The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Greetings ta ever one in western Illinois and all readers of "The Quill".
Here we are into a new year already. A feller had better get used to use'n '19 real quick now instead of '18.
I remember as a young'n old folk talk'n of things happen'n in 1919 and wondered what that must have been like. Now it is us who will build memories for 2019 to share with the next generation. Time marches on!
With this New Year, there is much conversation on trade with China. I'll try to give some insight for your better understand'n.
Something that most people do not understand about our trade with China.
It used to be that an American business, let's say Apple, Inc. would give their phone design to a Chinese company to build. They would build it for "Apple" USA for $5.00.
Apple USA would then sell the phone for $800 in the U.S. making a profit of $795 on which they now had to pay taxes.
After we signed the trade deal with China, American companies, like Apple set up offices in China or built factories in China.
They built the same iPhone they did before, but now APPLE CHINA made it for the same $5.00 it used to make it for, but APPLE USA would now buy it from Apple China for $795 so when they sold it in the US now for $800, they only made $5.00 in the U.S.
The $790 profit was in Apple China's bank account.
This is why it is no accident that every company set up offices in China to make all the corporate profits in China and leave them offshore. So when companies would say they now made more money overseas, it was true.
But now you know why. This was learned when the Chinese president was on with Fareed Zakaria and explained it.
So when Trump talks about tariffs, he is not so much hurting China, but getting some money from companies that are doing this to avoid taxes.
That's why they are all screaming bloody murder!
Trump knew this, but the average person does not. If these companies are buying something from China for $795, the US will now get a 25% tariff to bring it in.
It should bring in billions.
Then you have companies like Google and Facebook moving to Ireland where the corporate tax is only 15% and transferred all of their intellectual property there so income derived from that intellectual property would not be taxed by the US.
They could now say oh no, that 2 billion we made last month is from Irish intellectual property. So nobody was paying a whole lot of taxes.
Now comes the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP.
What happened was China was stealing the intellectual property of many international companies and starting to compete with them with their own designs that were the stolen technologies in Chinese products.
More and more companies decided they had to leave China but US taxes were still too high to bring business back home, so they started looking around to countries like Vietnam, India, Pakistan, and several others, but these American companies wanted to do the same thing they did with China and one has to believe ALL of congress came out in favor of it because they all got their bribes to pass it.
Obama even endorsed it prior to leaving office.
When it got to Trumps desk he said NO!
So they had no place else to go but home and he reduced the corporate tax to something more tolerable and granted a onetime allowance to repatriate earnings from overseas.
A brilliant move.
So, all of these changes that Trump has made has made the economy take off like never before.
Very gutsy and many folk believe that nobody else could have gotten all of this done. At least no one has until this time.
They have all been paid off as usual selling out the average American for bribes.Check the donations to all the politicians if you want to see how your representatives vote Check out how much money McConnell and Ryan got to keep the bribes going to insurance companies for Obama care.
You know, the 2 billion per year as a bonus to stay in the plan. It wasn't to help fund the insurance, it was just a bonus to the insurance companies.
What an outrage.
Two friends in our neighborhood lost their old insurance. One is now paying $1,600/month for his and the other guy lost his insurance, can't afford Obama care and now pays the penalty and has no insurance.
So they was SHOCKED when John McCain flew in to vote NO to eliminate the mandate portion of it. It is ridiculous to pay a penalty because you can't afford the insurance.
Again, check out the campaign contributions.
Before Trump, most folk was like most other Americans who voted for him. They would holler at the TV news every night.
Now they smile and say, it's about time we used some common sense.
When they heard Trump talk about cutting aid to Pakistan, Contributions to NATO, contributions to the UN, impose sanctions and reduce aid to countries that don't vote for our agenda etc.
They just say YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
And fer some good thoughts from some early founders of our country:
"We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel."
-Benjamin Franklin's statement he made at the Constitutional Convention, June 28, 1787)
"It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement;' to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing upon their present and prospective action." -Abraham Lincoln declaring a National Day of Prayer and Fasting following the battle of Bull Run.
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are a gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever." -Thomas Jefferson 1781
"Sometimes GOD calms the storm....And sometimes HE calms us in the midst of the storm." -BYB 2019
THE BIBLE
"The Bible contains 810,697 words. This is about four times as many as are found in a book of average length. Although so long a book and dealing with the greatest theme that can engage the mind of man, its vocabulary is singularly limited. Only 6,000 different words are used; which is very small compared to the 20,000 employed by Shakespeare in writing his plays.
Not only is the vocabulary limited, but the average word in the Bible contains but five letters. Many of these short words in the Bible are, however, full of the deepest meaning and are worthy of earnest study such as these short five-letter words: grace, peace, faith, saved, serve, glory, and Jesus."
-Oxford University Press
SURROUNDED
"Beneath me green pastures, beside me still waters,
And with me my Shepherd to lead every day.
Before me a table, and enemies round me;
Behind goodness, mercy- o'ershadow my way.
Beyond me the house of the Lord ever loometh;
And soon I'll be home with my Shepherd for aye."
TOMORROW
Tomorrow can not be found on God's calendar.
Tomorrow sounds so innocent, but it is life's most dangerous word.
Tomorrow is the road that leads to the town called Never.
Tomorrow is the barred and bolted door that shuts people out of heaven.
Tomorrow is the nursemaid of hell.
Tomorrow is Satan's word. Those who expect to repent tomorrow usually die today.
Don't count on tomorrow.
HOW TO LIVE A
100 YEARS HAPPILY
Do not be on the outlook for ill health.
Keep usefully at work.
Have a hobby.
Learn to be satisfied.
Keep on liking people.
Meet adversity valiantly.
Meet the little problems of life with decision, best done by saying somethiing pleasant every time you get a chance.
Live and make the present hour pleasant and cheerful.
Keep your mind out of the past, and keep it out of the future.
It's Not what we EAT but what we DIGEST that makes us strong.
Not what we GAIN, but what we SAVE that makes us rich. Not what we PROFESS but what we PRACTICE that makes us Christians.
That's all fer the first column of 2019. Hope'n ta see ya in the church of yer choice this weekend throughout the weeks of the new year and beyond!
Keep on Smile'n
Catch ya later
Barnyard Bruke