Founding Freedoms Jan 2005

01-12-05 FYI. The Washington Post reported today that the Pentagon has stopped looking for the vast stockpile of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq last month before Christmas. Needless to say that none were found.

01-13-05 We went to War Why? The 4 day celebration is not for the BushCo Coronation, but it's a celebration of the corporate take over of America, with the rigged voting machines. That's why the price of admission is so high. It's to say this is not a celebration for the average American.

01-28-05 Well the Dem's may have finally found their spin yesterday. Every Dem on the committee voted against approving "The Torturer" Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General. Thank You for finally standing up for Democracy.

FACT: Bush Lied to us 5 years ago when he said he would not touch social Security.

FACT: BushCo is borrowing money from the Social Security Fund to Pay for his tax cut to the top 1%.

In view of the handling of Enron, and World Com, by BushCo, who Never made restitution and stole millions of peoples retirement funds, can you afford to trust them to protect your money again. We know where the money went. We know that they stole it. Why don't they just take it back from them like you would from any other thief. At least in the hands of the government it makes it near impossible for him and his friends to steel it. Which is why he wants it out of the governments protection. Now he is borrowing the money and must pay it back, later they can just steel it. After years of us, "We the people", of funding the system BushCo will just take it all, and give to the wealth top 1%, as he is doing now. He wasn't to push this through now so he will not have to pay back what he already "borrowed".

01-27-05 Do you Know What a filibuster is? Do you Know That It Is A Check And Balance That Is over 200 Years Old?

The filibuster isn't just talk - it is one of our democracy's most important checks on the power of the majority in order to preserve minority rights.

A filibuster can be used to stop a narrow majority from forcing an extreme agenda - like packing the Supreme Court with right-wing ideologues - through the Senate.

It works like this: if at least 41 senators strongly oppose a bill or nominee, they can vote to continue debate and block a final vote on the issue. A final vote can only be taken if and when the majority wins 60 senators' votes.

In practical terms, the filibuster means that 60 Senate votes are needed before the most extreme right-wing judicial nominees can be confirmed , rather than a simple majority of 51. For two centuries, our leaders have supported the tradition of the filibuster in order to promote cooperation and compromise and because they know that the majority in the Senate doesn't always represent the majority of Americans.

What I find so amazing is the total lack of knowledge the average person now has about what is truly going on in this country. Oh sure they know the latest sports scores and who got traded to what team. They know that it is going to rain for the next 2 days, or that it was the hottest day of the year. But as to anything else... it's all the "sanitized" news that is fit for the American public. Ok you say that you are too busy to get the information, except from snippets here and there throughout the day.

Funny but we live in the information age. For better or worse there is more information out there every day than ever before. If you want to be informed then you have to listen to something more informative, than just a music station. If you want to have control over your destiny , you need to be informed. I am still amazed when I talk to people that they do not realize what happened in this last election. They have not a clue about the voter Fraud in Ohio. And when I start to tell them at first they think that I am making it up, like it's a joke and they are waiting for the punch line. They are oblivious to the fact that what went on makes Water Gate look like a cheap dime store novel. When I tell them about the problems in Florida, and New Mexico, I can see from the look in their eyes as they reach overload. It is just too much to process, because they knew nothing about what happened till just know.

Why is it that something this important, where the very foundation of our country is at stake, our right to vote... the Main Stream News Media has gone silent.

I have many Republican friends, and I get sent numerous e-mails with heading like "see I told you..." and after a few minutes of research on the internet I usually can debunk them as a hoax, and not true. What is even more amazing is that no mater how many times I prove to them that they are being lied to they still refuse to see the truth. When you discuses with them what their values are they refuse to see that the Republican party is not representative of those values any more.

It seems that people would rather believe the simple lie rather than the hard truth.

Day in and day out they sell their freedoms and rights away on the lie that it will make life better. Well it won't. Times have not changed that much when it comes to money and power over the last several thousand years. The problems that we face today, we faced 200 years ago when the constitution was written. A lot of the protections were put there for a reason. Those rights and freedoms are now being dismantled now by the rich and powerful.

We send our children all over the world in the uniform of our country's military, and have them put into harms way. Some never to come home again. Somehow they don't have the time to find out what is the truth all around us. They act at if that this is a big sports event, and so what if their team fouled the other team and didn't get caught, because their team won.

We are at the edge of the precipice and need to wake up. Do you realize that now that BushCo wants detention for life if they are accused as a terrorist without any proof, and never have the right to due process. By the definition of the Patriot Act, you can now be subject to that definition just by reading this web? BushCo is turning the clock back 790 years to 1215 to a time to before the Magna Charta. The Magna Charta led to the English and later the United States Constitutions. More precisely it gave protection to the rights of the nobles and common citizens alike to be free of arbitrary actions against their persons or property by their sovereign. It has come to be recognized as the first cornerstone of liberty and justice in the western world.

The world has always faced terrorism although it was not called that. Every day bands of thieves, and robbers roomed the land. Countries sent out their armies around the world to plunder the wealth of other countries. Innocent civilians were killed or sold into a life of slavery. Yes terrorism existed for years, but by a different name.

"That they can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.."

That statements made over 200 years ago, but still apply today. The Statement was made by Benjamin Franklin.

These men found the time to fight and die so that we could finally have a nation the was ruled by the people and for the people. All you have to do is stay informed, so that through your vote you can control your destiny...your country.

The truth is out there, and you need to find it before there is no truth left to find.

** "Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up because...... I didn't speak up".

"Then they came for me....... and by that time no one was left to speak up".

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Well after all is said and done the Democrats Carried their boats down to the water but left the paddles home. They backed down again, with the exception of one Senator, Barbara Boxer and 33 Representatives from the House.

I would like to say thank you to John Conyers, Senator Barbara Boxer and the other 32 Representatives for standing up, in not only signing the bill but voting not to accept the electors. You truly are Patriotic Americans that would make the Founding Fathers proud. You are what the Democratic party should be and not what it has become.

The Democratic party had a chance to stand up to the Fraud of the BushCo Administration and they choked at the last minute. They stood there and said "we don't think that this will change anything..." That was the first mistake. They should of said that if it wasn't for the fraud in Ohio as well as Florida and other states, John Kerry would now be President Elect. The second mistake was when it came to a vote they all but 34 became a "Republican light" party, and voted to approve the electors. Millions of us believe and know just by looking at the data that there was wide spread fraud in several states in this election. Apparently most of our Democratic party members does not know that. They are believing the main stream media that they should be more center or more like the Republicans.

They just don't get it. Why should anyone vote for the Democratic party when they are "The Republican Light" party... You might as well just vote for the Republicans in the first place.

Now because of their lack of unanimity, instead of shedding light on the issue, it was reduced to short blip on the main stream nightly news, and a screen crawl on the morning news. If They all stood together the mainstream news would have to pay more attention to what happened. Unfortunately if you do not make a loud noise you get ignored, and a "squeak" did not qualify an a loud noise, therefore it was ignored.

We must all stand up now and forever more, and be proud that we are A Democrat that we are Liberal. We ourselves have let the word Liberal become a "Bad" word by shunning it, by not acting as though it is good to be a Liberal. When we are called a Liberal we should be proud... Proud that someone thinks that much of your beliefs to compare you to the Founding Fathers. If not for that band of Liberals we would not have America today.

When all is said and done I think that everyone, needs to take an objective look at what happened in Ohio, and to revisit What happened in Florida, and see just how dangerously close we are to having our country taken from under us. It doesn't matter weather if your Republican, Democratic, Independent, or Green, we must take an objective look at what went wrong with our voting system. It is now a proven fact that by several large major newspapers that recounted Florida, that Al Gore won. The only way that he loses if if you just recount the percents that he wanted to recount, but if you recount the entire state, Al Gore won the state of Florida and hence the election of 2000. I have pages and pages at to the problems with Ohio and I suspect that when some large newspaper will again look into what happened and again we will find that John Kerry won there as well. The only thing is that it will be too late once again to have our votes counted the way they were cast.

I believe, that no mater what party you support, that if you look at the evidence you will agree.

Because we all, if we call ourselves Americans, if we believe in the Constitution, which starts with "We the people..." Not We The Corporations. It's the corporations that now have control of the voting process. When questions arise and we need to see the software used to count the votes we are told NO, it is the intellectual property of their company, and we need to trust them.

They are using a computer, and a basic computer that you or I have in our home right now, and in fact it is running either Windows 98 or Windows 2000 by their own admission.

I don't think that there is a person alive on the planet right now that is using a computer, that is using a Windows operating system, that has never had a problem. Most the problem became so sever that you either reinstalled your operating system or out of frustration you went out and bought a Mac.

If the government would just use a version of Linux, than write the program to use on these voting machines. Then there would be no question as to intellectual property. It is an open source code software that "We the people" can own, that "We the people" can audit, that "We the people" can control.

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While digging out from the recent snow I found myself alone with my thoughts, and I find it perplexing at how a group of people who consider themselves "Children of God", can be so intolerant of others, especially when most religions teach tolerance, of others.

I find it to be so amazing that the same people who are against abortion because it is killing, support the killing of those who do not follow their belief. They support the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq, while refusing to believe the widely known truth Iraq was not a threat.

If someone chooses not to believe in God, they feel that they must force it upon them. As in the deceptive practice that they have now embarked on of trying to destroy science in this century by calling evolution of the universe, creationism. They Believe that the earth is 6 thousand years old, and want the rest of us to believe it too. Their argument is this:

You can apply those exact 3 questions to creationism. The difference is that when a scientific model is applied to both theories creationism falls apart from the start. Where as the timeline from the Big bang can be proven. At least the scientific method calls it a theory, which means it is open to change until proven as fact .Where creationism is calling it fact because God (an unproven faith based entirety) tells us so.

I was taught in a Catholic school for my first 9 years of school and if there's one thing I have learned is that their is no formal proof only conjecture. It is a belief. A belief that is based entirely upon the writing of other men. The writing that were reinterpreted by others many time through the last 2 thousand years. Many items were added that were clearly the device of other men. Many things were interpreted to mean something else as time marched on, as words changed in meaning. If you say that you believe in God than consider this. If Christ is the son of God than would you not say that the word of the Father should carry more weight than the son? With that said if we accept that the Ten Commandments are the only rules laid down by God, then there is not much room for reinterpretation. Simply put We were to respect One God, Respect our family, respect others, to be truthful, and not to steel.

If we all just follow these simple rules the world would be so much more peaceful. We would not go into war under the banner that "God is on our side", which by the 5th commandant, "Thou shall not kill".

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Everywhere we look today we are being told of how divided we are as a Nation. In the news we are divided into red states and blue states. In the Press we are divided into supporters of this ideal and detractors of that ideal. In our all-consuming sporting events we are divided into two simplistic groups. No matter what the sport, no matter how many teams are involved, we are divided into winners and losers. But are we? We need to start remembering one thing.

I find it so very hard to believe that we as a nation can be as divided as we are told we are, day in and day out by the media. How can we be that divided, and still call ourselves Americans? When every day we as schoolchildren, grew up reciting the pledge of allegiance from memory. “I pledge allegiance to the flag and the UNITED states of America…. Yes the United States… How could we have forgotten those simple words? Did we willingly forget, or were we unknowingly forced. It was by these simple words that our parents learned to stand together and found that we all were not that different. If they stood together and worked together they could make life better for themselves and their children. They stood together in the face of adversity and formed trade unions to protect not only their jobs, but also jobs for their children. They grew in numbers to become a powerful force that made corporations and governments listen to their demands. They became a engine for progress for all American workers. Somehow in the 80’s and 90’s, after we were told unions were bad, Unions cost us jobs, unions cost us sales to other countries, the deceitful message started to take hold. We once were the country that leads the world because we had the natural resources, and inventive minds to create goods the world wanted. But we were lied to and convinced that we needed to rid ourselves of unions to compete with other countries to sell our goods. We needed to change our trade polices to compete with the world. But whom did we help? Not us! Oh sure corporations turned larger and larger profits but at what cost. The cost was of more and more lost jobs, here in America, by both union and non-union workers. How did this happen you ask?

We allowed politicians to change the laws and removed the very laws that protected our jobs, helped our country grow for years. We were told that American workers were at fault, and we believed it, more wedges, more division. Our corporations were at fault, by not providing it’s work force with the tools they needed to stay on top. Instead American companies took their manufacturing facilities to other countries to hire cheaper labor, and through the changed laws were able to bring it back into this country and avoid tariffs. Before that If it costs $1 in labor to make the item here and $0.50 to make it overseas you had to pay a $0.50 tax to bring it into this country, so why should you go through that expense to build a plant out of the country and have to pay to bring it back into this country. End result was it cost more to do that than manufacture it here in this country. It has gotten to the point that we are very close to being a Banana Republic. The Definition Of a Banana Republic is: A small country that is economically dependent on a single crop, such as bananas, or a single product, such as tin. It is often governed by a dictator, or officers of the armed forces: “America has begun to take on certain . . . characteristics of a banana republic. In those countries, savings are hoarded rather than invested in productive enterprises” (Richard B. Hoey). [1]

Last year we Exported Millions in raw material to China and then spent Billions importing finished goods from China. We all know that the quality is poor at best, so the lie that it was good for us as Americans was another lie. Inferior goods, made at the cost of American jobs.

Just think about it for one minute, we were told to re-train in the computer field in the early 90’s because working with our hands was a thing of the past. That the money was to be made with our brains, not our hands. Then now in 2004 those jobs too are now being exported over seas.

Until the early 80’s when unions came under attack a union job was the job everyone wanted. It represented a good wage a stable job and good benefits. A Union job paid a decent wage, as anyone who grew up in a union household can tell you, that you may not have been the richest kid on the block but your family did not lack for anything. Unions had health insurance plans, for their workers and their families, they had retirement accounts. Do you see where this is going? It was the ideas that the unions fought for that later became state labor laws. Why? Because they were not divided, they stood together against corporate interests. Because corporations knew that if they did not at least negotiate with the workers unions that they would all stand together and walk out. And the workers knew that a walk out meant no pay so both sides knew it was in their best interest to talk and compromise.

Soon at the rate things are going the only jobs that will be left in America soon will be Politicians, and Police. The politicians to create the laws to protect the corporations and the police to arrest the rest of us.

We are now told that we need to import our labor because Americans do not want to do the work. We will work but not as slaves.

The wealth of this country is now distributed with 1% of the population controlling 90% of the country’s money. The remaining 10% of the countries wealth is divided amongst the remaining 99% of the population.

You need to understand what I just said so I will repeat it, this time try to understand the gravity of the statement.

Is it any wonder why we have become suspicious of everyone around us? We are like rats in a cage slowly, imperceptibility becoming ever more suspicious of every one else around you and not knowing why. The why is fear, fear that they will take your job, your home, what little you do have.

As you can see, money has “become the root of all evil” the only way to defeat it is to remove its importance. We need to return to the values of our founding fathers. They knew the power that corporations had wheeled in Europe and wrote protections into the Constitution. The very start read

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

We need to strip the corporations of their ill-gotten power gains. Corporations are not people and should not be accorded the same protections under the Constitution. Remember the First line “We the people”. For years until the late 50’s corporations were not considered a “person”. In fact the Founders were afraid that corporations would grow in strength, and that they would take over the government when they had accumulated enough wealth. That is one reason why a large inheritance tax was instituted, until the late 1890’s. So that great sums of wealth could not be passed on when someone died. It was set up in such a way that the very wealthy could not create a dynasty. Because Dynasty’s have always throughout history have always seized government control, which ultimately lead to that country’s demise. That is why you do not hear about a Washington or a Jefferson Dynasty. Big dynasty’s family names did not start until the late 1800s, because that is when the laws started changing.

Then with their foot in the door the dynasties wealth pushed to change the government checks on corporations so that they could attain even more wealth at a faster rate, swinging away from the ideals the founders had laid down to protect “We the people” In the 1940’s and 50’s corporate laws were slowly changed allowing for further dominance of corporations and even greater wealth to be passed on to the dynastic families who controlled them. Then in the 1980’s that wealth, now controlling the corporations, the corporations began to buy the politicians. Well not outright, but through donations to help their political campaigns. And it all happened because we became distracted with things that were not important just as we are today.

For example there is always some important must see trial on TV. The news pushes it in our face every day and it lasts for months. We didn’t even spend that much time on the trial of Jack Ruby the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald the person who assonated a sitting president John F. Kennedy. In Fact Kennedy’s assignation received less airtime as a whole than the OJ trials. Its time we just stop the madness. A trial should not take months, and so what if someone you do not know killed his wife. I know it sounds cold, but is it of any importance to you? Will it change your life if you see it? Probably not, but the laws that were changed while you were caught up in the trial that most certainly did. It was the bate and switch, we let it happen.

We let it happen again when so few of us forgot to question we were attacked on 911 on George W. Bush’s watch. We were so quick to blame Clinton for the attack on the USS Coles but somehow gave George a Free pass. Why is that?

Because we forgot that “United we stand, Divided we fall” But some how we have allowed our selves to become divided.

Do we not all have at heart the same basic common goals? To take care of our family. To provide them food and shelter. To live in peace. To help our friends when they need help because we know that they would help us when we need it. Is not that one of the basic most important goals in our lives? Security? So how are we so different, when at the core we believe in the same things. We are only different because we have been told we are, but we are not. We have allowed ourselves to be divided forgetting…

There is an old saying that “ we fear that what we do not know”. I think that in this day and age of global communication we need to expand that belief. We now can know the weather on the other side of the globe in an instant. We can see pictures of another planet in minutes, but we forget that we are all different. We live in a different kind of country. We forget that we are like separate countries, with different ideals and goals joined together to give us strength, but allowing us to be different. Now the media continues to hammer away at our differences as if it’s bad. Different doesn’t mean bad; it simply means that we are different. But the media pushes it in a divisive way, when it’s not.

When you live out in a rural part of the country you just can’t understand why someone needs to spend years in school with book learning, and can’t hunt a deer. The city dweller can’t understand why you would want to hunt the deer in the first place. Different... Yes. Bad… No. The person in the country plants their vegetable garden and cans their food, they take the time to cook a meal from real food not a box marked “Heat and serve” The city dweller buys it from a store, or a fast food place. Different... Yes. Bad… No. Should it divide us?

As a small child our first instinct is to share. How many times is it that we marvel at a baby when we give them a piece of food, when they are no longer hungry they offer it back to us, and we say “isn’t that cute they want to share with us.

We all need to find that child inside of us again. To stand together with our many differences and find that common ground. To reclaim the country bequeath to us, “We the people”, by our Founding Fathers. To rekindle their spirit and remember that this great experiment of a country, governed by the people and for the people can survive. That, “We the people” are America, and we are taking it back from the 1*Neo-cons. Once again. “That we the people” can govern ourselves. Because when “We the people govern ourselves we all do better economically and socially, that we are a nation that the world looks up to for leadership and guidance. That we are the nation where dreams not only come true but where dreams of tomorrow are born. We need to show the world that the great experiment was not in vein that we do remember…

ne·o·con·ser·va·tism also ne·o-con·ser·va·tism (nē´ō-kən-sûrʹvə-tĭz´əm) noun
An intellectual and political movement in favor of political, economic, and social conservatism that arose in opposition to the perceived liberalism of the 1960's: “The neo-conservatism of the 1980s is a replay of the New Conservatism of the 1950s, which was itself a replay of the New Era philosophy of the 1920s” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.). [2]

[2]Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V., further reproduction and distribution restricted in accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights reserved.

01-06-05 Let's Call "Tort Reform" By Its Real Name... RESTRICTING VICTIMS RIGHTS!!!... I thought America Was About More Freedoms and Rights Not Less...

01-12-05 No Surprise Here... BushCo Announces That There Are No Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Iraq... But He Knew Last Month Why Is It We Are Only Told Now??? Can You Say Election.........

01-24-05 Did You Know That BushCo, By A Executive Order, Has Given, 1 BILLION Dollars Of Our Tax Money, In The Form Of Grants To Religious Groups?...

01-25-05 On 6-11-01 Bush said "My Administration is committed to a leadership role on the issue of climate change"

BushCo refused to abide by the Kyoto Protocol, the agreement signed by 165 nations to combat climate change. Source: NY Times 3-28-01

01-14-05 NOW...NOW, Bush is sorry for saying "Bring it on" and "I want Osma Dead or alive". This from a news conference at the Whitehouse today. I wonder how many lives those statements cost?

01-14-05 There Are No Weapons Of Mass Destruction, and The Hunt For Them Is Now Over.

01-25-05 Condoleezza Rice on3-22-04 said "Counterterrorism expert Richard Clark chose not to voice his concerns about the administration counterterrorism policy".

Clark sent an urgent memo to Rice in January 2001 asking for a cabinet-level meeting about an imminent al Qaeda attack. source: CBS News 3-21-04

01-06-05 Why is it that BushCo. keeps taking from the poor and giving to the rich and no one in the main stream media complains about it. Any of you retired people out there who lost your retirement in Enron feel like backing BushCo.'s plan for putting your entire retirement in the stock market? Wasn't it nice that the government put Martha Stewart in jail but let Enron skate away with all your money. I guess that the government will now have to create a sort of FDIC to back the market so when the Bilk the public again you won't be flat broke. This way it will be easier for companies to screw you again and the government pick's up the tab and you the taxpayer picks up the bill, weather you want to or not, you get to pay twice, once the first time when you invest and again when you have to bail them out. Twice the punch for half the return.

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01-11-05 Well today I was Listening to The Tom Hartmann show and I was treated to a nice surprise. It was an idea that I had put out some 15 to 20 years ago. For those of you that know me you may even remember when I first made the statement.

Now for those of you that didn't know me then let me explain what I meant. Simply put slaves owners had to feed, house and clothe their slaves. Today we work all week so we can feed, house and clothe our selves with little money left for anything else. The only difference is that no one took us by force from our home.

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01-14-05 No matter how much fighting will be going on in Iraq BushCo will insist on the elections, so that he than now change the rhetoric once again. You see that once there is a election even if only 3 people get to vote BushCo will hail it as a victory for Democracy. We will than have to stay there in Iraq to support the new fledging Democracy.

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f you just stop to think about it countries like Russia and China would be less likely to use them because they have something to loose. Be it family, friends, a home children, something of value

But in Iraq, or if we do the same thing to Iran and devastate that country, just what do they have to loose to deter them. We would have either killed or destroyed everything that they hold dear to them.

They will be more likely to use whatever weapons that they have to strike back at us.

By the actions of BushCo he is only assuring that we will be attacked by them or by others who fear that they will be next.

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01-28-05 When you are told that a tax break to the wealthy it is good for you, because they will go out and spend more money, which will give you jobs It makes no sense if you just stop and think about it for just one minute.

Imagine that you have enough money to go and buy anything you ever wanted. Houses, cars, boats, big screen TV, anything you can think of. Imagine you can go any where in the world whenever you want. Now… imagine having enough money after all that to do the same for every person in your immediate family. Now imagine that you can do the same for everyone in your extended family, and by the way doing all that it will barely affect your wealth, which is still growing by the way. Now imagine that some one comes along and gives you more money, which you already cannot spend, fast enough as it is. Is that going to make you go out and spend money?

Now consider this. If you are the wealthy person just how many TV’s or houses, or cars can you buy before you loose interest, in buying “toys”. Maybe 50, maybe 100? While in the hands of the average American we collectively would be buying hundreds of thousands if not millions, of cars, boats, homes, computers, and Toys. This would force manufacturing to create jobs to fill the demand of the average American. That will give a much larger boost to the economy when millions of people spend money rather than hundreds.

Henry Ford paid his workers above average wages. When asked why he said. “If I did not, no one would have enough money to buy my cars.

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