NEW YORK (Reuters) – Another 17 U.S. billionaires, including Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, have pledged to give away at least half their fortunes in a philanthropic campaign led by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. A total of 57 billionaires now have joined The Giving Pledge, which was launched by Microsoft founder Gates and investor Buffett in June. The campaign announced the new pledges in a statement late on Wednesday. Gates, his wife Melinda, and Buffett have asked U.S. billionaires to give away at least half their wealth during their lifetime or after their death, and to publicly state their intention with a letter explaining their decision. The Giving Pledge does not accept money or tell people how to donate their money but asks billionaires to make a moral commitment to give their fortunes to charity.
Like me, perhaps you too think that this “Giving Pledge” is a noble idea. Nevertheless, I am thinking about those “NINJA LOANS,” which stand for (no income, no job, and no assets). These loans were behind the sub-prime mortgage debacle that left many homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their houses were worth. As a result some 5.2 million U.S. homeowners are expected to lose their homes between 2008 and 2010. Did anyone from Lehman Brothers, or AIG, Citicorp, Merrill Lynch, or Countrywide go to prison, or were any CEO compensations confiscated? What about the moral commitment of those, who privately made decisions that have ruined our economy, without the “Average Joe,” American even knowing about it. What about the men, women, and children that are homeless and bankrupt. I would rather see those responsible for the country’s destruction giving up their billions. It would be good to use the billionaires to weed out political crooks at the state level all across America, and then help each state improve financially. They could start by funding the rehire of laid-off police officers and firemen.
On February 13, 2008, a 168/70 billion Economic Stimulus Act was signed by President Bush, he called the act “a booster shot” for the battered U.S. economy. Then on October 3, 2008, President George W. Bush signed a bill into law within hours of its congressional enactment, creating the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to purchase failing bank assets. We are now in 2010 and our present government has created more stimulus money, which has helped some , but ultimately gets us deeper into National Debt. And then I read an article that said “Somewhere in Texas, former President George W. Bush must be smiling. When President Obama and the Republican leadership reached a deal on extending all of the Bush tax cuts, including a generous exemption for estate taxes, the current president ratified a key policy from the former administration. While Obama ran as the candidate who would fight to overturn Bush’s record, a huge number of his policies remain in place. This says a lot about President Bush. One of the key measures that we have to evaluate the success of a president is not simply how many of his proposals pass through Congress but also how many of his policies outlast his time in office. Many of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s programs, including Social Security and the Wagner Act, survive into our time.”
Is that author congratulating Pres. Bush for his tax cuts for the wealthy? If so, this author must be ecstatic about the trillion-dollar war debt that he left. This is the lack of wisdom that just blows me away. This country was in trouble under Bush, but we want to blame Pres. Obama, how quickly we forget! And I believe that forgetting is exactly what politicians know they can count on, our short-term memory. So the news media and key people keep hammering on Pres. Obama and criticizing his every move, and inciting a “certain mindset.” Then as soon as Republicans regain the majority, they pad their own pockets, (I certainly don’t think the Democrats are better). Republicans have the House and a strong presence in the Senate and as a backdrop to our country’s current economic issues they have passed tax cuts for the rich, just what the elderly, homeless, jobless, and bankrupt members of society need!
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After several years of government policy that promoted and taught casual sex at a cost of £246million, the UK still has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. However, it is the teenagers of the U.K. that are speaking and demanding that they be taught family values. They ”would rather be taught about family values than about sex,” and sees the “responsibilities of being a parent as the number one ‘fact of life’—ahead of intercourse, contraception and sexually transmitted infections.” Experts from 
