A Prayer of Praise

Too often prayer's are a laundry list of wants and needs. About 2,500 years ago a man named Ezra recorded the following in the first book of Chronicles re: prayer that was spoken by King David. A prayer of praise to God which is something we often forget in our self-centered lives. Thinking about each word, the order they were state and the context (David's final public announement after 40+ years of being Israel's king is remarkable.) My New Year's resolution is to read and meditate on the Word not rush through it "buffet-style".

I Chronicles 29:10-19 (NIV) - below are the first four (4) verses.

..."Praise be to you, O Lord,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.

11. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory
and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in
heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord is the kingdom;
you are exalted as hea over all.

12. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler
of all things. In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.

13. Now, our God, we give you thanks and praise your
glorious name."

Good ideas to fix our Fed Budget Mess

Found the attached a well reasoned list of steps to take to restore some fiscal sanity to our nation's financial situation.

How to Balance the Budget Without Raising Taxes

The 19 Percent Solution

Nick Gillespie & Veronique de Rugy | December 5, 2010

A value-added tax, a soda tax, a gas tax, banning earmarks, freezing a portion of federal spending at "pre-stimulus" levels - there’s no shortage of ideas being thrown out to fix the country’s disastrous balance sheet, which threatens not just near-term economic recovery but the possibility of long-term growth. Like last week's report from the president's Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, most of the current plans to fix the country's finances rely more on increases in revenues than on cuts in spending. In part due to its heavy reliance on revenue hikes, the commission, charged with balancing the budget by 2020, failed to win enough votes of its own members to present its recommendations to Congress.

Which raises the question: Can America really reduce its debt and deficit without raising taxes to job-killing rates or cutting essential services to developing-world levels? The answer is not simply yes, it's that we have to.

Raising government revenue - taxes - substantially is not only bad policy, it has proven difficult and ultimately unsustainable for any length of time in the past 60 years. Since 1950, annual government revenue, as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has averaged just below 18 percent despite every attempt to jack it up or tamp it down. Our post-World War II experience shows that if the government is going to live within its means, it can't spend much more than 18 percent of GDP. Period.

Which is one reason to be happy that the debt commission's recommendations won't be presented to Congress anytime soon. The report assumes revenue equal to 21 percent of GDP and struggles to get spending to "below 22% and eventually to 21%" of GDP. That’s a recipe for disaster that would guarantee deficits and red ink.

Similarly, former Sens. Bill Bradley, John Danforth, and Gary Hart, working with the Committee for a Responsible Budget, have offered up a plan to balance the budget by 2020 that relies on revenue hitting 20.8 percent of GDP, a level that hasn't been achieved once in the past 60 years. Republicans have not advanced any realistic near-term plans. Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-Wisc.) Roadmap to the American Future does not balance the budget until 2063. The pre-election GOP’s Pledge to America is worthless since it fails to provide specifics (and to the extent it does, it is no good). Read more.

The right way to reduce taxes

To Reduce Taxes, We Must Abolish Our Tax Breaks

by John Tamny, Toreador Research and Trading (VE Guest Contributor)

After preparing my taxes last year, my accountant noticed my horror and responded that “You’re not playing the game right. Buy a house with a large mortgage, have children, or do something that’s deductible to reduce your tax bill.” The accountant’s words were true, and a shining example of a wealth transfer that’s not spoken of enough.

We hear all the time about how basic income taxes, government spending and inflation are redistributive in nature, but not mentioned enough is how both political parties use the tax code to redistribute wealth to favored constituents or individuals who live as Washington would like them to. Those who don’t play the game are essentially fleeced so that those who do can enjoy a lower tax bill. Full story here

The Year The "Media Died"

A classic from Terry Kawaja

How The Fed Spends Our Dollars

In case you're wondering the six (6) segments are:

1. Social Security
2. DoD
3. Unemployment / Welfare
4. Medicare
5. Medicade
6. Interest on the Nat'l Debt (first orange section)

Easy to see where the cuts need to be made.

Data Content '10, Philadelphia, PA Oct 26-27

http://www.infocommercegroup.com/conference/

I'll be on a panel discussion next month talking about new revenue opportunities for those firms employing online ad rev / lead gen business models.

Seven Things to RE-THINK to help launch new ideas

We've all experienced the frustration of a great idea - or at least we thought so - that went no where on your team, firm or even family. The following includes a good check-lick of things to "re-think". Wasn't it Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is " ... doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different [better] result."

Below are the Seven (7) items from the "Leading Blog" to rethink.

1. Re-think complexity. We create complexity by over-analyzing our situation; creating issues where there are none; forgetting our purpose. Complexity obscures the issues. Keep the issues as uncluttered as possible.

2. Re-think systems. Tenaciously grasping the old ways of doing things just because that is what you have always done, can stop the flow of ideas and innovative solutions and lead to hopelessness.

3. Re-think ego. Our ego frequently keeps us from exploring new ideas. We keep retrying to work the old and deceive ourselves into thinking we’re making progress when all we are doing is rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.

4. Re-think boundaries. Think bigger. Think interdisciplinary. Growth often involves blurring boundaries to open your mind to new possibilities.

5. Re-think reactions. Repetitive reactions are the result of ingrained patterns of thinking that we have hard-wired into our brains long ago.

6. Re-think failure. If you’re afraid of being wrong, embarrassed by failure or paralyzed by insecurity, you will never find the solutions that lead to meaningful growth. Failure provides the nutrients for growth when we respond to them positively.

7. Re-think success. Know what success looks like. How will you know when you have arrived? Muddy expectations lead to exhaustion and defeat before you even get started.