Mark Knows It All

This is reprinted from the Wall Street Journal. It is about as clear an explanation of Obama's tax proposals as I have read. Please note, that under Obama, the number of Americans paying no income tax would rise from 38% to 48%. Do you really think a country can sustain 1/2 its population paying no taxes, being supported by the other half. When it comes to taxes, the difference between Barack Obama and John McCain is arguably as wide as it's been in a presidential race since Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale battled in 1984. Sen. Obama is proposing to raise taxes more than any recent candidate, while Sen. McCain wants to cut them substantially. Most of the campaign debate has been over whose taxes would be raised, and whose cut. Here are the facts: Mr. Obama would roll back the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for taxpayers in the top two brackets, raising the top two marginal rates of income tax to 36% and 39.6% from 33% and 35%. The 33% rate begins to hit this year at incomes of $164,5...

Please visit Mark Knows It All, the web site, by clicking on the link at the top of the adjoining column. On Wednesday morning I watched Fox News, NBC News, and CNN to see how the election is being covered in relations to issues I feel are important. At the top of my list were Joe Biden’s comments from Monday about the possibility of an “international incident” within 6 months of Barack Obama assuming the presidency, should he be elected. Biden said Obama is an unknown factor and will be tested. He made reference to John Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis as an example. Kennedy was an unknown factor, inexperienced, and it showed in an earlier meeting with Krushchev, where the Soviet Premier concluded Kennedy was weak. Even scarier were Biden’s remarks to the Obama donors in attendance that they will have to stand by Obama/Biden as the response to whatever the incident happens to be will be perceived as “wrong,” whatever that means. Biden is right. I wrote several times this past yea...

Please Visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site, by clicking on the link at the top of the adjoining column. John McCain has run a terrible campaign. He has failed to connect the dots defining Barack Obama’s beliefs and political ideology in ways that the American public can understand. Last night’s debate at least got him off the mark towards that direction, but I suspect it is too little, too late. On the other hand, one never knows. In Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the presidency, the phrase that turned the tide was “It’s the economy, stupid!” This campaign’s icon is Joe, the Plumber, and Obama’s off the cuff comment to him that he wants to “spread the wealth around.” It is giving the voters pause. Here is a blue collar worker who wants to live the dream, and knows that taxes on small businesses will prevent him from achieving that dream. Joe can do the math. No small feat given the state of our public schools. Whose wealth does Obama want to spread around, and to whom? I don’t dou...

To quote the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, America’s chickens are coming home to roost. Use whatever euphemism you want, the events in the nation’s financial markets indicate that the party is finally over. In the late 1990’s, Bill Clinton rode the crest of the computer productivity wave to a national surplus. Contrary to the politicos’ efforts to make you think it was his economic policies that generated the surplus, it was the explosion of productivity resulting from the digital age. Bush came to office as the Clinton boom was slowing down, and presided over a terrorist induced recession, resulting in an easy-money monetary policy and the now collapsing housing boom and resultant financial crisis. Of course, there is plenty of blame to go around for the Freddie and Fannie mess, the unintended consequence of the Community Redevelopment Act as amended under Clinton and reinforced under Bush. It required lenders to loan money to nonqualified borrowers in the government’s noble, but now fai...

This has been an extraordinary week in American history, and me being me, I can’t let it pass without comment. The issues presented to our financial system have been complex and difficult to understand. I don’t understand it all myself, but I know enough to allow me to conclude that very few of the television commentators and anchors, and all of the political candidates from all of the political parties, probably know less than me. The country deserves better explanations about what is going on other than it is a taxpayer bailout. What the government did for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was a bailout. The Chase Bank takeover of Bear-Stearns was a bailout. AIG was a bailout What the government is doing today is NOT a bailout, and had it been done 6 months ago when the few voices in the wilderness were calling for it, the actual bailouts most likely would have been unnecessary. Take away the static and noise, here is what the government is doing. For various reasons, and there is plenty of...

In the midst of bank takeovers and brokerage collapses and government bailouts, there is good news tonight. Lost in the shuffle of the AIG debacle was a news story that was carried by maybe one network. GM unveiled its production model of the Chevy Volt. In one fell swoop, GM is showing America a major solution to its dependence on foreign oil…an electric car that can go 40 miles on a single electric charge, enough for 75% of American commuters to get to and home from work. Can you imagine? As I understand it, it doesn’t put that much of a strain on our electric grid as most of the cars would be charged at night when the electric usage is minimal. And the media looked away. While all of us are concerned and admittedly frightened about the Wall Street meltdown, GM is moving forward, on its own, with no government help, while dealing with its own substantial problems, to develop a car that will change our lives forever. As the government is bailing out Freddie and Fannie and Bear Stearn...

Please visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site, by clicking on the link on top of the adjoining column. If any of you have been watching television these past few weeks, tucked in the coverage of the lipstick/pig wars, you may have noticed that the government has taken control of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These quasi governmental corporations are set up to promote and help finance the nation’s mortgage markets. As in all things governmental, things have gone south, and the United States is now guaranteeing about ½ of all US mortgages that have been packaged by Freddie and Fannie in the form of bonds and sold to, I don’t know, pension funds, foreign governments, other financial institutions, and you. The Department of Treasury and The Federal Reserve have spent a lot of time plugging up the holes in the dikes to prevent a financial meltdown. They have done a good job in difficult circumstances. But many of their efforts have been for naught as they have lost control of the economy. The...

Please visit Mark Knows It All, the web site, by clicking on the link at the top of the adjoining column. It has been a hoot watching the media deal with Sarah Palin’s VP nomination. I have never seen such a feeding frenzy happen so fast in a long time. Daughter Bristol’s pregnancy gave fodder of the worst sort to the media vultures whose inherent sexism became almost funny. The media's sexist rants shouted from the mouths of supposedly responsible journalists approached absurdity as they spewed hate towards working mothers and unwed teenage moms, such topics usually being taboo areas of feminist protection, but only if you are the right kind of woman. Apparently Sarah Palin is not. Yes, Governor Palin believes abstinence should be taught in the schools and those same schools should not be vendors of condoms or birth control pills. While insinuating that Governor Palin was too busy politicking instead of providing proper supervision to her children, these panderers of free sex sup...

PLEASE VISIT MARK KNOWS IT ALL, THE WEB SITE by clicking on the link at the top of the adjoining column When I was much younger, my father said when his mother died that it was his turn next. That was years and years ago, and now I find myself somewhat in that position. My dad passed away 5 years ago. My mother isn’t dead, but she has been diagnosed with a number of very serious problems which means, at the age of 89, she can no longer live alone. She has resisted admitting to herself that it is time to go to an extended care facility, but deep down she knows. This week she moved there from the hospital. I was born into a family with lots of relatives. Both my mother and father each had 5 brothers and sisters. That meant lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. It took a big table on both sides of the family to seat all of us. In my family, there is just me and my brother, making all of those cousins in the extended family something special. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on you...

PLEASE VISIT MARK KNOWS IT ALL THE WEBSITE by clicking on the link at the top of the column to the right Just in time to remind any of you that think the world's problems can be solved by holding hands and singing Kumbaya, Russia invades Georgia. This was a well planned action, timed to coincide with the world’s Olympic distraction, and America’s political season. Make no mistake, folks, Putin and crew are bad dudes. When the former President and now Prime Minister of Russia states the greatest catastrophe of the 20th Century was the collapse of the Soviet Union, and he wants to see the Soviet Empire reconstituted, you better listen. While the rest of Europe is politically lurching to the right, finally waking up to the fact that its non-assimilated Moslem population can destroy its culture, and realizing that it gets anywhere from 30 – 70% of its energy from Russia, the United States is in full flower-power mode, flirting with a potential leftist administration who believes the w...

PLEASE VISIT MARK KNOWS IT ALL, THE WEB SITE by clicking on the link at the top of the adjoining column Is there any good news for Ohio? The German Company DHL, the successor to Airborne Express, is closing down its hub in Wilmington, Ohio, with a loss of 8,000 jobs. It is hiring UPS for its package handling, and using the UPS Kentucky hub in place of Wilmington. DHL purchased Airborne in 2003 using John McCain's current campaign advisor as its lobbyist to get the enabling legislation through Congress. The advisor has had no association with DHL since 2005. This month’s edition of Forbes Magazine lists four Ohio cities in the top ten list of dying cities in the United States. Included on the list, in addition to Youngstown, are Dayton, Cleveland, and Canton/Massillon. Although they are not ranked in any particular order, a cursory review of lost population puts Youngstown close, if not at, the top of the list. I have always taken these lists with a grain of salt. If one just looks ...

PLEASE VISIT MARK KNOWS IT ALL; THE WEB SITE Are you tired of computer progress? Lately, I have had a number of encounters with questionable computer program “progress” that were expensive and dangerous. Welcome to Computer Program Hell. Last night, my wife went to read her emails. She has an AOL account, and the email listings said “temporarily unavailable.” I got on line to help her out through the AOL online tech support, and was told by the tech gal that the problem was with the AOL server which was being upgraded to serve us better. She said she would report the problem, but didn’t know how long it would take to fix (24 hours). So much for serving us better. Do you like using Microsoft Office that you have to buy every time you purchase a new computer? Microsoft Word is the standard for word processing programs. The newest update that is used with Microsoft Vista has a glitch. If you save your Word document as a Word document, and email it to someone who doesn’t have the Word for ...

Please Visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site My attention span these days can be stretched to about 30 minutes. Beyond that, I have a problem, which can cause substantial difficulties when watching hour long television programs, or worse, spending 20 bucks at a 2 ½ hour movie. Maybe my medication isn’t working, or maybe the amount of time I spend on the computer has addled my brain, or maybe it is my superior intellect falling asleep as it deals with the mediocre media that surrounds me, but I get bored very easily. One medium that solves the problem are magazines. I love reading magazines. For the most part, the stories are short and concise…maybe a page long. They deal with issues that aren’t particularly earth shattering. They usually cover a variety of subjects. The best part? You don’t really have to read them to get the gist of what they are trying to say. A quick look at the headline and the pictures w/ captions, and you’re good to go. The theology taught in my Catholic CCD cl...

Please Visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site DID YOU KNOW? The Congressional ban on off shore drilling has to be voted on every year, and expires September 30 of this year, 5 weeks before the general election. Will they have the gall to extend the ban? DID YOU KNOW? The primary drivers of oil consumption are India and China. The increase in oil prices has no effect on the consumer in these countries as their governments subsidize oil and gasoline prices. They are driving the prices up, but the American consumer is paying the price. In my entire life, there has rarely been a time when I have been afraid for the country. This is one of those times. Once again, socialism is rearing its ugly head, and this time it may prevail. Whether you call it being green, or fighting global warming, or stewards of God’s bounty, environmentalism is providing the excuse for complete regulation of your lives, and the destruction of our way of life. You are paying for it right now at the gas pump, and ...

Please visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site The wife of a friend of mine passed away this past week. I never met my friend’s wife, as she had been ill for most of the time that I have known him. But from the words of her family and friends at the funeral, she must have been a pretty spectacular person. Certainly she was a mother and wife in a beautiful family. My friend is a good and active member of my chorus, and we wanted to honor him and his wife by singing at the funeral. Every now and then a poignant moment happens in life, and two such moments happened at the funeral. Immediately prior to the service, we remembered that it was the birthday of one of our members. In the church hall where we were waiting to enter the sanctuary, someone suggested that we sing Happy Birthday to the individual celebrating another year. It struck me as being a bit sacrilegious at first, but then I thought…why not? In fact, what better place is there to celebrate both the lives of those living and t...

Please Visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site My Seraphim Chorus sang a gig this past weekend. We performed for the alumni association of a local, now defunct, high school. The average age of these folks was at the high end of the 70 plus crowd, with many of the men in attendance obviously veterans of WWII or Korea. The organizer asked that we add some patriotic songs to our repertoire, and our director dutifully pulled out hymn book arrangements of America the Beautiful and The Battle Hymn of the Republic . While practicing these patriotic chestnuts before the performance, the music struck a chord in me and I became teary eyed and very sad. To make matters worse, when I got home from the concert, a friend of mine had emailed a performance of the Wilhousky Battle Hymn (think Mormon Tabernacle Choir) arrangement done recently by a local high school with a youth choir, band, and high school chorus. I am 58 years old, and I will guarantee that just about anyone my age who participated ...

Please Visit Mark Knows It All, the Web Site In all of the years that I have been following politics, I have never seen such a disconnect between the United States Congress and the country’s population. As gas continues to go up, and up, and up….Congress and the two assumed political parties’ nominees for President are fiddling in the parlor. If there ever was a time to put aside the dogma and the idealogy, this is it. As I watch the debate over energy in this country, I fully realize that the increase in gas prices is a precursor to the increase in utility costs coming this winter, especially here in Ohio, as we are forced to make decisions relating to our natural gas and electric suppliers. There is nothing good here. But instead of doing something about it, the political and ideological drums beat onward and onward, ever louder, and accomplishing nothing. Shame on Congress! Shame on Barack Obama! Shame on John McCain. From the Democrats, we get the same old, tired, environmental har...

Please visit Mark Knows It All; The Web Site Tim Russert’s untimely death certainly gave me pause. I am 58 years old, and don’t live what can be called a healthy life style. I love my pizza and red meat, and eschew veggies, especially the good kind like broccoli. Russert seemed to be a good and decent man. He was the epitome of the American dream, pulling himself by his bootstraps from humble beginnings. He was well liked among his colleagues from all sides of the political spectrum. His two bestselling books Big Russ and Me and Wisdom of Our Fathers , gave gravitas to the role of fathers in the American family when men are routinely trivialized as compared to the “single” mother. Bill Cosby has echoed Russert’s theme of the importance of “Dad” in the very difficult endeavor of child raising. I have written several times over the past few years about the marginalization of males in our society. Yet study after study shows again and again that the traditional nuclear family of Mom, D...

Perhaps Jeremiah Wright was right. The chickens are coming home to roost, but not in the way he meant. America’s “head in the sand” energy policy is pushing the economy to ruin as our leaders continue to fritter away the time as we slowly go to the poor house. The energy policy under the Democratic Congress and Republican President is simple: buy it from someone else. The Congress and President of the United States, as well as the current presidential candidates of both parties, should hang their heads in shame as they continue to pander to special interest groups, be it the environmental whackos or big oil, and worry about everything and everybody else but you and me. 1) While we are currently paying $4.00/gallon, soon to be $5.00, Congress attempted to pass legislation known as “Cap and Trade”. “Global Warming”, the peg upon which those who want to control the world economy are hanging their hat, was the root of this piece of “energy” legislation which was pushed by Nancy Pelosi and...