A most important message

Posted on: January 19th, 2010 > Read More »

Who is in charge?

October 8, 2009

Sonfast is a Christian company.  What, you might reasonably ask, does that mean?

Sonfast is owned by Debby and Rich Pappy who are themselves Christians.  We acknowledge that all blessings come from heaven (John 3:27).  We acknowledge that Christ is our teacher and example and that we must obey His commandments (John 14:15). 

Not everyone is a Christian and there are those in business who may not understand why we say “we are a Christian company”.  We declare our faith because we are Christians (Romans 10:10) and because we want you to know that we  desire to treat people the way we want to be treated (Matt 7:12; Luke 6:31).

As Christians, we believe that God is in charge.  We believe that God is sovereign, that He is omnipotent, and that He is comprehensively involved in the details of His creation which includes all of us.

These are difficult times in which we live.  Our customers, suppliers and our competitors are all experiencing business challenges unlike anything we’ve experienced in the past.  Christians should be encouraged by the fact of God’s love for His creation, and in particular, Christ’s love for His church. 

All trials are, for Christians, ways by which God matures us in our faith.  Yet, these times are opportunities for Satan to enter into our lives to damage our faith, to weaken our trust in the name above all names (Phl 2:9).  We must not yield to the powers of darkness which are always on the prowl seeking someone to devour (1st Peter 5:8).  Rather we must make our confession by the way we live our lives, trusting in the One who will manage the circumstances of our lives in a way that leads always to good (Ro 8:28).

To our Christian friends who are struggling, we offer encouragement.  Trust, always trust in the One Who loves you and has the power to do something about it. 

And to our friends who are not Christians, know that we love you and pray for you and we want to assure you that God knows “the thoughts that He thinks toward you…thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon (Him) and go and pray to (Him) and (He) will listen to you.  And you will seek (Him) and find (Him), when you search for (Him) with all your heart.” (Jer 29:11-13).

Posted on: October 8th, 2009 > Read More »

The Nitty-Gritty of the Healthcare Problem

77,000,000 people were born between 1946 and 1964.  Today, over 50,000,000 of them are still alive.  They are called the “Baby Boomers”.  In 2011, the first of these will have reached the age of 65 and the largest retirement of Americans in history will commence.

The number of births during the 18 year period ending in 1964 was 26 million more births than reported in the previous generation and 10 million more than in the subsequent generation.  The senior citizen population in the U.S. appears to be headed to a 40 percent increase in the next five years.  By 2050, the population of 65-and-older folks will triple from 516 million worldwide to 1.53 billion by 2050.

Boomers who reach age 65 in 2011 are likely to live, on average, at least another 18 years.  All are likely to draw from Social Security while 2/3 of them will pay little or no income taxes. 

In 1990 the percentage of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) in America assigned to health care was 12%.  It is projected to be at least 20% of  GDP by 2011.  All healthcare spending this year is expected to be $2.5 trillion dollars.

These U.S. Census Bureau statistics and forecasts express staggering sums of people and money to fund their healthcare.  These numbers are why we have a healthcare debate in the U.S.A. in 2009.

So, problem #1 is population.  Add to this the fact that HR3200 is going to try to add 30,000,000 enrollees into the nation’s healthcare system during the next four years in addition to the millions who will be retiring during that same term.

Because of these numbers, Medicare and Social Security are both going to be bankrupt soon.  There aren’t enough dollars to maintain a level of historical healthcare service to 30,000,000 more people let alone 50,000,000 retirees in addition.  There aren’t enough doctors.  There aren’t enough nurses.  There isn’t enough money.

This is why rationing is an inevitable product of the balooning retirement population because the system just isn’t deep or broad enough or sufficiently funded to bear this responsibility.  So, what do we do?

1) Reduce the size of all federal bureaucratic agencies by 50%.  Savings: $l70,000,000 per year.

2) Close the IRS and replace the tax system with a flat or fair tax resulting in 80% reduction of personnel and 85% reduction in legal and administrative costs associated with running the IRS – $75 billion a year.

3) Tort reform:  Reduce insurance liability premiums by 2/3.  Save $350 billion.

4) Waste, fraud and abuse. Increase penalties for willfull misconduct and enforce the law vigorously.  Save 3/4 of the current wastes.  Save $75 billion.

5) Cut foreign aid.  $200Billion. 

6) Restrict the Federal government to the management of agencies which look out for our national safety and management of revenue.  Savings: 50 BILLION.

7) Tax the extremely wealthy up to 70% on personal income but corporate business taxes ought to be reduced by 80%.   Keep the businesses healthy and competitive so they can grow and hire. 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, the federal government has a very limited constitutional responsibility to keep our nation safe and to provide for the domestic tranquility.  Let’s get them reducing the scope of their activities over time to just these two. 

The cash that these changes generate could solve Social Security and Medicare forever and not require health care to be rationed.  No death panels.

The program must, however, be moral.  It must be managed with the highest integrity and the strongest, most determined prosecuting attorneys who will treat violations of law as acts of treason.  Punishments must be set accordingly.

Posted on: September 15th, 2009 > Read More »

My 2 cents on healthcare

There is a healthy (pardon the pun) way to view the healthcare debate that is raging across the U.S.A.  There is one point of view that fits all people, that accommodates the right and the left, the retiree and the youngster, the pregnant mother, the workers and self-employed. That point of view happens to belong to Christ.

Let’s start with first principles:  Everyone does not have a right to health care.  Jesus said the poor shall always be with us, but he never said they were entitled to healthcare, free or subsidized.  What he did say was that we are our brothers’ keepers and that our second most important responsibility in life was to love our neighbors.  Jesus wants us to care for those in our society who are the least.

We all should share in the responsibility to defend, protect and encourage those in our society who cannot make it work on their own.  This pricinple requires that everyone who has been blessed be willing to share with those who haven’t.   Christ said we are to take care of the least of these in our society.

Even if we, as a society, possessed the will to take care of our own,   The U.S. Government is the enemy of such reform.  The U.S. Government does not care about people; it cares about power.  Its own power.  So, Americans must recognize that Congress is the problem.  Corruption is indemic.  We have a perfect vehicle for fixing corruption – it’s called the ballot box.

Citizens are not going to be motivated to change their ways of thinking so long as they have leaders in government who are unwilling to change their habits of spending, and of being wined and dined by lobbyists.  We must accept the fact that our government is corrupt – through and through.  The problem is not everyone else’s representative or senator.  The problem is also our own representatives and senators.  We must look at 2010 as an opportunity to send a message that the people have the power to eliminate every single incumbent who is up for election.  In 2012 we will repeat the process and by 2014 we will have sent the message that business as usual is no longer.

The men and women waiting in the wings to run for election in 2010 are no different that the ones who are in office today.  Simply picking the alternate won’t solve the problem because greed and ambition are both requirements for anyone who runs for public office today.  The system by which we select and elect must change because it too is corrupt.

We must search out men and women of virtue and integrity.  Men and women who are not ambitious about serving the nation.  Men and women who by their integrity have established themselves as wholesome, true, reliable and honest.  In short, we need heroes and heroines.  We need men and women who cannot be corrupted and they should be encouraged to serve. 

These men and women can be identified in every community.  There are some in the churches, some who serve in the soup kitchens of the cities, they can be found on farms and in factories, teaching class and driving busses.  Some serve on prison ministries and others in homeless shelters.  Retired military would provide a great fountain of servants.   God has raised these people up to be prepared to save our nation and to lead it along still waters.  We must identify them and encourage them to serve our nation in Washington, D.C.

John Dean, former head of the DNC, recently said that the “trial lawyers own the Democratic Party”.  This is why Congress will not tackle the national problem of tort reform.  A level of reasonableness in legal costs and penalties could be achieved but for the trial lawyers.  We have heard that America spends $500 billion per year on premiums for liability insurance to protect doctors from lawsuits.   Certainly, there are some doctors who should be sued for malpractice, but reform would focus legal action where it belongs and cut costs on most of the $500 billion just by eliminating frivolous lawsuits and capping judgments and legal fees at reasonable levels.  Congress won’t tackle the problem because they are corrupt.  All of them.

Foreign aid, earmarks, waste, fraud and abuse.  These are each the product of corruption.  Without corrpution, we would keep trillions at home and spend them on proper and needed solutions to the problems we face.   But, we won’t stop senseless foreign aid if we have political leaders who want leverage over foreign governments.  We won’t stop putting pet projects (i.e., research on the mating habits of peel worms, the expansion of inner-city advanced physics education, or the study of rodent social behavior in small acreage farmland) on legislative bills until we have people who know how to focus on the main thing.  Keeping the main thing the main thing is not a slogan heard much in the halls of Congress.

Wall Street, Corporate Board Rooms and liason offices of foreign governments (including the United Nations) are just as corrupt and self-serving as our government.  Wealth accumulates in the hands of the wealthy and little good comes from that wealth except to create more wealth.  Capitalism is a good thing, but it becomes corrupt when not restrained by good morals.  Governmental corrpution and corruption in business occur simultaneously because rats need company. 

Health Care is just one of our national problems.  Others include the unrestrained greed that forms the basis of our financial institutions; the lack of accountability of Obama’s Czar system of government which has functionally replaced the cabinet minister system; stupidity, complexity, the IRS, outsourcing, bailouts, governmental ownership of the means of production (fascism), dishonesty at the highest levels and throughout government, Republicans and Democrats and bureaucrats, Medicare fraud, the immanent collapse of Social Security, the unaffordability of war, and corproate welfare, and subsidies of labor and agriculture and education that dumbs us down instead of preparing us for the future.

We can solve none of our problems of health care or any of the other catastrophic problems we face in the next dozen years unless and until we go to the very heart of our problem – corrpution in government.  We need more of the values of Christ in our government and in our daily living.  We need to expurgate the demons of greed, ambition and power and we need to do it quickly before there’s nothing left to salvage.

Posted on: September 7th, 2009 > Read More »

We’re killing ourselves !

We are a society that trades money for goods and services, and goods and services for money.  The total of those trades, expressed in dollars,  is called “Gross Domestic Product”.   GDP for 2008 was 14.4 trillion dollars.  So far, in 2009 GDP is running about 6.5% behind the 2008 pace.

Manufacturing represents a portion of a nation’s GDP.  China, for example, generates 35% of its GDP from manufacturing.  China is #2 in the world in terms of percentage of GDP from manufacturing.   The United States, by comparison, is 75th in the world and generates only an estimated 10% of its GDP by manufacturing. 

Between 1990 and 2005 the U.S. lost 25% of its manufacturing jobs, roughly 5.2 million jobs.  In the last eight years, 35,000 U.S. factories have closed.  In 2006, we imported 1.8 trillion dollars of manufactured goods (13% of GDP) 40% of which were made by U.S. corporations which had located in countries outside the U.S.A.

Why have U.S. companies relocated to other nations?  Cost is the simple answer.  Corporate income taxes in the United States are among the highest in the world.  Manufacturing wages and legacy costs ditto.  Corporations chase profit and the simple truth has been that there are more profits available by making things in China than in the United States. 

In 2009 we will spend close to two trillion dollars in manufactured goods made somewhere else, by somebody else.  Included in those two trillion are nearly all standard fasteners – nuts and bolts and screws and washers.  This is a problem because we don’t even possess the machinery to make these products in the U.S. nor the tool making skills required.  Over 90% of all standard fastener parts come from either China or Taiwan. 

Imagine a scenario where China takes over Taiwan as it took over Hong Kong not so long ago.  China has a claim to Taiwan that predates WWII and has promised to re-absorb Taiwan into its empire.  If China becomes our adversary,  just imagine from whom will we buy fasteners if we need to make our own tanks, guns, fighter planes, bombers, air craft carriers, etc.  For want of 1/4-20 nuts, we could be rendered incapable of fighting a war that actually required weapons. 

Think now for a moment about those 5MM jobs lost in manufacturing.  They were high-wage jobs that pushed laid off workers down the pay scale and therefore, down the standard-of-living scale.  Losses of American jobs rarely resulted in upward mobility.

Dollars flow in and out of America each year.  Between 2007 and 2008 Americans spent 3/4 trillion (that’s      $700,000,000,000,000.00) than we took in on all goods and services.  That’s 3/4 trillion per year fewer U.S. dollars in our possession than in the possession of China, India, and others.  It’s easy, therefore, to understand why home prices are going down in America.  Home prices reflect our wealth.    If we have less wealth in the U.S. to purchase homes, home prices will come down.   There is no more direct indicator of wealth in the U.S. than home values. 

Don’t expect home prices to return to historic levels because wealth would have to increase to make that possible.  And wealth cannot increase if we are sending it everywhere in the world by the trillions.

Economics is a complex subject and lots more could be written.  For now, suffice it to say that without a national policy which supports American manufacturing development and sustenance, not only are we in grave peril of being unable to independently produce military hardware, but national wealth will continue to decline.

What’s next?  The U.S. dollar will become cheaper in the world markets which will make foreign goods, including oil, more expensive.  Everything we buy in the U.S. will become more and more expensive because more cheap dollars will be required to purchase the goods and services we desire.  More people will have fewer dollars to maintain a historically high standard of living.  Home values continue to fall (discounting inflation).   GDP discounted for inflation will remain flat or grow at historically low rates.   The standard of living will continue to fall in the  United States as more and more of the developing countries see increases in their GDP and standards of living. 

Americans, wake up!  Obama’s drunken-sailor approach to spending is driving the last nails into the coffins of the American standard of living.   Unless we stop the insanely reckless spending strategy of this Administration, we will have been party to an irreversible harm to this nation’s opportunity and prosperity structure. 

A national discipline must be instilled in which we don’t spend what we don’t have, we reduce corporate income taxes to encourage and sustain American manufacturing, and we enact legislation to discourage expatriation and encourage repatriation of manufacturing.

Those in a position to lead have failed to lead and have failed to take responsibility for the American future.  Those with great privilege have great responsibility, says God.  Whether Republican or Democrat, union worker or Wall-streeter, all have fallen short.  The dream that once was America can be again.  Now is the time to act to put our national house in order.

Posted on: August 15th, 2009 > Read More »

Forgiveness in the business place

I learned recently of a young man who, by circumstances he had created, was forced to resign from his job.  He had made an expensive error and then tried to hide it, to cover it up.  Ultimately, the error could no longer be concealed from his employers at which point he confessed and resigned.

As a Christian, I am fully and sometimes painfully aware of the role of sin in our lives. No matter how close we try to walk with our Lord, we are not perfect and will never be so long as we inhabit this earth.  In the present day, our churches and educational institutes have stopped teaching right and wrong.  In the schools and universities, moral certainty has been disconnected from its knowledge base.  Consequently, right and wrong are circumstantial and connected more to feelings than to knowledge of the One who created right and wrong.  In churches, pastors and preachers are afraid to teach core truths about right and wrong and instead focus on keeping their people content (and asleep) by not imposing an absolute morality on their lives like Christ did 2,000 years ago.   It’s no wonder many Americans (not to mention most Europeans) have lost their way – morally speaking.

The beauty of Christianity is in the forgiveness it teaches.  What makes up for the sin in the world is the grace in the world.  The sin may be grave, as it was certainly in the situation of this young man, but the employer needs to consider a proper, moral response to this situation  – to abandon the customary “business response”, to forget the text book and to consider the grace that is offered to make this situation right.    In forgiveness, a new relationship between the man and his employer could be formed with an infusion of grace that would bless employee and employer alike. 

It’s never easy to go against the practical teachings of this world – once bitten, twice shy !  If we could learn simply to forgive we may learn a valuable lesson that may one day be repeated in reverse in our own lives.   As Christ reconciled us to God, we need to allow Christ to reconcile us to those who have offended.

Posted on: July 21st, 2009 > Read More »

If not the PEOPLE, Who?

Are the highly educated, polished elites who work in D.C. capable of handling this mess we call the U.S. Economy?  Everybody knows the answer – a resounding “NO!” 

Our problems are not being caused by a government that is incompetent.  Our problems are being caused by a government that has lost its way.  Our government is being managed by amoral men and women who have no greater ambition than self-service.  And, by the way, we point our fingers at senators and congressmen who represent districts other than our own.  Folks, the problem is not everyone else’s Senator or Representative.   The problem is our Senator.  The problem is our Representative.  We must send a message to Congress and to the U.S. Senate and even to the President – we are angry and not going to take it anymore. 

Voting incumbents, yes even your own incumbent, out of office is the only way we can exercise power. 

Stop pointing fingers at each other.  Politicians are a symptom of our self-indulgence and our indifference.  Union workers in Detroity are as responsible as wealthy Republicans on Wall Street.  Stay-at-home Moms and tenured educators are equally responsible as construction workers and firemen.  Small business owners and warehouse workers share responsibility for the sordid and corrupt conditions that mark our nation’s and state governments.   We have a mess in Washington D.C. and  in state capitals around the country.  We are all responsible. 

We must restructure everything – starting with who we put into office.  Instead of trial attorneys, we need a House of Representatives consisting of teachers and farmers, auto-workers and small businessmen, housewives and doctors, bus-drivers and plumbers.  If governement is too complex, then these men and women should just start over.  Scrap the trillions of pages of legal documents that choke and cripple ingenuity, innovation, imagination and ambition.  Start from scratch.  Scrap the IRS code and install a single page document describing a fair tax or a flat tax.  Give power back to the states and local governments.  Furlough the federal bureacracy.  Bring manufacturing back to the U.S. by creating a body of powerful incentives that will constitute an offer too good to refuse.  Get competitive.  Get serious about reacquiring our edge in America.

And, let’s set a fire in the faith-based communities of America.  It’s time  men and women and young people who are committed to their faiths came out of hiding and reclaimed their faiths – faiths that are founded in pricinples of generosity, compassion, sharing, integrity, and discipline.  Atheists  contribute little of value to American life and it’s high-time we stopped paying them so much attention. 

Wealth has been abused in our country.   Where I come from, the greater the privileges and blessings of life, the greater the social responsibility.  But, America has become a den of thieves where great privilege has become synonymous with greed, selfishness and arrogance.   

There’s alot to do, folks.  But, the battlecry must begin with the people.   I’m fed up with politicians.  How about you?  If you feel like I do, then find someone who is running for office who isn’t a professional politician, or a trial attorney, or a Republican or a Democrat.  Find someone who is NOT AN INCUMBENT!  You will have to do some homework, but if we don’t correct these problems and turn our indifference into action, our children and grandchildren will want us to walk off a cliff.  And we will deserve it.

P.S. I don’t have a problem with trial attorneys, per se.  But, they don’t belong in government because they have created a swamp of documents the size of Louisiana that govern every detail of American life and have designed it all to benefit the wealthy, including themselves.  Trial lawyers belong in court, not in government.

Posted on: July 17th, 2009 > Read More »

Industrial Marketplace

These are difficult times we are facing here in the United States. Manufacturing and related industries in the U.S. in 1980 produced 51% of wages earned and nearly half of our GDP. In 2009 roughly 10% of GDP and wages is manufacturing related, and going down. The wealth that once characterized America is now in the hands of the Chinese, Indians and Oil Producing nations. Two wage earners are almost a must with most families in America and even with two wage earners, the standard of living per family has declined 30% in the U.S. over the last three decades.

Obama’s plan to spend our way out of the recession is not going to work. Spending money we don’t have has never worked as a rational economic policy. Remember, when you have to borrow money, that means you don’t have the money to begin with. If you did, you wouldn’t have to borrow it.

Borrowing money is a big part of what got the U.S. and its citizens into the present trouble. Borrowing more money is not the way out of that trouble.

Americans need to understand how governmental policy over the last 40 years has produced our dilemma. Until Americans hold government responsible – Republicans or Democrats doesn’t make a cup of difference – these mentalities will continue to brew disaster for future generations.

More to come on this topic.

Posted on: July 7th, 2009 > Read More »

June 18, 2009 Concern about U.S. Manufacturing

Did you know that the United States has no capacity to produce standard fasteners? Nearly all of the world’s standard fastener hardware (nuts, bolts, screws & washers) are now produced outside of the United States. Over 90% of the world’s standard hardware production is in Taiwan and China. If the United States goes to war, how will we make tanks, airplanes, HumVees, aircraft carriers, destroyers, guns, etc.? We won’t. We can’t. We must import these products from Taiwan and China. What if China is the one we are at war with?

Posted on: June 18th, 2009 > Read More »

Sonfast Offers

Sonfast Corporation provides full engineering support services for its customers on an as-needed and as-requested basis.

We help our customers develop new assembly applications, to improve current assembly efficiencies and costs, and we will help reduce costs through engineering improvements.

We can establish video conferencing with our customers’ engineering departments on our tab when required to achieve these support objectives.

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Posted on: May 13th, 2009 > Read More »