My favored quote in regards to cash comes from the British novelist W. Somerset Maugham: Money is like a sixth sense without which we cannot make a finish use of the other five.

There are in all likelihood millions of wage earners who wish they could use their five basic senses to see, hear, smell, taste and touch life without any concern for the requirement of financing their life, but cash is a stern taskmaster who keeps their noses to the grindstone.

Even the engaged in a struggle artisan who abhors capitalism and the cash chase ought to find the cash to buy his canvas and oils so he may lose himself in his craft.

Art surely offers appeal as an action that is more creative, inspiring and noble than the pure pursuit of making money, but the unfeigned capitalist or capitalist may paint with joy on a much more prominent canvas when he knows and perceives that cash has no actual value in the marketplace, or real meaning in the dandier system of life.

Money is but a tool that does the bidding of it is master. Money is neither good nor evil. In any drug transaction, cash is not the evil element. In the payment of wages for time spend working in honorable labor, cash is not our savior.

We may make cash the right way or the wrong way. We may spend cash productively or unproductively. We may aid humans or injure people in our use of money.

Money has no actual value other than the value we attach to it. The barter scheme would still be practiced today if the players did not agree to set a value on a piece of printed paper that represented the value of the goods and services they had to offer.

When the users of cash lose faith in their currency, it is value drops sharply, causing inflation. When the productivity of a country stalls, it is currency on the world market plunges, again causing inflation.

Money has no actual meaning other than the meaning we attach to it. Our rational mind tells us that a surplus of cash may not buy us love, respect, wonderment or health, yet we recognise that an abundance of cash may buy us opportunities, financial freedom, better health care, better housing, better nutrition and a more commodious lifestyle.

Here starts the connection amidst rendering service and making money.

We recognise that not one thing in our material world may come from nowhere or go nowhere, nor may it be free as there is a price to be paid. Our government may render us service through it is employees, but our government is never a source of goods. Everything devised is developed by the persons and everything that a government gives to it is humans it ought to initial take from it is people.

The only cash that government has to spend is cash taxed or borrowed from people’s earnings. Earnings come from productivity. All productivity is based on natural resources, humane energy and tools. Tools are the only element among the three elements that is limitless. The necessary tool that is employed to manufacture productivity is money.

Businesses and organizations need to comprehend that you recognise what drives their existence; it is not giving service, it is taking in revenue to aid what they are doing. Service is merely a

by-product of making money.

Do not let businesses or public service organizations fool you into thinking that they subsist to aid or serve people; helping or serving humans is plainly a by-product of generating sufficient revenue to be in a position to do so.

There are numerous humans in government supplying services who would have you believe that their crucial mission in life is to render service, but if they believe this, they do not understand much with regards to our economy and it is role in their survival.

The indispensable role of any business or governmental unit, big or small, is to find and keep a revenue source. Without a budget to formulate programs and hire the humans (employees) to deliver the programs (services), there would be no services delivered. When budgets are cut, programs and the laborers to deliver them are reduced, and departments get reorganized.

Clearly, the world turns on a dollar bill. I am not judging what causes our economy to work (greed is it is biggest motivator), but I am proposing we need to be street smart in regards to how our cash scheme works.

Here is another sobering thought: Our entire economy and all of it is workers are devised by less than 5% of our population, and not a single one of the 5% work for government, or any other public service organization.

That is because not one thing happens in our economy until a product or service is sold to satisfy a want or need, and less than 5% of the income generators in our economy are professional sales people.

Non-profit corporations and governmental units have no profits to tax as any net profit generated by them ought to be reinvested. There would be no net income to tax unless business developed the profits to be taxed, and developed the jobs that also devised taxes from the wages earned by the workers.

Seen this way, true capitalists and investors understand business is as much regarding art as it is with regards to science. The outstanding business humans and giants of industry in our country are not genuinely the bean counters and tech heads, they are the masters who paint on an economic canvas much more spectacular than that of the solitary artist.

The solitary artisan brings about an oil painting on a canvas. The originative business person takes the canvas to market and gives rise to more probabilities for the artisan to ply his craft.

H. L. Mencken was fond of saying “never underestimate the stupidity of the American people”. I do not belong to that group and neither ought to you; that is why it is indispensable that you grasp the cash game even if humans around you do not.

Understanding the cash game does not make us better or smarter people than others, it does make us more conscious and savvy when chance knocks on our door.

Copyright © 2006 Ed Bagley

American Marketplace

He is the deadliest American sniper ever, called “the devil” by the oppositions he tracked down and “the legend” by his Navy SEAL brothers . . .

From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyles kills (the former American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents dire Kyle so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status amongst his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the outstanding war memoirs of all time.

A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks candidly with regards to the pain of war—of twice being shot and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends.

American Sniper also honors Kyles fellow warriors, who raised hell on and off the battlefield. And in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyles wife, Taya, speaks in an open way with regards to the strains of war on their marriage and children, as well as on Chris.

Adrenaline-charged and deeply personal, American Sniper is a thrilling eyewitness account of war that only one man could tell.

Review“Eloquent … An acutely written account of frontline combat, with a great deal of action.” (KIRKUS REVIEWS ) “Reads like a first-person adventure story narrated by a sniper. The bare-bones facts are stunning. …. A first-rate military memoir.” (BOOKLIST ) “American Sniper is the inside story of what it’s like to be in war. A brave warrior and patriot, Chris Kyle writes frankly in regards to the missions, personal challenges, and hard selections that are share of daily life of an elite SEAL Sniper. It’s a classic!” (RICHARD MARCINKO (USN, Ret.), First Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Six and #1 bestselling author of Rogue Warrior ) “The raw and unforgettable narrative of the making of our country’s record-holding sniper, Chris Kyle’s essay is a powerful book, both in terms of combat action and humane drama. Chief Kyle is a unfeigned American warrior down to the bone, the Carlos Hathcock of a new generation.” (CHARLES W. SASSER, Green Beret (US Army Ret.) and author of One Shot, One Kill ) “In the community of elite warriors, one man has risen above our ranks and discerned himself as unique. Chris Kyle is that man. A master sniper, Chris has done and seen things that will be talked in regards to for generations to come.” (MARCUS LUTTRELL, former USN SEAL, recipient of the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism under fire, #1 bestselling author of Lone Survivor ) About the Author SEAL Team 3 Chief Chris Kyle served four combat tours in Operation Iraqi Freedom and elsewhere. For his bravado in battle, he was awarded two Silver Stars, five Bronze Stars with Valor, two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, and one Navy and Marine Corps Commendation. Additionally, he received the Grateful Nation Award, given by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. Following his combat deployments, he became chief instructor for training Naval Special Warfare Sniper and Counter-Sniper teams, and he authored the Naval Special Warfare Sniper Doctrine, the firstborn Navy SEAL sniper manual. Today, he is president of Craft International (www.craftintl.com), a world-class leader in training and security. He lives with his family in Texas, where he devotes much of his spare time to helping disabled veterans.

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Most helpful customer reviews

219 of 262 people found the following review helpful.
Remarkable Story of A Truly Remarkable American Hero
By Shawn Kovacich
What a remarkable story of heroism, patriotism, and self-sacrifice by an even more remarkable American, Chris Kyle. A Navy SEAL and highly trained sniper, Kyle is even more remarkable in his straightforward admittance that his accomplishments alone are not to be lauded, but the accomplishments and sacrifices of his fellow military men who sacrificed their vision, limbs, and some ultimately their lives in fighting for the freedoms that we often take for granted, yet hold so dear. It may not be much, but here is one American that is forever grateful and thankful to Chris Kyle and ALL of our brave men and women fighting for our country.

69 of 84 people found the following review helpful.
Enjoyable and interesting
By TT in MA
While not high prose, this was a quick and interesting read. I totally support our troops and their actions so obviously am positively predisposed. However, I think that the authors story is fascinating and important. What our troops do to protect us should not be forgotten or dismissed. It is a pretty breezy and easy to read account of Chris’ tours of duty and participation in many very important activities in the war. It is not a history book but one man’s experiences during those historic moments. I found it very informative about a particular aspect of the SEALs and sniping in particular; both topics that I do not know a lot about. I enjoyed it and think that if you are interested in the war and or sniping then this is a worthwhile read. Perhaps if you are an expert it might be detailed enough, but I liked it.

Thanks to Chris and all his brothers in arms for their sacrifice.

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