauty

 

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/15/2011 12:24:48 AM
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Today's Beauty

 

We're about to leave Tofino, BC, and drive back to Victoria, BC, to spend a couple of days at a bed and breakfast there. And I'm smitten... I want more of this, and I am more driven than ever to derive how to succeed so that we have the means to travel to great places like this. Tofino is not a place you just wind up at - it's a determined location, as it's on Vancouver Island and it is a 5-hour drive from Victoria. The drive is worth it - but you have to make the decision to get here.

We both love Tofino. We want to return and someday own property here. I'll write more when I get back about where we stayed, but this trip has re-defined me in some ways.

Weather permitting, we'll take a seaplane ride today over glaciers and perhaps whales.

It's been the perfect vacation.

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/13/2011 8:40:46 AM
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Today's Beauty

 

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/12/2011 12:43:32 AM
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Vacate

 

For the next week, Tamara and I disappear to other lands. See ya when I get back :)

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/8/2011 5:07:36 PM
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Just Ask

 

Ask anyone under 40 whether they think they'll ever see all of their Social Security benefits.

4 out of 5 times, "No" will be the answer.

People aren't stupid. They know that Social Security is not secure, and that to be secure, it would require ever increasing taxation on subsequent generations.

Which makes Rick Perry look smart just for speaking the truth.

ponzi (noun): an investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going. The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors.

Duh.

Mitt Romney seems to think we should fix Social Security. I suppose just like he fixed Massachusetts' health care system...

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/8/2011 6:53:57 AM
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Workers

 

Regarding Hoffa's notion that "the workers of the world" need to take on the tea party...

I never understood the insistence of some in the union that management was always the problem. Management is, after all, the crew who finds the jobs that pay the wages of the workers. A lot of tea partiers are small business owners and medium-sized business owners. So I guess it follows that some in the union would oppose those who own businesses.

But if you attack and fight the owners and management of the companies who employ you, where does your paycheck come from? A business has a right to hire and retain those who won't cause trouble for the workplace. A business owner can either spend time finding work for the workers so that they can make living and take care of their families, or the business owner can be distracted and fight unnecessary battles internally to the detriment of the company's financial health.

Unions had a great start, uniting to save lives in dangerous work environments.

But the moment that a union worker stepped foot on a Carnival Cruise ship and took a seven-day excursion into the Caribbean with his family, paid for by the wages earned at the workplace started by the business owner, that was the moment when unions no longer had a purpose in fighting "the man."

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/6/2011 9:46:55 PM
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Moving

 

This will likely be our new neighborhood. I say "likely" because the appraisal isn't back yet, although it should be fine, and we need to hear that the last bit of paperwork for the loan is finalized - which should be the case. We will know in a couple of days.

We've been going through all of our things and throwing out stuff we don't want. We have a dumpster in our driveway for that reason. It's a serious cleansing. Including some furniture.

About half our things are boxed up and ready to go. And mentally, we're ready.

So why are we moving?

We've lived in our home since getting married, almost five years. We have our eight kids, constantly going in and out. We could use the space.

We've been watching the home market, and this is about as low as home prices and interest rates will go, we think.

But the catalyst is our neighbor, Julie. The woman is drunk half the time, and crazy. She has poured gasoline on our yard to kill the grass, threatened my son's car with a sledgehammer, harassed our guests when they're on the back deck... we've caught her moving our outdoor furniture around in our yard to suit her liking, she has bragged to our neighbors about turning our outside water on when we're not home to run our water bill up.

Good gravy - who wants to live next door to that?

And we're not the only ones. Her neighbors on the other side of her put their home up for sale because she harassed them and their baby girl. But after putting thousands of dollars into their home to get it ready for sale, they decided that they weren't going to be chased off.

We'd rather have the peace of our home that we deserve. So it's been a consensus of circumstances that makes it obvious to us - now is the time.

We'd looked at another home, and had a contract with the seller, but the home inspection failed and they had a back offer where the buyer would repair everything and buy at listed price. We weren't willing to do that. Thankfully, as you can see in the picture, our new place will be quite scenic, and while a little more money, much better for us and our needs.

So, we move toward the next chapter of our lives together.

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/5/2011 12:18:24 PM
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Multiplier

 

It is now the case that I do 247Toolset demos not for one group or one person, but for several groups or people at a time.

Pending: 16+ organizations looking to congregate in the next two weeks for a large demo. One group has already bought, and another has committed to buy, and the momentum is there.

Further pending: if the demo goes as expected, I potentially have 30 more after that.

It's beginning to snowball.

My personal goal has always been to have 500 clients by the end of the year. Let's see how to make that happen...

Oh, and this is all word of mouth. Which leaves me to think that I may never have to spend one dime for marketing.

 

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by Brett Rogers, 9/1/2011 6:46:24 PM
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