Tag Archives: Big Business

Political, Random Thoughts, Thought of the day

You, Your Opinions, and Your Voice Matter.

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Everyone’s voice is important, every person’s opinion counts in this world. There are many out there that try to make you feel unimportant and insignificant but do not allow them to succeed in doing such things. Learn to speak your mind, but do so with respect for others. If you are the type of person that can not speak up alone, then find like-minded people to help you to get your message and voice heard. As they always say, there is strength in numbers.

Unfortunately, you will occasionally run across bullies in life that want to suppress you out of fear of you and your message and abilities. Most of the time people bully others out of fear of either being bullied themselves or to prevent others from succeeding or surpassing them. But if enough like-minded people join together it becomes harder for the bully to accomplish their goals through intimidation.

Fear can be beneficial, but if you allow it to control you then it is something of a roadblock. Fear is there to prevent you from being seriously harmed by a predator or severe catastrophe. But sometimes we allow fear to keep us from stepping up or speaking up and even worse sometimes we allow our fear to keep us from living and enjoying our lives. So do not let fear control you, speak your mind and live your life to the fullest.

It takes every voice to make a choir sound good, it takes every one of us to make this world better. Many want you to believe that they know what is good for you and that your opinion means nothing. They are not motivated so much by your well-being as much as they are by their greed and lust for power in the end. Sure some may have good intentions but a great number of them are all about being in control and monopolizing wealth.

This is why we need more people to speak up and stand up for all of us, the common people. Write those congressmen/congresswomen and get them to do the job we voted them in to do. They are there to protect and serve us citizens more so than to play to the base of just their political part and spew out rhetoric. We need to also stand up against the powers of big business, big pharma, and their greed.

It is quite disturbing how much more U.S. citizens have to pay for prescription drugs compared to other countries and how many advertisements from pharmaceutical companies we have to endure on television and radio nowadays. They can afford to blast advertisements every 15 minutes on television but yet they claim they have to keep their drug prices high due to research costs. Sounds a bit fishy to me lol.

Well, get out there and let your opinions be known and get your voices heard. Think for yourself and don’t follow anyone or anything blindly.

Ray Barbier

Family, Personal, Political, Random Thoughts, Thought of the day, Thought's on World Issues

If big business would listen to economists and try to work out a way

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$620 in 31 twenty-dollar bills.
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It seems if a big business or a congressman / congresswoman commit crimes they get a slap on the wrist or a fine when if either you or I were to commit the same crimes we would wind up in jail or at least on probation. So many businesses are using unethical and underhanded ways to cause price hikes so they can get record high profits. Believe me they will go as far as breaking the law if not bending it to make their all mighty dollar. Especially the oil companies, they buy oil when its cheap and hold it till prices soar to sell it to make profit instead of using it to keep cost low. Its bad enough OPEC plays tricks to keep oil prices high and add the Oil companies both American and internationally owned joining in on the game. Seems there is little to no accountability in big business now days and that is one reason our economy is in such bad shape. We need big business for our economy to throve but if they keep raising prices then the major contributor to the American economy is going to dry up. That contributor is you and me A.K.A.  the consumer. If we can’t afford to buy luxury items or gas for travel we will just save our money and shop less. This will set off a domino effect of more rising prices and that will bring less consumer spending. The thing is the big businesses can afford to have fewer profits easier than the average person can afford the skyrocketing costs.

We need more regulation to make sure that big businesses can make profits at a reasonable rate and so they will do so ethically. Some argue regulation hurts the economy, well sure it hurts the CEO’s economy and the board members along with the share holders but they will pass that buck down to their hourly employees and some of it to the consumer. The problem is I am for less government control but I am also for the ethical practice of business. So which is the lesser evil government regulation or allowing big business to continue making soaring profits while causing skyrocketing prices.  If big business would listen to economists and try to work out a way to lower prices and still make a profit then there is no need for any type of government regulations. So the ball is in their court for now, but if they don’t get their act together soon consumers (the Voters) of America will get tired of it and demand the government to do something. Which has already started with such moments as occupy wall street.  I am no Economist nor do I claim to know the solution, but I do see the problem and feel it is something that must be dealt with soon or the economy will just get worse and might even go into another great depression. I am not anti big business but i am definitely anti bad business.

Well right or wrong that is my opinion

Raymond Barbier

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Political, Random Thoughts, Thought's on World Issues

Just a Saturday Morning Political Rant

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The western front of the United States Capitol...
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  Corrupt politicians and big businesses that care more about a profit than the people who work for them rule the modern world we live in. So many voices crying out for change and freedom and very few ears in places of power willing to listen or even care. Revolution and civil wars across the globe with little change or evolution. Greed and the lust for power overrule the needs of the people as well as the needs of the planet. Storms raging across the face of  both land and sea devastate populations and yet they play politics in the houses of government.

Forcing people to work longer and to an older age before they can retire while trying to keep them from a good healthcare system while taxing the poor to death. It definitely time to put term limits on congress as well as time to make them work for minimum wage with the same low end benefits if any at all. If those in power had to live in the conditions of the common working man they might be able to do more on capital hill. But with 6 figure salaries and their grand benefits they can not see the wrong in dismissing or the dismantling of social security, welfare, Medicaid or Medicare. They are rich enough and have government subsidized insurance along with a federal government retirement to live off of.

  Too much political banter and saber rattling and not enough intellectual discussions on the true problems at hand. Yes we need to balance the budget, the fat needs to be trimmed and the dead weight dumped. But to once again put all of the burden on the backs of the working man and elderly is not acceptable. We need a fair tax system that eliminates  all the loopholes and tax shelters for the rich and forces a more level playing field in the taxation of the citizens. The notion that because they make so much money they shouldn’t pay no more in dollars than a working man is just hogwash. It should be based on an a percentage of the total income. If a man that makes 25,000 would have to pay a certain percentage of his income for taxes why shouldn’t the man who makes 2,000,000 do the same?

Putting the fact the income tax system is not fair or balanced, the fact we need to cut spending is a fact we can not ignore. We need to study each and every program, agency and political office to see where the fat is and cut it out if not at least trim it off a bit. There are so many government projects/programs that are not financially efficient or are no longer effective. Revamp or eliminate such projects/programs and fine tune the rest of them. We also need to stop borrowing money to only give it away as foreign aid, there is plenty of nations and political organizations we could work with to direct foreign aid to the countries in need. This world is not just the responsibility of the United states it is the responsibility of  the whole world. We are all civilized and intelligent beings and we should be able to work together as a world community to address the issues at hand.

  There is also the fact that we are in a trade deficit, most of what we import is not taxed. More and more of our businesses are manufacturing offshore to escape paying taxes and to have a cheaper workforce. This takes away jobs from Americans as well as tax revenue for the government to balance the budget. Just way too much to get into on the problems we face when it comes to trade. Being I am no economist nor am I any kind of expert concerning the tax code I do not know all the answers. I do know that the congress is looking in the wrong direction for solutions when dealing with our national financial problems. And it does not take a rocket scientist to see that they are more concerned with their own political agendas than they are with actually coming up with actual working solutions to the problems.

“We the People of The United States” Means all of us not just the Elite.

Raymond Barbier

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Just a Afternoon Rant.

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Social Security Poster: old man

Change is something that no matter how hard you try you can only slow down but not totally avoid. This is being discovered on many levels by citizens and governments across the globe. Some change is good and some change is negative or retroactive, though no change is avoidable the end destination of change can be redirected. Even change that has been orchestrated runs its own course and usually will never come out exactly as planed.

So now the middle east and north African countries are going through a political change that has yet to reach its end. It will be many years after the dust settles before the end results will be known. The only thing predictable about the circumstances the world is facing in this unrest is that more than likely that no one will head the warnings of being dependent on oil and not having a fair economical and civilian minded government. It will shock me immensely if any Oil consuming nation and their government even thinks twice about getting off the oil addiction. It will shock me even more if any nation ever puts the citizens before the government officials or the big businesses.

I have a lot of faith in mankind just not very much in the select few who rule by government or from their corporate towers. They have all the money and power and they surely don’t want to share it or even allow others to reach their status level because less competition equals more control and wealth. To be fair there has to be some in government and in big business that do care and try to do good with what they have, Just seems there is more of them that are greedy and power hungry than compassionate and humane. So being out numbered by their peers they have a lot to overcome to make any difference in the world.

I just think it is time for businesses to get their act together and realize crude oil is eventually either going to run out or become too costly to sustain any industry that requires it to operate. I also think it is time for governments to see that the citizens are the ones paying their paychecks and taking care of all the bills / loan payments the government has. So if you don’t keep the working man and the consumers employed, healthy and somewhat happy that the economy is going to either become stagnant or head into a downward spiral.

Invest in small business and help the innovative people of your nation so new technologies and new sources of income can be created. Keep them healthy so they can be productive and keep the economy strong and for gods sake listen to the public, they are getting tired of their words falling on deaf ears. And here in the U.S. the political parties need to grow up and get over their differences and be grown up enough to face and tackle the problems facing the country from the federal government down to the back streets of America.

And for as the national debt is concerned, Stop borrowing money as much, cut foreign aid a bit and maybe take a pay cut up their in congress. Most Americans are forced to survive on 20k if not less and rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year. Far as Social security, leave it alone for most of us middle class and below the social security benefits is all we have to retire on and due to the cost of healthcare most of us wont be able to live to see much past 60 years of age.

O.K. Enough Ranting for now,

Peace

Ray Barbier

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