According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in November 2008, the total labor force in the United States amounted to 164,947,000 of which 154,616,000 were employed, the difference being the current number of unemployed people, 10,331,000. This is an unemployment rate of 6.7 percent. Compared to the rates during the years from 2002 to 2007 when the rate was between 4.5 and 5.0 percent, this number is high. The question is, why are these increased unemployment number cause for major concern, after all, they represent only about slightly more than three million people? There are several reasons and they would require in-depth analysis but the media’s preferred focus on NEGATIVE NEWS is a major part and the driving force behind the constant drumbeat about how bad we are all off in this country. There are self-anointed experts called economists who just love nothing more than to forecast gloom and doom and unfortunately, they are getting the media’s attention and that is all we hear.

            But if we take a moment and look at the numbers in totality, it is definitely not as bad. When one takes into consideration that it is a generally accepted fact for many decades that about four percent are considered permanently unemployable, the true number of unemployed jobseekers is 2.7 percent and that amounts to 4.5 million people. Surely, this is not desirable by any stretch and we feel genuine concern for the well-being of these folks but it does not mean that America is going down the tubes now, after all, nearly 155 million individuals are still working. OK then, what if unemployment goes to ten percent over the next six months or more?  It would mean that the number of unemployed would increase to 16.5 million citizens, an increase of 6.2 million from now. It would be bad but it would still leave 148.5 million people employed. One would have to go back a few decades to compare equally dire times yet it would not mean that the ‘skies are falling‘, would it? Not when one considers that unemployment rates in major industrialized European countries have been hanging around for years near and even over ten percent.

            We believe that there is a strong need for realistic reporting in the media, in fact, we, the citizenry should demand it. Instead of hearing about dire predictions for 2009 and the years after as well as comparisons to the ‘Great Depression’, we should be getting the facts, and nothing else. Why can a newspaper or business magazine not bring actual charts of total statistics as they are available from government sources? The only common sense answer to this question is that it must be so much more fun for the media membership to ‘scare the hell out of people’! Which brings us to the question: “Is that what the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press was intended for?” We don’t think so and we all should demand a correction in this matter. Give us the total picture and we are smart enough to figure out for ourselves where things stand and what might be ahead of us. And accordingly, people on an individual bases will make adjustments in their lives and spending habits, they will figure out ways how to cope. As terrible as facing unemployment is in reality, as a nation we always have found ways to cope and to deal with changes in the negative and we will survive the current economic downturn and come out ahead in the future. Consider Common Sense firmly believes that the skies are not falling in America!

“The skies are falling, the skies are falling” is a post from: Common Sense University

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            Let’s just look at a few drastic examples as to what has happened during the past year:

1.         Do we all remember when gasoline prices at the pumps throughout the country jumped to over $4.00 per gallon, based on oil prices of up to $147.00/barrel this past summer during June and July? The ‘experts’ forecasted that these prices would be with us for a while and might even go up to over $5.00/gallon or $200.00/barrel. This was immediately responded to by calls for more domestic oil drilling and building of nuclear power plants among other such proposals. Energy independence was a major campaign element propagated by both Presidential candidates and many others as well. Bumper stickers called for “Drill, Baby, Drill” and the only recognizable action taken during this time was the lifting of an Executive Order by President Bush to allow Offshore Drilling for oil. Well, five months have passed since then and what do we have? We have seen oil being sold for about $40.00/barrel and a gallon of gasoline has sunk to about $1.75. And guess what: There is no more talk about offshore oil drilling or building of power plants. The topic ‘High Energy Costs’ cannot even be found anywhere in newspapers and magazines let alone being discussed on television. It simply has gone away and is no longer a priority in peoples minds.

2.         The war in Iraq was a major element during this year’s election cycle and every candidate had a plan as to how to end the war in Iraq. Some even had specific timetables. Then-Senator Barack Obama committed to a complete troop withdrawal in sixteen months should he be elected President. He told everybody that the ‘surge’ had failed and that he had been against the war from the beginning, newspapers listed daily casualty figures, the Iraqi government was non-functional and on and on. And where are we now? The surge has obviously worked, as a country, Iraq is stabilizing and becomes more and more self-sustaining, American troops are being withdrawn out of cities and there is a total withdrawal agreement in place ending in 2011. Things have gone so well in Iraq, that while nobody wants to call it a victory for the United States military yet, the topic is no longer an issue of daily articles or debates on television. This all has happened in a matter of several months during this passing year, it’s almost as if the war was over.

3.         The other hot topic in times past was “Global Warming” and the Presidential candidates all lined up in favor of tackling the problems caused by this man-made and world-destroying ‘fact’. Now then, where has this high priority monster gone? Statisticians and record keepers are slowly coming out with facts stating that increases in global warming have not occurred in the past several years and the number of scientists no longer fanatically endorsing this phenomenon is growing by hundreds. In fact, some even recognize that the sun has become less active in terms of flares and that we might be in for a period of ‘global cooling’. We do not believe that it will be difficult to convince residents in Houston and New Orleans when they experience snowfalls in their towns in December that global warming is not really taken place at this time. This does, of course, not mean that this issue has gone away, absolutely not. The climate change enthusiasts are attending currently a major international conference in Poland where they debate and discuss proposals how to fight global warming and climate changes in the near future. These junkets are just too important for these climate doomsayers to postpone them. We wonder if these people feel deep inside a sense of irrationality when they discuss these topics while the outside temperatures are at or below freezing in Poland. But as a daily ‘doomsday prognostication’, global warming is pretty well gone away as a high priority for the worlds population. Unfortunately, the only people who still firmly believe that they have to take drastic action against global warming and climate change are politicians, better known as our elected officials. They are undeterred by realities and facts and they keep on pushing to pass more laws restricting lifestyle freedoms of their constituents.

            Now then, what has caused all this, the changes in priorities? It is called economics also known as a downturn in the well-being of people in general. Even though, there were signs of economic troubles on the horizon for many months, in fact, almost since last year in the housing market, it was not until mid September – a mere three months ago – that the problems suddenly surfaced when the credit markets dried up and the Federal government asked Congress for a 700 billion dollar emergency fund to free up the credit by providing funds for banks and similar institutions. This was followed by additional funding requests for insurance giant AIG and  also Citibank as well as the three major American auto makers in Detroit. Companies across the labor spectrum announced major cuts in employment driving the national unemployment rate steeply upward with no end in sight. Banks have failed in great numbers and in all, the economy is currently topic Number One! Nothing else matters right now and will not even get honorable mention in the media in the near future with the sole exception of the Obama Presidency, starting on January 20, 2009. Now then, is there a message in all this? We think there is and it is called the pocketbook of the American people. People have their priority and it is the well-being of their immediate family! We do not proclaim to know what lies in the future for this country but we would hope that individuals would learn at least one lesson and it is called “Putting money away for a rainy day”. In other words, get off the credit lifestyle and cut back some, get away from the instant gratification of purchasing whatever is desired and instead earn the money before you buy. It could be a great New Years resolution, we think.

Changing Priorities – Real or Political? is a post from: Common Sense University

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            So much for those experts, we are in true awe of the political “experts” called United States congressional members, both in the House and the Senate. For them, doling out money is for these mental midgets like playing Monopoly with the minor difference that they are dealing in billions of dollars and not just their own money or ‘funny money’ but real money, taxpayers money! What we have witnessed in the past three months is so obscene, one has to wonder if they have not gone over the cliff or their brains having totally dried up and are therefore no longer working rationally.

            Without delving into the string of events of the past months starting with the housing crisis followed by the credit crisis, the banking crisis, the crisis on Wall Street and in the insurance industry, we are now in full bail-out crisis mode. The country is in a recession and this is resulting in major layoffs across the whole spectrum of corporations and even States. They are all closing in very fast on their respective ‘Bankruptcy Days’ and they are showing up in Washington D.C. asking Congress for immediate help in terms of loans and outright financial rescue and Congress is only too happy, it seems, to help out with money nobody has. They are doing what they have been doing for decades, they are indebting the future of America. And the sad thing is, they are proud of themselves for doing the right thing. This can all be summed up in one sentence: While the individual citizen is tightening his/her belt and is pinching pennies, Congress is doling out billions of dollars! Again, not their own money, oh, no, this is money the American citizen has not even earned yet and will never get to spend because Congress is doing it for them ahead of time. Disgraceful and nearly criminal are not strong enough words to describe this situation where we find ourselves.

            To paint a clearer picture, we will try to illustrate this in real numbers: One billion is a number that has a One (1) in front of Nine (9) zeros. In more real terms, if a person is making annually $100,000, he would have to work for ten thousand (10,000) years to earn one billion dollars. Even with an annual income of one million dollars, he would have to work one thousand years to earn that kind of money. Another interesting factoid is to measure the lengths of the earth’s circumference by stringing up one dollar bills wherein two dollars would equate to one foot in length. One billion dollars would nearly be enough to span the globe at the equator four times.  

And our government in Washington is just spending it as if there is no tomorrow. There can be no question as to their prime motivator: Bailing out companies means higher employment resulting in happy voters the next time around. It does not matter that future generations are being burdened with a national debt that is outrageous. Currently, the national debt stands at $10,660,730,000,000. That is ten trillion, six hundred sixty billion, seven hundred thirty million dollars. Taking the current population of the United States at 306,000,000 (three hundred six million), this amounts to a personal indebtedness of about $34,840,000 for every person in America. If it were not so sad, it could be funny. Every baby born in this country starts life with a debt of $35,000, is it any wonder that most babies cry at birth?

            But hold on, Congress is not finished yet. Since the seven hundred billion dollar bailout in early October, additional emergency bailouts have taken place (AIG Insurance Company) and they are rescuing the American carmakers in Detroit. Several States are on the brink of insolvency and are begging Washington for money, the Democrats are working on a major stimulus package to help the economy and President-elect Barack Obama has his people still working on additional rescue/stimulus deals. In total the numbers are so overwhelming, some “experts”, a.k.a. numbers crunchers are now saying that in all we could easily be adding seven trillion dollars worth of debt in the near future. That would bring the total national debt to 18 trillion dollars which in essence would burden every living soul in the country with about $60,000.

            The only remaining question is now: Will we, the citizenry accept this silently or will there be a serious attempt to let our elected officials to stop this madness? As a whole, the American people are known as being generous but this is going too far in our humble opinion. Should we not hold them accountable for their actions? One way would be to never ever vote for them again. That would send a clear message to politicians: “We want you to represent us in Washington, not indebt us!”  President Ronald Reagan had it right when he said: Government is not the solution, Government is the problem!

The Great American Bailout Fiasco is a post from: Common Sense University

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This is a very simple explanation of the economic mechanisms that led to our current finacial crisis.

Financial Crisis Explained is a post from: Common Sense University

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            We here at this website are fully aware that this concern is shared by Mr. Obama and his advisors and do not think that he needs us to tell him this. Nonetheless, we can make suggestions or recommend steps that we feel are elementary for the President-Elect to take and consider. If we forget his record as United States Senator where he was a ‘junior’ member in a club of one-hundred, now we will judge him by his managerial style and decision making abilities. We were also told by the liberal media and his campaign staff that we should not judge him by his previous associations (Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, Tony Rezko, ACORN etc.) nor his experiences as a community organizer and since his college work and records were intentionally secreted away by Obama, we really did not have much to go on and were restricted to what he was saying during speeches and debates. As a result of this, he is pretty much a blank page and we have to wait now to see what he does.

            The first indication might come when we see whom he will choose to fill his cabinet and other major positions in the White House. If he is truly realistic and has a good grasp of what is going on in the World and America right now, he will surround himself with the most capable, proven and experienced individuals in order to have a strong and effective beginning of his Presidency. Contrarily, the worst thing Mr. Obama could do at this time is to think of re-election in 2012 and other self-gratifying future events. He is right now in the toughest position anybody could be in: To become the President of the United States of America and therewith the leader of the free world! This is the most powerful job on this planet in a time of financial and economic crisis together with the winds of war still blowing strongly as well as other regional conflicts and it requires concentrated focus on his part and we hope he will show us this in these coming days and weeks by his building his administration by way of selecting the best qualified persons for these undoubtedly challenging jobs.

            He should also delay delivery on his campaign promises such as Universal Health Care, tax cuts for 95 percent of all people and so on, after all, he has four years to do so and it would be better if he concentrated on righting the economic ship and settling the financial crisis. People feel uncertain about the future and words like ‘Hope’ and ‘Change we need’ do not change those feelings. When one has to worry about losing a job, promises by politicians do not allay such fears on an individual basis because no one can reasonable assume that Mr. Obama would step in and tell the respective employer: “Do not fire my friend!” We think, nobody would be presumptive (or should we call it stupid?). Only a stabilization of the economy can bring any kind of peace of mind to millions people and he should realize this and act accordingly and the sooner he can show results, the better this country and for that matter the world will be of and we can only hope that he will be able to do this.

            Consider Common Sense will not comment on every individual appointment by the President-Elect but will visit his actions in summary format in early January. We believe and hope that the transition into the White House for the Obama Administration will be swift and with the full cooperation and support of the Bush administration at every level. We wish Mr. Obama the best of luck in these coming weeks and in his decisions and the choices he will make.

From Rhetoric to Reality is a post from: Common Sense University

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It is interesting that the topic isn’t about wether redistribution of wealth is right or wrong, but the method best to implement it.  Obama has been very consistent with his view regarding redistributing money from those that earn it to those that don’t.

Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered is a post from: Common Sense University

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And the Democrats are blaming the Republicans for this mess?  It is a simple formula to follow for those of us that are not responsible and believe they aren’t accountable:  Initiate the problem in the name of justice and then blame the other side when the bottom falls away.  In the mean-time you profit and help as many friends as you can.

Democrats Cover Up Fannie/Freddie is a post from: Common Sense University

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