Are you old enough to begin to care about your retirement income? Well, if you are of voting age, perhaps you are.
“What?” you say. “I need to start worrying about my financial situation at age 65 or 70, when I’m now only 21 years old?”
In a manner of speaking, you do, and that is the subject of this article.
Currently there are two retirement systems in America:
1. One for government employees
2. One for everyone else
Source: CenterForSmallGovernment.com
By most measures, government employees are doing well. The government awards them with generous retirement funds, which it properly puts aside to be available for future use.
So what’s the problem? Continue reading
It is my pleasure to introduce ROARR contributor, Mark Sussman.
Source: Mark Sussman
Mark is a Washingtonian living in the Seattle area. He has been a supporter of Constitutional and limited government for many years, but became more fully active, upon his retirement a dozen years ago. He founded a Seattle area Group, Conservative Enthusiasts (CE), in 2006 for the purpose of monthly community discussions on current civic issues of interest. The group has expanded over the years and Mark continues to support these efforts as CE’s President. Today, the group attracts many speakers, of significant expertise, from around the nation, some participating via the Internet.
He is an advocate of data-driven discussion and decision-making. In the past 2-3 years the Group has affiliated with Tea Party activities sponsoring multiple Puget Sound area rallies on the subjects of tax policy, troop support, freedom and celebrating America.
Mark is generally a firm supporter of the Republican Party, but reserves the right to address and support all issues and candidates on the basis of demonstrated commitment to solid principles and factual argumentation. He hopes and intends his blog contributions will live up to these ideals and welcomes opposing viewpoints as part of the truth-seeking process. Mark believes there is much work to be done in America to mend some of it’s broken processes and help put us back on the Constitutional path and ideals of a nation truly of, by and for the people.
Mark graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aeronautical Engineering. He continued with a Ph.D in Aeronautical Engineering from M.I.T. in 1966. He then embarked on a 35-year career as Engineer, Engineering Manager, and Program Manager with the Boeing Company in Seattle, where he was chief engineer and later, program manager of the company’s portion of the B-2 stealth bomber program. Mark retired in 1999.
Three of Mark’s favorite quotations:
“I am ever unwilling that (peace) should be disturbed as long as the rights and interests of the nations can be preserved. But whensoever hostile aggressions on these require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave
enemies.”— Thomas Jefferson
“Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I’m not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be.”
— John Wayne
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”
— John F. Kennedy
Stay tuned for his first official post early tomorrow morning.
This past week’s announcement that the United States would station 2,500 Marines in Darwin, Australia is a positive development for American foreign policy. Incidentally, seven years ago I made this recommendation as part of a student group in a defense management class I took in graduate school.
My recommendation’s rationale was to ensure that the United States military could deploy a force anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. In contrast, America’s arrangement with Australia likely is a hedge against an increasingly aggressive and expansionist China. That said, the ability to deploy forces quickly anywhere in the region is also probably an important factor.
Whatever the motivation, I commend the President on his strategic move.
Apparently, the assailant who fired two rounds from a semiautomatic rifle at the White House was likely an Occupy D.C. protestor.
Of course, the New York Times does its utmost to draw as little attention to this allegation as possible. In an article published today the authors do their best to downplay any possible connection the shooter may have had with the movement. After wading through eight paragraphs, the paper reports the following:
“Late on Friday, the police searched the Occupy DC protest camp, on McPherson Square just blocks from the White House, after reports that the suspect might have spent time there. Protesters there said on Wednesday that the police had been through their encampment several times since then, showing around a photograph of Mr. Ortega-Hernandez.”
Well, did he spend time there or not?
Apparently the authors aren’t interested as it likely conflicts with their narrative of the Occupy movement. Had Ortega-Hernandez, the alleged shooter, fired his rifle at the White House after attending a Tea Party rally, there would have been hell to pay. The media would have reported that a “right-winger” tried to kill the Commander-in-Chief. Janet Napolitano would have written a memo urging the Department of Homeland Security to monitor right-wing war veterans.
Oh, wait. She already did that in 2009.
Well, it seems Ms. Napolitano is monitoring the wrong group, and the President’s life could have been at risk because of it.
But, but, but…this is a new movement. It is a paradigm shift in the governance of free people, the likes at which the world has never seen.
Well, if one means the first historical movement that included a murder, an assassination attempt on the life of the President of the United States, and “twinkle-fingers,” then I guess it is fairly novel. Although an anarchist did successfully assassinate President McKinley. Otherwise, it’s just your average mob sitcom that just jumped the shark, and the mainstream media has decided that the anarchy will not be televised.
Peter Schweizer, my editor at Big Peace, and a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution was recently profiled on 60 Minutes. He exposed abhorrent behavior in which both Democrats and Republicans engage: insider trading.
Apparently, members of Congress are not subject to insider trading laws, despite having access to far more material, non-public information than the average American, or, for that matter, the typical hedge fund manager. Until I watched this 60 Minutes episode, I had no idea this was the case.
For instance, a Senator on the Armed Services Committee with classified knowledge of a forthcoming Defense Department weapon system contract with Company X, can legally act on that material, non-public information, and buy that company’s stock prior to public disclosure. Any other American would go to prison for engaging in similar activity.
These hypocrites are putting people in prison for doing what some of them do each day. This behavior is outrageous, unacceptable, and worthy of scorn.
America is truly broken.
I encourage everyone who reads this post to pass it along, and demand their members of Congress to support legislation that bans this corrupt and self-serving practice.
It is a rare thing when an artist or author rebels against the liberal orthodoxy. But Sin City and 300 creator, Frank Miller does just that in his recent blog post entitled, “Anarchy.”
He begins with the following:
Everybody’s been too damn polite about this nonsense:
The “Occupy”movement, whether displaying itself on Wall Street or in the streets of Oakland (which has, with unspeakable cowardice, embraced it) is anything but an exercise of our blessed First Amendment. “Occupy” is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.
“Occupy” is nothing short of a clumsy, poorly-expressed attempt at anarchy, to the extent that the “movement” – HAH! Some “movement”, except if the word “bowel” is attached – is anything more than an ugly fashion statement by a bunch of iPhone, iPad wielding spoiled brats who should stop getting in the way of working people and find jobs for themselves.
This is no popular uprising. This is garbage. And goodness knows they’re spewing their garbage – both politically and physically – every which way they can find.
Wake up, pond scum…
There’s more here for those who are interested.
Naturally, Mr. Miller is getting tons of flak from the “artistic” community, but I give him full kudos for being among the first creative types to declare that the emperor has no clothes when it comes to the Occupy movement.
Given the recent murder in broad daylight and in close proximity to Oakland’s Occupy camp, Miller’s wake-up call is long overdue.
@2011 Reflections of a Rational Republican
“Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.”
— George Orwell
“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”
“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
— Thomas Paine
“Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided…but by iron and blood.”
— Otto von Bismarck
Ross Douthat Charles Krauthammer
Reflections of a Rational Republican 