Tough Times Ahead

I extracted the following quotes from this article. http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/bobbeauprez/2012/01/08/obama_fails_math_portion_of_presidency_test/page/full/ I believe that it is well worth your time to read but if you don’t feel like it then consider these words of wisdom.

"The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people." Andrew Mellon Secretary of Treasury for Warren Harding.

It seems to me that we would be very foolish not to look at history and see what has occurred at other times from the current era to the fall of the Roman Empire which can be traced back to policies that are very similar to those of the current president of the USA.

For wisdom let us look at someone from the party he says he represents though from another time: John Kennedy.

"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." John F. Kennedy

We are spending money we don’t have to make things better in the USA today. This is like a family maxing out all of its credit cards. The question remains this: What will happen when no other nation will lend us money? That I believe is a fearful day and fast approaching. Worse yet is the day when no one will accept our money, when it is viewed with the same disdain as the peso… indeed times are going to get tough.

© 2012 Vic Jones

Lesson 54 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. Abraham Lincoln

Let us paraphrase this for the modern era: Let not the poor man steal (whether with his own hand or by government action) from the rich but rather let him learn to become rich and build his own wealth thereby assuring that his wealth will be safe from the greed of other men.

Greed is without a doubt at the heart of wishing to have what you desire without work. But greed always leads to everyone having less goods and less security.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 33 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Persistence is more important in the scheme of life than inspiration or brilliance.
This is one of the hardest lessons of life to learn. It therefore bears much repetition. In simple parlance practice (persistence) makes perfect. Thus the writer or artist who works at his craft every day is better than the brilliant genius who waits for inspiration to hit.

This also applies to other areas. The man who has many skills but who does not go out every day to find a job (or refuses to take a job) will not usually be as successful as the man who works every day.

© 2011 Vic Jones

Lesson 19 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

The reason negative thinking works more often than positive thinking is that we are more apt to act on our negative thoughts than on our positive thoughts.


A fine example of acting (or not acting) on negative thinking is saying, ‘I can’t,’ when you (or I) say, ‘I can’t,’ we immediately act on that thought and simply refuse to try what ever it is that we said we could not do.


Wise people have told me (though I don’t do well at following their advice) that in order to overcome the tendency to say, ‘I can’t,’ I should look closely at one action that I’m avoiding by saying, ‘I can’t,’ and do that action to the best of my ability even if I don’t do well.


© 2010 Vic Jones

Lesson 14 from The Hard Knocks School of life

Change is inevitable; how you react to change will either make you a success or a failure. The first and most important attitude that anyone must have in the face of change is that change represents opportunity.
Success is always a function of how well you deal with unexpected opportunities.

A good question to ask yourself is: How are you doing at dealing with the opportunities that life has handed you?

© 2010 Vic Jones

Lesson 11 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Keep your eyes on your goal and remember your plan... this is the essence of success. Without a plan and goal very few people succeed after they learn to walk and talk....
Or in other words learning to walk and talk are driven by necessity and do not require a set plan. But other activities beyond walking and talking are not always driven by necessity and therefore do require a plan and consistent work toward a goal in order to achieve success.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Lesson 9 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

When you fail it is an opportunity to learn. If you refuse to learn from your failures then you have refused to accept the facts of life.
I of course must admit that my most common failure is my refusal to accept the facts of life. I. E. I’ve been known to make the same mistake many times before deciding that what I have been attempting will not work.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Lesson 7 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

The essence of positive thinking is belief, if you believe that something is possible you will do it. Negative thinking is belief too; it is the belief that you can’t do something. Choose what you are going to do and succeed or fail according to your beliefs.
There is a flow of consequences from thought to belief to action. In other words your thoughts control your beliefs and your beliefs control your actions.

© 2010 Vic Jones

Lesson 5 from The Hard Knocks School of Life

Life is hard. This is a fact; what you do about the fact that life is hard will make the difference in whether or not your life is successful. Money is not a good measure of success, happiness is a fair measure of success, how many people whom you have helped be better people is an excellent measure of success.
© 2010 Vic Jones

Daily Question 8

What sets a successful person apart from an unsuccessful person? Is it money? That seems to be one measure of success but is it a true measure of success? Perhaps a better measure of success would be whether or not a person could maintain relationships with other people.

Certainly in my opinion people are more important than things, yet we must have the necessities of life and in order to get them we must have money which means that for the most part we must spend our time earning money. Therefore it is easy to come to the conclusion that having more money or the ability to earn more money than other people is a measure of success. After all the only question that defines success in the end is: do you have what you need to survive?

© 2010 Vic Jones