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I am not in favor of all deregulation, nor am I against all government spending. (including the space race) I was only comparing money coming in vs. money going out. Are you sure you're a conservative? Do you wish we had a few more bureaucrats in the government regulating business and banking? Would you give them lifetime pensions? Do you really trust the government to be sure they can force businesses to do a better job than they would do without goverment bureaucrats watching them? Really, are you sure you're a conservative? I guess if we both believe in some good ol' regulations maybe neither of us are conservatives?

The economic engine can be found in the hearts of almost every person on earth. Nearly everyone is willing to work if it will make them financially secure and more wealthy. People on welfare are not willing to work if their income will get them kicked out of section 8 housing and their EBT cards get turned off. However, most welfare cheats are quite willing to work under the table and many are willing to take a chance of going to jail for dealing drugs if it will make them richer. In fact, everyone from drug lords to mafia underbosses are willing to kill you if they think it will make them richer. Many Americans are not willing to go to war if they think it will make them and the nation poorer, no matter how noble the cause. This is a basic economic law. Sadly, the second economic law is that no one, not even deeply conservative republicans will turn down free money. So in the farm states no congressional representatives will favor cutting out farm subsidies and government price guarantees. In the central and lower plains states you won't find conservative talk show hosts finding fault with federally financed National Flood Insurance. Even Rush Limbaugh won't find fault with Obama's open wallet for National Disaster Relief when the tornados hit. Interestly, the government often provides relief for "uninsured losses". If the home owner spent the money to insure his home he generally gets nothing, but if you're not insured your neighbors and the federal and state governments will help you. - Illegal aliens by the millions will brave the desserts and shark infested waters to come to America. Many will try to get something for nothing, but even those people will work at the very same time back breaking hours to get something for something. - Scott, you are a conservative but I bet if the illegal son of an illegal alien shows up at the front door of the hospital with his little boy in need of an appendectomy, you would not deny it to him and leave him on the sidewalk. - I have been to some very poor places in this world and everyone wanted to work, so many were paid pennies.

Great acheivement. You saved and saved and then you spent! How did that investment work out for you? I agree with Flyboy. The car wasn't like a car today. No airbags. No O2 sensors. No electronic ignition. How many hours of labor did you have to put in to buy that car? - - When it comes to inflation, LBJ got the show rolling. He spent for going to the moon, spent for Vietnam, spent for all the new social programs, then we brought back a half-million men from Vietnam to no jobs. - Nixon didn't know what to do about inflation. He tried to outlaw it!! He declared a price and hourly wage freeze, but it didn't work. - Ford printed buttons the said "WIN" for the words, "Whip Inflation Now" but it didn't work. Jimmy Carter was a nice man. He tried to negotiate away inflation by talking to the unions and in exchange for stopping strikes and accepting smaller wage increases he would try to get management to cut back investment in automation and guarantee job security, but it didn't work. Meanwhile in congress Kennedy passed the COLA, that's the Cost Of Living Adjustments for Social Security with nothing to pay for it. He passed all sorts of spending plans and help for veterans and many nice ideas and there wasn't a program he didn't like, but it sure didn't help inflation. - Then Reagan came to office and he told the people that he could cut taxes across the board and beat inflation. Democrats honestly believed it was impossible. It's true that the Laffer Curve was an exaggeration of the truth, but deregulation, cuts in the growth of spending, tax cuts for investments and accelerated depreciation, and key cuts for taxation to provide liquidity such as the introduction of the unlimited marital deduction that help eliminate the "widow tax", all helped to get the ecomomy growing faster than the deficit. Reagan had his own spending programs that might have slowed things a bit like "star wars", but all in all, nothing was going to stop economic growth. Tax receipts did rise along with total goverment debt, but the deficit grew slower than total production. We were paying our old bills as we grew! This nation became like a man who had the biggest debt in the neighborhood, but our house was biggest by far, and Daddy made more money than any man on the block! - Scott, I love ya' but after all that work you should have invested the money instead of buying a Fiat! What a little consumer you were!! (truly teasing but true)

Flyboy, that's a great observation, but if Paul Volker didn't push the discount rate to 20% and if Reagan have never been elected, but Carter had been reelected and he continued with his energy plan, and if Ted Kennedy had had his way to ration gasoline because he claimed that allowing gas to seek it's own level was only rationing according to the wealthy, and if IRA accounts had never been allowed because they were tax breaks for wealthy investors, so that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs woiuld have had to seek capital from the banks instead of from the capital equity markets and those little companies like Microsoft and Apple had never existed.... Well then things might have gone the way they were going. It took changes to start the boom of the eighties and nineties. I don't even think that Reagan was fully against tax increases, but he would always say that if we tried to raise taxes to fight the deficit, then for each dollar raised congress would spend two. - There is no way that Carter was going to dismantle the Civil Aeronatics Board that used to set the minimum price for the cost of flying between any two cities. There was no way Carter would have deregulated trucking. Perhaps a majority of Americans believed at the time that the best way to slow Japanese imports was to fight them with tariff taxes. Reagan was a true capitalist. The liberals hated him and still do. I think that if any other member of congress had been elected president at the time, that they would have just gone with the flow and our economy would have gone flat the same way things went flat in Japan. Japan had a huge real estate bubble followed by terrible deflation and recession that still continues today.

Back in the 1930's and 40's if a teenage girl became an "unwed mother' the social worker would visit the girl in the hospital and would want to know how the mother would provide for the baby and where she intended to live. If the parents or "Aunt Mabel" would take you in everything would be fine. Some unwed mothers were sent away to live on "grandpa's farm". Other times if your church had a "home for unwed mother's" you might start out there. However, if there was no one to support you or provide a place to live the situation was often considered a case of "benign neglect" and the child would end up being offered up for adoption. During the great depression in some locations the number of children that couldn't be cared for became so great that we had orphanages like the Home for Little Wanderers in Boston. By the 1950's many cities and some states would pay a small cash relief to "Aunt Mable" to help pay for certain necessities for the baby. This was sometimes termed "milk money". - - LBJ came into power and he believed that the Federal Government had a responsibility to provide for our most needy. He introduced Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Section 8 Housing provided the construction of "The Projects" and food stamps were introduced. Later other programs like the Women Infants and Children (WIC) and eductional programs such as "Head Start" were available near the section 8 housing projects. The unwed mother didn't have to face the possibility of giving up her child for adoption. The unwed father would not have to "man up". Instead the government would provide all the family needs. However if a working man married the woman she might get kicked out of section 8 housing and lose many benefits. Clearly all the programs resulted in all sorts of unintended consequences and multi-generational dependence. - - - I believe it was Grover Cleveland who observed that, "If you start feeding the bears and suddenly stop, they'll tear down your house." He also said, "Though the people must support the government, the government can not support the people." We must remember that the government can't produce anything without first taking it away from the people. - - I am very much a conservative, but I am also a capitalist.

Flyboy, Reaganomics worked. Think for yourself what things were like during the Carter administration. Think about unemployment, inflation and follow the production of the nation during the eighties and nineties. If this nation had to burn down all the homes and businesses and throw out all the IRA's and 401k plans from that time then the wealth would truly be gone. As a practical matter, not only did the deficit fall as a percentage of the GDP starting two years after Reagan got in office, but that relationship continued for 17 years. During those years home ownership grew to it's highest level ever (as a percentage of the population) so you might say the percentage difference in quality of life was for the middle class not the rich. Meanwhile the Soviet Union couldn't make their system work and talk that our economy should be like "Japan Inc." came to an end. Salaries rose faster than inflation because we had a "labor shortage" under Reagan. At that time we became a "brain drain" for the world. Whether you were a software engineer or a doctor, you packed your bags and headed for America. What a country!!

Scott, I will try to answer your questions, but please remember that the money supply as adjusted by the Federal Reserve makes consumer loans and mortgages easier or more difficult to get and thereby affects mortgage and loan interest rates and has almost nothing to do with the federal deficit or taxes or government spending. - The estimated 2014 GDP is now estimated to top out at about 16.9 Trillion Dollars. So the nation is like a working man who earns a $100,000 per year and has a mortgage about the same size. In 2011 the Federal deficit was 1.3 Trillion which was added to total debt. This year the deficit appears to be headed down to 649 billion. So over three years the annual deficit added to the Federal debt has been cut in half. 649 billion is a 3.8% increase to the Federal total debt of about 17 trillion. However, with each percent increase of growth in the economy, tax collections rise disproportionately. So clearly if we can continue to grow things should be fine. By comparison, the ratio of debt to growth at the end of WWII was about four time worse than what we face today. It is true that excess government spending and borrowing is a drag on investment and growth. The second drag on growth is that American citizens spent and borrowed too much at about the same level of debt in trillions as the goverment. Lastly, government regulations such as forcing businesses to pay the lion share of health care expenses of employees but not if they work "part time". Clearly if it costs more to hire employees, fewer employees will be hired, and part-time work will take over. When it comes to "printing money", the money2 supply that includes all bank deposits and money market cash in the country (some of our cash is sent out of the country) as of the end of July totaled 11.4 trillion. At the end of July two years ago the M2 supply was 10 trillion. The quantitative easing program by the Fed was expanding the money supply by 85 billion a month just a few months ago and now we are down to 25 billion. If the economy grows a little more people will all count more money as the money changes hands more quickly and the Fed aims to stop quantitative easing then or the velocity of cash changing hands more quickly added to more quantitative easing would likely stimulate inflation. One thing to remember: when other countries cut their central bank interest rates, it's a bit like raising our rates. This makes imports cheaper while making it harder for us to export. The balance of trade also affects demand for the dollar and resulting interest rates too. Medicine is good for you and makes you feel better, but the doctor wouldn't give it too you unless you were sick. American citizens treated their homes like ATM machines, but the spending spree is over.

Alex, I'm not a liberal democrat. I am a registered Rupublican. The big problem is that I have tried to explain how the monetary system works, big I agree with Scott regarding fiscal policy. I would love to cut Federal spending and taxes. I would be happy to live without the TSA and take my chances on any airliner so long as there are two steel doors to the cockpit and both can't be opened no matter the threat. I have no problem with an armed airmarshall on board looking like any regular passenger, but lets get rid of all those new government employees and their lifetime pensions. I'd eliminate federally subsidized home and college loans. If any taxpayer money goes to a college, the taxpayer would have to be sure that college employees, from the President to the football coach, would have their salary rates somehow be connected as a percentage of tuition, but if a school chose to take no subsidies and be truly "private" they would be free to charge any tuition they want. - Cutting taxes and the growth of government spending would work again like it worked for Reagan. If we could cut, cut, cut, that would be the best job creation bill available and would the best medicine for the economy, but eliminating the Federal Reserve and paying no attention to expanding the money supply comensurate with an increase in production is more restrictive than the gold standard. At least with the gold standard we could print $35 from nowhere whenever a prospector found an ounce of gold. A few babies get born, you find a little gold, print the money from nowhere and send the gold to Fort Knox. But Scotts idea to stop printing money no matter the size of the economy would be a disaster. In the best economy the government borrows nothing but you still have to expand the money supply as the economy grows. - Let's not confuse Monetary and Fiscal policies. God Bless Reagan.

Scott, regards your home loan: I only meant that people think they have a "balanced budget" if they can pay their bills. If they buy something with any type of loan they don't consider themselves "in Debt" like the federal goverment. I thought that you might not want to be "in debt", but I was sure you had debt and that your bank got the cash for the debt from the fed funds window. Why don't we give each other a break.

Scott: Here's the answer: I don't want the total debt of the nation to grow any faster than the Gross National Product. During the eight years Reagan was president the deficit and the total National Debt grew every year. However, as a percentage of the Gross National Product, the debt fell during each of the last five years Reagan was President. Because Reagan slowed down the growth rate of debt more "printed" money was available for capital markets. Interest rates fell. The economy and real total production soared. As a percentage of the GDP, debt also fell under George Bush the first, and finally under President Clinton. The debt as a percentage of the GDP fell until the deficit was completely wiped out. The country grew faster than the debt and the ecomomy grew without a single recessionary quarter for seventeen years. Then in March of 2000 we finally suffered the "internet market bubble bust" and tax collections began to slow and finally on Sept. 11th 2001 we suffered the attack of 9/11 and a whole new Federal Bureaucracy was born, the TSA. Austrian, I have to tell you that Japan has been suffering deflation since 1989 and it's a disaster. Back when Reagan was elected the dollar could buy 360 yen and today the dollar buys only about 102 yen. So it was, that if the Japanese sold a $10,000 car here back in 1981 they had 3.6 million yen to pay their workers. Today the same $10,000 would only exchange to one-million yen. The yen is so strong and the dollar so weak than Japan can hardly sell a Japanese built car here anymore. So now Hondas are made in Marysville Ohio. Nissans are built in Smyrna TN. Volkswagons are built in Chattanooga. Even though Japan has a very strong currency the result is an export of their production jobs to the US and southeast Asia. A weak dollar makes a Boeing 747 sell for less in euros. In fact many countries in this world are angry with the US because it's hard to compete with a weak dollar. China is trying to keep their currency weak to fuel their exports but the result of an undervalued currency means more of it is necessary to do stuff. That = inflation. Shanghai and other cities truly see terrible inflation. - But hey, I'm just talking techno-babel. What do I know. Scott: Like I said, I'm done and I've certainly had my say in this forum. Please just tell me the name of the leader of your political party or the name of the talk show host you listen to. I'd love to see who has "educated" you.

OK Scott, I'm going to try one last time to explain the overwhelmingly accepted modern theories of economics. It's possible that you have the truth and are better informed than all the brains at the Wharton School and those long-hairs that impress the Noble Prize economic committee, and maybe it's guys like me that are to blame for all the losses of your money and that we offered nothing to any of your successes, but I'm going to do my best to talk you out of your views: - Money is a commodity. If the American system doesn't print more money when more products are made and expansion of the economy is desired by producers, then producers can borrow wealth from investors in other countries as demand dictates. - If the population grows by 50% but we don't "print" any more money, prices will have to fall because there won't be as much money per capita. If you build a house for $300,000 but next year deflation makes the house worth $290,000 no one will build houses with a fixed mortgage as prices fall. - Remember the rest of the world (including the Bundesbank) work to match money supply (not just currency in circulation) to total production. In fact money per product is what inflation is all about. - Now it's true that our nation has a terrible National Debt, but please don't confuse the National Debt with the Federal Reserve's spread sheet. Now here's the other half of the problem you haven't mentioned: It's true the Federal Government owes 17 trillion dollars, but did you know that home mortgages borrowed by homeowners now totals 13.3 Trillion Dollars? (Do you borrow mortgage money Scott?) College loans in this country now account for 1.1 Trillion dollars. Nine-tenths of another trillion is owed by the citiznes in static credit card debt. Eight-tenths of another trillion is owed for auto-loans. These household loans total over 16.1 trillion dollars, very close to the debt of the Federal Government, but I'm not done. - Corporations borrow money in the bond market, and you probably didn't know that in total capital, the bond market is bigger than the Stock Market!! Now I have to tell you that your theories have been discredited all around the world and even the Chinese Communists recognise that currencies must trade as per demand and supply and can't manipulate both supply and price. A free non-communist economy must do it's best to match money supply (that's currency times velocity) to the production of the nation and let supply and demand determine the day to day relative values. Your ideas have been falling out of favor since the 1930's and are truly nothing new at all. If there was an easy way to change the laws to make the people richer I would be happy to do it, but it just doesn't work.

Here on Martha's Vineyard it's easy to see that the airport has a bit less general aviation than in the past, but the harbors are so chocked with private yachts that scores of boats must anchor outside at night. The size of these yachts is just too much, but one of the yachts in Vineyard Haven has a helicopter wrapped up in red cushioned tarps on the elevated back deck! I suppose the owners must be creating jobs for members of the crew. - Not only is Obama on vacation here, but Hillary singlehandedly stopped all the traffic in my hometown yesterday by conducting a booksigning at the Bunch of Grapes bookstore. This island doesn't have a single traffic light, McDonalds, Dunkin' Donuts or any other chain restaurant. There's no bridge to get here, so it's either by plane or boat, and it seems the boats are winning.

Ward, I'm curious. The Air Force and Naval Academies must provide a few experienced pilots to the majors and their pilots pay nothing for aviation training or for their superior education. Did anyone from the armed forces show up for career day at the local high school?

Please google Alexander Hamilton. According to Wikipedia, He was "a founding father of the United Sates,,one of the most influential interpreters and promotors of the US Constitution, the founder of the nation's financial system,, especially the funding of the state debts by the Federal Government, and the establishment of a national bank." - The idea that the nation's financial system should not empower the government to have it's own national banking system along with interest rates set through the bank and the finance of state debt, and that the whole idea is against the Constitution and against what our Founding Fathers intended is just all wrong.

The Federal Reserve is an independent agency of the Federal Government. Strictly speaking, it's part of the Executive Branch. The Constitution certainly requires the government to "promote the general welfare". Clearly, our founding fathers understood the need not to have "the King's Treasury". They understood that all the merchant mariners sailing ships-of-the-line should not be sailing "His Majesty's Ships", but back then the banks could issue their own currency and if the bank went broke so did you. - Before you start trying to quote the cost of everything compared to 30 years ago to me, why don't you research how many hours of labor it now costs to fly a jet cross country compared to thirty years ago. Find out how many hours of work it takes to buy a gallon of milk. Consider the cost of a mortgage and the value of the deduction in hours of labor compared to 1984 back 30 years ago and while you're at it, explain to me why the value of gold has fallen more than 30% in the last three years while they're not printing any more of it. - The money supply is not just currency. It's the currency multipled by the speed with which the money changes hands. We may all count one dollar many times as it moves from one worker/consumer to another. When the money moves more slowly (during a recession) interest rates can fall and the Fed can provide more cash for mortgages and loans, but we don't suffer inflation because we don't have the money "chasing" the goods. That's why we have little inflation now and the cost of a home is falling. Falling home and airplace prices are actually an inflation "correction". During the housing bubble some additional taxes or higher interest rates would have slowed the growth of the economy and helped slow the price rises that caused overborrowing, the bubble, and some of the inflation, but Americans were hooked. - Clearly you should know that during the early years of the twentieth century, millions of people moved to America but that the money supply didn't grow with the increase of the production of the roaring 20's and constriction of the money supply was one of the serious causes of the Great Depression. In fact, the borrowed money buying stocks by margin, was another form of "printing money" and it's subsequence collapse contributed to the constriction of the money supply that led to the Depression.

Wow. Do you think that social security is "big government"? Do you think we should eliminate the Federal Reserve because it's not in the Constitution? Do you think that all mortgage money for building in this country should only come out of cash deposits made by people who have far more cash in the bank than the size of their mortgages? - Most political arguments in this country are really economic arguments made by people who don't have the slightest clue how our Federal Reserve and monetary policy is run in this country or the rest of the world. - The short story is that our money is backed by the nation's production. If we double production the Fed "prints money from nowhere" to provide the liquidity for the offset growth of mortgage and investment debt that funds the production of homes, cars, and production equipment. Without an independent Federal Reserve we truly would have a communist system run by demand control. - Social Security is a Federal Mandate but it's been in place since FDR and the New Deal. FDR and the entire Congress was voted in by the people and the program passed into law. The program remains one of the most popular by the electorate and if you worked your farm in Iowa and went flat broke and had all your equipment and land repossessed, you still receive SS at retirement even if you stiff all your creditors. - Like FDIC there are many more forms of social insurance in this country that became part of our economic system than before the banks went broke, the Great Depression set in, and the "Dust Bowl" hit the farmlands. Get used to it.

Agreed! We should get a trip report. I'd be fearful about 100LL availability just getting there.

So you flew to Guatemala?! Without google maps I would have had no idea. Good going Oscar!

When you're born in America you don't have to fear catching polio or TB because our tax supported public health system is there. You can be sure that the air you breathe won't be like it is in China because EPA regulations and enforcement won't allow it. Our taxes put men on the moon but without the space program (more taxes) we wouldn't have GPS satellites over our heads. You grow up in this country with no fear that the food you eat will give you tapeworms because the FDA has all sorts of regulations and inspections we pay for with our taxes. Americans grow up with no fear of a military invation of their homeland because we pay the taxes for our defense. And if the house next door catches fire, you can be pretty sure someone will come to put it out. Most of the working poor in this country pay no taxes beyond sales taxes, but they reap our fields, babysit the children of working parents, and clean the toilets in the hotels. Many of our veterans, injured and retired workers, receive benefits and pay nothing, but that's as it should be. God Bless America.

Statistics are easy to misunderstand. According to the Census Bureau, in the 4th quarter of 2011 49.2% of all Americans were receiving some form of "governmental cash assistance". The programs include: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (formerly AFDC) - Supplemental Security Income - Supplemental Nutrician Assistance (food stamps) - Public Housing Programs - Women Infants and Children Program (WIC) - Unemployment Benifits - Veterans Benefits - Medicaid - Medicare - and Social Security Benefits. - When commentators use the term, "some form or other of government assistance" this phrase covers all sorts of benefits, including benefits received by the wealthy (such as medicare) even if the recipient is still working and paying in. Other programs, such as free school lunch programs could be paid for the children of hard working couples. It's a mistake to think that the poor sit at home and just wait for the money to come pooring in. My mom never worked a day in her life but she still received more than $1,100 a month in SS and she's 94 yrs old this week and lives in a truly wonderful ocean front home in Falmouth on Cape Cod, she also receives other "governmental cash assistance" from Medicare, etc. Like I said, easy to misunderstand.

SS is not a Ponzi Scheme, it's an insurance plan. If you die at age sixty after paying into it for forty years, you get nothing (except a tiny death benefit). It can be like paying for aircraft insurance but never crashing . The American people could easily support the SS payout if when we live an average ten years longer we paid into it for six years longer. - We can be proud that Americans are workers. Even the worst welfare cheats work off the books without paying in, but studies show that virtually all healthy welfare cheats work. The worker participation rate is higher now than in the 1960's before women were in the workplace. Americans with bigger houses and more PPP (purchasing power parity) still work more hours and produce more than Europeans who live well but take much longer vacations. Worrying about the prices of used airplanes and the cost of aviation is truly an RPP (rich people problem). - Taxes are actually going down for the rich people in this country. The workers in this country pay income taxes on wages while the wealthy pay the lower long-term-capital gains tax for their biggest sources of wealth, but capital gains taxes are forgiven and forgotten by the free step-in-basis at death, so often they don't even pay that. While income taxes have risen on wages, the Unified Gift Credit (the amount you can give during life and death without paying any taxes) has increased to 5.36 million dollars per person for next year, so a married couple can invest in commercial real estate, deduct the interest on the loans they use to leverage the investment, and then give it to their kids while paying nothing on over $10,500,000 of the estate. - Unlike truly poor countries, here most of our money belongs to each of us. But we also pay for our collective defense, medical expenses for the poor, etc. In the poorest parts of Africa it may cost $100 a year to send your child to school for a year, but in America we offer universal education - and the poor get the worst. I am a registered Republican, but the wealth of the nation depends on those who can't buy airplanes.

As a Financial Advisor it seems to me that the interest rate cycle was extended for 30 years. Interest and mortgage rates fell consistently from 1983 until 2013. The resulting rise in real estate wealth (the largest portion of American wealth) created a bubble in real estate and Americans borrowed and built. That bubble has popped and interest rates can't go below zero. Americans lived beyond their means borrowing to buy everything from imported cars to bigger homes and even private airplanes, coupled with the sudden loss of jobs in the housing industry, plus the loss of jobs producing every product that goes into a new house, the result is the structural slow down we now face. I don't believe liberal politics is the major reason for the housing bubble, but government housing subsidies played a roll. Back in the 1960's people were just learning about credit cards. The words "home equity loan" were never heard back in the "good ol' days".

I live here on MVY. If you fly here the TFR requires that you land first in Providence RI or Hyannis on the Cape and submit to a search and you must contact a TSA phone number and make your reservation at least 24 hrs in advance, You can fly VFR or IFR but you must squawk a code and fly where they tell you. - For me the big problem has been recurrent computer access problems and the cell phone troubles that started a few weeks before his arrival. With Clinton it wasn't nearly as bad, but that was before 9/11.

Tell Timmy that compared to 40 years ago we now build houses twice the size for families half the size. Tell Timmy that compared to the 1960's we now build 55% more cars with 50% fewer workers. Be sure that Timmy understands that of the 17 trillion dollar Federal Debt that the Chinese only loaned us one-trillion. We owe almost all of the debt to ourselves by borrowing from the Social Security Trust Fund. - When it comes to airplanes, China doesn't make a single airliner, if you want to fly to China you'll have to get on an American made 747. Timmy should know that the cost of flying in a jet to go on vacation has steadily dropped based on the hours of work in order to fly 1,000 miles. Americans fly more miles per year per citizen than anyone else in the world and we have been breaking records for miles flown per person nearly every year since deregulation in the 1980's. Timmy needs to know that America feeds itself and then exports our excess agricultural products at the greatest rate of any country in the world and yet almost no one in this country works as a farmer. (Compare that to China) Timmy has every reason to be very proud of America.

In my experience landing gear up generally works well. However the moment you touch down gear up you can't steer at all. I suppose in some cases being able to steer away from some major hazard would be an advantage. IMO, one of the biggest killers of pilots who lose power shortly after take off, is the death turn back. One problem is that if you make a simple U turn you would land parallel to the runway on the grass. So the turn always looks much deeper than anticipated. Secondly, if the pilot starts the turn immediately upon losing power, the turn will be already tight during the time that the airspeed is being lost. Lastly, the headwind turns into a tailwind, and a gusty tailwind at the wrong time in a turn can quickly drop the observed airspeed and combine to drop the airplane out of the sky during an accelerated stall. Pulling the prop control back will assist you in gliding a greater distance, but if you plan to land in the woods (and you're hoping the tree topos will lean over and all the skinny braches will bend over together to help cushion the blow) or if you can land in a bushy area, it might be a good idea to push the prop control forward to continue having the prop windmilling at a higher speed as you absorb energy and slow to a stop. Do your best to land into the wind so that your slowest controllable airspeed will produce an even slower ground speed.