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Mary Kathryn Johnson
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You Made Your Bed Now Lie In It

10/14/2013

4 Comments

 
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Living in California, I have an advantage...a crystal ball of sorts...in seeing the direction this ship called The U.S.A. is headed.
  
Let me look into my crystal ball, and tell the future for you.

California has the highest income tax rate of all the 50 states.  


California is also the largest employer in the state.  Yes, the state government employs more people than any private or publicly traded business in the Golden State.


California has two cities so far that have declared bankruptcy.  The main obligations the cities of Stockton and San Bernadino are failing to meet are government employee pension and benefits programs.


Unfortunately, there are not enough people paying California's highest tax rates to supply the union negotiated contracts for public employees to receive their guaranteed retirement benefits.


Let me be more specific.  


Every union represented employee of the State of California, and every union represented employee of each city in California receives a guaranteed lifelong retirement pension if he/she completes the contract negotiated time filling the chair in the job, no matter how well he/she performed it.  


This pension is not tied to any Mutual Fund or Stock Market Investment.  

It is 100% GUARANTEED. 


Don't you wish your IRA or 401K didn't fluctuate with the market? 


Consequently, CalPERS (Public Employee Retirement System) is $87Billion (yes that's with a "B") underfunded, because the funds collected and invested are nowhere near the $225Billion guaranteed in the union contracts.

Some teachers in my local school district are a perfect example.
  • One Kindergarten teacher receives over $80,000 in pension PLUS over $25,000 in fully paid medical, dental and vision benefits each year.  
  • Two other married retired school teachers received over $170,000 a year in their combined pension. Unfortunately, the wife recently passed away, but her husband continues to receive her full share of the pension - still $170,000 a year total.  

Gee, I wonder why the husband is currently looking for some tax breaks, because he now is in the upper-middle class - the very socio-economic class his angry, anti-CEO union reps have fought against. 

This pensioner is now trying to find ways around the very taxes that continue to pay his pension.  


Taxes in the state of California have had to increase to try and catch up to the bleeding that is uncontrolled spending.


Consequently, large and small businesses are leaving the Golden State in droves - actually they are being enticed to move by other states like Texas and Arizona.


How does this relate to my crystal ball, you ask?


California is the golden canary in the economic underground mine shaft, and that canary is suffocating, because the mine is quickly spreading the toxic fumes of government overspending dictated by lobbyists and unions.


The Federal Government is going the way of California.


The foggy mist in my crystal ball whispers the following in my year:
  • The Federal Income Tax Rates must increase for everyone (not just those making over $250,000/year) in order to keep up with the raising of our debt limit.
  • The Federal Government will become the largest employer in the country.  How many jobs did Obamacare create in order to double my personal healthcare insurance?  Yes, my coverage stayed the same, but doubled in premiums and yearly cap, but my Federal Government can give me a handout to bring them back down to the same affordable level prior to The Affordable Care Act.  (Thanks for your willingness to help me pay for my healthcare increases with your taxes.)
  • Taxes will continue to increase, but won't be able to keep pace with spending and pensions.
  • Large and small businesses will flee to other countries (wait, isn't that already happening?)  Can you say "苹果"?  That's "Apple" in Chinese.
  • The U.S.A. will go the way of the Roman Empire, and implode under it's own weight.

I know I sound as doomsday as Professor Trelawney, but I don't just whine.  There are a few ideas I have to pump fresh air down this mine shaft, and they are all centered around what I learned raising my kids - People rise to whatever expectations you set, and are more confident when they are more self-reliant:
  • Ban all unions from any public employment organization.  We have a choice to shop at companies whose union employees contribute to their products.  We don't have a choice to pay the taxes that support the salaries, and union dues that give a guaranteed pension even beyond death to someone who also can't be fired for poor performance.
  • Ban all lobbyists (retired politicians will then be forced to get real jobs at normal salaries.)
  • Transfer all government pension plans to IRA's, 401K's or Social Security like every other American.
  • Transfer all medical, dental and vision plans held by government employees to the same private payer insurance plans held by every other American before Obamacare became the "UnAffordable Care Act."
  • Fundamentally change the welfare and disability systems to include temporary benefits that are paid during an equally paid re-training program to get individuals with able bodies and minds to work, and on the road to self sufficiency.  Every part of the government that relates to government assistance, welfare and disability must talk to every other part, so they all work toward the same good for people in need.
  • Workers whose unions have negotiated them out of a job, and sent their jobs oversees can ask those unions for some of their dues back for re-training.
  • No government employee, from the President on down to the last Federal/State Project Manager has a guaranteed pension.  I'm sure a good book deal can be had, but I would self-publish if I were you.
  • Politicians are required to have worked a "real job" in the private sector for a minimum of 10 years prior to holding any public office.  Hopefully, this will give them some idea what kind of life their constituents live.

When the State of California goes bankrupt, I'll know the nation is not far behind, but I won't say I told you so. 

I'll just start learning Chinese.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left
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Give A Man A Gun

4/29/2013

4 Comments

 
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Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom

@SayBumpandTweet
Everything MommyLoves
Say Bump and Take a Left


4 Comments

A 10 year old...Seriously?

11/11/2011

4 Comments

 
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I am sick to my stomach.

'Outraged' does not even begin to describe my anger.

I have a 10 year old son.  Big, beautiful brown eyes, and a dimple when he smiles, which is often.

I have a 10 year old niece.  Freckles, fiery and all girl...who also plays a mean soccer game.

Two stories in the news made me do a double intake of breath when I heard and read them.

When Jerry Sandusky was seen in 2002 violating a 10 year old boy in the coaches' locker room at Penn State, no one called the police.

Called the police????

Maybe its the 'mom' in me, but I'd like to think that if I walked in on that, I would have gone 'Mama Bear' on the supposed adult, and made him go limp in more ways than one! 

An article by Bill Phillips explains the possible reason the assistant coach, who actually witnessed the violation of the 10 year old boy, chose (on the advice of his father) to report the incident to Joe Paterno only, and not the police, was because psychologically,

“Men are still socialized to not show vulnerability, so it’s easy for others to make us feel like we’re being too emotional, that we’re big babies.”

Men still know right from wrong.  A man having sex with a boy is a scene very few people would find 'normal', so I wonder how long it took the memory of that 10 year old boy's face to cause that assistant coach to start suffering from ulcers.

~~~~~~~

I then read another article about a 10 year old girl giving birth to a baby boy in Mexico.  The girl was only 31 weeks along when she gave birth, so the baby stayed in the hospital, while the girl was released to go home.  She visits the hospital daily to breastfeed.

Breastfeed?  A 10 year old is breastfeeding a baby?

Here again, my small, naive mind cannot conjure such an image.  The article went on to say that,

"The Puebla state Attorney General's Office is now investigating whether the girl could have been raped and who the father is..."

Could have been raped?

Since the article also points out that the minimum 'age of consent' is 12 (which also sickens me), is there any other option besides rape?   

I will not accept an excuse like, "she looked much older than she was", because once she opened her mouth to speak, SHE WAS 10!

Seeing a parent discipline a child in the grocery store using corporal punishment is one thing.  Seeing an adult sexually violating a child, or the obvious result of such an act is quite another.

Why are there still adults allowing the abuse of our most precious gifts ~ our children?

As Edmund Burke once said: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Why is anyone upset that Joe Paterno was fired?

Why?

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Tales from the Cross Walk

10/12/2011

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Cross Walk Stop Sign
I can't believe it just happened. 

I smell rubber, hot asphalt and dusty, dry weeds.  My legs feel like they have been smashed into the pavement, and are full of needles  My whole right side is on fire, and I smell and taste my own blood.

I open my eyes and am momentarily blinded by the hot sun.  I focus, and see a yellow line on the road, pebbled and uneven looking , and I look down at the bundle in my arms, a mass of blond hair, pink t-shirt, skirt and pudgy legs ending in sparkly sandals and pink painted little toes.  No blood or odd angled limbs.  Thank God!

I hear whimpering, and whisper, "Are you all right?"

Continued whimpering prompts me to repeat forcefully, "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I think tho." the little first grader lisp whimpers back as she looks up at me.  She has blue eyes like my son, light blue, almost gray.

Her whimpering starts to grow, becoming a little sob, and I adjust my left arm to brush her hair back as she starts to get up.

"It's okay, sweetie.  It's going to be okay," I whisper as I lay my head back down on the pavement, hearing screams, running footsteps and car engines idling.  I close my eyes as the distant sirens wail, and welcome the reprieve from the bright sun, but I still see the light shining through my eyelids, until, finally, painless, cool darkness.

~~~

Yes, I occasionally do cross walk duty, and actually take my life, and the lives of elementary school children in my own hands.  And, yes, occasionally, I have dreams about it.  This delusional dream of grandeur is very revealing of my biggest fear - children (especially my own) in danger.  Thankfully, I am never a victim in these dreams...I always fight, and win the safety of the child, but the cross walk fear is very real.

The insecure, inconsiderate mom/dad going around on the wrong side of the road to cut in front of everyone else.  The self-important mom/dad texting or talking on the phone while stopping traffic to cut in front of the next rightful car, then walking her/his child back to their car still talking on the phone as if the child is the grocery store clerk with whom kindness and consideration is apparently not required.  The non-parent too busy to wait, passing on the right - sometimes off the paved road to get around all this 'child pick-up mess' - and speeding through the intersection, oblivious to the cross walk monitor holding the large stop sign...hence the dream.

Always show patience and kindness in the face of the impatient and unkind.  Otherwise you become what you detest.  It is one thing to be too insecure, inconsiderate and self important to let anyone else have the right-of-way, and it is something totally different to put children in danger.

"It's all right, sweetie..."

"It's all right..."

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Do You Have any Idea?

9/10/2011

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A Dogwood Flower amongst the many leaves
If you have ever practiced yoga, you know that in the beginning, it hurts. 

You can't believe how sore you are from just stretching, but if you keep it up, you become more flexible the next time you dress in pajamas and take out your mat.

No, this isn't about my new online Yoga Studio, so don't worry. 

Once stretched, the muscle accommodates the new activity and becomes leaner.  It does not go back to its original shape unless you never use it again.

A baby puts her mind and body through the most rigorous stretching and growing regiment of anyone at any other age.  I have never seen a baby go back to not knowing how to crawl after she has finally crawled to her stuffed animal . . . not knowing how to run after she has run into her daddy's arms.

Even though we adults know how to crawl and run, and now choose to drive, we can still stretch and grow our minds and bodies in new ways.  Let's focus on our minds right now.

I have many friends and acquaintances who have accomplished small and amazing things, and no matter the success of these accomplishments, once reached, they are never forgotten . . . never unreached.

~ A woman who battled her husband's adultery and divorce, then her own breast cancer to now lovingly continue to raise her two daughters while nurturing her community based business.

~ A man who had difficulty emotionally connecting due to a car accident that damaged a small part of his brain, now lovingly raising his daughter with his wife of 15+ years.

~ A woman, and mother of four, helping her daughter find balance through mental illness, and using this hard-won knowledge to help others throughout the world do the same.

~ A woman who has always been surrounded by, and felt in herself the entrepreneurial spirit, but who's first business failed, helps others with their own personal stories, which is what she loves.

~ A woman lost a loved one in the tragedies of September 11, 2001, and now helps others find peace with loss.

Each person's creativity guided them uniquely through each accomplishment, and helped them grow to the next.  Once divorced, you cannot undivorce - once injured, you cannot uninjure - once an entrepreneur, you cannot unentrepreneur.  You can remarry, repair and restart, but the original experiences never disappear as if you waved your wand and said, "Obliviate!"  These experiences seep into your every cell, and help your mind and body stretch and grow.

Now, the word "creativity" may have scared some of you, and made you automatically decide that this post does not relate to you, it only relates to those few gifted with "creativity".

You are so wrong.

I challenge you to look closely at yourself, at your life thus far, and find something you have accomplished that did not require creativity. 

Creativity: (n) the use of the imagination or original ideas

Are you going to tell me you have never used your imagination or had an original idea?!

Did you ever write a report in middle school where you had to use your own words to make an assessment of something?  HA! 

Did you ever talk to your kid about why he needs to share, and used a personal experience to illustrate the power and purpose of sharing?  HA!

You have the creativity and experiences to stretch and grow beyond where you are right now.  Please don't wait for a tragedy, or near miss of one to provide the impetus to do so right now.  Please don't sit back after hearing of a friend's new accomplishment, and say, "WOW! I wish I could do something like that."

Jump In!

What is your idea?

What is your current dream?

Stretch and grow using your creativity right now.  You won't regret it.


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    Hi, I'm Mary, a woman constantly working toward becoming a Master of herself and all things named Duane, Evan, Riley, Seren, Linus and Katie ~ that's why it's so messy around here.


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