I was self employed for my entire adult life.

My overhead was thirty-three percent before taxes. My wife was and is the only partner that I ever needed or wanted. Uncle Sam had a better ida and was soon my partner also.

I want to say here that I hope our new president stays healthy, lives a long time and does a great job while in office. We will all benefit from that.

I just find the private sector better at doing most things.

I worked with building inspectors and other people in government service and found most to be decent people.

However, there are always those people in all levels of life that we remember so vividly who thought they were above all others in intellect and used their power to their own advantage over the rest of us. Mao, Fidel and Lenin come to my mind, instantly.

When you answer to someone far away or to no one at all and you have little or no oversight, you begin to think that you are wiser than you are and take advantage of others.

This is human nature, sadly.

There is no free ride in this world. If you think your medical care is free anywhere, you are not looking at the entire picture.

Do doctors and nurses work for nothing? No. Is your medicine made for nothing and given to you? No. Not for most of us, anyway. Our taxes pay for your free medicine.

I hear people talking about the high price of medicine constantly. If it were free no one would complain. It cannot be made for free. How would the companies do research without paying staff? Will people work for free? Of curse not, no one will. Would you?

Why does a business exist?

A business is created to make a profit, first and foremost. Not to help mankind. If it does that, then all the better for all of us, but that is not why businesses are created. Businesses are created to help the owners make money and to live.

However, they create all of the wealth of the nations that they are in. They make nation states possible.

And remember, they create most of the jobs in our country and all others. They pay your salary and help you buy the food that you eat. It is an exchange of your labor or brainpower for cash. It’s that simple.

Public school is not free. It is free to the students who use it, but all of us pay for it through taxes.

Social Security is not free. It came and comes from your taxes and mine as well.

Medicare and Medical money comes from taxes, as all federal and state money does. The government has no money except for what it takes from us in taxes or prints, sadly.

Who pays the taxes? Do some research on that.

Do the poor pay taxes? Yes, sales taxes, mostly. Do the middle class pay income taxes? Yes, some, but not the majority of the taxes taken in each year. Do some research on who pays the most taxes. Use what ever source you want. I used Google.

The truth might surprise you after what you have been told over and over again about the rich for so many years.

Where did the public librarys come from?

No poor person ever asked me to repair their apartment building or home. No poor person ever asked a builder to create a mansion for them.

No poor person ever gave me a job.

People who worked for many years of their lives and who put their futures on the line by borrowing money to buy an apartment building or home were my main clients. They had a plan and stuck to it.

Ask your landlord how he was able to buy the building you live in. Did he inherit it? Not likely. Most likely, he worked like a dog as you are doing now. and he is probably paying a mortgage on it as you pay the rent.

Does the government create housing? They tried and failed miserably at that, as usual.

Hey, look here. Listen. Here’s a secret. Here’s the plan for success. I’ll give it to you for nothing. Just don’t tell anyone.

Work hard, show up on time, do a good job, be polite, listen and learn. Save some of your money to invest and have some fun. Keep some in the bank, because someday if you are lucky you will be old and need it.

Don’t think the government cares about you. It doesn’t. Take care of yourself.

And if you listen and learn, you might even be able to own your own business someday. that’s when life becomes difficult, more complex and fun.

Flipping burgers is a noble job as all honest labor is.

But most people pass through those jobs up to a higher level job in the same company or use their experience to move on to a better paying job. No one ever mentions this in politics or in the news papers. Why is that do you suppose?

Is a married man expected to buy a house and raise a family by working at the lowest end of the work force? No.

You move up after time and experience makes you more valuable to the company and you are paid more.

You make more money as you go and then when you have some savings and decent income you might get married. If you can fool some sweet lady into thinking you have half a brain like I did. Then you start to raise a family, but not until you can afford that.

The government does nothing without your money and it does most of those things badly and too expensively.

I don’t ever want the government for a partner, I cant afford that.

But I will pay my share in taxes so that our kids and our grandmothers will have the benefits that they need. We are all in this together and the sooner you get that, the better off we will all be.

Sorry about the length of this, but is important stuff.

R.C. Hand