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By Stanley P. Gershbein
Brooklyn Daily
Here’s another of one of my reader favorites. I call it “America by the Numbers.”
The opposition to a ban on handguns is at an all-time high. Some folks are finding it hard to believe, but it comes from a reliable pollster. The folks over at Gallup took this poll shortly after the Newtown massacre when the anti-gun people were at their loudest, and came up with the following results.The various polls tell us that most of America wants a ban on the big weapons, but 74 percent of America does NOT want to see a ban on handguns. What’s your thinking on this?
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Shrinkage is the polite word for loss of inventory by way of theft. The crime is mostly known to us as shoplifting. A study by the University of Florida for the National Retail Federation says losses in the United States amounted to $34.5 billion last year. Most folks say “So what. The big corporations can afford it.”
No, my friends. Those big corporations see their losses as an added expense and build them into new selling prices that affect us all. Experts estimate the average American family pays between $400 and $2,000 a year as a result of merchants and manufacturers increasing what they charge to offset their losses. In simple English, they steal and we pay.
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Are there too many Americans dependent on the government for financial aid or not enough? Or is the level of dependency about right?
Americans strongly believe that there is too much government dependency in the country today. The latest Rasmussen Report national telephone survey finds that 64 percent of adults think that too many Americans have their hands out for a handout. A mere 10 percent think not enough Americans are dependent on the government, while 16 percent say the level of dependency is about right.
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How would you rate the way Congress is doing its job? That question was asked the very first week of 2013. Only five percent think it is doing a good job. 24 percent consider it fair. A whopping 69 percent think Washington stinks. Well, they didn’t use that word but you know what I mean.
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So your daughter is a high school senior and we know that she will be heading for college but she’s made no real decisions about her future. Here’s something you might want to talk about with her. Three decades ago, women represented less than 10 percent of doctors in the United States and less than five percent of the lawyers. Right now they make up about a third of each, and that amount is growing. You can sum up the reason for that growth in one word – opportunity.
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So how does America like Obamacare now? With 46 percent finding it favorable and 49 percent still against it, the numbers are pretty close to even. This is the latest poll taken just a very short time ago but those numbers are expected to change. Right now 73 percent believe that Obamacare will cost a lot more than we’ve been lead to believe. Stay tuned.
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During fiscal year 2012, the U.S. ran a trillion dollar deficit while at the same time it spent a record $80.4 billion on food stamps, a $2.7-billion increase from the previous year. I am StanGershbein@Bellsouth.net very much in favor of feeding the hungry, but not this way. The program needs a drastic overhaul.
Read Stan Gershbein's column every Monday on BrooklynDaily.com.