Archives for July 2016

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is one of the most precious and important rights granted to an individual citizen by the Bill of Rights under the U.S. Constitution. The right to speak freely was considered so fundamental that it was incorporated into the First Amendment. Even while framing the Constitution, the Founding Fathers realized that a totalitarian regime begins to assert complete control over the people when individual citizens are no longer allowed to criticize their government. So they took immediate steps to ensure that individual right was preserved. Although one of the most important symbols representing the United States is the American flag, for which brave men and women have sacrificed their lives to serve and protect, in the case commonly known as Texas v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag is a protected form of free speech allowed to government protestors. However, in today's madness of political correctness, merely flying a Confederate flag at her personal residence might become the reason a twenty-year veteran police officer can be terminated from her job with no warning. Of course, not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. Exceptions do exist. You can't libel or slander another citizen with impunity. You can't incite panic or mob violence. And unless your last name is Clinton, you can't commit perjury or disseminate classified information into public domain without facing serious criminal charges. And as everyone probably knows by now, you can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre and cause a general panic, … [Read more...]

The real minimum wage

The "real" minimum wage is zero. Meaning zip. Nada. Nothing. Don't believe me? Then let me give you a brief lesson in basic economics. Several years ago I was an active real estate investor, until the bottom dropped out of the housing market. Looking for a way to earn supplemental income, I took a special class to learn the business of real estate appraisal, finishing with the second highest score of about fifty people. However, in order to actually earn an income as a real estate appraiser, a minimum number of hours would have to be "earned" by me working on the job as an unpaid apprentice to a licensed appraiser before I would be granted my license. But guess what? Because so few houses were being bought and sold at the time, I couldn't even find a single real estate appraisal business in the Atlanta area that would let me work for them for free. I couldn't even give my work away. Nobody wanted new competition for what little work the market offered at that time. As a result, the $750 fee that I paid for the real estate appraisal course turned out to be a complete waste of money, unless we count the chunks of the plot of my first novel, Coastal Empire. Speaking of which, there is something much better than minimum wage: residual income. As long as I live and copies of my books sell, I will earn residual income in the form of book royalties, which is a beautiful thing. Do the work once, and get paid forever. The only tricky part is, books need to be sold to produce income, so we need to know marketing. By taking that class, excelling but then failing, … [Read more...]