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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (19450)	7/6/1999 12:01:00 AM
From: Lee Lichterman III	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 99985

OT I wrote you long response but lucky you, it was accidently erased. Basically I agree we should help the kids who as you say did not ask to be born into their situation. We don't have enough jails if you ask me. I am sorry, but I think we let too many out now and most end up right back in again after hurting too many innocent people. I am in the military and we accept anyone with a heart beat due to lowered standards thanks to a shortage of 18 year olds. If they need a place to start, there is a paycheck, roof over their head and money for education as well as training on the job. The government pays for 75% of their off duty schooling while on active duty etc. I have seen many kids over my career come from nothing and go on to great things outside of the military. I have a kid now that came from a south American country, got his citizenship, college degree and has job offers already. He lived in a small village and was poorer than any basket lady roaming the streets in the US. The difference is desire, drive, motivation and willingness to work at it. I have another kid that had the same start and is now going through the same climb up the ladder using the first kid as motivation. Sorry I just don't buy the bad start story. I have had too many kids from the back streets of New York, LA, and bankrupt family farms over the years that turned their lives around. I have also seen the lazy and the multiple drug offender ones that we threw out and are among those same homeless that "never had a chance". We have programs to help those that want to go somewhere and should have no obligation to take care of those that won't work to helk themselves. I do agree with you that we should help our own before we bail out the foreign countries. Most of those are shams. I recall the "We are the World" that captured everyone's heart eventhough it was private and not government driven. No where did they mention that twice the amount of aid raised was spent on Soviet weapons and that all their money was being spent building Submarine bases along the coast. If a governmnet chooses to not take care of their people, why should we feed them for them. Especially when they were on the wrong side of the Cold War. Of course it gave Americans a warm fuzzy feeling while those of us in the military were trying to figure out if we would be getting shot by the same people they were feeding in a few years. Most foreign bailouts are an avenue for corporations to write off inventory they are stuck with or else surplus that would hold down commodity prices. Besides, not all is as it seems on the surface. We NEED a poor class. Who else is going to be cannon fodder for the army, the rich? I joined the Air Force because we send the silver spoon pilots off to war while us poor folk stay behind to drink their beer <ggg> Seriously though, we need factory workers, bridge builders and warehouse workers. We don't want everyone fully educated and comfortable and unfortunatelly it will always be that way. It is the same way with foreign countries. We want the US economy to stay strong which means we want out dollar stronger enough than the other currencies to make it the standard yet weak enough to allow us to export goods to other countries. If we can keep certain countries poor, we can give them aid out of the kindness of our hearts while also as a condition holdinghtem hostage to buying certain goods or allowing us access to military bases etc. The native americans saying that we speak with forked tongues still holds true. We say we are glad that the ANC now controls South Africa but we know their economy is dependent on Gold Mining. They also have the uranium, plutonium etc we need. Do you really think it is an accident that large scale gold sales hit the presses every time gold's price starts to climb. We want to keep them under our thumb. The world is a very complex place and the chess game is so complicated I would be amazed if ANYONE actually understands how it all pieces together. We supress some sides while lifting others to supress others to lift others and on and on and on... In the end the military supports commerce which supports the government which supports,,, There have to be poor people, countries to enable rich people, countries etc. I don't honestly think it could be any other way I am sorry to say. As part of my required studies, I had to go to a course that looked at the pros and cons of the communist/socialist way of politics. They made lawyers look honest (Sorry Dennis). In the Soviet Union, there was no incentive to work hard due to the government providing equally for all (except the top party leaders of course). When contracting for locks, if they asked for 1 million locks, they would make them as small as possible to save on raw materials but they wee so small they were unusable. The next year, they said they wanted one hundred thousand pounds of locks. They built 2 50 thousand pound locks to save on labor. in both instances, they fulfilled the contract but the results were unusable. Greed is good. <g> I myself have little drive left. All I want is to pay off my retirement home ona few acres and scalp enough money out of the stock market occasionally to add extra money to take care of my kids education costs. If I don't succeed in giving them silver spoons, then they will have to start from where I did. If I do by some fluke get filthy stinking rich, I will still make them work until they are at least in their thirties to appreciate that the school of hard knocks has merit and teaches valuable lessons. I had a lot of interuptions while writing this so I am no longer sure what I meant to say or if it says anything. Another one of our wonderful youth just got in trouble so I have to go bail him out of jail. Of course he never was given a chance is what he will be sayng when he is in my office tomorrow. What perfect timing for me to be able to add this to this post. I will thank him when I get done sticking my boot up his ____. Good Luck, Lee