Category: Politics

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United States of Texas – The US Under Tea Party Influence

texasflagFew people are aware that, in 2008, Igor Panarin, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats, predicted that the United States would break into four separate countries in 2010. He believed that the national and regional effects of the recent recession, and the people’s dissatisfaction with the status quo and the Federal Government, would result in the creation of five distinct, autonomous, political regions.
 
Panarin divided the U.S. into these new republics:

  • 1. Californian Republic. Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and all continental states west of them. Panarin predicted this group would fall under Chinese influence.
  • 2. Central North-American Republic. He expected all states between Montana, Colorado, Missouri, and Ohio to be absorbed by Canada.
  • 3. Atlantic America. Panarin believed the region from Maine to South Carolina and Tennessee would join the European Union.
  • 4. Texas Republic. All southern states, plus Oklahoma and New Mexico. Panarin predicted this group would either become part of Mexico or form its own government.
  • 5. Alaska and Hawaii. Panarin also believed that Alaska would become part of Russia, and Hawaii part of Japan or China.

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    While Panarin’s prediction was wrong, or perhaps premature, he was right in identifying regional clusters of dissatisfaction, and their desires for change. For example, California voters are considering a proposal by venture capitalist Tim Draper to split the large state into six smaller units, so that “people will be closer to their state governments.” If implemented, the region would have 10 more senators.
     
    Another venture capitalist, Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, has funded the development of floating cities in international waters off the coast of California which would assume a libertarian form of government completely outside U.S. control. In Thiel’s view, these cities would be free of regulation, laws, and moral conventions. They would provide no welfare, impose no minimum wage, and have loose building codes and few restrictions on weapons. While such efforts may be considered extreme by some, they reflect an underlying sentiment that is very real.

    The Lone Star Loophole

    While California would need congressional approval to divide into smaller units, Texas may not actually have that same restriction. Some people argue that within the terms of annexation, when the Republic of Texas joined the Union in 1846, there exists a right reserved by the state to split into five smaller states. This theoretical transformation would allow the resulting region to have 10 senators, rather than two – and eight more electoral votes.
     
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    How to Maintain Civil Discourse – Understanding Political Division

    argument“Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature: and in all causes of passion admit reason to govern,” thus proclaimed George Washington in his “Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation,” written sometime before the age of 16. In the heated, often rancorous season of political contest, we Americans often forget that our fellow citizens are more similar to each other than dissimilar, our goals and ambitions more analogous than antagonistic. As a consequence, our public and private discourse has become intensely personal, focused on differences rather than consonance, so that friend, family, and work relationships are frequently in peril.
     
    Civility, to most people, is simply being polite, reasonable, and exhibiting respectful behavior. When people disagree, discussion becomes personal attacks; instances of rudeness for other people are common in grocery stores, city streets, even between neighbors. According to the 2013 Civility in America: A Nationwide Survey, most Americans believe that this era of incivility is “harmful to our country’s future,” and is likely to erode further in the future.
     
    The findings include:

    1. – 95% of Americans believe we have a civility problem in America
    2. – 81% think uncivil behavior is leading to an increase in violence
    3. – 80% agree that the level of civility will not improve until our government leaders act more civilly
    4. – 71% believe civility is worse compared to a few years ago
    5. – 70% think that incivility has risen to crisis levels

     
    The same survey indicates that one of three workers believe their workplace is uncivil, leading to job dissatisfaction, burnout and stress, and workplace aggression as evidenced by the number of employees and ex-employees who return to their jobs to exact revenge and commit mass murders. It is also expensive, slowing production, limiting employee participation in company projects, and higher turnover with one of four of employees who quit their jobs attributing it to incivility in the workplace.
     
    Dr. Gary Namie, psychologist and co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, notes that lack of civility and bullying go hand-in-hand, asking, “How in the world can we stop bullying in schools, in the workplace, in politics, when it is so close to our national character right now?”
     
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    Mind Tricks & Common Illusions

    Magician performs magic with beauty girls in airMagicians and con-men have known for centuries how to deceive, seduce, and exploit audiences and individuals to their benefit. Francis Bacon, 16th century philosopher, scientist, and author, said, “Man prefers to believe what he prefers to be true.” We are willing victims, even active accomplices, in the regular misinterpretation of the world around us, often to our dismay and sometimes to our harm.
     
    In fact, neuroscientists are just beginning to unravel the secrets of the brain – how we see the world, and how we remember details of events and environments. This can help us understand the hidden feelings that color our decisions and drive our actions, which in turn can help us make better decisions.

    Decision Systems in Our Brains

    The human brain is a magnificent organ, developed over hundreds of millions of years of evolution. It equals about 2% of your body weight but consumes more than 20% of your oxygen and blood flow. Research suggests that the brain functions through the more than 1,000 trillion synapses between brain cells (neurons) that are constantly growing and dying throughout life.
     
    As explained in The New York Times, Dr. Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize winner and author of “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” theorizes that our brains operate on two different levels or systems which he calls “Experiencing Self,” or System 1, and “Remembering Self,” or System 2. The first system operates primarily on a subconscious level: It is fast, automatic, emotional, frequently in play, and relies mostly on stereotypes. The second system is deliberate, logical, slow, infrequent, and lazy – coming into play only with effort. System 1 jumps to conclusions, while System 2 forms judgments. System 2 likes novelty, significance, and endings (the last moments of an experience).
     
    Kahneman theorizes that we rely on System 1 – what writer Malcolm Gladwell in his book “Blink” calls “intuition” – for most decisions, exercising System 2 only with conscious effort and when we are aware that System 1 might be faulty. These basic cognitive processes are necessary to accurately perceive and understand the world around us. However, the tendency to over-rely on intuition – stereotypes, impressions, and distorted, even false memories – frequently leads to bad conclusions, inappropriate acts, and later regrets.
     
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    Importance of Community Banks and How They’re Threatened by Dodd-Frank

    local bank buildingMalcolm Holland, president of $650 million Veritex Community Bank in Dallas, Texas, worries about the future of community banks as a result of increasing federal regulations and growing compliance costs. His concern is based upon the increasing expansion of federal rules that limit the flexibility of community bankers to meet the needs of their customers: “Community banks need to be creative because small business is creative. If we can’t meet the needs of small business – the core of our business – the economy as we’ve known it will cease to exist.”

    In Mr. Holland’s opinion, legislators and regulators have failed to distinguish traditional community banks from the large multinational finance corporations commonly called “banks,” but for whom the standard functions of banking – taking deposits and making loans – are a minuscule part of their activities. It was the activities of the too-big-to-fail entities that caused the recent worldwide financial crisis, not the community banks. Unfortunately, in response to the mortgage securities debacle and in their efforts to prevent similar abuses in the future, the heavy hands of the regulators and uninformed legislators have unnecessarily and unfairly burdened community banks.

    History of Community Banks

    Banking is among the oldest industries in the world, tracing its roots back to ancient times where lenders, representing temples of worship or ancient rulers, provided loans to farmers to raise crops or traders to finance purchases in a distant region. As government-issued currencies became more acceptable and common, commerce expanded across continents and oceans, and a greater proportion of the population began to rise above subsistence, the beginning of our modern banking system appeared.

    The first regulated savings bank in America (and the world) was the Provident Institution for Savings of Boston, Massachusetts in 1816. Just as the ballot box provided the opportunity for a man to assert himself in the politics of the nation, the savings banks allowed him to share in its prosperity, according to John Townsend, writing in his 1896 “The History of Savings-Banks in The United States.” It is from these roots that community-based financing developed.

    Definition of Community-Based Financing

    Simply stated, community-based financing is the utilization of locally based and supported financial institutions and organizations to fund local businesses and individuals within the same community or geographic area. The concept implies a continuous cycle where residents of the community, employed by and trading with local businesses, deposit their savings in locally owned institutions, which subsequently (and repeatedly) lend to or invest in local businesses and individuals.

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