Author: Paul P. Rachmanides

posted April 10, 2014
6- The Economy – Encore

It takes two to Tango.  I am not talking about dancing; I am talking about the dance of life.

Nature and us, a formidable duo. The question is how do we treat the relationship. Are we handle it with loving tender care or there is evidence of abuse.  Nature has been unimaginably generous to us.  It requires us to sleep about 8 hours per 24 hours so, the metabolic process can take place, our bodies do the necessary maintenance so to speak. It has provided us with air to breath, food to eat, and water to drink. These needs are basic, fundamental, indispensable for our very survival and they must be met first. Those needs appear at the bottom of Abraham Maslow’s pyramid of basic needs. That’s all nature can do, now we enter the picture, to dance and tango with nature. Are we allowing our bodies to get the required hours of sleep? are we doing enough to not pollute the air we breathe, are we growing and feeding our bodies with nutritious food because we are what we eat, so to speak. Our influence with nature is 51% at the very minimum, we have a controlling interest. What we get is the product of the choices we make and the priorities we set.

Now I would like to add three more basic needs for human survival. Business, Science and Technology plus Medical Advancement.  I have just completed defining the “productive sector of the economy”, which feeds and protects the nation.

The Founders of Business, that is companies that make things, Farmers, Scientists and Technologists who are helping companies to make/manufacture things, and Medical Personnel- Pharmaceutical companies who together treat/cure our illness are the true stars.

We are witnessing the financialization of the American Economy, unfortunately. Finance is the tail that wags the dog. It has put a leash on the “productive sector of the economy” and pulls it in which other way but straight. There is a misconception that “money” grows the economy and create jobs. Let me set the record straight. “Money is a dead commodity, dead as a door nail”. Only a successful entrepreneur can breathe life into it. Half a billion to Solyndra and they go bankrupt, that is the Government’s contribution to the economy. How many politicians or bureaucrats have found a company and make it survive and succeed.  Steven Jobs and Elon Musk have changed the world with virtually no money from the Government. I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.

The Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate (dark energy). That means tomorrow will be bigger than today, and today will be bigger than yesterday. If we keep going back in time, we’ll arrive at the birth of the Universe some 13. 7 billion years ago, called the “Big Bang”, according to cosmologists. The term “Big Bang” was coined by Fred Hoyle and it was meant as a derision. He and Albert Einstein hated the notion that the Universe was born and expanding ever since. Both believed in the “Steady State”.

The four fundamental forces of nature, that is gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak force were together at the moment of the Big Bang. A trillionth or so of a second after the Big Bang, gravity split causing the Universe to expand faster than the speed of light, (the inflation any Universe) according to Alan Guth. This super rapid expansion trapped the temperature inside, and explains the homogeneous temperature throughout the visible Universe. Then, electromagnetism split and flooded the expanding space time with pure energy. For the next 380,000 years’ light was trapped by the primordial soup where the cosmic annihilation took place by matter and antimatter particles and atoms were born. For every billion or so of annihilation one matter particle survived. These surviving matter particles formed the visible Universe that we today observe. Then, the Universe became big enough to enable light to escape, thus the journey through space time began illuminating the cosmos. What all that has to do with us and the economy? In a word plenty. We are made of star dust, of atoms and atoms are the key to the cosmos. Our life and our actions must mimic, comply with the laws of the cosmos. If we do we benefit, if we don’t we pay a price. In the following paragraphs I will attempt to show our parallel, our relationship to the cosmos.

If we look at any company of any size that has survived and prospers and go back in time we will arrive at the founder, who at a certain point in time had a Big Bang in his/her head about a product or a service. His/her imagination and passion outrun and had overcome any reservations that might holding him/her back (gravity split-inflationary universe). Then, despite every doubt from well-meaning people about the chances of success of their endeavor, they managed to stick to their goal, to persevere and succeed (cosmic annihilation). Founders of companies are creators of tiny, tiny universes. As their companies survive and expand forming company divisions(galaxies), star employees form specialized groups (solar systems) where individual and/or family’s life revolve around it.  It requires a powerful energy and imagination to start a company, and the chances for survival are slim, it takes a significant amount of time and effort. Politicians, economists and bureaucrats have no idea how difficult it is, what it takes to found a company and make it grow, make it a success. Whatever they know is academic, superficial and probably half correct. If they only knew how difficult it is to found a company, they wouldn’t burden us with tons of rules and regulations that hampers us to be more productive. I would like to offer the following example to somewhat reflect what I am trying to illustrate.

A farmer wants to plant 5, 000. 00 acres with apple trees (a product). He needs to bring irrigation to his land. The government requires him to get a permit, an arduous process, how to lay out the pipes, what specs to meet. The farmer protests, saying I know what to do, I’ve done it before. Yes, but we must be seen as protecting the consumer, we want to make sure the consumer gets good quality product (apples). The farmer says if I manage to irrigate my land the consumer will get good quality apples, but I can’t find technicians to lay out the pipes (currently there are over 3 million tech openings that go unfilled). The government suggests that he hires 5, 000. 00 people to water the trees with water buckets. That way the farmer helps to bring down the unemployment. That will not be cost effective the farmer counters. Yes, the government says but it will be politically effective especially with the mid-term elections coming up.

Anyway the government says, we’ll take a look at your situation after the elections. It will be too late by then, the farmer protests so, I will hire tech talent from overseas. Oh NO, the government says, we can’t let foreign workers take American jobs. Well, you get the idea what the “productive sector of the economy” has to deal with, but in a much broader and diverse context.

There is another fundamental way we are connected to the universe, and that is balance and symmetry in the following way.  The most stable atom in the universe is the atom of the iron. Nature has decreed that its 26 protons and its 26 neutrons balance each other perfectly. The universe is in a constant flux trying to achieve the stability of the atom of the iron. Atoms that are lighter than the atom of the iron fuse together(fusion), trying to become more like the atom of the iron. Atoms that are heavier than the iron atom naturally break up (fission), becoming lighter than the atom of the iron and fuse together, trying to achieve the stability of the atom of the iron. This process is constant from the dawn of time.

Balance brings stability, predictability, you can plan ahead, calmness, happiness and a sense of achievement. Are you listening Congress and Mr. President? The richer nation ever, to be a debtor nation is incomprehensible, kicking the can down the road is not the right thing to do. Balancing the budget is.

Balance is not enough; it must be combined with symmetry. A pound of lead balance with a pound of hey, but from esthetic point of view is an eyesore. Symmetry contains balance plus proportionality, fairness, it projects beauty, positive emotion and self-esteem. Symmetry is easy on the eye; we fall in love with anything symmetrical.

Well, I can talk for hours nonstop about the economy, but I better stop for now. My next blog will be dealing with taxation, the great impediment to economic activity and growth. America, if you think some of my ideas are indeed out of the box or even out of this world, wait and see what I will propose about taxation.

Until then, I wish everyone a hopeful day.
Paul Pantelis Rachmanides

posted April 04, 2014
5- The Economy

“It’s the Economy stupid”.  Amen, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Economy is a Greek word (Oikonomia) comprised of two words, (Oicos, which means House and by extension Household and Nomos, which means the Law, Order). Together it means the orderly state of affairs of a Household, and by extension “Thriftiness of a Household”.

As you can see America, Economy does not mean Spending and Consumption, but Thriftiness and Savings. The Economy is a wide angle, deep field, complex situation. I can approach this diverse, complex situation from a dozen different angles simultaneously in my head but, since I have to articulate them I can do so one angle at the time. Because I am a big fan of Quantum Mechanics I will pick an angle at random. Before I do that, I like to state my CORE argument, the FUNDAMENTAL POINT about the Economy.

“The productive sector of the Economy is so unbelievably efficient and productive yet, it is burdened, at times attacked, being taken advantage of, and some of us show no appreciation. ”

I know, I know it is a strong statement, but in due time will become apparent and clear. Shortly I will define, state and make it clear what I mean by “productive sector of the economy”. And now the time has come to get on with it.

The number one priority of the economy is not to create jobs, and it is not to create profit. “The number one priority of the economy is to create wealth”. Whoa, doesn’t profit equals wealth? Well, in a word NO, profit has nothing to do with wealth. How about thinking outside the box. Before you make up your mind on this America, I like to invite anyone to participate in the following thought experiment.

Imagine for a moment that all of you who decided to participate in the thought experiment suddenly, each one of you, your net worth is 1 trillion dollars. That’s several times the combined net worth of Carlos Slim, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett. How do each one of you feel? Wealthy? If you do congratulations, I am happy for you. Now comes the bad news, each one of you have just being diagnosed with an aggressive, inoperable brain tumor and doctors gave you less than a month to live. Your trillion dollars can do nothing for you. But wait, I got good news for all of you.

Extraterrestrials have appeared in front of all of you simultaneously and said: “We can cure all your brain tumors under one condition, all of you will not be able to earn more than $30,000.00 a year gross for the rest of your lives. How many of you will turn down the offer? You see Ladies and Gentlemen Wealth equals Health, there is a reason why they rhyme, and Debt rhymes with Death, slowly. So, now let’s examine what contributes to Health. On my next blog I will examine people’s hierarchy of needs, according to Maslow.

Until then, I wish everyone a hopeful day.
Paul Pantelis Rachmanides

 

posted March 25,  2014
Perfecting the Political Process

Imagine we elect the President and Congress and costs the taxpayers nothing.

What? You say it will never happen,  that’s impossible!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen,  “Nothing is impossible if we dare to passionately and relentlessly pursue it”.

If nobody serves in Congress more than eight years,  young bright people will have a chance to enter the political process and sculpture their future according to their beliefs and aspirations.  It will be relatively easy for them to spread their message via the internet and social media,  they are good at that.  Also,  young people with new ideas,  new attitudes and impressive knowledge of technology might be able to come up with a better way to solve the socioeconomic problems.

The way things are right now the cost of entry into political arena is very high.  We the baby boomers should make way for young bright people to occupy Congress.  We, most of us that is,  have lived way beyond our means which became the new normal.  The result was we accumulated a mind boggling debt of about 60 trillion dollars, so far that is.  If you,  and we must,  add to the National Debt the consumer debt,  State and Municipal debt,  plus the promised but unfunded entitlements that is the number you get.  For a country who is so unbelievably technologically advanced, to have its socioeconomic environment all messed up, off tracks,  is sad.  We need to inject BALANCE and SYMMETRY.  I’ll expand on that when I get to the Economy.

We all love this great country; we just disagree on how to show our love.  We also disagree on what the Government should do for us, as opposed what we can do for ourselves.   I am sad to state that I see a tectonic shift of personal responsibility away from the individual.  It is anybody’s fault except the individual.  We the individuals possess incredible power and limitless potential, we need to unlock it, to unleash it, and brand our personality on it. We the individuals are the first and best line of defense, we can handle, overcome, control, and cure just about anything if we apply enough imagination, passion, persistence and perseverance.  Once a situation/problem passes by the individual the degree of difficulty of curing it increases proportionately to the square of the distance. The situation we find ourselves in as individuals, community or a country is the end – product of the choices we are making and the priorities we set.

I hope it has become apparent that problems must be solved by the individual and locally. The less Washington does the better off we are. President Kennedy famously said: “Don’t ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”. I would like to somewhat paraphrase this famous line and say: “Don’t ask what your Government can do for you, ask what you can do for yourself”.

We need leaders in Congress, self-made individuals who have been there done that, who overcame significant obstacles and succeeded in their civilian life. Leaders who volunteer to serve in Government free of charge, who are beholden to nobody but to their conscience, who have the backbone to show tough love, because it is the right thing to do for the people they serve and the country they love. Since they volunteer to serve free of charge they receive no benefits when they return to civilian life.

Leaders are passionate about efficiency which can be defined as “maximum output using minimum of resources”. In other words, “less is more”. Which bring me to writing and submitting House and Senate Bills. No Bill should be more than 25 pages long, double spaced that is, and every Bill should be accompanied with a 5-page summary. Every member of Congress who votes on this or any Bill should be required, under oath, to state that he or she have read the 5page summary. Reading the 25page Bill would be optional. Here is a hint: don’t let lawyers write the Bill, hire English composition teachers.

I can solve the Middle East problem in 5 pages or less. If I can do that, anything can be expressed in 25 pages. One more thing.  Each member of Congress can submit 2 Bills per year, one or none. Submitting Bills that couldn’t possibly be read by all members of Congress is not the way to go. We can’t and we shouldn’t legislate every human activity, especially not from Washington. People’s life can be influenced 25% by Washington, and 75% by their own State. That is a Federal System.

A Federal System is a weak Central Government and strong States. The advantage is that 50 issues are being examined by 50 laboratories, instead of 50 issues are being examined by Washington one at the time. The States voluntary joined the Union and Washington shouldn’t boss them around. The States should demand more autonomy. I will expand on that when I get to the Economy.

Finally, a few words about the Filibuster. Do away with it America. In a democracy the majority rules. One individual to be allowed to hold Congress and by extension the Nation hostage for 24 hours or so, to me looks a bit dictatorial. To be more specific I like to say the following. Mr. Ted Cruz, your aim was correct and noble, your method was incorrect. Where I am from we have the following expression. “The chicken chooses the wrong time to build her nest when she is about to drop the egg”, roughly translated. In other words Mr. Cruz you cannot decrease the Federal Budget in 24 hours while it took decades of excessive spending to build it up.

My next blog will be dealing with the Economy. I have a question for you America. “What is the number one priority of the Economy?” It is not creating jobs. If you think that is controversial, wait and see what else I have to say.

I wish everyone a hopeful day,

Paul Pantelis Rachmanides

 

posted March 18, 2014
3- The Political Process

1984 was a sad year for me not because I was starving to survive, but because my favored commercial went off the air courtesy of the Federal Government that said: “The System is the Solution”.  At that year, I believe, Ma Bell broke up into Baby Bells.

It has been said “It’s the Economy Stupid” and I like to add “The System is the Solution Stupid”.  If we keep the same system and keep doing the same thing but expect different results, a very wise man called it “insanity”. So, if the risks are systemic we need to calibrate, change, alter or improve the system.

I have stated in my previous blog that our Political Process has become unbearably expensive, divisive and at times viscous. I believe we need to change the System under which the Political Process is running by implementing a number of Constitutional Amendments. We need to take the professional politician out of politics. The longer they stay in Federal Government the greater the probability that they will develop an ideological atherosclerosis, thus the intransigence we witness in Washington.

I propose the first Constitutional Amendment: The President should run only for one Term of six years. The Senator should run only for one Term of eight years. The Congressman should run only for two Terms of four years each. We need to get off this process of perpetual campaigning.

The Constitution envisioned a volunteer citizen legislator, not a perpetual politician. It would be nice and beneficial if they found a company in the productive economy and see for themselves how “easy” it is to survive. They will be appalled by the number of silly rules and regulations they helped impose on the productive economy while they were in office. George McGovern wanted to found a motel and was appalled by the bureaucratic nightmare he had to go through. We need to semi-privatize the Government and shrink it down to five Departments. Most of us think the Government is getting too big, but I have not heard so far anyone to offer a specific plan as to how to do it. Well America you don’t have to wait any longer.

The five Departments in order of importance: Treasury, Defense, Justice, Interior and State.

Part of the problem we are facing is that politicians legislate too much and bureaucrats run the country. Bureaucrats think they are God’s gift, they think they know best, and they are telling the productive economy “do it our way or else”. In some respects, they force the productive economy to run inefficiently.

Constitutional Amendment number two: We need to criminalize, forbid, outlaw and designate with capital letters as a NO-NO political contributions of any amount, at any time, by anyone.  Political contributions warp and distort the fabric of efficiency and fairness.  We need to take the big money out of politics.  I know many people will disagree.  To have a seat at the table, to be heard, to have access to the decision makers it is your inalienable right America, you shouldn’t have to buy it.  The Supreme Court made a terrible mistake for allowing big money to flow, to flood the political process.  Big money hijacks the democratic political process, it fans the flames of negativity, division and the urge to win at all costs.  Politicians tend to do the bidding of big money interests.  In a democracy we witness the “tyranny” of the majority and majority can be expressed in votes, decibels and big money.  Big money trump decibels, and decibels often trump votes.  We need to reverse this trend where votes ring supreme.

The above reflects only half of the story.  Political contributions take money out of the productive economy and that is the real damage political contributions make.  I will expand on that when I’ll get to the economy.   Also encourages the political process to run inefficiently because, politicians use our money to fund their legitimate projects, use our money to fund their pork barrel projects, and use our money to get elected so, where is the incentive to be efficient? Money that are not yours are going to be inefficiently used, thus the need to semi-privatize the Federal Government.

Don’t despair America, you have been blessed with unbelievable brain power, immense resources and a “can do attitude” by far second to none. How can we put all these blessings to work for us? I have an idea that I will share with you on my next blog.

I wish everyone a hopeful day,
Paul P. Rachmanides

posted March 05, 2014

2-Context and Perspective

Do you know where are you at?

Do you know where are you going?

Do you know where you came from?

The correct answer is NO,NO and NO.

You don’t know, I don’t know, nobody does.

All of us, some 7 billion people piggyback a rocket planet called Earth, which hurls through space time at about 50 miles per second,rotates on its axis at more than 5 times the top speed of Indianapolis 500, completes one circle around the Sun in 365 days, and the whole Solar System completes one circle around the center of the Milky Way in about 250 million years.

The Milky Way, according to cosmologists,contains between 100 and 200 billion stars and God knows how many planets, a supermassive black hole lurks at its center, and the Milky Way’s diameter stays steady at about 100,000 light years thanks to dark matter.

The visible Universe (about 4%) contains about 200 billion galaxies and space time pushes them away from each other at an accelerating rate (dark energy).

We live, act and interact in the Electromagnetic Field, and most likely in a Supersymetric World. The running of the coupling constants will determine that, according to James Sylvester Gates.

What all that has to do with us? In a word “everything”. We all are a part of the Universe,we are made of the same “stuff”. Everything in the Universe is made of atoms,and all this mind-boggling variety is the end-product of different combinations of the 92 naturally occurring atoms. The Atom is key to the Cosmos, according to Jim Al-Khalili.

The Universe works because of some 20 universal constants that do not change over time. If one constant is tweaked all hell will break up, and the Universe will cease to exist as we know it, according to Brian Green. In addition to the constants, the Universe follows some fundamental principles/laws and they are balance and symmetry, has anyone heard of “Supersymmetry or “Susy”?

Ladies and Gentlemen reflect for a moment where we/the earth fit in the grandeur of the Universe!!!!!!!!! That is perspective.

Context is when you know where you stand in relation to your immediate environment. It’s like the GPS, it tell you you are here and not there or over there. So, if you want to go from here to anywhere, around the corner or around the globe, you are confident you are going to hit your mark, you will arrive at your destination.

I am using the GPS example as a metaphor. We need both the smartphone (context) and the satellite (perspective) to work in harmony, if we want to get to our destination.

We need to know where we stand and adopt the laws of the Universe,if we are to succeed in life.If we do not,we will be lost in the sea of uncertainty. Balance and Symmetry are two of the fundamental laws of the Universe.I will expand on them when I get to the Economy. By the way,has anyone seen the Economy? What does she look like?

Margaret Thatcher once said “there are no societies,just individuals”. To paraphrase her comment I say “there is no one economy but several. The Political,Consumer, Financial, Cyber and Productive Economies”. The Productive Economy feeds and protects the Nation. The others affect it at times beneficially and at times not.

On my next blog I will deal with our Political Process, which has become unbearably expensive, divisive and at times vicious. There must be a better way to skin a cat, and cat stands for catfish.

On my previous blog I asked “What governs the World?” Here is my answer:”Ideas govern the world”. Ideas coalesce into beliefs which coalesce into religion, religion shapes the culture and culture permeates into political, economic and social systems of a country. I wish everyone a hopeful day.

Paul Pantelis Rachmanides

posted November 12, 2013

1-Welcome to My Blog!

Good morning everyone. My name is Paul P. Rachmanides author of “ The Potato Peeler”, a truly American tale. It is that of the dreamer, it is universal and it speaks to all who would seek to better themselves in any facet of their life. It is the story of the human condition, of the destiny manifested by one’s determination and will. It is genuine. It is true.

I believe that “ Nothing is impossible if we dare to passionately and relentlessly pursue it”. My story clearly shows that each and every one of us have the chance to enact real change in our circumstances if we so wish. With courage, resolve, strength an intelligence we can all avail ourselves to make the best of our opportunities and create them for our selves when it may seem that there are none. Readers of my story will be taken on the journey of a lifetime…truly.

Enough about me. The purpose of a series of blogs that will follow is to express my thoughts about America. In other words to clearly state what I think we as a country are doing right, and what I think we need to improve on.

It is my genuine and sincere desire to offer a unique, out of the box perspective on why the present situation exists, and what needs to be done in order people`s life would significantly be improved.

Over time I will express my opinion on just about everything.

The Political Process, Term Limits. Campaign Contributions, The Presidency, Congress, Judiciary, Defense, Foreign Policy, Economy, Technology, Taxation, Treasury, Globalization and outsourcing, Labor and Job Creation ( they are not the same ) Personal Responsibility, Education and Higher Education, Immigration.

Wall Street and the importance of Limited Partnerships, Stock Market, Federal Reserve, Money Supply and its impact on the dollar and on the economy, The importance of the Gold Standard, Financial Markets, Debt Financing, Derivatives.

Hedge Funds, Credit Default Swaps, Insurance and the importance of Private Equity Firms, Bond Market, Mortgage Industry, Banking, Private Sector, Public Sector.

Professional Sports, Music and Movie Industry , Social Media, Context and Perspective ( they are not one and the same). Finally, what is the “ American Dream”, where it resides, and how do you know you got it.

Why do I want to do this? Because I desire to give back to America, because America has been good to me. There is nothing more valuable to give than a genuine, thoughtful thoughts that mean well. I hope my blogs will become conversational. Eagerly will anticipate your comments.

I will begin expressing my thoughts on my next blog. To get the conversation in motion I have a question for you America. “What governs the world?”

In other words, countries operate according to their own political, economic, social and cultural systems. There is one thing or concept that dictates the shape/ formation of those systems. What is it, and how does it affect those systems? I will express my opinion on this next time. I wish everyone a hopeful day.

Sincerely,
Paul P. Rachmanides