Americanly Yours

I have been very busy applying for summer internships.  I will try to post something tomorrow, but I will definitely have something for yall by Friday.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

I would like to offer you the chance to exchange links with me.  If you agree to put up a link to my site on your site, I will place a link for your website on mine.

This is free trade at its finest.  If I send you 100 hits per day and you only send me 1, then we will both benefit.  I will have an additional reader that I did not have before, and you will have many new readers.  It doesnt matter that under this example you benefit “more” than I do.  What matters is that we both benefit.  Such is the nature of free trade.

The email address for the site isnt working correctly right now, but if you are interested, email me at phredbarnet@gmail.com.  I will put a link to any site, whether it agrees with me completely, supports communism, or is about South Indian arts and crafts, so long as it does not promote rascist ideals.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

I received my property tax bill the other day and noticed a substantial increase.  I think that property taxes are entirely inappropriate and should be abolished for several simple and logical reasons.

If you buy a house or some land, you become the owner of that property.

When the government charges a property owner a property tax, they are essentially charging the owner to use property that he already owns.  To me, at least, this idea is completely baffling.  I could not imagine how vocal the opposition would be if the government began assessing a 5% annual tax on the value of your jewelery or your ipod.  Why then should the government be allowed to charge you money to live in a house that you have already purchased?

The government does this because it has a captive audience, meaning that most of us cannot simply pick up and move our property to another county.  They also claim that in exchange for the increases, you will be given a better standard of living—new roads, better schools, and more parks.  I’m not even going to address the fallacy of these claims now.

The main problem now is that the government is raising property taxes at a time when foreclosures are growing and the unemployment rate is surging higher.  Simply put, people are hurting for money and they are afraid of losing their jobs.  This is the wrong time for the government to raise property taxes on its citizens.

You might be saying that you dont own your home, and therefore the increases in property taxes do not affect you.  However, you are wrong.  If you rent your home or apartment, the owner of the property still has to pay property taxes to the government.  Any increases in his property taxes will likely lead to increases in your rent.  Homeowners arent the only people who are required to pay property taxes.  Businesses also pay them.  When property taxes on businesses increase, so does the cost of goods and services produced by the businesses.  Even worse, these increased costs on businesses could cause companies to cut down on their employees’ hours, or even cause the businesses to fire some workers.
Property taxes are immoral because they result in the government charging you a fee to use something which you have already purchased.  When the government charges a property tax, they are essentially saying that even though you have already bought the land, the government still considers it to be their land, and they reserve the right to charge you to use it.  In fact, you could argue that property taxes are nothing more than the government charging you rent to use your own property.

Besides this, property taxes are not fair to older Americans.  Retired Americans who are earning a fixed income from Social Security or their corporate pension already have to deal with inflation in the costs of everyday goods.  It is unfair for them to also have to continue to pay taxes on something that they may have purchased decades ago.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

By effectively nationalizing the banking industry, our government has made a giant leap away from Capitalism and towards socialism.  Our government now owns large stakes in most of the Nation’s largest banks.  The government has already invested $271 billion of the $700 billion that it budgeted for “stimulating” private banks.  The have committed to funding another $30 billion.  The rest of the $700 billion will follow soon.  Additionally, some members of Congress are already saying that because the first half of the $700 billion isnt being spent “correctly,” more money may be “needed.”

Here is a really cool chart that lists how much each bank has received from the TARP program.  It is updated daily.

I absolutely refuse to put my money in a government owned bank.  I will not allow the government to take the profits it earns off of my deposits to fund any further bailouts.  By banking at a government run bank, you are encouraging these bailouts.  If you are against further (or existing) government bailouts, then it is your duty to remove your money from this bank and place it in an independent bank.  I used to bank at Washington Mutual which is now owned by JPMorgan Chase (which has received $25 billion from the government in exchange for ownership rights).  I removed my money from this bank as soon as I was able to identify a local bank that had not sold part of itself to our government.

I now bank at United America’s Bank in Chamblee.  This is a small bank with only a few locations in Atlanta, Chamblee, and Roswell, but it is a bank that is independent from government ownership.  Plus, it has the added convenience of being the closest bank to my house.  Whether you live in my area or somewhere else, if you oppose government bailouts and government ownership of businesses, you should consider putting your money in a small bank that is not owned by the government.  I would be glad to help you find a non-government owned bank in your area.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet

I have been pretty critical of President Obama so far, and I will continue to do so for as long as he continues to push for policies which are bad for the economy and restrict economic liberty.  However, when he does something that I consider to be a good thing for this Nation, I will be one of the first to praise him.

Let me first start with the bad so that I can end with the good.

Yesterday, President Obama’s first public act was to limit the power of lobbyists in his administration.  He did this by creating a rule that prevents members of his administration from working as lobbyists and trying to influence the administration if they do leave his administration.  He also created a rule that prevents former lobbyists hired by the administration from working in their areas of expertise.

Lobbyists have been getting a very bad rap for the last decade, and while some of the criticism is needed, the truth is that lobbyists are essential to the proper functioning of American Democracy.  Lobbyists are experts in their fields who know pretty everything about their issue that can possibly be known.  They spend their careers specializing in studying one area of policy and make it their business to know everything about that subject that is possible. Now, because policy advisors in the administration cannot be experts on all fields, they often need to consult with lobbyists from all sides of an issue in order to get vital information.  An environmental lobbyists will know all of the effects of allowing a certain chemical into the water supply, and would be able to supply administration officials with needed data.  Administration officials meet with lobbyists on both sides of the issue in order to get a full perspective on the issue before crafting their policy–in the case of a new environmental regulation, administration officials will meet with a lobbyist who is lobbying on behalf of an environmental group, as well as a lobbyist who is lobbying on behalf of corporations.  As I said above, this is done because it is impossible for an administration to become an expert in all fields, so he outsources this part of his job.  Bringing in lobbyists with different opinions allows the official and the administration to be exposed to an array of differing opinions.

Mr. Obama is banning former lobbysts that he has hired from working on the same policy areas.  This does not make sense.  These people are experts in their fields and probably know more about the issues they previously represented than almost anyone else in the world.  Rather than excluding them from working in their fields, Mr. Obama should welcome these experts to put their knowledge of their areas of study into good use.  I think that this is a well intentioned rule that cause problems for the administration down the road.

Now, the good.  So far, Mr. Obama seems to be keeping his pledge for a more open and transparent government.  Yesterday, he announced that he was going to support a more loose interpretation of the Freedom of Information Act which would allow citizens to more easily obtain access to government files.  An open and transparent government is important in any highly functioning democracy, and I am glad that Mr. Obama has taken this step towards opening secret documents and records to the public.  Maybe soon we can find out about Area 51.

Americanly Yours,

Phred Barnet