Way of the World

Lost Creek Guide May 19, 2021

– Way of the World –

by Bob Grand the industry has not done a very commendable job in maintaining the public good. Again

Graduation season is upon us. The 2020/2021 school year is ending and, unfortunately, whose js it to provide oversight? it has been a tough one for many of our young people in many ways. Your youth is a par- President Biden is considering tax increases that may impact the results of that. It is said ticularly important period in the development process of you as an individual. Life should he is considering a 39.6% top tax rate, limiting benefit of 1031 tax exchanges to $500,000 be an ongoing learning experience, full of those exciting and stimulating things that make and treating capital gains as ordinary income for those making over $1,000,000 dollars. up the basis for what you are to become. This last year has seen what appeared to be forever He has claimed that families making under $400,000 would not be adversely affected. lock downs, online learning, an isolation from the rest of the world. You became even more Still a developing story. addicted to your cell phone as that was the only way to stay in touch. Your interaction with Bottom line on the surface we are becoming two Americas. I do not believe that is true. I your peers was highly artificial and did little to develop your social skills. But it is what it is. believe most Americans want to provide for their families and want everyone to be treated Life continues. I would like to thank all the school districts and all our advertisers in help- fairly. The problem is the politicians see no gain to that. Many thrive on divisive politics. ing to bring this year’s graduating class pictures to the paper. An effort to bring back a little We should not reward these people by reelecting them. normalization. Best wishes to all graduates as they begin a new chapter in their life. Your thoughts and comments are always appreciated: publisher@lostcreekguide.com

This COVID 19 year will change how we do business in many areas. Remote learning efforts overall, did not receive good marks from many parents who asked what or how should we be educating our children. Add to this the many parents who are asking about all the new “wokeness” that seems to be overwhelming our current culture. Vivek Ramaswary LETTER TO EDITOR has said “ Wokeness is no longer about challenging the system. Wokeness has become the system.” This is crazy. America is not perfect, as it is composed of people, who inherently are not perfect, but what we have in America is a framework that allows for people to strive to achieve their dreams and visions. We should always work to improve all the processes in place. That does not mean we should rip everything out and put it in a pile and burn it. Some people recommend this as the only option. Has anybody asked are there some that benefit by ripping out the fiber of our culture? It would appear there are some that profit by it, both financially and politically. People are beginning to notice that inflation is growing. For those of us that shop for food or buy gas we could have told you what was happening. In the past our government use to borrow money to handle extraordinary events, disasters, or wars. Today we borrow to pay the federal expenses. The percentage of federal budget dollars for social services is the highest in over sixty years. Can you ask has anybody measured the direct dollars that go to provide those services to the recipients as opposed to the total amount spent on the administration of those efforts. Providing service to the homeless in California is an awfully expensive effort, how much of that is direct aid to the individuals who need the assistance? Who asks that question? Who asks that question in our state? Our elected officials should. At our federal level we have allowed an elite class of bureaucrats and lobbyists to become the deciding factors on what our government should do to help us, by default, as we are told we are not competent to decide for ourselves. We are not educated enough or understand what is really best for us. The Center for Responsive Politics (web site: Opensecrets.org) reports that 427 former members of Congress are now lobbyists as well as over 5,400 former political staff members. You wonder why that six of the top wealthiest counties in America surround Washington D.C. We should be asking our locally elected officials what they are doing about this issue. Maybe we should ask them about supporting term limits. Maybe even asking them about following the law on what the Greenhouse Gases President Biden says he want to reduce greenhouse gases by half. Is this really true or even possible? He is going to accomplish this by reducing CO2 Since 97% of greenhouse gases is water vapor this leaves 3% for all other greenhouse gases. Let us look at CO2, the life blood of the planet. At the moment we stand at 400 parts per million. Some say that we would raise the CO2 level to 600 parts per million if we would increase food production 30% and reduce water consumption by a third. If on the other hand if we cut CO2 by 50%, we would be down to 200 parts per million. At 150 parts per million most vegetation would die and we with it. In the last ice age, the numbers got to 183 parts per million. CO2 above 1000 parts per million have been recorded without any significant effect. While CO2 generates heat, it is not linear. If 100 parts per million produces one degree of temperature rise 200 parts per million do not necessarily produce two degrees of temperature rise. The more units the less heat each unit generates. In other words, CO2 reduction may not drastically impact the environment. :Follow the science” has become new buzz words. I guess we really need to understand what the science is saying with the data. As opposed to hearing what some would like to us to believe it says. Where is the truth as opposed to painted, biased opinion? As the late Democratic Senator from the State of New York, Patrick Moynihan famously said, “ You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.” The American people need clarity not analysis blurred by bias and partisanship. Correction: In a previous letter I stated that no one expects to leave a nursing home. This thought needs to be corrected as some nursing homes provide rehabilitation services where in fact the intent is get people up and about and back to their living their lives at home. I wanted to clarify that. I apologize for the misstatement. 10th amendment calls for. Having government officials that are located locally are a little closer to the voting public as opposed to the remoteness of Washington D.C. That does The Family of the late James (Jim) H. Riesmean that our local elected officials do have to be more responsive to the local electorate rather than issue platitudes and say “I am fighting the good fight in Washington, but it is so Sincerely thanks you for yourdifficult, please understand I am doing the best I can”

Well doing the best they can is not good enough. The policies in Washington today are Many thoughtful expressions of sympathy.creating a debt structure that our grandchildren’s grandchildren will be paying for and beyond. Your prayers, heartfelt words, generous gifts and

We should press for term limits for elected officials and quite frankly for civil service employees as well. We have allowed a governmental bureaucracy to build up over the last warm presence has been a source of comfort, support, and strengthhundred years that would be offensive to our founding fathers. A system that is not responsible to the people but only to its own survival and growth. This leads to establishing Your kindness and caring are deeply appreciatedand maintaining a clear have and have nots society. Have you asked that in this last year of lockdowns how many government employees lost a paycheck? Maybe if some had, the Thank you.lockdowns would not have been as long.

A little noticed release from the Attorney General of New York said that a study of the Helen, Jim Jr./Ingrid, Mike/Lauracomments to the FCC on hearings in 2017 regarding the net neutral issue revealed that 18 million of the 22 million comments were from specific groups targeting defeating the ef- and families forts. When you consider that China has been reported to have over 2 million full time and 22 million part time internet influencers, how are opinion results influenced? What can you really believe?

The message is clear. Do not believe everything that the polls tell you.

There is ongoing talk about the breakup of the big tech companies. The upside for the big tech companies is, if they are forced to spin off their early purchases, they will realize a tremendous value created for them if these spinoffs go public. It is abundantly clear that

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