Preserving The American Political Philosophy

TWEET THIS  WpjYDqLKFs#(8!jdk5 A reminder of Stalin: After defeating Trotsky and ridding the party of all his rivals, Stalin began to build up Russia. As he said, "Other countries are 50 years ahead of Russia. We must make this up in 10 years." As such, he had two main aims: (i)a centrally-planned economy called a command economy; (ii)a totalitarian system of government  ....... During this period, Russia's economy was completely transformed. The state planned the entire economy through the State Planning Commission, or Gosplan. They issued instructions and orders, commands that were then passed down to factories, businesses or farms. .........The government controlled the resources it needed to achieve the economic targets . Factories, mines, transport and farms were owned by the state. .......... Many workers had to slog for 11 hours! However, none of them revolted, as they knew their wages were paid in food rations, which meant they would DEFINITELY

This is rhetoric from the  2006 Opega Report on Maine;s Economic Development Program s as  first introduced to this blog in my previous post : Maine citizens make substantial investment s in economic development programs each year. These programs, taken together, constitute an investment portfolio that ideally should be designed and managed to assure that the State is getting the best return on its investment. There are, however, significant technical and political challenges in adopting a portfolio approach. The words " Maine Citizens "  refers to the people of Maine. Through a rhetorical sleight of hand, the authors of the OPEGA report switch the meaning of " Maine Citizens " with  that of " the State " , The latter term refers to the government sector, which in theory, if not in practice, serves the citizens of the state. The two terms are not interchangeable, with a possible exception within the context of  the political ideology of Karl Marx wh

  This is a very Informative article about what I call Maine State Inc published by Pine Tree Watchdog in February of 2012: Tax break deals studied … and studied, but questions remain unresolved Quote: What does that cost? How about $602,181,397 from 2003 to 2005 . On an annual basis, that’s about the size of the hole in the state budget that Gov. Paul LePage and the legislature have spent the last few months trying to fill. And those numbers, which come from a 2006 study by the stateOffice of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability (OPEGA) , don’t include the administrative costs. That adds another $22 million , according to OPEGA. While this article openly states that the programs allows fraud to go undetected and admits that its losers are the taxpayers, its also reports the justifications that are used to perpetuate these programs without presenting an alternative view.   For instance there is this: Another skeptic has been Peter Mills, t

TWEET THIS  http://goo.gl/PDdtbX When the Maine city state of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority came into being as a municipal corporation serving as an instrumentality of the state, it was a instance where in the power of the state usurped the authority of the local government by using the state and federal government's ability to collect and then redistribute wealth, to buy Brunswick, Maine. Brunswick obliged the higher powers by foregoing its own constitutional authority to act as the agent of  economic development in the territory which was once its own: Maine State Constitution: Article VIII. Part Second. Municipal Home Rule. 1969 Section 1.  Power of municipalities to amend their charters.  The inhabitants of any municipality shall have the power to alter and amend their charters on all matters, not prohibited by Constitution or general law, which are local and municipal in character.  The Legislature shall prescribe the procedure by which the municipal

In the News- Or Should Be               Tweet This: http://goo.gl/CX0Vo8 Maine Arts Commission sponsors The National Endowment for The Arts is an early model for a government "instrumentality" which transfers taxpayer wealth to special interests. The federal funds made available through the National Endowment for the Arts generated the creation of state art bureaucracies across the nation, serving as redistribution centers for NEA funds and other capital resources.  The NewEngland Foundation for the Arts is a regional non-governmental organization that has a draw on a larger pool of wealth than any of of the individual New England states. It is a given that laws governing private sector and government sector are not identical, accounting for the growing popularity of "private public relationships", which when left unexamined for long periods of time, encourage an "identity fluidity", advantageous to both sides of the partnership. The state art bur

This is our personal story told in a way that it hasn't been told before and of course it is not just personal because everything is everything. None the less I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I posted it on my blog called Sitting On A Log, which was the first blog I ever created but has been mostly dormant for years until now. I envisioned Sitting On A Log as a blog that allows for the free flow of though that occurs when one goes for a walk in the woods and sit on a log in the middle of the forest and think about anything and everything. This link also discusses the development of ideas for a new crowd-funding project, which we need to succeed this time. To that end, I am trying to plan a better marketing strategy in advance and looking for evangelists to help with promotion.   Second Generational Blues

This is a link to an article about the federal unconstitutionality of Governor Lepage's internet tax law by Brian Daugherty  describing the way it affects the income of ordinary Maine people. Why Maine’s New Internet Tax is Bad For Business Michelle Anderson from Millinocket, Maine, has been an Amazon affiliate for close to 12 years.  On Thursday she received a letter from the Amazon Associates Program explaining why she will no longer be welcome to participate and why she will be losing over 20% of her yearly income. “ We’re writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account will be closed and your Amazon Services LLC Associates Program Operating Agreement will be terminated effective October 6, 2013. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional Maine state tax collection legislation passed by the state legislature and signed by Governor LePage on June 5, 2013, with an effective date of October 9, 2013.” For more th