You’re a coffee connoisseur, and you enjoy your flavored brew. But you also want it to be organic. Where do you look to fulfill your wishes? You’re in luck, because there are lots of retailers that offer organic flavored coffee. Just look at your options and decide what’s best for you. You might prefer a [...]
Source: coffee.walakam.com
Myths and Wives Tales
I was told today, by a close friend, that if you get canker sores, it is your bodies way of punishing you for lying. What?! Have you ever heard that? Me neither. Isn't just the feeling you get after you lie to someone bad enough? All these old myths and wives tales are not working for me. In fact, they are not working in our society...
Today, kids are smarter than they ever have been, and telling them that if they make a funny face it will stay that way, no longer works. Granted, it worked on me and you, but it is no longer a good way to get a kid to stop making funny faces. Same with the canker sores one I got from my buddy. I give that one more generation and then its toast.
Now, thinking about this a little more in depth, these old sayings is how i was raised and taught not to lie, cheat, or steal. But nowadays, that stuff doesnt cut it. What result will this have on our youth? Kids running around kicking and screaming is going to be a sad teachers career. And what about the parents?
Parents have a hard job as it is, but forcing them to innovate new ways of raising their children puts them over the top. Everything is trial and error when raising children. "Lets try this, lets try that" = Stress. For the most part, a new parent would raise their children the way that they were raised. Now, when I decided to have kids, the way that I was raised will not work. And that is the same for all of you out there.
But wow, what a tangent that was. The purpose of this article was to say "Lets get some new material!". Rather then continue to use the sayings and ideas as our forefathers, lets create some of our own becuase hey - it will be easier on the parents. Todays society is like a comic with only one joke. Lets get some new stuff out before they bring out the cane and pull us off stage.
Tyler Brooker is the owner and operator of Canker Sores Help - http://www.canker-sores-help.com, which is the best site on the internet for all canker related information.
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Finding the Ideal Espresso Coffee Beans
Just about any coffee beans can be used to make an excellent espresso. Any blend or roast will also do. In actual fact, there really is no such thing as ideal espresso coffee beans. A great cup of espresso relies more on technique and good equipment than it does on the actual kind of coffee used. [...]
Source: coffee.walakam.com
Show Me the Money
The previous post mentioned that Congress has already spent the entire Social Security trust fund, which as of last year, totaled $2.238 trillion. It also mentioned that current intermediate projections made by the U.S. Social Security Administration indicate that this trust fund should continue to increase in value to a total of $4.486 trillion by the year 2017, and that we the people of this great nation would be in dereliction of our duties as citizens and taxpayers if we were to let politicians spend the second half of this trust like they have spent the first.
For calendar year 2007, Social Security brought in a total income of $784.9 billion, which included $656.1 billion in cash from payroll taxes, $18.6 billion in cash from the taxation of benefits, and $110.2 billion in interest earned from the bonds in the Social Security trust fund. The program also had expenses totaling $594.5 billion, of which $584.9 billion was paid out in cash for benefit payments.
After subtracting total outgo from total income, Social Security generated a net surplus of $190.4 billion last year, but it is important to note that this surplus was not a huge pile of cold, hard cash locked away in some cavernous vault. In fact, only $80.2 billion was in the form of cash from our tax dollars, and the remaining $110.2 billion was interest earned on the special-issue bonds in the Social Security trust fund.
Each year when Congress raids the surplus, Social Security receives special-issue bonds equal in value to the money that is taken from the cash reserves in its trust fund. Like all government bonds, these special-issue bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government, and are completely legitimate treasury securities.
Similarly, when I purchase a $100 Series I savings bond at the local bank, I hand over $100 in cold, hard cash, and in return, the government issues me an interest-bearing savings bond by mail. What happens next is that the government spends my $100 in cash, and the national debt increases by another $100. A record of this debt eventually gets included in the monthly statement of the public debt, where totals for United States savings bond transactions are tallied alongside other nonmarketable treasury securities such as the special-issue bonds in the Social Security trust fund.
Like all $36.9 billion in outstanding Series I bonds collectively owned by investors, my bond will continue to earn interest each month for up to 30 years after its purchase, and during this time, the government will not actually send out checks for the accrued interest. Rather, this interest is added back to the value of my bond, and continues to compound monthly.
By comparison, when the Social Security trust fund earned $110.2 billion in interest last year, this interest did not represent a payment of cold, hard cash. Instead, this interest went to purchase more special-issue bonds for the trust fund, and the transaction was merely a mathematical calculation and an accounting entry on the part of the government, with no real money involved.
The danger is that the U.S. Social Security Administration is banking on the fact that real money will be available from the trust fund to help make benefit payments starting in 2017. All the economists, actuaries, and academics take for granted that this money will be readily available when the time comes. But where will the government actually get the cash?
For example, if I finally decide to go to the bank and cash in my $100 Series I bond, I will receive cold, hard cash in the amount of the $100 originally paid for the bond, plus the amount of interest earned over the interest-bearing period. This means that the government will actually need to come up with real money to pay me back, and my bond will no longer be financing a portion of the national debt.
However, more than likely, someone else will go to the bank and buy a savings bond that same day, and this new purchase will help offset the sale of my bond. In other words, new bonds are constantly being purchased by investors to make up for the ones that mature or are retired, and the government does not need to worry too much about replacing the lost source of financing when existing bonds are cashed.
Unfortunately, because the Social Security trust fund has been compounding for so long without its special-issue bonds ever having been refinanced or rolled over on the cash markets, and because the numbers are so very large, there is a substantial risk that existing financing sources such as the bond markets will be unable to secure replacement financing for these bonds. In other words, who will offset the disbursements when Social Security needs to start converting its $4.486 trillion in trust fund bonds to cold, hard cash?
Sources:
U.S. Social Security Administration - 2008 OASDI Trustees Report
(Section II.A, Highlights; Short-Range Results, Long-Range Results)
U.S. Social Security Administration - Office of the Chief Actuary
(Time Series: Both Funds; Income Components; Calendar Year; All Years)
U.S. Social Security Administration - 2008 OASDI Trustees Report
(Section IV.A, Short-Range Estimates; Table IV.A3, Intermediate Projections)
U.S. Treasury - Monthly Statement of the Public Debt, April 30, 2008
(Page 7, Total Outstanding United States Series I Savings Bonds: $36, 948 Million)
Source: blog.pactamerica.com
Coffee Machines For Any Style of Brew
You can visit any convenience store, restaurant or coffee shop and find a decent cup of coffee. However, a true coffee connoisseur will also often want to enjoy a fine cup of coffee right at home. This means that they need a coffee machine that suits both their tastes and their lifestyle. Lots of coffee machines [...]
Source: coffee.walakam.com
Payday Loans for the Government?
While going through some papers at my desk tonight, I came across a clipping from the June 10, 2008 edition of The Wall Street Journal.
It would have been fairly easy to overlook the heading “Treasury Securities Sales Set, ” as the U.S. Treasury is continually selling more bonds to finance our growing national debt, and the details of these transactions rarely make for interesting reading material.
However, the text of this particular notice was actually quite shocking.
The Treasury plans to sell $22 billion of five-day cash management bills Tuesday. The bills will be dated June 11, 2008, and will mature June 16, 2008.
Securities such as 26-week bills, 10-year notes, and 30-year bonds are all fairly common government debt instruments. But this was the first I had ever heard of five-day cash management bills.
June 15th is the deadline for payment of second-quarter estimated taxes, which makes it an important payday for the government. Corporations and individuals not subject to federal tax withholding must make quarterly payments based on their estimated tax liabilities, and these payments are due on the 15th day of April, June, September, and January.
In other words, the U.S. Treasury was selling these five-day cash management bills because the government was running low on cash and needed a short-term loan to keep going until payday.
It’s fair to say that people who seek payday loans are not usually in the best of financial circumstances. In fact, that’s pretty much an understatement, and in most cases, people who start taking these loans often end up making a bad situation worse.
So it’s a scary thought that the government continues to spend at such an alarming rate that payday loans would be necessary to keep things going, especially when these loans are in the magnitude of $22 billion.
Source: blog.pactamerica.com
Researchers have estimated that 25-35% of children in the United States have Learning Disabilities
Researchers have estimated that 25-35% of children in the United States have Learning Disabilities. At least 5% have Attention Deficit Disorders. All too many times during the course of their academic careers these children are labeled by teachers (or parents) as being "lazy, " or "stupid." Remarks of this type are typically interpreted by the child as, "You're no good, " and the self-esteem levels drop.
At least 50% of children will experience the divorce of their parents prior to turning 18 years old. Most children, for whatever reasons too complicated to go into here, will tend to place at least a portion of the blame for the parent's divorce on themselves. Since the parents are typically placed on a pedestal in the eyes of the child, the blame for the divorce cannot be placed on the parents and must be placed elsewhere, most commonly on themselves. This also significantly impacts children's self-esteem levels.
There are other important challenges to maintaining reasonable self-esteem, such as merely being "average" in a world that worships only the good looking, the good athletes, and the well-to-do.
But can too much self-esteem be bad for you?
Let me say here and now that inappropriately high levels of self-esteem may be worse that low levels. Levels of self-esteem that are too high may lead kids to believe that they are more important than anyone else, and that they should never be frustrated by work or challenges in life. It leads young people to believe that they should always have their way. Inflated levels of self-esteem ultimately discourages children and teens from learning how to work hard, and may well lead into criminal behavior (criminals tend to have high levels of self-esteem, not low levels).
Inflated levels of self-esteem also are directly at odds with the development of one's spirituality and relationship with God. After all, who needs to develop a relationship with God when he believes that what he wants is more important than what God wants? The ultimate out come of the self-esteem movement is seen in the New Age doctrine that you are, in fact, God. Yes you. The guy who can't balance his check book or keep his car fixed. You are God? So they tell us.
People are cheated in every important aspect of their lives, emotionally, socially, and spiritually, when their sense of self-esteem is over-inflated.
So how can we instill appropriate levels of self-esteem in our children?
Briefly, here are five key thoughts . . .
First, change the way that you look at this area of life from "self-esteem" to "self-confidence." There is a difference as wide as the sea.
To "esteem" someone, including one's self, involves feelings of "reverence" or "awe" or "honor" or "glory." Words have meaning. Let's not get carried away with trying to make our kids feel good about themselves by starting to ascribe to them positions of honor normally reserved for God, and perhaps for Presidents and Kings. The majority of our society's problems are caused by people thinking that they are as important or as powerful as God, or at least that they are more important than anyone else in the world. This is not something that we really want to encourage in our children, or in ourselves.
Instead we do want to encourage self-confidence. This attribute becomes especially powerful and beautiful when paired with the virtue of self-control. Raise your children to have these two character traits, and you will have wonderful and successful children, ADD/LD or not.
Second, give lots of encouragement, praise, acceptance, and teach responsibility.
Encouragement comes when you focus on your child's assets and strengths in order to build his/her self-confidence. See the positive. Even failures can be outstanding learning experiences. Encouragement sounds like this, "I like the way that you did that, " or "I know that you can do it, " or, "It looks like you worked very hard at that."
Encouragement is NOT giving compliments for work poorly done, but under those circumstances it IS inspiring your child to work harder and do better. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." -St. Paul (Eph. 4:29)
Ultimately self-confidence comes from having accomplished things worth being proud of. Reserve Praise for things well done. Where Encouragement is given for effort, Praise is given for accomplishment. Just say, "That's a good start, keep at it, " when the work is not yet worthy of praise. Accept your child for who he/she is. If you expected that your baby would grow into an Olympic athlete with an IQ of 148, and instead he/she is "average" then you might be very disappointed as a parent (most children are "average, " which is why they call it "average").
Disappointment is often turned into anger, or at least frustration. If your child cannot live up to your dreams for him or her (and why should they?) then please be careful of your emotions. If you are not careful, your own dreams and expectations for your child will become a wedge between you and your child. Please never make your love, encouragement, or acceptance, dependent on their performance or behavior.
Teach Responsibility to your children.
Let them try things and let them fail once in a while. Don't keep bailing them out. Victory only tastes sweet if we taste the bitterness of failure once in a while. Trust me, the dog's not going to starve if he misses a meal or two. The newspaper won't come to publish a story on your family if your child fails to make his bed once in a while.
Just use these occasions to remind your child that if his dog is going to ever eat again, he needs to get out there and feed it (assuming that's your child's job). Remind your child that he or she is an important member of your home and that he needs to be responsible with doing his chores.
Make the consequences for not being responsible fit the crime. And of course be sure to reward/praise your child when he does act responsibly. Behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated, and behavior that is ignored tends to go away -- so always reward and praise responsible behaviors in your children.
Douglas Cowan, Psy.D., is a family therapist who has been working with ADHD children and their families since 1986. He is the clinical director of the ADHD Information Library's family of seven web sites, including http://www.newideas.net, helping over 350, 000 parents and teachers learn more about ADHD each year. Dr. Cowan also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of VAXA International of Tampa, FL., is President of the Board of Directors for KAXL 88.3 FM in central California, and is President of NewIdeas.net Incorporated.
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