Oregon Hates Small Businesses?

Once again the state of Oregon seems to be sticking its head into the wrong end of am issue. The Democrat Herald is reporting that the Department of Consumer and Business Services has decided to enforce the 70-year-old Oregon Pawnbroker Act. The definition of this law is "if a company lends money at more than 10 percent annual interest and takes possession of personal property to do so, it is a pawn activity." The DCB has already started enforcing this.

To be left alone by the DCB you have to pay an initial fee of $500 and an annual fee of $350. This is just another redundant, nonessential fee that puts pressure on small businesses to meet the bottom line. Larger businesses are pretty much unaffected by this, so this is really a strike at the smaller guys. If there is anything we should be doing it is giving the small guys a break.

This enforcement is going to put small businesses out and cost jobs to the ones that can afford it. So with the small amount of money that it will bring in, what is the net gain? Less businesses and less jobs so that the state can give a few more bucks to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

An Inconvenient Fact

With Al Gore's environmental dissertation "An Inconvenient Truth" being released and all the arguing over whether there is any truth in it, completely stretched or not, it got me thinking. No it should not be shown in high school business class (Portland). If it is shown, hopefully in a science/environment class, it should be done so with the other side having equal time.

To the untrained eye, mine, it is a politically charged movie that really places the blame for global warming square at the feet of humans, specifically humans living in the United States. That is a fairly large assumption because according to the CIA's world fact site the population of China is 1,306,313,812. Yes, that is 3 commas and just so you know, the U.S population is 295,734,134. I think it would be safe to say that there are also cars in China. With that many people you can imagine how many.

A recently released 400 page U.N. report says that cows "passing wind" is the biggest contributer to carbon dioxide build up in the atmoshere--greater than the amount of emissions from all planes, trains and automobiles the world over.

Some scientists/professors on a physics forum were going back and forth over the timeline in "An Inconvenient Truth". Some said it would be hundreds of years, with the same pattern of warming, for the earth to have the consequences shown in the Mr. Gore's Hollywood production. Other scientists/professors were saying the movie was right on.

With all of these conflicting reports who are we laymen supposed to listen to? What are we supposed to believe? It seems scientists are writing white papers in peer reviewed journals supporting both premises.

I do not know a lot but I do know that California and Washington emmision standards are rediculous. I hope Gov. Kulongoski does not bring in those same standards. I think it would be just another beurocratic layer that we would have to wade through, which would add more cost to government, in turn be more cost to us and make our lives more complicated.

So where do we go from here? Maybe that is why I am writing this. Where can I find intelligent, truthful, and honest explanations and answers for problems?

I feel that in trying to answer the above questions, the Liberal side of the aisle tends to become emotional, even to the point of hysteria. When dealing with the macro, i.e. the global environment, I think logical thought and emotionless examination are the keys to seeing the big picture and coming up with a workable and fair solution.

So what do you think?


PS-If you haven't picked up on this yet, I believe in less government and people doing things for themselves, not having mommy and daddy in the capitol wipe their butts for them.