WOMENS' RIGHTS

In every country, slaves were freed and could vote before women were freed and could vote. This is because men early on realized they needed to control the means of production of babies.

Prior to DNA, the only way a man could be CERTAIN that a baby was from his sperm was to make certain that his woman was kept inside a moving prison of rules about where she could go and what she could do. Women do NOT want to return to such 'slavery'.

It has been less than 100 years since women got to vote in the USA. Women KNOW that the most important right that they have is the right to control their own body. Women KNOW that babies should be wanted and welcomed with joy in the heart.

Even so, health of the whole body is more important than fighting the abortion fight while trying to pass a health care bill. There are other elections now that we know that the abortion issue STILL is not settled.

WE WILL REMEMBER!

PLEASE DO NOT LET IRAN CON US AGAIN

Repressive governments who face opposition by reformers WANT sanctions from the Western powers. That way they can blame all of their country's problems on the evil Christians or evil capitalists (whichever fits best).

It is REALLY STUPID to try to control countries with sanctions, especially if that country has a large percentage of the population that wants reform. Do you think that the government is going to suffer because of sanctions? No, it is the people who suffer because of sanctions. In fact, sanctions may keep the people so poor that they are unable to find the energy to try to fix their own government.

TRIALS IN CHINA

I do not understand why they bother to have criminal trials in China. Does ANYBODY get found not guilty?

On Christmas Day, a Chinese reformer was sentenced to 11 years for asking for freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in guaranteed by Article 34 of the Chinese constitution, which reads, "Citizens of the Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."

I do not understand why our news media call the people trying to reform China and other countries "dissidents". They are REFORMERS, because they want reform.

GOOGLE -- THANK YOU FOR MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Google has given $20 million to charity on my behalf (and on behalf of its other AdSense customers). This is not exactly the present that I had in mind, but thanks to Google, charities will get needed funds.

I do need to inform Google that Ms. Manners says that a donation to a charity of your choice is not really a gift to someone else. On the other hand, Ms. Manners also says that you are not allowed to critize the manners of anyone else, so what does she know? %>)

Long time readers of my blog will remember that I asked Google to give me $20 million so that I could start the Pamela Smith Center for Law and Science. Guess that is not going to happen. %>(

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, and HAPPY WHATEVER HOLIDAYS YOU CELEBRATE!

PLEASE CALL OR WRITE NEBRASKA SENATOR BEN NELSON

I know that Nebraska farmers and small businesspersons NEED health care reform.

I was born and raised in South Dakota, Nebraska's next door neighbor.

Senator Ben Nelson has stated that his personal beliefs are more important than health care reform.

If you vote in Nebraska, and believe health care reform is important, please contact Senator Nelson. His contact information is available at www.bennelson.senate.gov.

DO NOT USE BAD LANGUAGE. BE POLITE.

REMEMBER THAT WHAT THE VOTERS THINK IS STILL IMPORTANT.

WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

For us all to treat EVERYONE with respect. LISTEN to what other people say as they may hold the answer. If you think you have the answer, be prepared to verbally defend your position. No adult is going to take, "Because I said so," as a valid reason.

Remember that people are more important than things.

FORGIVE each other. Hate RUINS the hater.

Pass a version of the health care bill. ANY health care bill is better than no health care bill.

JOBS for everyone.

LOANS for small businesses.

MAY THE SOLAR NEW YEAR BRING PEACE AND PROSPERITY TO THE WORLD.

FEARFUL BANKERS

I think bankers are afraid that they will make another humongous mistake.

The irony is that their fear will make this a self fulfilling prophecy.

This fear is also unnecessary as the events leading to the real estate bubble are probably unrepeatable. I think the FHA not insuring loans so that people in large urban areas could buy houses was one of the main causes of the real estate loan problem. AIG just delayed the crises, and made it happen all at once, rather than slowly.

We all kept our fear under control so that the economic crises could be fixed. Now it is up the the bankers to get over their fear and LEND MONEY.

HOME SCHOOLING IN CALIFORNIA

If you are going to home school your child in California, you must have a teaching credential.

You can check the Education Code sections 48200 and 48224. There is also a recent court case, In Re Rachel L (2008) 160 Cal App. 4th 624.

I believe that socialization is as important as education. Children educated at home do not learn to interact with a variety of other children. It is also important to learn to be part of a group of people working toward a common goal. (My favorite activity for this is joining a marching band.)

If necessary, you can supplement your child's education with books, movies, discussions, museums, cultural events, Boy and Girl Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind, science experiments, computer gaming, board games, card games, and other adult - child interactions.

I believe that most other states have laws similar to California's law regarding home schooling.

GET MY LEGAL ADVICE

I will be glad to look at any legal problem that you have. It will cost you $50 for the first half hour and $100 for the first hour. Please bring all relevant paperwork.

Usually I can give you an overview of what the problem is and what you can do about it. If it is work that I do not do, I can send you to another attorney who is an expert is your problem.

I am also willing to do consulting, for which I am going to charge $1000.00 an hour to any company worth more than $20,000,000.

PLEASE CALL FIRST. My information is on my website, www.LawandLaws.com

FEAR OF LENDING

For years the banks lent money to anyone who breathed, secure in their belief that the loans were insursed by AIG.

Now USA banks are sitting on ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over what regulators require that they keep in order to be healthy.

The problem is that this failure to invest ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is what is keeping the economy from rebounding. Maybe we should send the bankers back to college to take economics again. Failure to lend will cause another crunch in the supply of money. (I am not the only one to believe this. German bank regulators are saying the same thing.)

NUMBERS are not the only thing that makes a borrower credit worthy. Length of time in the community, commitment to a project, knowledge to make the project work, are all factors in making a good loan.

I have been talking to people who have not gotten loans. I am beginning to believe that banks are returning to their old bad ways of red-lining communities and not lending to credit worthy women.

We all kept from allowing fear to destroy the world wide economy. Banks should learn from us.

FEAR OF LENDING WILL DESTROY US ALL.

KILLING INNOCENTS

I can always tell when a valid social protest has lost its way. When the leaders decide that no one is immediately doing what they want done, they escalate their efforts by killing innocents.

A social protest movement that cannot get enough people for a peaceful change will sometimes use violence to affect the change they believe is necessary. This is the quickest way to go from being a GOOD GUY to being a BAD GUY.

NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth killing babies. NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth bombing a place of worship. NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth killing people who are peacefully shopping.

When you use violent methods of social protest, you are saying, "I want you to do what I tell you to do." People who use violence to get social change do not want followers, they want slaves.

CREDIT REPORTS

Most Americans live in fear of having a bad credit report. They have good reasons for this fear as banks and FHA seem to have given up actually looking at individual situations and rely completely on the credit report from only three credit reporting agencies.

We need to ask:

Why do ALL the credit reporting agencies have the EXACT SAME formula for evaluating credit? Don't we have anti-trust laws?

Why does your credit rating go down every time you apply for credit? Why does your credit report go down every time you are turned down for credit? Is it a conspiracy to prevent you from shopping around for better loan rates?

We have a lot of unemployed lawyers. May I suggest they start thinking about the problem of FICA scores controlling people's destiny?

BTW, you can force the credit agencies to put data regarding extenuating circumstances into your credit file. Not that anyone does anything but read the STUPID FICA scores.

WAR ON MINORITIES

Most of us do not give a shite* that our prohibition war on certain drugs causes violence. This is because the violence is not in YOUR back yard.

As long as the violence in in our ghettos, in Mexico, and in Afghanistan, we are happy to pretend that it is not OUR appetite for the forbidden that fuels this war.

Study after study has shown that legalized regulation of drugs keeps the drugs less available to our children. When the drug is illegal, often the sellers do not care WHO buys the drug as long as they are making amazing amounts of money.

Please google the song, 'Beans in Your Ear' for a lesson is forbidding something.

* Shite is British slang. It is pronounced as if it rhymes with bite. It means the same as if it did not end in an 'E'.

FIXING THE FINANCIAL MARKETS

I am uncertain that more regulations are going to work. Some smart people spend a lot of time finding ways around the laws and regulations they do not like.

Financial institutions are owned by their multitude of stockholders who ALWAYS vote for the current management.

Stockholders also vote with their feet, selling stock based on the quarterly earning statements. Computer trading advice programs have made this problem acutely worse, as the programs just look at the numbers and not at the actual health of the company.

CEOs now make the majority of their earnings from stock options, so they REALLY want to keep the price of stock rising.

In order to keep the price of stock rising, it is VERY TEMPTING to deliberately make a bad decision that makes short term profit, but causes long term problems.

I strongly believe that this problem could be solved by my longer and longest term capital gain idea.

To recap that idea:

In order to get everyone to make better long term financial decisions, we need to encourage people to hold their stock for a long time. I believe that people do incredibly stupid things in order to save taxes. So let's get people to make smart decisions in order to save taxes.

We add longer and longest terms capital gains to our tax code.

Longer term capital gain will be stock that is held for between 5 and 10 years.

If the taxpayer sells the stock at a profit after 5 years, the taxpayer pays only 50% of the then current long term capital gains tax. This will be called longer term capital gains.

If the taxpayer sells the stock at a profit after 10 years, the taxpayer pays no capital gains tax at all. This will be called longest term capital gains.

Between 5 and 10 years, the taxpayer will pay based on the number of days that (s)he held the stock. For each day beyond 5 years, the taxpayer pays capital gains tax on a prorated basis based on the actual number of days (s)he held the stock. For instance, stock held for 6 years will be taxed at 40% of the then current long term capital gains tax.

It is important to allow people to decide how long they want to keep the stock for the 5 through 10 year period. Otherwise we will have a huge sale of stock at the end of the first period of longest term capital gains.

I REALLY BELIEVE that this will help make our businesses, our country, and the world a better place. We MUST STOP the insane short term decisions that our businesses are making.

As my grandmother would say, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."