beltair.org Blog

There comes a time when a difficult situation becomes a normal existence and either you accept it or move on.  The country is in a financial crisis the likes of which, I have not seen before in my lifetime.  I may be too out front on this issue – but I think that’s better than the knee-jerk, come from behind alternative.

Of course, the political discourse always involves various levels of approval or disapproval from the party that lost the last major election. Criticism is constant and praise is at a severe deficit. No matter what happens, they could have done it better. 

The losing party is motivated by the scenario of causing ineffective government, anger and discouragement in the hopes that they will be swept into office – just to find out that they will do no better job than the party they passive/aggressively sabotaged.  In the end, the American people are the losers in this constant political war.  We’re better than this.

It’s time this country understands and accepts that a legal, constitutionally conducted election took place and the rightful winner of that event is now legally sworn into the job, generally needing our support.  This pessimism can not continue for the next 3 years – it will stifle initiative, creativity and motivation. The most economically depressed areas of the country have already experienced this. I am deep into the creation of a new business – but a major obstacle is that the service I intend to provide is elective and sales are slow due to fear of what the future is going to bring.

This country is in real trouble but not in the way that the fear mongers may have you think… The country is not turning socialist, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will end someday, there will be healthcare reform and the banks will lend again. The economic indicators are there – but these statistics are tainted by the low jobs creation thus far; the last and most painful sector expected to see improvement.

But there is no cure for a massive loss of confidence or belief in yourself when the chips are down.  We are carefully and expertly ensuring self-fulfilling prophecies come true and making ourselves 2^nd best by not doing the things that made this country great.  The phrase I heard recently that best sums up the problem goes like this:  we performed socialized risk for privatized gain. The big banks, insurance companies and Wall St. speculators took money we really couldn’t spare and gambled it away for losses we can’t sustain and shared none of the wins. This is the best example that clearly shows trickle down economics fail to meet the promise of stimulating the economy.  It makes no sense to cut revenue – your source of income, and increase spending as in the action to start 2 wars and excuse the windfall profits of the major corporations.  The bailouts are the proof that corporate welfare does not work.

Our government officials put our futures in the hands of people who have no incentive to stop taking our corporate welfare.  We have $5,000/hour CEO’s, propping up their companies with the tax revenue generated by people receiving unemployment checks and others bearing the burden of their miscalculation and flat-out malfeasance. The problem with this is that individual benefits run out while corporate welfare remains constant.

Witness the unashamed handing out billions of dollars in self-congratulatory orgies. We committed corporate welfare for companies ‘too big to fail’ at the expense of the largest jobs generator – small business. 

But jobs generation means revenue and good health of the nation.  Instead, according to a study of 2009, we are now 2^nd to the European Union in GDP at approximately 12 trillion dollars, 10.2% unemployment estimated and about 17% actual job loss.  Nearly 1 in 6 Americans are out of a job.

We have the most inefficient healthcare system of all the industrialized nations – with job loss, this is a bad combination.  I thank my lucky stars that I am a 20 year veteran, because when I lost my own job – there went my employer based healthcare of 10 years.  I am fully covered, but this could have gone so differently. 

Others are not so lucky. But my persnal experience in this also indicates we are on the right side of history in reforming healthcare.  Regardless of the mechanics, reform is the right thing to do.  And so is strong small business support.  The wheels are moving slowly on a train that is already late leaving the station – but it’s leaving nonetheless.  You can jump onboard or get left behind.

Currently, my days are spent trying to create my own small business of collecting aerial images.  More specifically, elevated photography. Pessimism and lack of confidence will not help.

While similar, aerial photography and elevated imaging differ slightly due to the mechanics of how both are collected.  However, the issue is really completing a task that solves a wide range of issues at a reasonable cost to the user.  An image biased toward an overhead view is the goal.

There are advantages to both methods; best of all – they do not have to be mutually exclusive but instead compliment each other.  The utility of such a service is only limited by imagination.  Of course I’d wish you’d stop by my website at:  www.beltair.org or take the shortcut to my Youtube ™ video by putting ‘beltair industries’ in the site’s search bar.

So, you can wallow in conspiracies theories, ‘gotcha’ politics, character assassination,  scary rumors, and general discontent or you and jump on board and help your local businesses. Skip the national franchises – they’ll be fine.  But ‘mom and pop’ bakeries, tire shops, cleaners, clothiers, eateries need you… I need you… There is work to be done – we are in charge of our own destinies by pitching in and helping each other out.  There is no leader or political party that ‘gets it all right, all the time’.  And it’s high time we take a greater role in doing that for ourselves.

In fact, I’ll lay out this challenge to the local San Diego business community; call me…  I promise to honor each call to support local business within reason.  But you never know; my business does well – I would want to reflect it at some point.  I’m not going buy a house or car every week.  But I have to eat, I have to buy clothes, I need tax help each and every year.  I have to consume things as a small business like business cards, printed flyers and the like – you get the idea… Call me and I’ll be there – preaching what I already practice.

The container ship Emma Maersk: http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2008/emma-maersk-p1.php

This ship is the embodiment of the past…and the immediate future.   Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it….  This new generation is drunk with false American pride.  They know we were great but they don’t know why or how.  This generation is frustrated thinking we’ve got to  ‘get America back’  all the while blaming one guy or one political party for their personal woes.  Back from what?  This is America – this is what we are now.  The formula has never changed – entrepreneurship, it’s just changed hands. 

The Chinese were second class citizens in the US for over 100 years.  They didn’t cry, complain,  or blame others. They sat back, listened and learned.  They learned what the customer wanted, then moved to provide it at a price that was appealing. The old formula of; ‘Price, Value, Service’ has been forgotten.  We expect to pay too much, for a mediocre product and wait until next week to get it..

Our disrespect toward the Chinese was so pervasive it was even in our cartoons… you can still find old reels of Bugs Bunny mocking the Chinese on any weekend cartoonathon.. Socioeconomic fact: When the average Chinese-American gets paid, the root dollar he spends changes transactions (money from his paycheck) a minimum of 4 times within his own community before it gets out to the rest of the world.  It takes an about 4 hours for the average African-American. Who has the larger list of people on welfare?

Now, they loan us money to keep the almighty American banks solvent that rob the American people that bribe Congress and Senate that keeps the middle class trending toward the poverty, while the ultra-rich make us pay for their ability to invent ways to take more of our money. 

The poor have already given up – that’s the genesis of the welfare state we find ourselves in now.  But it’s easier to blame one man who stepped up to the plate to make our lives better. To expand of this; we blame whole groups of people – when in fact, we have met the enemy and we is it.  The RW hate for President Obama is an unconscious cover for the low self-esteem the collective population of America feels for itself.  And it won’t be long before the middle class has to accept that it is not middle class anymore and is now actually poor. We’re rapidly getting there. The jobless recovery is verifying what I’m saying.  The stagnation in small business, the foundation of commerce and for now the chief generator or jobs, is our barometer.  People want to work at Walmart with the pay check of a doctor and have the unions extort the owners to make it happen and then wonder why all the lay-offs…. Next is our infrastructure; years out of date – it won’t be long before we look like Pakistan.

The sense of entitlement is the frustration of realizing the deck is severely stacked against us.  We start by producing the Paris Hiltons of this country – she is a millionaire because we’re so celebrity obsessed – she gets money just for showing up at a party.

Yet, what is her actual  talent? Is it singing.. acting… dancing…?  No marketing… she sells the American dream and that’s what it will has become - a dream. She makes money reminding people of what they are not… Her talent is being fabulously rich.  She sells sunglasses, handbags, t-shirts and who knows what else; giving the stupid masses the illusion they can be like her and she takes the money to the bank. Though, I can’t say that I would like to know her, I do admire her business savvy.  She created a product and her marketing timing is flawless.

 I vow, here and now to boycott any and all such personalities or events – screw the Jackson and the Elvis families – it’s not enough that their cash cows are dead  – they’ve got to market their images for more. The spectacle of Michael’s funeral was telling in what he meant to them.  And now it’s time to squabble over money they haven’t made yet.   Well, I don’t have to be one of the sheep and participate.

The banks are so out of control that they don’t feel bad paying themselves bonuses with our money to celebrate us being stupid enough to let them do it.  Because they are the institutionalized version of Paris Hilton – ‘cept, they added the business model of the casinos – even when you’re winning, you’re losing.  With the banks and insurance companies, they let you win a little every now and then – to build the illusion that you’ve got a stake in the game.  They’ll pay off your life insurance policy when they can’t find an easy cheat that costs less the obligation to do so.  But when you win, check the numbers.  It’s an illusion – you can’t save money at the same rate they charge you interest.  The house always wins – if not immediately – in the end. Go to any major city in any state and the tallest skyscrapers belong to the insurance companies, backed by the banks.  But try to find coverage for water damage on your home in the US’s hurricane alley.  You’ll have the same success with the fire zones of California. 

We’re foolish enough to fall for the diversion of the politics to blame it all on one man and bitch we can’t find jobs.  You don’t see the Chinese having loud town hall debates that accomplish nothing. They occasionally have protested against human right abuses.  It’s not because they’re stupid or don’t understand America – if international test scores are any indicator – they know America better than we do.  In America, we’ve got high-aged children in New Jersey who do not know where Wyoming is. No, Chinese citizens can speak up for themselves but have avoided becoming Americanized. They study our small business history. Understand, putting our futures in the hands of  Walmart, Ford, and GM,  instead of ‘Fred and Wilma’s Baitshop” has lead us to exactly where we are now.

 In our country, the politicians are the front men for the guys who have the real money and its control. And we the American people are like sea gulls -”ooooh… a shiny…..”  and away our attention span goes….  This is how Rome fell…hubris, trifling, absorbed by our own belly buttons, that’s how we’ve become.  And now we marvel at this Mega ship.. and we wondered how it happened

Worse yet,  though California is in bad shape – it is barometer of what is to come for the state and the rest of the country. There is hardly a corner in all the major cities of this state in which you cannot find middle-easterner that owns the liquor stores, pay-as-you go cheap cell phones, porno shops, and parking valets and  stupid little trinkets. You know why  – because we don’t learn.  We look down at our noses while they buy one house, for 12 people, then buy another, then another, then they buy a liquor store. And don’t even look back at the dumb Americans screwing up their lives with repeated DUIs. 

They don’t care about your ‘substance abuse problem’; they don’t care about your self-victimization… They just put up a sign to say they don’t accept checks, but you are free to use their ATM as they make a profit from you getting more money to buy their on–the-shelf stock. And do you know what we do…?  We laugh at them because they talk funny, eat smelly food and treat their wives differently than we do when they have to cover their faces.  We treat them disrespectfully as they takeover the cab concessions – the lesson  repeats itself – go to any city now – try to find a non-immigrant cabdriver…. He’s from Pakistan, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran… even Africa… Because we don’t learn