Being Nobody

As an INTJ I like being listened to and learning from others.  However, I've been all but defeated by my challenges and thought of by others as mostly mild amusement.  Today I feel exceptionally superficial.  There is nothing like being alone insomuch company.

People ignore me because I don't see anything with the same rosy grasses everyone else uses.  In fact, I know that no one will read this blog.  I am positive.  It is one thing to climb a mountain with proper gear it is a lot slower with no gear.  I feel stupid, cheated, and tired.

My liver is sore and inflamed.  My skin is turning yellow.  My joints ache and my muscles are weak.  I had moments today that it was hard to balance as the gravity of the world switched directions.

A close relative was concerned about my priesthood status and started prying.  I talked offhandedly to the bishop about it and now the air is strong with lessons about conspiring to seek office in the priesthood.  As if I was stupid again and didn't know any better.

I am having a hard time with the ward members.  They teach on for example the "Word of Wisdom" and skip over the grammar associated with semicolons.  I asked if the semicolons were added by someone other then the Prophet and was told no.  So, why are the semicolons overlooked as far as interpreting the scripture?

Others read it as we are to be all but vegetarians yet, if you read it clause to clause and transfer the significant emphasis as dependent clauses need on the subject pronoun of the independent clauses (as per the proper grammar usage of the semicolons), the scripture sounds exactly backwards of the official interpretation of the meaning.

Interpreting it so, we are not to eat GMO crops or take allopathic medicine.  We need to know our herbs, vegetables, and fruits as they are more powerful then drugs.  They also contain minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, enzymes, and many other beneficial compounds.  We need to eat meat in digestible amounts.  Full of fat and protein to rebuild and protect our cell integrity, meat is a must.  We need to be careful with sugars and starches from grains.  Sugars feed bad fungi in our bodies by killing our intestinal flora.  Carbohydrates in general fill fat cells with excessive weight when eaten in over abundance and switches the bodies metabolism from burning fat to burning sugar.  Our bodies are designed to run on low blood sugar.  burn moderate carbohydrate intakes quickly and store gross carbohydrate intakes as fat. 

So, my understanding of reading the same things others read makes me sound like a fool.  So, I sit on my hands or answer some generic canned Sunday school answer in my Sunday meetings... like I should, to get some little morsel of acceptance.                

The wife and I start a new job tomorrow.  The paychecks can be twice what we made last year every month.  If and when the opportunity works, we will never be strapped for cash again.  We will most likely over run our siblings earning potential inside of 2 years.  It won't feel much different being excluded for being to rich as it was being to poor.  Mostly, we will hide our fortune in more businesses and enterprises.  Our siblings and parents will not know unless we invite them to the house for a holiday.  Even then we will not disclose much over we are borrowing a house for the party.

Being nobody isn't so bad.    

                                    

City Council Debates

I've been to two debates so far (Oct 19th).  This last debate raised questions as neither candidate was really conservative.  It perplexes me to see leaders talk about subjects without developing them to the pavement.  Where the rubber meets the road is where the work gets done.  Oh, to be as chatty as a politician and say nothing.

I must confess, I think the last good mayor we had was Mayor Campbell 4 or 5 mayors ago.  He knew how to grow the city and balanced budgets.  He attracted businesses, things where good.  As of late the city is over spending.  In 2006 and 2007 we had a 10 million dollar grant that we hid behind.  The capital grant dropped 8 million dollars in 2008 (Source 2007 and 2008 City of Idaho Falls CAFR).  This was a sign we were over spending by relying on soft money in the first place.  So, since 2008 the city has been raising taxes, fines, fees, and licenses to cover the grant short fall of 8 million dollars.

Money has even been taken from the city businesses to cover the over spending.  Speaking of which, city businesses have been losing money also.  City businesses are down 10 million dollars in earnings over the last 8 years.     

But here is the rub, The city has been spending more on parks and recreation, public safety, and streets instead of making Idaho Falls business friendly.  Businesses don't care about parks.  Businesses are designed to make money for their investors, executives, and employees.  They need power, phones, gas, water, sewer, and trash at reasonable prices.  They need fair non-excessive regulation and taxation.

Cities are only strong if the wealth of the city resides with the people.  Here is a picture of the health of our city.

See a problem?  If not let's look a little closer.  Source of household income. 
The following charts are all from the city's Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs)

The money is shifting from the people to the city's spending project.  2014 is deceptive just because the household income is under the 2012 levels.

Lets look at taxes.

Watch the yellow and green lines change places.  And, the last chart.

Businesses like the purple line.  Boy, it sure looks to me like the city is running off businesses and taxing the people to build parks and anti-riot teams to control the unemployed.  Quick note; how much of the public safety budget is cameras to watch and record every intersection and street.  How much we miss when we think someone else is watching our back.   

I know most people aren't going to understand this but for those who do; if our city council would apply fractal mathematics to the equation of running the city in balance the solutions light up like uranium to a Geiger counter.

Benjamin Franklin is attributed with expressing the sentiment “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”   There are many that attempt to fit this logic into today's reality of surveillance as if Franklin would approve of being constantly watched.  If this was the case Custard and the battle of Little Bighorn would never of happened.  Taking the Indian Chief's responsibility away from them (aka liberty over ones self) made them less then men and they rebelled.  Let's look at food stamps.  We relieved the people of feeding themselves.  As a nation we are weaker in our workforce.  As a people we are slaves of the state.  This is a violation of the Nation's "General Welfare" from the Constitution pertaining to congressional responsibilities.  In modern lingo, distributive networking with multiple server redundancy (bit torrent) is superior to server centric networking (so weak in it architecture that there are no example among Enterprise servers).  That is a testament to Franklin wisdom.  When we stand and hold our hand out we are at the mercy of the generous and if the generous start holding their hands out we starve.

Fractal Mathematics: the microcosm of our attitudes, abilities, and actions translate to the macrocosm of our society.    

Solutions:

1. Teach people to protect and produce for themselves as much as possible.  Encourage looking after each other without tattling to government spies.  Reduce the price for safety by placing the responsibility back where it belongs on the individuals first.  Teach or allow gun and weapon safety classes.  Allow the use of low-power projectile weapons in the city limits under the supervision of responsible adults.

2. Parks are great but 50 in a population of 54,000.  If people have no jobs who is going to play in the parks?  If the median house hold income is dropping there is something wrong with the local business sector and or the city population.  The parks need to be reduced or turned over to local neighborhoods.  Create neighborhood food gardens for those that need food, training, and accomplishment.   
             
3. Reduce taxes, fines, fees, licenses, and regulations to encourage businesses.  The concept of money is only produced in a free market environment.  This point is why governments can't create monetary value.  The socialistic ways of collecting taxes does not allow for the free efforts of individuals to instill value through desire of an item or service.  Slavery doesn't profit the slave.

4. Be aware of "Academic Inflation" when it comes to government supervisors.  In the real world the expense of ones education doesn't translate to a bigger paycheck without earning the money on the free market.  In other words, if you build a bunch of yoyos and nobody wants them you didn't earn any money you created debit.  The city pay scale should reflect the local private sector's paychecks if we really what to grow Idaho Falls.  The public should have a vote on general pay-scales and individual director paychecks

5. Remove the "Smart Meters".  The federal government paid half to install them (2012 and 2013 CAFRs).  The meters have a far sorter live expectancy then the old analog meters and will need to be replaced 4 to 5 times in the lifespan of the old meters.  Even if the fed continues paying half, the meters are expensive.  The meters are easily hacked and vulnerable to pole shorts.  In California a pole grounding cause the destruction of hundreds of meters and  damaged each house and its appliances.

Warm fuzzes and displacing poor people while dreaming of a rich investor to develop downtown Idaho Falls (out of the goodness of his/her heart) is at best dreaming.  I have one more chart.

 It took a lot of digging to come up with these numbers.  If our population is dropping and our incomes are slipping is raising taxes for parks and security really going to help us?

Source 1
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Source 5