Politics and Pigskins

The End

2010-03-26T12:09:00.003-04:00

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams

This is the end of "Politics and Pigskins". I may start another blog in the future, but I am done discussing the subject of politics on a regular basis.

It seems to me the political battle I have been fighting was a losing battle from the start. John Adams was right.

Ironically, I think the battle was over even before I began it. The 17th Amendment of the Constitution (passed in 1913) sealed our fate, by turning the U.S. Senate into a directly elected legislative body. What seemed like an innocuous thing actually set in process the motion by which the United States will inevitably be destroyed. It changed the United States from a republic into a democracy.

The health care bill which was recently passed brought the subject home to me:

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it." - Frederic Bastiat

Bastiat was right, and the health care bill is only the latest example of it. Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to determine medical treatments? Where does the federal government get the right to determine how an insurance contract should be written?

Going back to previous examples of Medicare and Medicaid, where does the federal government get the right to determine how much a doctor can charge for his/her services?

The answer to these questions is simple: He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Once "We the People" decided money wasn't important, money was evil, that opened the floodgates to allowing the government to take what it wanted (as Bastiat said, "a moral code that justifies it"). After that, it was a short distance to creating a legal framework to plunder the people.

The next step? Enslaving the people. You think, how can that happen? I tell you, it has already begun. How much time did you spend on your income taxes this year? That is YOUR time, spent working for the government. For free.

With the passage of health care, whose ultimate result will be the death of the health insurance industry, that will leave the government with no choice but to assume the role of third party payer for all health care costs (God forbid we should take on this responsibility ourselves!). Then the government will decide what to pay for and how much to pay. That may sound innocent enough, but do you consider WHO gets paid? All the medical care providers in the country.

What if the government refuses to pay for what the medical provider deems the best treatment? Too bad.

What if the medical provider cannot make a living from what the government will pay? Too bad.

In a free market, if an employer wasn't willing to pay you enough to make a living from your labor, you have options. You can either go work for someone else, or take up another profession. That is not so easy when you have dedicated your life to the medical profession. That is not so easy when you have student loans to pay off for your medical education.

If you don't see it yet, we are in the process of enslaving the medical providers of this country. This is because the moral code of the Left does not recognize the rights of medical providers. It only recognizes the rights of the sick.

But I am not here to argue about the health care bill. That is just a symptom, not the disease. The disease is democracy.

Mind you, I am not recommending a dictatorship or an authoritarian state. No, a simple republic would suffice. Sadly, Ben Franklin was correctly reluctant about our ability to maintain the United States as a republic.

Why am I done blogging about politics? Simply put, political blogging is generally one of two things: I can either preach to the choir, or confront an opponent who will never be satisfied with anything less than my submission to their views. Only rarely does political blogging end in a reasonable discussion of the finer points of what public policy should be.

Preaching to the choir brings no pleasure. Arguing with an automaton who is well-versed in talking points but completely unacquainted with reason also brings no joy. So why bother?

My final message to you: Feel free to read through my past writings, and comment on them. I may even respond to your comments. But I am done with posting.

I leave you with the following thought:

"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS." - George Orwell, Animal Farm

This is not something to be desired, but it is what we have.

Obama in Wonderland Part 2

2010-03-02T08:31:00.003-05:00

I couldn't help but get a chuckle from the headline for Thomas Sowell's latest opinion piece: Alice in Health Care. I am glad to see I am not the only person who finds the current health care proposals to be on a level of absurdity approaching Lewis Carroll.

Naturally, Sowell nails the true reason why it all seems so surrealistic:

Most discussions of health care are like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

What is the biggest complaint about the current medical care situation? "It costs too much." Yet one looks in vain for anything in the pending legislation that will lower those costs.

Until someone in the government can provide a health care solution which lowers ALL costs, not just the patient's costs, AND provides the same quality of health care, there is nothing to discuss. Anything else is just a trip down a rabbit hole.

Obama in Wonderland

2010-02-25T14:02:00.003-05:00

How did we get back on the topic of healthcare? HOW?!

We had already decided: The majority of American people do not want the bull that Obama is shovelling as a healthcare system (translation: government takeover of the healthcare system). Yet we continue with the silly process of watching that great artist Obama fiddling with healthcare, as America burns with debt and unemployment.

As I watch the Democrats in power today, I can't help feeling like Alice watching the incredible events in Wonderland. It has a surreal feeling, as if aliens or demons or some other kind of fictional characters had suddenly taken over the U.S. government.

But here we are, at the tea party, as our cheshire president promises not to tax the overwhelming majority of Americans, while promising them a benefit on top of our already overwhelming debt. Maybe he has a magic pill which will make the debt grow small? We have already seen his magic pill which made the debt grow big.

One thing I can say with certainty: Our government is mad as a hatter...

Random Super Bowl Thoughts

2010-02-08T15:37:00.008-05:00

Now that the Super Bowl is over, here are some random thoughts on it (basically because I don't feel like putting them in any logical order):

1. Congratulations to the Saints! If I have to be proven wrong in my prediction (yes, I wrongly picked the Colts), I enjoy having it done by sheer coaching genius. Sean Payton brought his "A" coaching game. After dominating the Colts in the 2nd quarter, yet still losing on the scoreboard, the idea to run an onside kick to start the 3rd quarter was a no-lose situation for the Saints: If they recover the kick, which they did, they get to compound their already dominant time-of-possession, while disheartening their opponents; if they didn't recover the kick, the Colts end up with a short field, which still leaves the Saints dominating time-of-possession should the Colts score.

2. On the other hand, Jim Caldwell was a major coaching disappointment. He ran the same game plan the Colts have used all season.

3. I would be willing to bet the NFL did not actually hear The Who perform live anytime recently. If they had, they would have realized Roger Daltrey's voice ain't what it used to be. That halftime show was easily the WORST I have ever heard! If the NFL is going to insist on trotting out dinosaur rock bands, then I have a suggestion for next year's Super Bowl halftime: Prop up Elvis's corpse and play his songs over the speakers. It couldn't be any more hideous than what they inflicted on us this year.

4. Too bad Carrie Underwood butchered "The Star Spangled Banner". But I always thought Bo Bice should have won "American Idol" that year.

5. The best commercial was easily Punxsutawney Polamalu: "He saw his shadow! Six more weeks of football!" If that thought doesn't warm a football fan's heart, nothing will.

Jets Grounded, Saints in Heaven

2010-01-25T16:32:00.004-05:00

So I was wrong: The Colts beat the Jets.

However, I give the Colts all the credit in the world. They played relatively mistake-free football, especially by comparison to the Vikings last night (losers to the Saints).

But I stick by one part of my prediction: the winner of the Super Bowl will come from the Colts-Jets game. Considering the Saints were not able to capitalize on the Vikings many mistakes, allowing the Vikings to drag them into overtime, how will the Saints do against a team like the Colts which makes few mistakes?

This Super Bowl will be ugly folks: Colts over Saints by 21 points.

Super Bowl Prediction

2010-01-18T15:58:00.003-05:00

With the conference championship games this weekend, it is time for me to make a Super Bowl prediction.

The best game this weekend will easily be the Colts against the Jets. While this game could go either way, I lean towards the Jets for these reasons:

1. Offensive line: The Jets O-line may be the best in the NFL. The last time I saw a line that got that kind of push in the running game was the Cowboys back in the 90's.
2. Defense: Evil, wicked, mean, and nasty. Gotta love 'em! Seriously, they play a style of defense I haven't seen since the Ravens earlier this decade, minus the Ray Lewis star power. There isn't a star in this bunch. This is a true blue-collar defense with an attitude. And in the playoffs, I cling to the old adage: Defense wins championships.
3. Rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez: No, he is NOT Peyton Manning. At this point in his career, he is more comparable to Trent Dilfer in 2000 for the Ravens: A great game manager who can give you a big play occasionally to keep the opposing defense honest.
4. Buddy's boy Rex Ryan: Next to Mike Singletary, Rex is my favorite head coach in the NFL. As bombastic as his father, Rex may be the most hated coach in the NFL. But I love his style, and apparently so do his players. But I think too many people look at his style, and overlook Rex's defensive genius. Before his career is over, I suspect people will be mentioning him in the same breath as guys like Buddy Ryan and Bill Parcells. Yes, he is that good.
5. The Big "Mo": The Jets are coming into this game looking like a team on a roll. Momentum is a dangerous thing in the playoffs. Just ask the Steelers, who last year had the "mo" and beat teams who had better seasons. Just ask the Cardinals, who barely slipped into the playoffs last year, but just managed to get enough "mo" to carry them to the Super Bowl.

When I look at the Colts, I see one thing: Peyton Manning. Don't get me wrong, Manning could be enough to beat the Jets. Just look to what Dan Marino did to a similar Bears team on a Monday night back in 1985. Never underestimate the ability of a great quarterback to bring a win at any time. And Manning is loudly making his case for the Hall of Fame with his stellar play.

However, in a game between a great player versus a great team, I'll take the team. JETS OVER COLTS BY 4 POINTS.

In the NFC, this game requires no deep analysis. The Cowboys and Cardinals had no business being in games against the Vikings and Saints, respectively. That said, the Saints won't make things as easy for the Vikings defense as the Cowboys boneheaded offensive gameplan did. Expect Drew Brees to sit back and shoot the Vikings down with a vicious short-passing game. On the other side, the Saints will stuff Adrian Peterson all day, forcing the-quarterback-who-retired-and-came-back-and-retired-and-came-back into beating them with his arm. In a battle between Favre and Brees, I'll take Brees. SAINTS OVER VIKINGS BY 3 POINTS.

Finally, in the Super Bowl, expect the Jets in the biggest upset since, dare I say... Joe Namath? JETS OVER SAINTS BY 11 POINTS.

Done with Democrats

2010-01-18T14:15:00.003-05:00

I am over the whole Democratic Party. For the life of me, I can see no virtue in that political party. Not one.

Even the most conservative Democrat (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) is not worth the trouble of voting for, especially on the national level. Why would you vote for anyone who would allow someone like Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid to remain in a position of power?

As for Barack Obama, I never imagined the American public could elect another president worse than Jimmy Carter. I stand corrected.

But for Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to carry on with this travesty of a health care bill, as people remain out of work, is either shockingly stupid, or deviously brilliant. Because the benefits of the bill don't come until 2014 (at the earliest), that leads me to believe they are more on the "shockingly stupid" side, since none of them will get any political gains from this legislation. Going on the campaign trail with, "just wait, you're about to get something really nice", doesn't sell well with people who are out of work.

That doesn't even consider the fact they will be increasing taxes immediately to pay for the Health Care Monstrosity That Ate the United States, AND they are doing this in the middle of a recession! This is a display of intelligence which would be the envy of the fur growing in the bottom of my trash can.

So until I have some reason for hope (an election would be nice), I am done criticizing the federal government. I am done blogging about these fools. It is like the old saying about teaching a pig to sing: Don't try it, because it just frustrates you, and irritates the pig.

Ancient Chinese Thought for the Day

2009-12-23T14:24:00.002-05:00

"The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished...The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be." - Lao Tse

Beliefs and Theories: Religion vs. Science

2009-12-17T16:59:00.005-05:00

Many years ago, I read Paul Watzlawick's How Real Is Real, which made a great point about the difference between belief and opinion.

Basically, a person's beliefs are immutable. A person will die before they change their beliefs. On the other hand, opinions can change over the course of a lifetime. Even the strongest opinions can be changed. (I am paraphrasing from memory as I could not find my copy of the book if my life depended on it.)

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal had a quote today that reminded me of Watzlawick's book:

...science-minded people often scoff at those who do not "believe in evolution." The problem with this is not that they are wrong to defend evolution, but that they mistake evolution, a scientific theory, for a belief system. When you demand adherence to a set of beliefs, you are no longer doing science but something that has the form, if not the substance, of religion.

Too often, we tend to give science too much credit. In essence, we give science a blind faith that is undeserved, and frequently not even sought by the scientists involved.

When someone says, "I have a theory...", you will listen and give the person's supposition a fair hearing, usually accepting or rejecting said "theory" on it's own merits or demerits, with some weight lent to the person's credibility. But let a scientist give you a theory, and most people will more likely than not accept it on faith.

Let more than one scientist espouse a theory, and most people will take it as if Moses came down from the mountain holding tablets. It becomes gospel at that point.

I apologize for the religious terminology, but therein lies the problem: Too many people treat science as a religion.

Ironically, both science and religion have their theories. For example, is the Creation story a myth or a fact? Even among different religions, there is no agreement on this subject. If asked about this, most scientists would give you the "Big Bang Theory", or the "Evolution Theory", as explanations of how the world came to be. The problem in this discussion is that neither science nor religion have conclusive proof to back up their respective claims. That said, I personally lend more credence to science in this debate, but that is my OPINION.

When science gives you a theory, it should be remembered it is exactly that: a theory, to be judged on it's own merits or demerits.

If your religion told you that you needed to do something that wasn't logical, would you question why? If they came back with "God said so", that might be good enough, although I personally would want a little more than that. I might need philosophical backup to support my religion's belief. Even then, it might not hit my personal belief system, and remain limited to my opinion system. In other words, I would retain my doubts.

So when science tells you that you need to do something, would you question it? If they tell you "studies show...", would you immediately change your life? For many, the answer is a blind yes.

But what happens when later scientific studies disprove the original studies? You would think "once burned, twice shy" would apply to our views of science, yet how many times have scientific theories, backed up by studies, later get overturned, yet we continue to lend blind faith to science?

Even worse, what happens when scientists fudge the data, then hide the data, while using political machinations to keep opposing scientists from proving them wrong, as recently happened with the Global Warming theory? I am amazed that there are STILL people who believe the flawed theory of Global Warming blindly.

If you don't believe me, just visit Copenhagen this week.

Debt? What debt?

2009-12-16T11:15:00.003-05:00

"Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren...America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." - Barack Obama in 2006

I guess the federal debt is only a problem if you aren't the president? Otherwise...party on dudes! The tab is on "them"!

(quote from the Wall Street Journal website)

Why the U.S. will fail in Afghanistan

2009-12-09T14:06:00.005-05:00

I can predict the failure in Afghanistan in two important quotes.

First, from SunTzu, the ancient Chinese military philosopher and author of "The Art of War":

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

Second, from General Stanley McChrystal (the U.S. commander in Afghanistan), during Congressional testimony on Tuesday, December 8th (also as quoted by Slate's Fred Kaplan):

There is much in Afghanistan that I do not understand.

Fox News and Climategate Killed Big Journalism

2009-12-03T08:58:00.005-05:00

“Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very Internet you invented. Oh, oh, the irony!” - Jon Stewart

What is sad in the above comment is the fact a comedian is discussing a scandal BEFORE ABC, CBS, or NBC news have even mentioned it. And they have yet to mention Climategate.

How does a scandal, that involves a scientific theory driving government policy decisions all over the world, get ignored by a major news organization? There was a time when any news editor worth anything would have been utterly ashamed to get scooped by another news organization on a major story, yet these organizations continue to ignore this story even AFTER Congressional investigations have been requested. How can this be?

There is only one answer, and it isn't pretty: The news media is no longer employing journalists. They employ propagandists. If you want to see or read journalism, look to the Internet.

I blame Fox News for this. The irony is that it wasn't Fox News Corp's NEWS shows that did it: It was their opinion shows. Whenever you hear Leftists talk about the evil of Fox News, they always mention the opinion shows: Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. And since Fox News gets the ratings, all the other news shows look to duplicate Fox's success.

But when you look at network news shows, they USED to be strictly about reporting the news. But they saw Fox's OPINION show success, and they sought to duplicate it. Unfortunately, the network news was filled with Left-leaning journalists, so they jazzed up the network news with Left-leaning opinions. Unfortunately, it didn't help their ratings, and made news anchors like Bret Hume seem absolutely objective.

By the time of Climategate, the network news was so beholden to the Left, they couldn't even report a news story they would have been tripping over themselves to get thirty years ago.

But now they have been scooped by a comedy show, which leaves the average viewer to look upon the naked kings and see them for what they really are: propaganda arms for big corporations who spew Leftist altruism in order to secure their own power.

Contrary to what the average news consumer has been told, the science behind Global Warming theory has NOT been settled, since it was never actually reviewed. Regardless of whether Global Warming is true or not, the news consumer can look upon the news purveyors with a critical eye, and see the naked bias.

What worries me is HOW the news consumer will choose to interpret this event. Will they merely turn away from the liberal news organizations who lied to them? Of course, but then...do they turn JUST to Fox News for telling the truth? I suspect many of them will. However, I personally hope they use this event to teach them to view news stories with a discriminating eye. Never trust any single news source on it's own.

The irony in the case of Climategate is that it is a news story at all. Anyone with a brain in their head could see the great flaw in Global Warming theory. It doesn't take into account the heating and cooling of the single greatest source of "global warming": the sun.

Unfortunately, big media put all their eggs in the Global Warming basket, and to report that it might be wrong would make them look like what they are: fools. So rather than report something that makes them look wrong, they choose to ignore the story and hope nobody notices. Maybe they are right. Just speaking for myself, it has been years since I watched a network news broadcast.

Quote of the Day: Social Justice

2009-12-01T09:38:00.001-05:00

"Since this is an era when many people are concerned about "fairness" and "social justice," what is your "fair share" of what someone else has worked for?" - Thomas Sowell

The Light Bulb on Climategate

2009-11-25T16:23:00.003-05:00

Anyone out there still under the anthropogenic Global Warming delusion?

It may be difficult to come to terms with the fact you have been duped by some climate scientists, but as the Washington Post reports:

Electronic files that were stolen from a prominent climate research center and made public last week provide a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes battle to shape the public perception of global warming.

...In one e-mail, the [Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia's] director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University's Michael E. Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

"I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report," Jones writes. "Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal," Mann writes.

And these are just a few examples for the public to wrap their heads around. Yes folks, the science is not only "not settled", it has had a huge hole blown in it by the simple fact that scientists were using every political means available to them to silence detractors, from intentionally keeping the data used for their research away from potentially skeptical researchers, to applying pressure to peer-review journals to keep the opposing research from being seen.

But don't feel bad. Here's the first Climategate joke from James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal:

Q: How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None. There's a consensus that it's going to change, so they've decided to keep us in the dark.

Stop the country! I wanna get off!

2009-11-24T14:11:00.002-05:00

Headlines from Drudge:

Climategate: 'Greatest scandal in modern science'...
Call for Congressional investigation...
Paper: Junk science exposed among climate-change believers...

And the pièce de résistance:

Obama: 'Step closer' to climate deal...

Can our glorious leader be any more clueless? NO HE CAN'T!

Global Warming and Prostitution

2009-11-20T07:31:00.004-05:00

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection." - Suneeta Mukherjee, Philippine representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund

What is funny about the inherent stupidity of that comment, is the article (link here) which includes it actually gives the REAL problem causing the high levels of prostitution in the Philippines:

Of the 92 million Filipinos, about 60 percent are living in coastal areas and depend on the seas for livelihood, said former Environment secretary Dr. Angel Alcala.

Alcala said that “we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our marine environment."

But as the sea’s resources are depleted due to overpopulation and overfishing, fishermen start losing their livelihood and women are forced to share the traditional role of the man in providing for the family.

So explain how "overpopulation and overfishing" are caused by the myth of anthropogenic Global Warming?

Actually, I have figured out one side effect of Global Warming: It fries people's brains. Unfortunately, it is not the heat, but rather the inherent stupidity of the concept of Global Warming.

The American Principate

2009-11-19T12:45:00.003-05:00

I was reading about the Roman Emperor Alexander Severus on Wikipedia, who was noted as the last emperor of the Roman Empire's Principate period. What struck me was the significance of the Principate period (from Wikipedia):

"The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance of the Roman Republic."

After the Principate, Ancient Rome went through nearly a century of upheaval, before it entered the period of the Dominate, which was the "despotic" last phase of Ancient Rome.

As I watch the United States government continue, with impunity, to erode the rights of Americans, it occurs to me we are living through the American Principate, where our government is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of our political oligarchs to preserve the illusion of the formal continuance of the American Republic.

Knowing the history of Ancient Rome, I have to wonder: Who will be the American "Alexander Severus"? Based on Alexander's biography, Obama certainly fits the bill in one respect:

"...when campaigning against...Germania, Alexander Severus apparently alienated his legions by trying diplomacy and bribery, and they assassinated him."

However, on the whole, Obama's reign doesn't resemble Alexander's:

"The luxury and extravagance that had formerly been so prevalent at the court were put down; the standard of the coinage was raised; taxes were lightened; literature, art and science were encouraged; the lot of the soldiers was improved; and, for the convenience of the people, loan offices were instituted for lending money at a moderate rate of interest."

All things considered, I suspect we have at least another leader or more to go before we reach the end of our government's pretense of republicanism. But with Obama's ineptitude, I may be surprised sooner.

Break America Now!

2009-11-17T07:08:00.004-05:00

A simple question for everyone: Regardless of your political persuasion or ideology, regardless of where you live, regardless of your religious or personal philosophy, what do you think the odds are of the U.S. government doing what YOU believe is right, in your lifetime?

If you are liberal, do you honestly think the U.S. will stop fighting wars in oil countries? Consider the fact we have the most liberal president since Jimmy Carter in office now, and we are STILL in Afghanistan and Iraq. LBJ's "military-industrial complex" is alive and well, and will continue to be around for the rest of our lives.

If you are a social conservative, do you honestly think you will see a legal ban on abortion? Until Roe vs. Wade is overturned, it is not happening. You will never get enough votes for a Constitutional Amendment.

If you are a fiscal conservative, do you honestly think the U.S. government will ever show any kind of fiscal responsibility? Sorry to dash your hopes, but as long as there are sheep who will vote for any buffoon who brings home the pork, the government punch bowl will continue to overflow with other people's money, including yours. As long as we have a Federal Reserve which will happily enable our legislative spending habits, the party will continue, and you and your children will pay the tab.

If you are a civil rights liberal, I have one word for you: Guantanamo. And I bet you are loving the prospect of people being jailed for not having health insurance! I have some more news for you: These violations will not end, as our federal government gets more power.

If you are a socialist, you may get your dream of universal health care, but it will look more like Britain than some of the smaller European countries, simply because we don't have enough health care providers to take care of 300 million people. So you will get higher taxes, long waits, and STILL have poor quality health care. Since the wealthy will go outside the system for their health care, you STILL won't have "equality".

Frankly, unless you long for the good old days of the old Soviet Union, odds are you are not happy about something the U.S. government is doing. You can expect to be that way for a long time, because no matter what you want, there is someone else who doesn't want it. THAT is why state's rights are important.

THAT is why secession from the union is more important now than ever before.

Mulling "Rogue"

2009-11-16T13:47:00.004-05:00

With the release of Sarah Palin's new book Going Rogue, I do have some thoughts on her.

Overall, there are some things I like about her (she seems to be a small government conservative), and other things I dislike (her fundamentalist beliefs make me question how fiscally conservative she truly is, since most fundamentalists have no problem with using government to their own ends, much like liberals).

During last year's election, I found it humorous how political pundits basically classified her as a rube, while promoting a presidential candidate with even less experience than Palin. I think we would do better with the rube in the White House, since the intellectually elitist Obama has proven to be a complete failure.

But that was never the choice, which is why the Republican ticket lost. John McCain had the taint of Washington on him, as he flip-flopped and nuanced his way to a loss. While Palin made plenty of mistakes, I can't look at them and say I wouldn't have made a few of them myself. McCain's mistakes were in their subtlety, whereas Palin's mistakes were more from her brutal honesty.

One can question whether Palin is smart enough to be president, and one can question her qualifications based on specific issues, but I don't think one can disqualify her based on honesty.

Marxism of the Night

2009-11-12T16:59:00.003-05:00

I had "Marxism of the Day" before, so this was only appropriate...

From A Night at the Opera, the infamous contract scene:

Chico: Hey, wait, wait. What does this say here, this thing here?
Groucho: Oh, that? Oh, that's the usual clause that's in every contract. That just says, uh, it says, uh, if any of the parties participating in this contract are shown not to be in their right mind, the entire agreement is automatically nullified.
Chico: Well, I don't know...
Groucho: It's all right. That's, that's in every contract. That's, that's what they call a sanity clause.
Chico: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You can't fool me. There ain't no Sanity Clause!

(hat tip to Wikipedia)

The Death of Capitalism

2009-11-11T16:35:00.003-05:00

A poll from the BBC signifies the end of free market capitalism, and the rise of centralized government power:

"Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism.

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well."

With the death of capitalism also comes the death of freedom. Perhaps not yet, but it is only a matter of time. Once government controls the means of production, and the world's people have forgotten that free market capitalism IS the means of production, then what is to stop the government from going further?

If I can make you work WHEN I want, HOW I want, and for HOW MUCH I think you should make, why should I stop there? Once I have this control over your life, what other controls can I apply to you?

Free market capitalism allows you to do ANY job you want and are capable of doing, and make however much money other people are willing to pay you for it. Now if I can make you believe THAT is a bad thing, I do believe I can make you believe anything!

Freedom of religion? Separation of church and state fixed that. We have a new religion in town: secularism.

Freedom of the press? The press is already dead. Heck, they LOVE this idea anyway!

Freedom of speech? We will need to control the internet. After that, we may have the perfect totalitarian state.

I know, you'll say "How does the death of free market capitalism lead to all this?" Just consider who will make ALL economic decisions? The government, of course. And since you have already allowed them to control your economic lives, why on Earth do you think they would stop there? Just because they used altruism to sell you this pile of manure, don't think they actually practice it!

I can hear the politician whispering the sweet nothings in your ear now, "You are fallible. You make mistakes. Let me take care of you. Life will be so much easier..."

Free Trade vs. Protectionism

2009-11-11T08:41:00.004-05:00

"If Joe the American sells blankets to Mary the American for $15 each, and if an opening to trade allows Mary to buy Chinese blankets for $5 each, then three things happen:

1. Mary is better off by $10.
2. Joe is worse off by at most $10—because Joe can always match the Chinese price if he wants to, taking a $10 hit. On the other hand, he also has the option of getting out of the blanket business, which he’ll choose only if he prefers it to taking that hit.
3. Frieda, another American, who might not have been willing to pay $15 for a blanket, picks up a Chinese blanket for $5 and goes to bed warm tonight.

Of these, only the second effect is bad for Americans, and it’s got to be outweighed (or at least matched) by the first effect. The third effect is pure gravy." - from Steve Landsburg's website, thebigquestions.com

Using this example, the protectionist argument says we need to protect Joe. Unfortunately, protectionists only have two hammers for this nail: tariffs and "buy American".

Tariffs, as we have learned from the historic example of Smoot-Hawley, only lead to tariffs against us. In other words, we protect domestic production at the expense of exporting production. It is a classic case of cutting off one's nose to spite your face.

As for the alternative protectionist strategy of "buy American", it completely ignores Frieda, and forces Mary to spend more than she otherwise would have. Since we live in a free country, then "buy American" is a meaningless appeal to patriotism, which usually falls on deaf ears when a consumer is forced to make hard economic choices (i.e. spend $5 vs. $15) for two comparable products.

Instead, protectionists should look towards the roadblocks which our government has put in front of our manufacturing sector:

1. The Minimum Wage: Fortunately, dollar inflation is about to make the minimum wage irrelevant soon. But what purpose does it serve? No one would work for less money than they need to live. The minimum wage is a "feel good" law that only screws up the economy by artificially inflating wages.

2. Corporate Taxes: The U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rates in the world (only Japan has higher). Next time you want to complain about companies moving operations overseas, or complain about the death of American manufacturing, why don't you spend some time complaining about corporate taxes FIRST? On a related note, you do realize that corporate taxes only get passed along to consumers in higher prices?

3. Environmental Regulations: While I won't say that all environmental regulations are bad or unnecessary, can you honestly say you know and understand the environmental requirements of our corporations? Of course you don't. Like most voters, you simply assume that the government wouldn't make an environmental regulation if it wasn't necessary, or at the very least beneficial in some respect.

I won't say that any of the above three items is the only reason we can't compete, but you can't have all of them and expect to be able to compete with other countries who don't hamstring their manufacturing sectors like we do.

Money for Nothing

2009-11-10T10:41:00.007-05:00

“I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their own expenses aren't subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they need money and then suddenly they expect free money. That's -- that's basic concept of responsibility that I think most Americans abide by...penalties are appropriate for people who try to free ride the system and force others to pay for their expenses.” - Barack Obama

Actually, Barack Obama did NOT say that. I took a quote of his (quote link here)about penalties for not having health insurance, and made it about money in general.

This does beg the question: Why is it appropriate to have penalties for lack of health insurance, but NOT lack of money? It would seem to me, in the grand economic scheme of things, you need to have money before you can have insurance, n'est pas?

Mind you, we ARE talking about health insurance, NOT health care, so don't go off on a tangent about denying people health care. This is about money.

But here is a thought for Obama. If you want penalties for not having health insurance, why not try the ultimate penalty: Denial of health care.

Marxism of the Day

2009-11-10T09:13:00.001-05:00

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

You weren't expecting something from Karl, were you?

The Blank Wall

2009-11-09T14:11:00.003-05:00

John Stossel nails the true meaning of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall:

There was one bad thing about the fall of the USSR: We lost a very visible bad example of big centralized government.

With Washington now turning to central planning to “fix” healthcare, clean the environment, and “create” jobs, it’s helpful to have role models of failure. They remind citizens of the politicians’ arrogance.

For the young, the example of the Soviet Union resonates less and less.

On the bright side, Stossel does have this to say:

We do, however, still have North Korea, Cuba, State Motor Vehicles Departments, K-12 education, and the Us Postal Service.

That said, I don't have Stossel's faith that the young will recognize government incompetence when they see it. After all, there is still the problem of government education.

Separation of School and State

2009-11-06T07:41:00.002-05:00

"Suppose that newspapers were run by government and funded by taxpayers, and that each American was assigned to read only the newspaper published in his or her local area. Clearly, the resulting quality of journalism would be atrocious.

Would anyone seriously suggest that this problem would be solved if only there were better schools of journalism, or higher pay for journalists, or more people who are “called” to journalism, or newspaper readers who take more active roles in digesting and interpreting the news? Surely not. All sensible people would understand that these fixes would all fail as long as newspapers faced no competition – indeed, as long as journalism is produced by the state." - Don Boudreaux

The above was a letter to the New York Times editor, on the subject of education. It is also one of the finest points I have heard made in the neverending discussion of how to fix our education system.

But reading it gave me an idea: We need a Constitutional Amendment, along the lines of the 1st Amendment, which will separate the federal government from ANY involvement in our schools. I would suggest something worded as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting any establishment or form of education, or abridging the rights of the people to acquire education in any manner. Congress is also restricted from providing any funds for the purpose of education.

I can hear the squeals of protest already, but think about it: If the federal government cannot provide funding, they cannot put strings on it either.

Also, do we really need to funnel money for college educations through the federal government? Last time I checked, there are still many people in the U.S. without a college education. So exactly how do federal scholarship funding and college loans actually help ALL of us? There are plenty of private scholarship funds out there which could do the same job as the federal government. If people believe in providing scholarships for college educations, let them donate their money to the private scholarship funds, rather than have their money taken from them under the implied threat of government force which supports our income tax system?

In addition, without having to send education money to the federal government, there will be more money available in the private sector to enable the EXACT amount of education funding we need, rather than the amount our legislators THINK we need.

Finally, in K-12 education, let the states and local school boards decide how education should be done, rather than having to promote some federally mandated curriculum, which has done nothing to help the state of education in this country. (Although I think the states should only be involved in education funding, NOT in the actual business of education. But that is a separate discussion.)

We have tried everything in public education, and NONE of it works. It is time to remove the federal government from the education system completely.

Quote of the Day

2009-11-05T17:05:00.003-05:00

“I carry with me a personal conviction that nothing can be allowed to interfere with our determination and our resolve and our conviction." - Hillary Clinton

This begs the question: If something were to interfere with our conviction, would she still have the same conviction, or would she need a new conviction, or would she just change her conviction to fit the new situation?

I think my resolve is waning...

(Hat tip to Bloomberg.com)

Money and Gore

2009-11-03T06:52:00.003-05:00

It is nice to see a leftist rag like the New York Times finally admit that Al Gore is making a fortune from Global Warming. However, I don't think it detracts from his message, any more than Global Warming sceptics lose credibility when they have oil company investments. While it might paint their messages in a different light, it does not take away from the inherent truth or lies contained therein.

The political tactic of "killing the messenger" does not work in scientific debates. Even if a person has an ulterior motive, their message must be taken at face value, and must be refuted on it's own value or lack thereof.

You don't need to attack Gore to debunk the Global Warming theory, which is still ignoring several important factors:

1. It fails to account for how changes in the sun impact our atmosphere. We have seen a correlation between sunspots and the Earth's temperature. Yet Global Warming theory places carbon dioxide as a more important factor on the Earth's atmosphere than our planet's PRIMARY source of heat?

2. During the period of the dinosaurs, Earth's atmosphere contained larger concentrations of carbon dioxide than it currently does, yet both flora and fauna flourished. If Global Warming is so horrible for the Earth, then how do they account for this?

You don't need to attack Al Gore to find the holes in his message.

Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism

2009-10-29T06:46:00.005-04:00

According to Jesus Huerta de Soto (in his essay "Classical Liberalism versus Anarchocapitalism"), the great flaw in the Founding Fathers' thinking was "their ideal is theoretically impossible, as it contains the seed of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it includes the necessary existence of a state (even a minimal one), understood as the sole agent of institutional coercion."

When you consider how the Founding Fathers viewed the differences between republics and democracies, you can see the flaw in their thinking. For example:

"The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended" - James Madison

As long as people view the government as some anomolous "other" entity outside of themselves, then any government is doomed to failure, regardless of whether it is a monarchy or a democracy or a representative republic.

Madison was right about one thing: The larger the government, the less connected to it will be the people under it. As long as people feel no responsibility for their own government, they will inevitably seek to use government towards their own ends. We see this today with the proliferation of special interests, ranging from the lowest welfare recipient to the highest CEO on Wall Street, with all of them seeking to get their cut from our government.

Another example:

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide" - John Adams

What Adams forgets is how the Ancient Roman republic devolved into dictatorship. Representation did not protect the people from the follies of poor representative leadership (which handed over dictatorial powers to Julius Caesar, and then Augustus Caesar), leading to the Empire, and the inevitable fall of Rome.

Jesus Huerta de Soto's essay does get the part right about how no government has ever succeeded over the long term, and the Founding Fathers were wrong to assume they could do what had never been done before. However, de Soto does fail to deal with one problem: other governments.

As de Soto describes it, anarchocapitalism does sound like a great idea, until you start to consider: How do you protect it from other ideologies, and more specifically other governments? Inevitably, some dictatorship will come along and use force to enslave an anarchocapitalist "government".

Unless anarchocapitalists are willing to live like the people in Afghanistan, which is really the only comparable system to what they propose that has actually shown an ability to defend itself along with an ability to maintain their political/cultural system, then anarchocapitalism is doomed to failure. The only difference will be that anarchocapitalism's failure will come from outside of itself.

No beef in global warming stupidity

2009-10-27T07:23:00.003-04:00

From the timesonline.com:

People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Let us assume for the moment that Lord Stern is correct, and we follow his absurd advice.

Everyone stops eating meat from cows and chickens and other domesticated animals. Of course, based on Lord Stern's argument about these animals using too much water and creating greenhouse gases, I assume we will be discontinuing the consumption of milk and other dairy products, since their continued consumption would create no net reduction in water usage or greenhouse gases. So no more cheese, milk, eggs, etc.

After we go on our strictly vegetarian diet, what will become of all these farm animals? If we release them into the wild, most of them will die, although some might survive, continuing to use water and create greenhouse gases. No, we will have to slaughter all of them. Who knows which cow fart might lead to the end of the world as we know it?

Naturally, unemployment will rise as all dairy workers will be out of a job. On the bright side, Global Warming will be creating more arable land in currently cold climates, so there will be plenty of farming jobs available. We will need them too, since we will all be consuming more vegetation. However, if Lord Stern's plan works, even this avenue for employment might be closed. This also means there will be less food available for the world's current population. But the deaths of millions is fine, since they will also be creating fewer greenhouse gases. It might even solve the unemployment problem!

When all is said and done, assuming Lord Stern is correct, we will save the planet from Global Warming, but have fewer people and jobs, and all dairy animals will be extinct.

This reminds me of the old Sam Cooke song:

Don't know much about history,
don't know much biology.
Don't know much about a science book,
don't know much about the french I took.
But I do know that I love you,
and I know that if you love me, too,
what a wonderful world this would be.

Global Warmers like Lord Stern definitely "don't know much", but will they still be calling it a "wonderful world" after they get done with it?

Quote of the Day: Global Warming Edition

2009-10-26T14:13:00.002-04:00

"We cannot predict weather accurately for more than a week, why should we allow the same predictions to be accepted for all of the future? The answer is we should not." - George Giles (from lewrockwell.com)

The perfect description of our government's current efforts:

2009-10-22T17:35:00.000-04:00

"Things will get better-despite our efforts to improve them." - Will Rogers

Toss out the bums

2009-10-21T14:21:00.002-04:00

It is time to toss out the bums. No, I don't mean our elected representatives, or the president. Rather, I mean the PEOPLE responsible for electing these morons and looters.

It is time to toss out the voters.

Before you say I can't do that, shall I remind you there is no such thing as a "right to vote"? While there are laws which prevent discrimination in voting privileges, there is no actual "right to vote" anywhere in the Constitution. Feel free to prove me wrong, because you can't.

So back to the idea of tossing out the voters. This is easily done: just ban everyone from voting. This also has the side benefit of eliminating the whining every four years that someone was denied their voting rights, since no one will be able to vote!

As Clint Eastwood would say, "I know what you're thinking...": Who would run the country? Not that it matters to any of you, since you ARE the people responsible for the mess we are in, but the exact same people who run the country now. You didn't seem to care when our elected officials were taking bribes (in the form of campaign donations) to support a financial system that made many people wealthy (not you, of course), so why would you care if they remain in power? Let's remove the pretense that any of our elected officials will actually lose in the next election, because the overwhelming majority of them won't lose. Re-election for incumbant legislators in in the 90th percentile of probability.

But here is the best part: If we make our current Congress and President permanent, they won't have to give us health care, and they can go about the business of actually attempting to fix what is wrong with this country, instead of handing out free candy like health care to try and make their jobs permanent. You didn't honestly think they were planning to give us health care out of the goodness of their hearts, did you?

No wonder you voted for these morons and looters...

H1N1: So what?

2009-10-16T13:03:00.003-04:00

Here is the story from FoxNews.com:

CDC: 87 Children Dead From H1N1

Federal health officials said Friday that 11 more children have died in the past week, bringing the total up to 87.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says about half of the child deaths since September have been among teenagers.

According to the same Centers for Disease Control, in 2005, 1,377 children died from cancer.

In order for H1N1 to even get close to the number of children killed by cancer 4 years ago, H1N1 would have to kill approximately 107 children every week for the rest of the year.

Even then, you are only talking about roughly 0.00045% of the U.S. population.

While I sympathize with the parents who have lost their children to H1N1, from a macro perspective, this news story is insignificant.

Move along people, nothing to see here...

The Real Solution to Health Care Reform

2009-10-14T09:04:00.002-04:00

Economics reminds us of one simple rule regarding any good or service: If you offer people something they want at a cost of less than it is actually perceived to be worth, they will acquire more of it than they need. Under the rules of supply and demand, the cost is out of alignment, forcing the demand to exceed the supply, which will lead to insufficient supply to meet the demand. In a normal free market situation, the price would increase to pay for the needed increase in supply to meet the demand.

Unfortunately, when the price is set by the government, there is no mechanism to increase the supply without subsidization by the government.

On the issue of health care, there is a way to avoid the whole supply and demand problem which universal health care causes: Only provide those medical procedures and drugs which nobody wants. In other words, provide catastrophic health care only.

No one is going to use too much chemotherapy for their cancer treatments. No diabetic is going to use more insulin than they need (at least not intentionally). No one with a slipped disk in their back will be actively trying to acquire too many spinal surgeries to correct the condition. And people with heart conditions won't be begging for that extra triple bypass surgery.

On the other hand, do we need to pay for abortions? How about every case of the sniffles?

We need to draw a hard line, and let the health insurers take care of the little things, like preventive medicine.

Out sick

2009-10-12T08:37:00.002-04:00

If my blogging seems a little light lately, there is a good reason: I am suffering from a sinus infection. There is nothing like sinus congestion to make my mind even more muddled than it already is.

Sorry folks. No deep thoughts from me for awhile. Hopefully, I will be back in action later this week or early next week.

One last Helen Keller joke

2009-10-07T12:03:00.002-04:00

What did Helen Keller say when she found out they put her statue in the U.S. Capital? Nothing, she's dead!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The Economic World War

2009-10-06T05:12:00.004-04:00

With the growing din of rumors of many countries planning to end the use of the dollar as the world's trade currency, what are the implications?

If this were to happen, expect trillions of dollars to return to America. While U.S. exporters will benefit from the weakened dollar, inflation will increase by a huge amount.

But the curious aspect in this is China's involvement. According to the US-China Business Council, China exported $252 billion in goods to the U.S. in 2008. Overall, China exported $1.4 trillion to all countries. By letting the U.S. dollar fail, China would be risking up to 18% of it's export economy. While it would be unrealistic to expect U.S. imports from China to drop to zero, it would undoubtedly cause a drop in China's export business here.

Here is where it gets interesting. If China maintains their currency peg to the dollar, they could make their goods even cheaper on the world market, and still maintain their export trade with the U.S. But then China would be in the driver's seat economically, allowing them to de-peg their currency from the dollar slowly, allowing them to grow their economy away from a reliance on the U.S. export business. Chinese goods will grow in cost at a rate close to our own inflation rate.

In case you have not already guessed it, the U.S. economy will be a huge mess. While our export businesses will thrive, import businesses will dry up. The price of gas will shoot up, hurting our economy in multiple ways, with the most obvious being the increased cost of goods and services.

Let us not forget, the Federal Reserve will have it's hands tied by our heavy government debt burden. If they increase rates, they will also increase the government's cost of financing our debt, thereby digging our debt hole deeper. If they don't increase rates, inflation will soar.

Technically speaking, the U.S. will be in the middle of a perfect economic storm: heavy government debt with reduced tax revenue, soaring inflation, and weakened domestic businesses leaving unemployment high (and possibly growing). If the Democrats manage to pass universal health care, they will be forced into heavy rationing of it long before they had hoped. With Social Security and Medicare debts coming due as more Baby Boomers retire (or are forced into retirement by unemployment), our government debt burden will increase even more.

In summary, we are screwed if the dollar is removed as the world's trade currency.

Random NFL Thoughts

2009-10-05T09:27:00.003-04:00

I recently moved, so this was the first weekend of this NFL season that I got to sit down and watch some games. Some random thoughts about what I saw:

1. Bears QB Jay Cutler is awesome. He may not be Mr. Charisma, but the guy knows how to run an offense. You can watch him reading the defense, looking off receivers, and then gunning the ball where it needs to be. Cutler has the brains and the natural ability to be a great NFL quarterback for years to come. The Bears are lucky to have him.

2. The Oakland Raiders have HUGE problems. Their defense might be good enough for them to win some games, IF they had an offense. They have no passing game to speak of, which leaves their running game at the mercy of opposing defenses. It is going to be an ugly year for Raider fans.

3. The Jets defense is one of the best I have seen since the Ravens in 2000. If their offense was even mediocre, they would be dominant. Unfortunately, QB Mark Sanchez is a work in progress.

4. The Saints running game will end any Super Bowl hopes they have eventually, although the quality of the NFC might allow the Saints to slip into the Super Bowl, where they will get dispatched.

An Ideal America

2009-10-02T08:23:00.004-04:00

I am stealing the following post in it's entirety from Mises.org, because it reflects my own beliefs perfectly. It was originally written by Leonard Read in November, 1954:

Every person should be free
-to pursue his ambition to the full extent of his abilities, regardless of race or creed or family background.

-to associate with whom he pleases for any reason he pleases, even if someone else thinks it's a stupid reason.

-to worship God in his own way, even if it isn't "orthodox."

-to choose his own trade and to apply for any job he wants — and to quit his job if he doesn't like it or if he gets a better offer.

-to go into business for himself, be his own boss, and set his own hours of work — even if it's only three hours a week.

-to use his honestly acquired property or savings in his own way — spend it foolishly, invest it wisely, or even give it away.

-to offer his services or products for sale on his own terms, even if he loses money on the deal.

-to buy or not to buy any service or product offered for sale, even if the refusal displeases the seller.

-to disagree with any other person, even when the majority is on the side of the other person.

-to study and learn whatever strikes his fancy, as long as it seems to him worth the cost and effort of studying and learning it.

-to do as he pleases in general, as long as he doesn't infringe the equal right and opportunity of every other person to do as he pleases.

The above, in a nutshell, is the way of life that the libertarian philosophy commends.

It is the way of individual liberty, of the free market, of private property, of government limited to securing these rights equally for all.

Leonard E. Read

After reading that, ask yourself: Is this the America in which I live? Is this the America in which I WANT to live?

In case you doubt it, the America about which Read is talking is NOT the world sought by most Republicans or any Democrats. Keep this in mind the next time you vote for a Republican or Democrat just so you don't "waste your vote" on a third party. Is it more important to vote for a winner, or vote for someone who espouses what you believe?

Ken Lewis cashes out

2009-10-01T07:01:00.004-04:00

As a former employee of Bank of America, I have a few thoughts on the news of CEO Ken Lewis's retirement.

First, when I worked there, Lewis seemed to be a reasonable CEO. He always seemed to do what was best for Bank of America, from fostering internal growth after the Hugh McColl era of heavy acquisitions (including the NationsBank/Bank of America merger), to eventually doing some good acquisitions of his own, including MBNA and Fleet.

But last year was the beginning of the end for Lewis. First there was the head-scratching acquisition of Countrywide. Why acquire a subprime mortgage lender in the middle of the mortgage market's meltdown?

Then there was the Merrill Lynch acquisition. While I don't entirely blame Lewis for that fiasco, he should have been more upfront with investors. If he had doubts, and made them public, it would have put pressure on Ben Bernanke to not take punitive actions against Bank of America. Instead, Lewis became spineless at a time when Bank of America needed strong leadership.

Frankly, I don't have any sympathy for Lewis.

As for Lewis's successor, the Board of Directors is allegedly looking internally for a successor. Of the names mentioned so far, I cannot really speak to them, as I don't have any real experience working for any of them there, nor have I heard anything that would lead me to a reasonable speculation on their chances of success.

However, I would throw one name into the mix: Floyd Robinson, president of Bank of America's consumer real estate and insurance services division. I worked under him when he was involved with marine and recreational vehicle dealer financing. While he was meticulous, arguably to an extreme, he got results. Generally speaking, Robinson was the kind of executive you would bring in when you needed to make an organization more efficient and profitable.

While he might not be popular with the shareholders (he is NOT charismatic), I personally would feel safer as a shareholder if they elevated Robinson to CEO. He would clean up Bank of America and make them leaner and more profitable. That said, I doubt he will get it, although I would buy stock in Bank of America if he did.

Economic Forecast

2009-09-30T07:24:00.005-04:00

The following predictions are based on a lack of significant world events, such as a major terrorist bombing in the U.S. or an Iranian war. Any events like those immediately changes the scenario to significantly worse than what I am predicting.

The stock market will continue rising through at least October. After that, it will run into a brick wall, as high unemployment will keep demand for consumer goods down, thereby keeping a lid on earnings. Large businesses can only add in so much efficiency before they need sales to improve. Without increasing sales, they will be faced with flat earnings, and the markets will begin to flounder.

In addition, real estate prices will either stay the same or begin to drop this Fall, as the main real estate season has ended. This will add more pressure to the equities markets. Next year will see another round of home foreclosures/defaults, as many adjustable mortgages come up for re-pricing. If the Federal Reserve raises rates at the beginning of 2010, this could impact the mortgage rates, increasing foreclosures and defaults significantly.

Speaking of the Federal Reserve, they are the wild card in the economic deck. If they decide to keep rates too low for all or most of 2010, we could see a short economic recovery accompanied by a huge burst of inflation, which in turn would push us back into recession. On the other hand, if they raise rates too far too fast, it could kill the housing market. This is just speculation on my part, but I would expect the Fed to dip their toe in the pool with a small rate increase in January, just to see what happens. They will follow this with low to medium-size rate increases through June. Then we will see the economic havoc commence.

Specifically, we will see the rise of stagflation. As commodities begin to react to the excessive money supply, their prices will rise significantly. This in turn will bring economic growth to a screeching halt. The Federal Reserve will predictably reduce their rates once more, which will only exacerbate the problem with commodity prices, which in turn will keep the economy in a slump. Ironically, if the Fed would take the opposite approach, they would probably succeed in righting the economic ship eventually, although somewhat painfully at first.

Another aspect which will be ignored will be the tight credit conditions in the banking industry. Mind you, I consider this a good thing. However, when the government increased bank reserve requirements, they created the tight credit we have. Even a light loosening of the credit would allow for some economic growth, however artificial it might be. Without it, expect any economic growth to be small, if there is any at all.

Because of this, the stock market will drop, possibly even crash, in 2010.

Politically, I expect Obama's health care plans to continue to meet stiff opposition in Congress (especially the Senate), as "blue dog" Democrats are confronted with angry constituents who oppose the public option which more liberal Democrats insist upon. However, their opposition won't save them as the economy comes crashing down. The good news is the Democrats will lose control of the House in 2010. The bad news is the Republicans have no better ideas, but at least will stymie Obama's grandiosely stupid plans. On the bright side, with deadlocked and ineffective government, the economy MIGHT be able to gain some traction by 2012, although I doubt it only because the Federal Reserve will continue to feed the stagflation. Expect Obama to be a one-term president, with a massive sweep out of incumbant politicians in 2012.

For the next 4 years, and possibly longer, your best investment bets will be commodities, such as oil and precious metals, and foreign stocks, ETF's, and mutual funds. I personally recommend China, as they seem to be preparing best for what is about to happen, by purchasing precious metals to shore up their currency, as well as turning the direction of their commerce inwards to their domestic economy.

Is Socialism dying?

2009-09-29T05:48:00.004-04:00

From Steven Erlanger at the New York Times:

A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Socialism’s slow collapse.

Even in the midst of one of the greatest challenges to capitalism in 75 years, involving a breakdown of the financial system due to “irrational exuberance,” greed and the weakness of regulatory systems, European Socialist parties and their left-wing cousins have not found a compelling response, let alone taken advantage of the right’s failures.

But is Socialism really dying?

Europe’s center-right parties have embraced many ideas of the left: generous welfare benefits, nationalized health care, sharp restrictions on carbon emissions, the ceding of some sovereignty to the European Union. But they have won votes by promising to deliver more efficiently than the left, while working to lower taxes, improve financial regulation, and grapple with aging populations.

Europe’s conservatives, says Michel Winock, a historian at the Paris Institut d’Études Politiques, “have adapted themselves to modernity.” When Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Germany’s Angela Merkel condemn the excesses of the “Anglo-Saxon model” of capitalism while praising the protective power of the state, they are using Socialist ideas that have become mainstream, he said.

The truth is, the so-called "right" has just adapted their policies to the Socialist ideal. They still have not resolved the inherent problem with Socialism, which was best described by Margaret Thatcher several decades ago:

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money."

Socialism never bothers to reconcile the conflict between the welfare state and capitalism, which is necessary to pay for the welfare state. Without the economic growth which capitalism provides, the only way to pay for the welfare state is by printing money, which is the government's equivalent of an individual trying to pay all their expenses by credit card, while not having a job. Without capitalism, there is no tax revenue, and you end up in an old style communist system, where there is no production incentive.

So far, the Socialists have managed to balance their welfare state with their capitalism to avoid the fate of communism. But their growth rates have become anemic as their burdensome tax rates keep capitalism on life support. You cannot take the production of half (or more) of your economy and expect it to grow.

In addition, the more welfare provided, the less incentive there is for people to be productive. Why work when you can get almost as much money on welfare?

Someone has to pay for the welfare state. But what the world's recent economic collapse has taught the Europeans is that their golden goose cannot support their lifestyle of leisure in this modern age of world trade. Between economic pressure, and government taxation, capitalism's golden goose needs some TLC too. If the goose dies, Socialism dies with it, because somebody has to pay the bills.

Drop health care now!

2009-09-24T09:10:00.002-04:00

Do you want to know why we have nearly 10% unemployment, with possibly more in the future, as our economy stumbles along like an auto accident survivor? Obama is pulling a Nero by fiddling with health care while our economic Rome is burning. While health care is a large portion of our economy, it is not and nor will it ever be all of it. By ignoring the rest of our economy for the sake of taking over this portion, Obama has brought the rest of our economy to a halt.

Consider what you would do if you owned a small or medium sized business (from which most of our economic growth comes). Would you hire anyone now, knowing the government might require you to provide health insurance to them? Would you expand your operations without knowing what new employees will actually cost you? Would you open a new business in this economy?

The longer Emperor Obama spends on his health care folly, the longer it will take the economy to recover.

MSNBC spins tires for Obama

2009-09-23T12:09:00.005-04:00

In trying to provide support for their beloved leader, MSNBC has a headline on their website that blatantly supports Obama's "Smoot-Hawley" tire tariff against China:

With Chinese tires, it's buyer beware
Amid trade tiff over Chinese tire imports, some concerns about quality

Sounds bad, huh? Unfortunately, when you read the article, the information actually supports the quality of all but one Chinese tire manufacturer.

Exhibit A:

Last year the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into defective tire valve stems produced by a subsidiary of Shanghai Baolong Automotive Corp. The company sold 300 million valve stems which were susceptible to cracking, potentially causing the tire to deflate, a problem which led to one fatality, according to NHTSA.

That is ONE FATALITY out of 300,000,000 valve stems. Please show me an industry that can produce results like that?

Exhibit B:

Two fatalities were attributed to defective tires made by Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co. because of tread separation. The tire importer issued a recall for the 450,000 tires it had sold.

TWO FATALITIES out of 450,000 tires sold? If you consider there is an average of 1.5 fatalities per 100,000,000 miles driven in the U.S., and you assume four of those tires were put on every car (meaning 112,500 cars were riding on those tires), and you assume those tires were only supposed to be driven for 10,000 miles (extremely conservative), that means those tires were responsible for 1 fatality for every 562,500,000 miles driven, which is significantly ABOVE the average in the U.S. In fact, I would go so far as to say drivers of cars with those specific Chinese tires on them are actually SAFER than the typical American driver.

Exhibit C:

Consumer Reports magazine tested 23 affordable all-season replacement tires, seven of them made in China, reported Gene Petersen, tire program leader for the magazine. Of those seven, six finished in the top half of the field, he noted.

They included tires from brands such as Toyo, Cooper, Pirelli, and Kumho. “Because these tires are being built with the companies whose names are on the tires, the same specifications that would apply to a tire made in the U.S. would apply to a tire made in China,” said Petersen.

Sounds to me like they are making good quality tires in China.

But wait! Car and Driver Magazine found a bad brand:

But that was seemingly not the case for the Chinese-branded Ling Long tires tested by Car and Driver magazine. The Ling Longs wore a tread pattern identical to that of a popular Yokohama tire, a visible semblance that could cause consumers to assume similarity of performance.

That assumption would be wrong. The magazine found the braking distances and cornering grip were much worse for the Ling Long tires than for any others in the test, requiring an extra 22 feet — one and a half car lengths — to stop from 50 mph than the best tires.

So Car and Driver found one bad tire brand (although we don't know from the MSNBC article whether the test was scientific or not), and MSNBC can happily proclaim "buyer beware" of ALL Chinese tires? Even though Consumer Reports (a far more reputable firm than Car and Driver) found 6 of 7 Chinese tire brands rank in the TOP HALF of 23 different tire brands they tested? Even though the fatality rates for Chinese tires are significantly LESS than the national average for automobile fatalities?

MSNBC is shameless.

Who's Disadvantaged?

2009-09-22T13:41:00.004-04:00

Frequently in many domestic political issues, such as the debate over health care, we hear the poor used as an excuse for the institution of progressive political programs. Of course, when people argue against the progressive ideas, they are accused of being insensitive to the poor (that is one of the kinder accusations you are likely to hear from progressives), as if the benefit exists outside of any costs.

Even though progressives don't like to hear about costs, they still happen anyway. Whether you raise taxes, or charge fees, or come up with some clever scheme like cap-and-trade, someone has to pay for it.

One of the most politically popular ways is "soak the rich". Even when wealthy people like Warren Buffett support it, it ignores one economic reality: You are taking money away from economic investments. Economic investments create jobs. The more jobs there are, the lower the unemployment rate, and the greater leverage workers have in obtaining better salaries.

In addition, politicians tend to only soak the rich so much, because if they were to REALLY soak the rich, their campaign donations would drop. So they create oppressive tax rates on one hand, and then add in tons of deductions on the other, to effectively allow the wealthy to protect their money (as well as their future political donations).

Naturally, there is only so much the rich can be soaked. Eventually, they will move their money overseas to tax havens, or find ways around the oppressive taxation. Then the progressives have to move to the next most popular golden goose: Corporations. The only problem with this one is that the added costs to businesses have to come from somewhere. Here are the usual victims:

1. Customers. If a business can raise prices to cover their tax costs, they will. When taxes are levied on all businesses, that is usually what happens since even their competition faces the same increased costs.
2. Employees. The workers are the ones who usually face the axe for the added cost of minimum wage increases (Yes, that is a tax, since government gets it's cut of increased income) and other taxes. If a tax is oppressive enough, and the cost can't be passed along to customers, cutting the workforce is the lazy manager's solution. In addition, some companies will move operations overseas to where the labor costs are cheaper.
3. Inefficiency. Unfortunately, adding efficiency is the hardest thing for any business to do, and in many cases takes longer than the business has to accomplish it before the tax takes effect. Most businesses try to do this anyway just to increase profits, so this isn't usually a viable option.
4. Profits. This is the one progressives shoot for, but is rarely possible with ever-shrinking profit margins. In addition, this ends up hurting the shareholders of public companies, who include many pension funds and 401k funds, paid for by regular workers.
5. The business itself. In cases where none of the above are possible, sometimes the business cannot continue. That means loss of jobs, as well as job opportunities.

The next most politically popular way to acquire funds is simple, yet invisible: Print more money. This solution also has it's limits, in the form of inflation, which causes prices to go up. The voters, thanks to public education, are never smart enough to figure out that the higher prices they are paying are due to the actions of their politicians. The politicians can get away with it by blaming greedy corporations, and no one is any wiser.

Finally, the last solution is to raise taxes on ALL taxpayers. The problem with this solution is the burden it places on average Americans. How are you helping the poor by placing a greater burden on the middle class? How are you helping the poor by making more people poor?

All of these solutions have created one major unseen burden on the American people. Consider a married couple with a child or children. By taking money out of their pockets, whether directly or indirectly, the government makes it more difficult for them to support their family. Eventually, the couple faces a tough economic choice whereby BOTH parents must work, and the child/children must be relegated to daycare. With all the government regulations on daycare centers, plus the high liability insurance costs daycare centers face, daycare has become prohibitively expensive, adding yet another burden on working parents, which means even more time spent working and less time with their children.

At a time when too many parents already spend too little time with their children, we want to add to their economic burden with more government taxes? In the case of health care, we want to shift the high cost of health care from the private sector to the public sector? Economically speaking, the best case scenario is the government takes over health care and cuts costs by cutting the overall quality of health care for all Americans. That is NOT what anyone wants in the health care debate.

This leaves the alternative of shifting the "free buffet" of health care from the private sector, which limits the availability, to the public sector, which will give it away to everyone, who will proceed to take advantage of it, causing the demand to exceed the supply and raising the costs for the public sector, forcing politicians to utilize one of the means I described above in order to pay for the neverending rising health care costs.

Little Johnny can forget about seeing mommy and daddy for now. They will be busy providing health care to the poor.

Laffer's Warning

2009-09-22T09:01:00.002-04:00

Economist Arthur Laffer, from the Wall Street Journal today:

In 1930-31, during the Hoover administration and in the midst of an economic collapse, there was a very slight increase in tax rates on personal income at both the lowest and highest brackets. The corporate tax rate was also slightly increased to 12% from 11%. But beginning in 1932 the lowest personal income tax rate was raised to 4% from less than one-half of 1% while the highest rate was raised to 63% from 25%. (That's not a misprint!) The corporate rate was raised to 13.75% from 12%. All sorts of Federal excise taxes too numerous to list were raised as well. The highest inheritance tax rate was also raised in 1932 to 45% from 20% and the gift tax was reinstituted with the highest rate set at 33.5%.

But the tax hikes didn't stop there. In 1934, during the Roosevelt administration, the highest estate tax rate was raised to 60% from 45% and raised again to 70% in 1935. The highest gift tax rate was raised to 45% in 1934 from 33.5% in 1933 and raised again to 52.5% in 1935. The highest corporate tax rate was raised to 15% in 1936 with a surtax on undistributed profits up to 27%. In 1936 the highest personal income tax rate was raised yet again to 79% from 63%—a stifling 216% increase in four years. Finally, in 1937 a 1% employer and a 1% employee tax was placed on all wages up to $3,000.

Because of the number of states and their diversity I'm going to aggregate all state and local taxes and express them as a percentage of GDP. This measure of state tax policy truly understates the state and local tax contribution to the tragedy we call the Great Depression, but I'm sure the reader will get the picture. In 1929, state and local taxes were 7.2% of GDP and then rose to 8.5%, 9.7% and 12.3% for the years 1930, '31 and '32 respectively.

The damage caused by high taxation during the Great Depression is the real lesson we should learn. A government simply cannot tax a country into prosperity. If there were one warning I'd give to all who will listen, it is that U.S. federal and state tax policies are on an economic crash trajectory today just as they were in the 1930s. Net legislated state-tax increases as a percentage of previous year tax receipts are at 3.1%, their highest level since 1991; the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in 2011; and additional taxes to pay for health-care and the proposed cap-and-trade scheme are on the horizon.

We CANNOT provide health care for 30 million people without raising taxes, either directly or indirectly. Our economy CANNOT afford a tax increase at this time, with nearly 10% unemployment (closer to 20% if you count the underemployed and those who have quit looking for work).

Providing health care for 30 million people doesn't do us any good if they cannot find jobs to pay for simple necessities of life like food.

If Obama is lying about not raising taxes to pay for his health care plan, and I have every reason to believe he is since he has before, then we need to stop this public option nonsense immediately. Frankly, I would even go so far as to end the business deduction for health insurance. But I will settle for simply ending the socialist stupidity from the Democrats.

The Fast Boat to Chinese Stocks

2009-09-19T07:16:00.003-04:00

For any of you interested in the Chinese stock market, here is some analysis on some small/micro cap Chinese stocks.

For the record, I prefer stocks with low P/E's (they MUST have positive earnings), low debt, reasonable profit margin, in a good industry with room for growth, with various other criteria depending on the industry (for example, if the company is in a competitive industry, I want to see them turning inventory fast).

My current holdings (in no particular order):

1. AMERICAN ORIENTAL BIOENGINEERING INC (AOB): Chinese pharma.
2. CHINA DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS GROUP (CMTP): Lithium battery manufacturer. One of my personal favorite stocks which has already made me a lot of money.
3. CHINA SUN GROUP HIGH TECH COMPANY (CSGH): Another battery manufacturer. I am waiting for them to dip so I can buy more, but they never dip enough for me to do it.
4. CHINA INSONLINE CORP (CHIO): Online insurance sales. Trading in a tight range at the moment (between 90 cents and $1.10). Still cheap for the price. When it breaks out, it should break out big.
5. CHINA INFORMATION SECURITY TECHNOLOGY INC (CPBY): Security software development. As the Chinese Internet grows, they can only get richer. Considering they already have government contracts, this is a "money in the bank" stock.
6. CHINA YONGXIN PHARMACEUTICALS INC (CYXN): Chinese pharma.

Now for some other stocks reviews (again in no particular order):

1. China Clean Energy Inc (CCGY): A cash bleeder. I'm not sure there's enough there to allow them to grow, aside from an intriguing business plan. Unfortunately, I'm sure biodiesel is being researched by every oil company on the planet, since adding biodiesel to their current oil reserves is a no-brainer.

2. Puda Coal Inc (PUDZ): If you are looking for coal exposure in the Chinese market, this is a good stock for you. Personally, I am not fond of the coal market. Even so-called "clean" coal is worthless, since the energy output is vastly reduced. In other words, you have to burn more clean coal to get the same energy output you would get from regular coal, which means the clean aspect is negated. This means the future for the coal industry is limited, at best.

3. Telestone Technologies Corp (TSTC): Wireless communications equipment manufacturer. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, they are only turning inventory a little over 2X, which is low for both the industry (20X) and the sector (13X). While they have little debt and a low P/E, they have to get more efficient in managing their business before I get interested.

4. Perfectenergy Intl Ltd (PFGY): Dead company walking. This company is bleeding cash BAD! Sure they have no debt, but they will need some soon at the rate they are going. SELL!

5. China Growth Development Inc (CGDI): A fascinating little stock. Through one subsidiary, they sell sun care products in Florida. Through another subsidiary, they build and operate commercial real estate in China. A strange combination admittedly, but they make it work. The numbers (from Vanguard):

Price: $0.40
P/E: 7.47
Current ratio: 0.83 (a little light)
Long-term debt to equity: 0
Total debt to equity: 0.16 (outstanding)
ROE: 6.37 (could be better)
Sales vs. 1 year ago quarter: 11.93% higher (good sign)
Price to book: 0.50 (say WHAT?! Amazingly low)
Net profit margin: 17.57% (sweet!)

Although I am not a fan of real estate exposure, commercial real estate would have to drop in China by half for this stock to be reasonably valued. For a 40 cent stock, this one is hugely undervalued. While growth potential is limited, it is definitely a "buy" at this price.

6. China Med Technologies Inc (CMED): This company specializes in in vitro technology. On the plus side, they make a lot of money, and they are growing (sales vs. 1 year ago have increased 92%). On the downside, they lose money overall because of their high debt (54% higher than their assets). If they could get their debt situation cleaned up, this could be a great stock to own. If heavy debt loads don't concern you, this is a solid "buy". But count me out.

7. Jiangbo Pharmaceuticals Inc (JGBO): My jaw hit the floor when I saw the financials on this one. This is the kind of stock where you ask, "Where have you been all my life?" Check out these numbers (from Vanguard):

Price: $10.83
P/E: 5.02
Current ratio: 4.12
Long-term debt to equity: 0.04
Total debt to equity: 0.10
ROE: 38.03 (over twice the ROE for the industry)
Sales vs. 1 year ago quarter: -8.45% (this stock's only downside)
EPS vs. 1 year ago quarter: 4,783.83% (translation: This company has improved their efficiency significantly)
Price to book: 0.99 (in other words, if they liquidated tomorrow, they would still be worth more than their current stock price)
Net profit margin: 24.36% (almost twice the margin for the industry)

Be still my beating heart! I think I am in financial lust.

Fear of Death

2009-09-18T13:33:00.003-04:00

From CNN.com (bold parts from quotes added by me):

Research released this week in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance. If a person is uninsured, "it means you're at mortal risk," said one of the authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The researchers examined government health surveys from more than 9,000 people aged 17 to 64, taken from 1986-1994, and then followed up through 2000. They determined that the uninsured have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those with private health insurance as a result of being unable to obtain necessary medical care.

I love news stories like this. So those without insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than...100%?

I am sorry to break the news to all of you, but WE WILL ALL DIE. Remember the old saying about "death and taxes"? It is true.

With a 100% certainty of something happening, it is IMPOSSIBLE to go higher.

But let us dig a little deeper into the sob stories portrayed as examples in the article:

For years, Paul Hannum didn't have health insurance while he worked as a freelance cameraman in southern California.

One Sunday, Hannum complained of a stomachache which alarmed his pregnant fiancée, Sarah Percy. "He wasn't a complainer," she said. "He's the type of guy who, if he got a cold, he'll power through it. I never had known him to complain about anything."

Hannum thought he had a stomach flu or food poisoning from bad chicken. On Monday, his brother saw him looking ashen and urged him to go to the hospital. "He had a little girl on the way," his older brother Curtis Hannum said. "He didn't want the added burden of an ER visit to hang on their finances. He thought 'I'll just wait,' and he got worse and worse."

By the time Hannum got to the hospital and was admitted to surgery, it was too late.

Paul Hannum, 45, died on Thursday, August 3, 2006, from a ruptured appendix.

I can relate to this guy, except for one thing: I buy my own catastrophic health insurance policy. That aside, like him, I prefer toughing out little illnesses, because they usually go away. Unlike him, if I know I am sick, I won't use my finances as an excuse not to go to the ER if I have to go.

He died because he was cheap.

For 10 years, Sue Riek suffered from back pain, but couldn't afford medical care.

When a mid-life divorce left her single and without health insurance, Riek started a home-business selling make-up on eBay to support herself and her two daughters.

Riek, who lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, didn't qualify for Medicaid. And she couldn't afford a $5,000 monthly insurance premium, said her eldest daughter, Kaytee Riek.

"I don't know if she felt trapped, but it was a constant in her life -- struggling outside the health care system to exist," her daughter said.

Riek took comfort in her faith and regularly attended church. Then one Sunday, she didn't show up.

The next day, September 3, 2007, her daughter received the call telling her that her 51-year-old mother died from undiagnosed heart disease -- a condition treatable with lifestyle changes, medication and certain medical procedures.

"I feel incredibly strongly that she would still be alive if she had been able to regularly see a doctor," said her daughter.

Anyone remember Jim Fixx? He was a famous runner who died from an undiagnosed heart condition.

There is no guaranty that a doctor would have diagnosed Riek's fatal condition, and there is nothing in the story to indicate that she had any kind of history that would have led a doctor to that diagnosis.

But let us assume for a moment that she would have been diagnosed correctly. Then what? She MIGHT have lived longer (it is still possible she could have succumbed to a heart attack), but not forever.

Elizabeth Machol, 25, told her mother she felt tired. She had just moved into a new apartment in Santa Rosa, California, with her boyfriend and thought the fatigue was from the move and her cat Bert, who would keep her up at night.

Her mother, Marlena Machol told her to go to the doctor's office, but Machol was reluctant. Machol worked at a movie theater and didn't have health insurance. Her parents were still paying her medical bills from a previous condition and she was worried about the cost.

A few days after their phone conversation, Machol collapsed in the bathroom. She never regained consciousness.

One day after her 26th birthday, Machol was declared brain dead.

After signing papers to donate her organs, her parents kissed her face, held her hands and said goodbye to the daughter who had played the violin, organized her own fashion show and taught neighborhood kids how to swim. The coroner's office could not determine the cause of death.

Let me get this straight: A coroner could NOT figure out why she died, yet a doctor MIGHT have been able to if she had gone to see him while she was alive? Considering coroners can be a lot more invasive in their procedures, I find it hard to believe that a doctor would stumble on the proper diagnosis by blind luck.

Death at an early age is always a sad thing. But it provides no excuse to enslave the entire medical profession. Medicine, at it's best, may only extend life, NOT eliminate death.

Thought for the day

2009-09-18T10:19:00.003-04:00

"Even though I do not believe we can extend coverage to those who are here illegally, I also don't simply believe we can simply ignore the fact that our immigration system is broken...That's why I strongly support making sure folks who are here legally have access to affordable, quality health insurance under this plan, just like everybody else.

...If anything, this debate underscores the necessity of passing comprehensive immigration reform and resolving the issue of 12 million undocumented people living and working in this country once and for all." - President Barack Obama

I wonder if Obama is really trying to say that 13 year old El Salvadoran prostitutes brought to this country illegally really should have free health care. I am sure ACORN would approve of that.

Too big to succeed? Part II

2009-09-18T08:54:00.003-04:00

On Monday, I asked, "A year after the Lehman Brothers failure, and almost a year after the initial TARP program which was rolled out to save our financial industry by saving those businesses which were "too big to fail", one question remains: What was done to prevent this from happening again in the future?"

Today, Foxbusiness.com answers: Nothing at all.

Consider these figures: At the end of 2007, the four biggest U.S. banks -- Citigroup (C: 4.34, 0, 0%), JPMorganChase (JPM: 44.96, 0, 0%), Bank of America (BAC: 17.63, 0, 0%) and Wells Fargo (WFC: 28.82, 0, 0%) -- held 32% of all deposits housed in FDIC-insured banks. By June 30 of 2009 that had climbed to 39%.

And consider the leverage these banks hold over consumer lending in the U.S. According to government data, between them these four banks now issue about half of all mortgages approved and about two-thirds of all credit cards.

All of this begs the question: If these banks were too big to fail a year ago and they’re even bigger now, how is the U.S. any better off today than it was last September, when the collapse of venerable banking giant Lehman Brothers looked like the beginning of the next Great Depression?

And if you think you can trust our government knows what it is doing by allowing these banks to continue with "business as usual", consider Fox Business's analysis:

The problems with "too big to fail," according to those seeking reform, can be broken down into two parts.

First, it is now painfully clear that any single bank whose failure poses a threat to the broader U.S. economy has grown too big for its own good, not to mention that of its clients, as well as the nation.

Second, banks tagged as too big to fail are then free to operate under the assumption that the government will always come to their rescue, a belief that will likely lead to the same risky actions that brought the world’s economy to its knees a year ago.

In other words, there is absolutely NOTHING to encourage these banks to manage their risk. Obama can say that he won't bail them out again, but do you trust a politician to actually take a hard stand based on principle, especially considering he has already supported multiple bailouts? Do you trust Congress not to go screaming for a bailout?

Frankly, this is a MUCH bigger problem than health care in this country. It would take all 30 million uninsured Americans to have catastrophic illnesses tomorrow, to equal the economic devastation of these four banks failing.

President Obama, you are asleep at the wheel. WAKE UP! No matter how much money you get in campaign donations from these banks, if one of them fails, you WILL be held responsible in the next election.

The real ACORN news story

2009-09-18T04:28:00.005-04:00

If "guilt by association" would doom a politician, Obama would have been downed by Bill Ayers. So why should a news story about an organization which is connected to Obama, and which receives federal funding undoubtedly thanks to Obama, be close enough to him to be considered politically toxic? As Toby Harnden of Britain's Telegraph explains it:

If there’s one story that’s had it all in the past week it’s the series of undercover reporting stings that have uncovered the true nature of ACORN - the Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now. It’s got sex, misuse of taxpayer funds, the condoning of illegal activity by officials and connections to Barack Obama.

I missed the part in there where this should not be considered news?

Ironically, Jon Stewart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show explains the real ACORN story best:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

The Audacity of Hos

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Healthcare Protests

Yes, the real story is that no one in the alleged Media covered it, except for Fox News.

But let us give credit to the Woodward and Bernstein of our age: James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles at biggovernment.com. Granted, the ACORN story isn't Watergate. But considering the overwhelming majority of our Media couldn't report the ACORN story, even when it was handed to them, do you honestly think they could uncover a Watergate-style story?

Boortz was right

2009-09-17T17:02:00.004-04:00

"When Obama becomes our (czar) President any utterance of disapproval with any proposal he floats before the congress will, of course, be racist. It is going to be a fun four years." - Neal Boortz in October 2008

"...Wilson’s shocking disrespect for the office of the president — no Democrat ever shouted “liar” at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq — convinced me: Some people just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it." - Maureen Dowd (of the New York Times) in September 2009

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man." - Jimmy Carter in September 2009

"My sense of the teabaggers is more complicated: they are primarily working-class, largely rural and elderly white people. They are freaked by the economy. They are also freaked by the government spending--TARP, the stimulus package etc.--that was necessary to avoid a financial collapse. (I'm not sure Keynes is taught in very many American high schools.) But most of all, they are freaked by an amorphous feeling that they America they imagined they were living in--Sarah Palin's fantasy America--is a different place now, changing for the worse, overrun by furriners of all sorts: Latinos, South Asians, East Asians, homosexuals...to say nothing of liberated, uppity blacks.

In that sense, Barack Obama is the apotheosis of all they fear." - Joe Klein (of Time Magazine) in September 2009

Boortz was right.

Conscripting the doctors

2009-09-17T07:55:00.003-04:00

Sheldon Richman may have the best health care post I have read yet, even if it is a bit tongue-in-cheek.

Richman gets to the heart of the matter: Changing the way we pay for health care really does nothing to improve on the current system. As Richman says:

Requiring insurance companies to pay for our medical care misses the point. Where do you think insurance companies get their money? From us! What kind of right to health care is it if we end up paying for it anyway? Obama means well, but his plan is a shell game.

Richman goes on to humorously suggest enslaving the doctors, which is really the inevitable end of the progressive ideal.

But it begs a question: How can progressives claim that health care is important enough to be a "right", and at the same time devalue the providers of that "right"?

Secession

2009-09-16T06:41:00.003-04:00

I am tired and frustrated.

I am tired of arguing with people who believe they have a right to health care, even if it means making indentured servants out of the entire medical profession. Even if means ignoring the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees no right to health care, and in fact prohibits the indentured servitude of any person within the medical profession (see the 14th Amendment).

I am tired of being stigmatized as racist simply because I disagree with these fools. I disagreed with them when the president was white (Bill Clinton), and I disagreed with them when the president was Republican (George Bush's expansion of Medicare), and now I disagree with them when the president is black (Barack Obama). Yet I am somehow racist for not wanting to steal the money properly earned by others in order to fund my own health care needs.

I am tired of the assumption of "all southerners are racists", especially from scalawags like Jimmy Carter. I have lived in the north and the south, and racism is actually less common in the south.

I am tired of my tax dollars supporting welfare states in New York and California. I am tired of my tax dollars supporting an education system that does not work. I am tired of my tax dollars supporting the re-election of liberal/socialist senators and representatives via pork.

I am tired of capitalism being bashed for it's failure, while the role of government in our country's economic collapse is given a pass. While capitalism plays off of man's inherent greed in order to function, where does it say that politicians are any less greedy? Yet we ignore how they have set up laws to protect their own plunder?

I am tired of the Media support for the criminals running our country. They happily bash Republicans, then conveniently overlook when Democrats do the same things, or worse.

I am tired of both political parties fighting over HOW they should run our lives, without anyone stopping to ask WHY they should run our lives. For example, why is prostitution illegal in most parts of our country, yet abortion is legal all over our country? I heard a comedian (I forget his name) put it best: Your womb is free, but the state owns your vagina.

I am tired of the Keynesian fallacy that a small group of people located within a central bank can possibly manipulate our economy positively, when an economy involves literally trillions of different transactions every day. Of course, as we have seen, they cannot do this. Yet no one questions this?

I am tired of reliving the Great Depression. First, our economy goes into recession because of the Keynesian fallacy. Now we have to relive Smoot-Hawley too? Obama's decision to institute tire tariffs against China will only lead to a trade war, which will just make a bad economy worse.

I am tired of the war in Afghanistan. How many wars in Afghanistan have to fail before the world's leaders understand that Afghanistan will NEVER have a useful central government? Entering a war in Afghanistan with the hope of setting up a central government there is like the old joke about second marriages: It's the triumph of hope over experience.

I am tired of the federal government. It provides little while demanding a lot.

The union has outlived it's usefullness. Whenever the rest of you get around to realizing that secession would be better for all of us, let me know. I am ready.

The Stupidest Man on the Face of the Earth

2009-09-15T13:28:00.003-04:00

What can you say about Ben Bernanke other than the headline above?

On one hand, he says, "The recession is very likely over at this point." On the other hand, he says, unemployment "will be slow to come down...It will come down, but it will take some time." Only a fool could look at rising unemployment rates and think everything is getting better.

If ever there was an argument for disbanding the Federal Reserve and moving to a gold standard, Bernanke is it.

Too big to succeed?

2009-09-14T07:14:00.003-04:00

A year after the Lehman Brothers failure, and almost a year after the initial TARP program which was rolled out to save our financial industry by saving those businesses which were "too big to fail", one question remains: What was done to prevent this from happening again in the future?

If a company is "too big to fail", logic dictates that it is simply too big, and needs to be broken up, similar to what happened to AT&T several decades ago. Our government has not only failed to do this, but has instead encouraged the failing businesses to be bought out by other larger businesses (one example being the Merrill Lynch purchase by Bank of America). Instead of breaking up "too big to fail" businesses, we have even bigger "too big to fail" businesses.

One could look at this as a failure of leadership or economic stupidity, but the truth is a far worse thing: These companies are major sources of campaign funding. If they die, politicians will have to find other sources of campaign funding, which won't be nearly as generous. So the politicians happily handed out money they didn't have to these companies to keep them afloat. And now we are stuck with the bill for their largess.

The corruption in the U.S. government has reached astounding levels, where bribes fly back and forth between Wall Street and Washington, and all of it perfectly legal, because the lawmakers have made it legal.

If you think either the Republicans or Democrats are somehow immune to this, just look at the bailouts, which were approved by BOTH parties, and you will see just how deep the money runs in Washington.

It is time to throw out the bums, and I do not mean just the incumbents. I mean the two-party system. If you think you are wasting your vote by voting for a third party, I will tell you that your vote on any Republican or Democrat is just as wasted, because you are voting to maintain Wall Street's hold on power.

Question of the Day

2009-09-10T12:23:00.004-04:00

The big question left unanswered from Obama's speech revolves around this statement from Obama:

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan.

The question, from Arnold Kling at the Atlantic:

And if we don't pass this plan, does he intend to keep the waste and inefficiency, out of spite?

A Deficit of Ideas

2009-09-10T05:40:00.002-04:00

The following quotes are from President Obama's speech last night (transcript from Fox News):

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined.

Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close.

No, our deficit problem is irresponsible politicians spending more than they get in tax revenue. Medicare and Medicaid are just two examples.

Medicaid is a welfare program, period. People who get Medicaid aren't paying for it. Even if they did pay taxes previously, that money was long gone by the time they actually received Medicaid benefits, since our politicians don't let money lie there unspent.

As for Medicare, if you think "I paid into it all my life", you are mistaken. You paid a tax, which the politicians spent on current Medicare expenses, and anything left over was spent on whatever else the politicians decided to spend. But you can be certain it was spent.There was no "Medicare lock box" which held your funds. Can you say "ponzi scheme"?

Even if you believe these programs are necessary, it is economically foolish to give away something for nothing. If grocery stores worked this way, would you be getting steak and lobster every night, or just the food you needed? So why would you expect people with no fiscal responsibility for their own health care to get just what they need when they can get far more? When this happens, the cost of health care rises, not only for taxpayers, but for everyone else who uses health care.

So when Obama proposes a plan which offers more free health care to more people, what do you think will happen to the costs?

For example:

[Insurance companies] will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or in a lifetime.

We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of- pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick.

And insurance companies will be required to cover, with no extra charge, routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies.

Because there's no reason we shouldn't be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer before they get worse.

That makes sense. It saves money, and it saves lives.

A simple question: Does anyone NEED preventive care in order to live? If they don't have the condition, then the answer is no. Do most people have conditions such as breast cancer or colon cancer? Again, the answer is no. So why should we provide free testing for conditions which will not affect the majority of the American public?

Before you call me heartless, consider this: What happens when you get an incurable cancer? You die. What happens if you DON'T get an incurable cancer? You die. What are we preventing by screening people for cancer? In the end, nothing.

Mind you, I am not insensitive to the horrors of cancer. I saw my mother die from it. But shouldn't we find better ways of treating people AFTER they have cancer? Screening for cancer is NOT 100% effective. Tumors will get missed. Unless you plan to screen everyone everyday, you will miss some. It is inevitable.

The most cost effective approach to cancer is to find a cure for those who have it. THAT will save money and lives.

Speaking of cost effective:

Finally, let me discuss an issue that is a great concern to me, to members of this chamber, and to the public, and that's how we pay for this plan.

Now, Here's what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits, either now or in the future.

I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future -- period.

I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I'm serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promise don't materialize.

How can Obama say he won't sign the bill "if it adds one dime to the deficit" in the future, and in the next breath claim there's a provision that requires spending cuts if savings don't materialize? We know how our legislators treat such provisions: They just override them as needed.

Consider our government's debt ceiling, which Obama & Co. are calling for raising once again, this time above $12 trillion (see this link).

Can Obama guaranty that any costs which raise our deficit will result in spending cuts? As Bill Clinton might have said, it depends on how you define "raising the deficit". Which spending do you consider within our current budget, and within our current deficit? Technically speaking, unless the total cost of this program exceeds our ENTIRE budget, then our politicians can say that NONE of it is increasing our deficit. It's all those other things we are already paying for that are above the current costs.

Very clever Obama. But Joe Wilson was right: You're lying.

Death of the Birther Argument

2009-09-09T10:03:00.004-04:00

"The resignation over the Labor Day weekend of White House "green jobs" czar Van Jones tells you some interesting things about the Obama administration. One of them is that a man who proclaimed himself a "communist" in the 1990s and signed 9/11 "truther" petitions suggesting Bush administration complicity in the Sept. 11 attacks was considered fit for a White House appointment. Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that President Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" who occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" Van Jones in the Obama administration." - Michael Barone (from the Washington Examiner website)

While I disagree with Mr. Barone to an extent, because there are too many Republicans in Congress who have given the "birthers" a bit too much leeway in the political arena, Barone does have a point about the Van Jones appointment being disturbing, and potentially giving more weight to arguments about Obama's connections to communists.

The Failure of Obamanomics

2009-09-08T11:50:00.006-04:00

The failure in President Obama's economic plans is pretty easy to spot. From the Innocent Bystanders website, the following chart shows the original unemployment estimates as presented by President Obama to sell his recovery plan, alongside the actual unemployment numbers since then:

Larry Kudlow has a good analysis of the unemployment problem:

This is a big-versus-small-business issue. Sort of the haves versus the have-nots.

The large companies are gradually recovering as a result of major cost-cutting, inventory reduction, and a lean-and-mean return to profitability and high productivity. So the payroll survey registered a 216,000 job loss, the smallest drop in over a year.

The household survey, however, which picks up small, owner-operated, LLC/S-Corp-type businesses, registered a devastating 392,000 job loss, which follows losses of 155,000 and 374,000 in the prior two months. This is the source of the unemployment-rate jump, as 466,000 newly unemployed were scored in the report.

So while the big companies are getting healthier, the smaller firms are being left in the dust. Unfortunately, small businesses provide most of the new job creation in the United States.

While the big businesses get richer, and the small businesses fail, Obama thinks we need a national discussion on health care? Keep in mind, most small businesses provide little or no health insurance for their employees, so health care is not an issue that will help them. In fact, considering one of the provisions of the health care plan was to place a tax on employers who don't provide health insurance, the current plan could actually hurt small businesses even more if Obama doesn't retract that provision.

Back during Bill Clinton's first presidential run, there was a sign in his campaign headquarters which read: "It's the economy, stupid!" Maybe Hillary has an old copy of that sign she could loan to Obama, because he clearly doesn't understand.

Mr. Rogers gets it right

2009-09-04T17:16:00.001-04:00

This speaks for itself:

(special thanks to Jill T. for bringing this to my attention)

Death Care

2009-09-03T06:42:00.003-04:00

From the Daily Telegraph:

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."

This is what happens when politics mixes with medicine. Even if Obama and the Obamacare cheerleaders have no intention of making a healthcare system like Britain's NHS, who is to say we won't see this in the U.S. when our government cannot afford to provide wonderful health care for everyone? What happens when our government has to ration health care because the costs have NOT gone down, and in fact have gone up because everyone starts using health care services like a free buffet?

President Obama can laugh off the "death panels" arguments because that is not his intent. But once government controls health care, and it becomes too expensive to provide everything to everyone, what then? By then, it will become another third rail of American politics, and the politicians will be faced with making hidden sacrifices or raising taxes, just as they have had to do in Britain. When faced with a choice of angering all voters, or killing off a few of the already dying voters, which choice is obvious?

Dead voters can't vote against you.

No Will for Afghanistan

2009-09-02T08:08:00.003-04:00

When a major conservative commentator comes out against a war, much like William F. Buckley came out against Iraq, people take notice. Yesterday, George Will did that on Afghanistan.

Unlike Buckley, Will did not reject involvement completely:

Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent special forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

The main point Will brings to the table is the simple fact that an "effective central government" has never happened in Afghanistan. Even when the Taliban allegedly were "in charge", they weren't. The warlords were.

Are we prepared to dedicate hundreds of thousands of American troops for decades in order to establish an effective central government in a country which has never had one? Remember, this is not Iraq, which has a history of effective central governments.

Frankly, it doesn't matter if we have world support in our efforts in Afghanistan. Bush was wrong to assume we could do in Afghanistan what we did in Iraq. Obama is wrong to assume the same failed policy.

To be a libertarian

2009-09-02T05:28:00.002-04:00

This is the best one paragraph summation of libertarianism I have ever read:

"I share the Founders’ vision of limited government and the ability of people to voluntarily join with others to help their communities and themselves. I don’t agree with the conservatives who want government to play the role of morals policemen, and I don’t agree with the nanny state liberals. I’m a libertarian." - John Stossel

The Government Can!

2009-09-02T04:56:00.001-04:00

One of the best music videos I have seen in a long time. And it is so true!

Kudos to Tim Hawkins!

See you in September

2009-09-01T11:07:00.008-04:00

Some random thoughts on today's news stories:

Gold May Break Out to Record, Grabham Says: Technical Analysis (from Bloomberg.com):
This may include the worst analysis of anything I have read lately. The article begins with:

Gold may advance to a record $1,325 an ounce if it first breaks out of a symmetrical, triangular pattern, a move that may occur in the next one or two weeks, Standard Bank Group Ltd. said, citing trading patterns.

A so-called topside breakout would be indicated by a close at more than $980.85 an ounce, Darran Grabham, the bank’s technical analyst, wrote in a note yesterday. That would signal a short-term bull trend to at least $1,100 an ounce, he said.

Unfortunately, the article reports that Grabham goes on to say:

"...gold may tumble if it declines to less than the support trendline at $935 an ounce, Grabham wrote. “The ensuing sell-off is likely to encounter support around the $906.50 level, before a break lower yields a move to a secondary objective of $890,” he added.

“The minimum target of the triangle is highlighted at $850, with potential for the bear trend to test the corrective low recorded in January,” he wrote.

In summary, Grabham said that gold prices may go up, or gold prices may go down. Brilliant!

Fire Near Los Angeles Spreads in Triple-Digit Heat (from the Wall Street Journal):
Don't we do this every year?

The fact that California likes to protect it's wooded areas from development, keeping them off-limits to zoning, doesn't help. Yes, let us save Bambi, and ignore the fact we are putting thousands of homes and lives at risk. Let's not forget the economic costs of all the annual firefighting operations on an already overextended state budget.

Environmental stupidity at it's finest.

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll (from Rasmussen Reports):
So now Obama's approval rating is down to 45%. At this point, is it safe to add health care to Social Security as "third rails of American politics"?

Go ahead Barack. Keep pushing the health care idea...

WHEN ECONOMISTS ATTACK!
If you don't follow Greg Mankiw or Paul Krugman, you can skip this item. But for those of you who find econo-political debates fascinating...

The latest round between these two economists (in Krugman's case, I use the label "economist" VERY loosely) started Friday when Mankiw posted the following on his blog: "The Least Surprising Correlation of All Time"

Krugman countered with the standard elitist condescension towards the poor, poor, pitiful poor on his blog: "Heredity, environment, justice"

Mankiw counters twice: "And I thought I was being boring" and "Test Scores and Biological Father's Income"
Mankiw is correct in stating that intelligent people, who tend to be wealthier, tend to have more intelligent offspring. The macro data supports his view. Using SAT data broken out by parent's income (as Mankiw does) is a more objective criteria than using college graduation data broken out by parent's income (as Krugman does), since there are fewer external variables to account for in SAT scores. It takes several hours to take the SAT, versus the roughly four years it takes to graduate from college.

Aside from college graduation containing too many variables to be objective, Krugman's example given also has a significant flaw in it: The scores used to determine objective intelligence are 8th grade math scores. This would be fine if all college degrees were based on mathematical ability, but what about other non-math degrees, such as English or History?

With that said, I will admit that I don't reject Krugman's premise entirely. It is certainly possible, and maybe even probable, that children of low income parents who are less intelligent might be less likely to finish college due to financial reasons. But I would think that is because college is more likely to be quite difficult for them, both intellectually and financially. On the other hand, unintelligent wealthy children would only have to face the intellectual hardship of college (even then, only 30% of them graduate, according to the Economic Policy Institute study referenced by Krugman).

The question Krugman fails to ask: Do we REALLY want stupid people graduating from college?

The Rationing of Health Care

2009-08-31T08:10:00.003-04:00

I was reading "Confessions of a Health Care Rationer" by Dr. Eric Chevlen, and it occurred to me our entire health care debate is ignoring the inevitable question of health care rationing:

...I have always been opposed to healthcare rationing. But, then, I have always been opposed to aging, too. I have come to recognize the fundamental similarity between the two. They are simply unavoidable evils...The best we can do is to manage them with wisdom and compassion.

It’s a mistake to think of health care as a right. It is not a right; it is a good. Freedom of speech, by contrast, is a right, as is freedom of religious belief. They are privileges that inure to individuals as a consequence of the primordial right, free will. That is why we see them as inalienable. The exercise of these rights does not depend on any action of government, but rather on its inaction. Government may not legitimately interfere with their exercise, but nothing mandates that the government provide us with printing press or chapel.

Health care is different. It is more akin to the other goods which sustain life: food, clothing, and shelter. A well-ordered society exists to protect its members from the unlawful taking of life, and is structured to facilitate its members’ acquisition of these goods.

But health care differs from these other goods: First, health care is not absolutely essential for all people on a daily basis; second, there is an insufficient supply in this world to meet the demand of those who would have it. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone. Hunger and famine are the result of its inadequate distribution, not its absolute dearth. There are enough garments in the world to clothe everyone, and enough roofs to protect all from the rain. Health care, in contrast, is a far scarcer resource. Descartes once remarked that common sense is the most equitably distributed attribute in the world, because we never see anybody who feels he doesn’t have enough. Health care is not like common sense. We often see people who feel they don’t have enough, or at least can’t get enough at a price they’re willing or able to pay.

Until modern times, health care in the United States was distributed as most goods of life are distributed—according to personal wealth. The rich could afford it, and the poor couldn’t. Most economists would exclude this sort of market allocation as a form of rationing by definition. Nonetheless, market allocation is a form of distributing goods within a society, and when there are not enough of those goods to go around, the end-result in the short term is much the same.

Limiting health care’s availability by the criterion of personal wealth rightly offends our sense of the dignity of the individual. Are the lives of the poor not of the same intrinsic value of those of the wealthy? To be fair, it is rare in the United States that poverty alone prevents the uninsured poor from receiving lifesaving intervention in a healthcare crisis. A poor man having a heart attack is not turned away from the emergency room, nor is the poor woman in labor sent away to have her baby at home. (I am not arguing that such enormities never occur, but the fact that such occurrences remain scandalous and newsworthy is a testament to their rarity.) Yet it is equally undeniable that the poor get a lesser share of the preventive care that can maintain health or of the quotidian care for the less dramatic challenges to their health.

First, in answer to his question, "Are the lives of the poor not of the same intrinsic value of those of the wealthy?", my answer is no. Wealth is the mechanism our society uses to determine one's value. Wealth is acquired in accordance with perceived value: Those who offer the most productivity or useful ideas/items tend to have an easier time accumulating wealth than those with little or nothing to offer. We can sit here and point out how our society has some screwed up values when teachers make far less than NFL quarterbacks, but a teacher will only influence a few thousand lives during the course of his/her entire teaching career, whereas a good NFL quarterback may be watched by millions during just one day of his work. Like it or not, a good entertainer DOES have value; however, that is not the source of the problem: The economic reality is we have too many dollars chasing too little value, hence the ever increasing disparity between the wealthy and the poor. But thanks to the recent government bailouts, the politically-connected wealthy have managed to maintain this disparity, instead of facing the deflation which would have brought their wealth down to more reasonable levels. Look at it this way: With deflation, when you have little money like the poor do, the effect on you is actually positive (as prices drop), whereas the wealthy will take a huge hit under deflation as their investments sour and they make less than they did before (assuming their investments don't lose value completely).

Other than that one somewhat misguided assumption by Dr. Chevlen, his article is a must-read. Rationing is inevitable under any third party payer system, as we have seen under our current system as well as other countries where universal health care is present. As Dr. Chevlen goes on to explain:

Rationing must occur, but it need not be admitted. Denying the truth of rationing is more common in government-run health care schemes than private ones, because the government is reluctant to have the people know this ugly fact. Government-run programs, therefore, are more likely to disguise the rationing. This plausibly deniable form of limiting health care is called implicit healthcare rationing, and it assumes many forms. Rationing by termination occurs when patients are discharged from the hospital earlier than is medically optimal. Rationing by dilution occurs when second-best rather than first-best treatment is provided. Rationing by rejection or redirection involves healthcare providers turning away patients whose care will be inadequately reimbursed. This is commonly seen now in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, because those programs reimburse providers at a rate substantially lower than private insurance plans. Perhaps more common than those forms of rationing is rationing by delay, as exemplified by the outrageous amount of time patients in Canada must wait for hip replacement surgery or colonoscopy. The unifying theme in all these forms of implicit rationing is that, without admitting it, they force some patients to forego medical care that they want and are ostensibly entitled to receive.

Private insurance plans sometimes include an element of implicit rationing, but because they are, at heart, contractual agreements between the insurance company and the insured are more likely to ration health care explicitly. The many pages of the healthcare plan describe what is a covered service, which providers will be reimbursed for services, the duration of coverage, the dollar limit, and so on. The advantage of explicit over implicit rationing is obvious: It gives potential customers of the insurance plan information to use when deciding which insurance plan to buy, and gives them clear expectations of services to be delivered. Implicit rationing, by contrast, may have the sweetness of a promise, but is usually succeeded by the bitterness of a promise broken.

...Come, let us speak of unpleasant things. How is health care to be rationed? Who gets the short end of the stick?

While I consider that a classic line, I doubt we will ever have that discussion in any political arena.

Democratic Rush to Judgment Proves Correct

2009-08-27T16:03:00.006-04:00

From the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's website in March:

Today Rush Limbaugh yet again crossed the line saying: by the time the debate on President Obama's health care plan is over, "it'll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill.” It is outrageous to demonize a patriotic Senator who has spent his life fighting so that every person has the opportunity to live the American dream.

Tell Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele to denounce Rush Limbaugh once and for all.

Now, from Senator Robert Byrd (quote from Ben Smith at the Politico):

I had hoped and prayed that this day would never come. My heart and soul weeps at the lost of my best friend in the Senate, my beloved friend, Ted Kennedy.

...In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.

Shame on Senator Byrd! How dare he "demonize a patriotic Senator"!

Tell Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean to denounce Senator Robert Byrd once and for all.

Heal as I say, not as I heal

2009-08-27T13:49:00.004-04:00

Simple solution for the whole health care debate: Whatever health care plan the politicians decide "We the People" need, they have to use too. No exceptions, no special treatment for politicians. Anything we aren't covered for, neither are they. The same goes for all government employees.

To President Obama: If you want single payer so bad, be ready to live with it too. You want a health care system that is "fair" for all Americans, why should you be excluded?

Defining Health Care's Problems

2009-08-27T03:58:00.004-04:00

Let's step back from the health care debate for a moment, and define exactly what the problems are (in no particular order):

1. PATIENT COSTS: Even for the middle class, the costs are exorbitant. Between health insurance and deductibles, health care is becoming a burden on Americans of every class. CAUSES: The main cause is the tax deduction for health insurance, which has increased employees covered by health insurance by giving employers a reason to provide it. In turn, it has created a vast third party payer system whereby those covered under health insurance see little expense in utilizing our health care system. However, employees also see their own health insurance costs rising as employers cannot afford to cover their employees health insurance 100%.

2. DOCTOR COSTS: Doctors and hospitals have found their own costs going up. While they can pass along some of these costs to their patients, it is still a burden on our health care system any way you look at it. CAUSES: Medical malpractice has become a gold mine for the legal system (just ask John Edwards who got wealthy from it). Juries are more than delighted to decide for plaintiffs, since the only ones who they see being hurt are the doctors and the insurance companies. Unfortunately, this view is short-sighted, since insurance companies just pass along their costs to ALL doctors, who further pass it along to patients. There is some disagreement about how much of a burden this is on the health care system, but there is no doubt that these costs get passed along.

In addition, because of the hurdles both insurance companies and government programs put in the way of doctors and hospitals receiving payments, staff must be maintained just to deal with third party payers. These staffing costs also get passed along.

3. TREATMENT/DRUG COSTS: Recent years have seen vast improvements in both treatments and drugs, but also a corollary increase in the prices for these. CAUSES: Medical research doesn't grow on trees. For every advance, there are billions of dollars worth of failures. The only way to recoup these losses is to add their cost onto the successes. In addition, FDA requirements add onto the research costs, without necessarily guaranteeing safety. No matter how much research you do, some problems won't become apparent until a drug or treatment is in widespread use. Regardless, the health care consumer is the one who must bear the burden for these advances.

4. THE UNINSURED: This is a gray area. The number frequently quoted is 47 million uninsured, which is true. The problem is who is included in this figure: low income people, illegal immigrants, people between jobs, wealthy people who can afford their own medical costs, young people who could buy health insurance but don't think they need it, people with pre-existing conditions who cannot get health insurance, and poor people who don't realize they are eligible for Medicaid. The only ones here which should be a concern are the low income people, people between jobs, and people with pre-existing conditions who cannot get insurance. The rest either don't want it, shouldn't have it, or are just plain too stupid to live. CAUSES: The only reason this is a problem at all is because of the overall costs of health care. Would anyone worry about the uninsured if health care was available at Wal-mart prices? In addition, the main reason we have uninsured is because the first three items above are causing the health insurance rates to increase.

5. THIRD PARTY PAYER COSTS: Any costs incurred by third party payers, whether they are private insurance or government bureaucrats, will be passed along to the insureds in premium increases. In the case of government bureaucracies, some of these costs can be passed along to taxpayers. CAUSES: In the case of private insurance, their costs are varied, including everything from mail room staff to stock market losses. In the case of government, their costs are relatively fixed, but you still end up paying for government bureaucracies which have no incentive to perform efficiently. Regardless of whether you are covered by private insurance or Medicare, you are paying for an army of people who perform absolutely no function in health care, other than to pay your bill.

Feel free to add any health care problem which I have not covered above.

Overlooking the Doctors

2009-08-26T09:24:00.005-04:00

Within the health care debate, the people most affected are also the people rarely discussed: doctors.

We talk about poor people who cannot afford health care, while ignoring that Medicaid doesn't fully cover the doctor's expenses of providing that health care.

We talk about "greedy" insurance companies, while ignoring the full staff which every doctor needs to get payment from those insurance companies, because patients don't want to have to deal with their own insurance company. That staff also has to fight government bureaucrats over Medicare claims.

We talk about universal medical records, without a thought as to who will actually be entering the data required to maintain this system.

We talk about providing world class health care to everyone, without considering who will actually be providing this treatment.

Any health care debate that doesn't mention the needs and expenses of the doctors is a pointless discussion.

Consider: How would you feel if the government decided to change the way you do your job, without ever consulting you? And by the way, the government will also be deciding how much money you will earn for what you do. Plus you'll be reporting on everything you do, and if a government bureaucrat doesn't approve of your action, you won't be paid for it. Does that sound like a good plan to you?

Whatever you may think of doctors, they are still the 800 pound gorilla in this debate. If they don't like your plan, they can walk, and there isn't a thing you can do about it. Without the doctors on board, there is not a single health care plan that will work.

This is where the whole "right to health care" argument falls apart. If you assume there is a right to health care, you are also indirectly assuming a right to the labor of another human being, specifically a doctor. Claiming a right to another human being's labor is slavery.

Are you willing to bring back slavery to assure your "right to health care"? Good luck selling the medical community on that one.

UPDATE: After writing this post, I came across a better version of it at Mises.org, written by Dr. Maria Martins. A teaser for your consideration:

Medical care is not a right. Medical care is a service provided by doctors and others to individuals who want to purchase it. A patient presents to the doctor with a request for care. The fact that the patient has a serious condition — even a life threatening one — does not entitle him, as his right, to the services of the doctor. To claim that he does means that doctors and others who provide these services have no rights, or that society can deliberately ignore these rights for the "greater good."

...What is a right? The concept of a right defines freedom to act within the boundaries of the rights of others. It is contradictory to claim that a person has a right to a good or service that requires, for its fulfillment, the violation of someone else's rights. If the exercise of a patient's so-called "right" to healthcare imposes obligations on taxpayers to pay for it and healthcare practitioners to provide it, then it is not a right, but an attempt to enslave one part of the population for the benefit of another part.

Please read the whole article (link here).

Ben there, done that

2009-08-25T07:42:00.007-04:00

Now that President Obama has announced the renewal of Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve Chairmanship, I have to ask, WHY?

I don't approve of the Keynesian methods Bernanke uses to run the economy, which were a major factor in our current economic problems. But even IF you buy into his methods, there is one undeniable fact: Bernanke is a criminal.

Bernanke, along with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, used their authority to blackmail Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis into buying Merrill Lynch. There is no law or government regulation that justifies government officials threatening to fire CEO's if they don't buy companies, yet we happily overlook the crime because Bernanke supposedly did a good job running the economy during this crisis. What crime did Bernanke have to commit before we would sit up and take notice? Since when did the Federal Reserve Chairman become immune to criminal prosecution?

Bernanke should be sitting in a jail cell instead of running the Federal Reserve. But under our current "Chicago way" government, misuse of your authority is perfectly acceptable.

In addition to the simple corruption, there is also the stupidity factor. With so many "too big to fail" companies receiving government bailouts, why would we want the country's largest bank to become even BIGGER? So not only is Bernanke corrupt, he is a moron. And we WANT him running the Federal Reserve?

Still don't believe me? Then feel free to explain why a labor leader is qualified to run New York's Federal Reserve? From the Wall Street Journal:

The Federal Reserve chose a labor leader to succeed a former Goldman Sachs executive as the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of New York's private-sector board of directors.

Denis Hughes, president of the New York state branch of the AFL-CIO, had been serving as acting chairman of the New York Fed board since May, when Stephen Friedman stepped down from the position.

If you look at the New York Federal Reserve's website, there is NOTHING in Denis Hughes's biography that makes him qualified to run a bank, let alone help make economic decisions for this country.

But a labor leader makes perfect sense for any powerful position under the "Chicago way" rules. Just as a thug like Ben Bernanke makes perfect sense for an Obama administration that is intent on expanding the power and reach of government. Even if they have to twist a few arms to do it.

Social Insecurity

2009-08-24T05:11:00.003-04:00

We knew this day was coming, but it is surprising how fast it got here. From Foxnews.com:

Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise.

The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.

Let's get this straight: A government, which cannot live up to it's Social Security expenses, now wants to take over our health care?

A government, which created our current health care mess by providing tax deductions for health insurance, wants to take an even bigger role in health care?

A government, which cannot take care of our elderly, now wants to take on responsibility for all of our lives?

Aside from the inherent stupidity of even considering more government involvement in health care, why are we even having this discussion during an economic recession?

The Brazilian Connection

2009-08-20T07:39:00.008-04:00

When a payment of $2 billion is received for a political favor, it is generally considered a bribe. When the United States government hands out a $2 billion loan as a political favor, it is business as usual. But it is no less corrupt. Witness a little transaction I shall refer to as "The Brazilian Connection".

The first player in the Brazilian Connection is The Export-Import Bank of the United States (better known as the Ex-Im Bank).

It was founded by FDR back in 1934, and has been changed over the years. From Wikipedia:

It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring foreign purchases of United States goods for customers unable or unwilling to accept credit risk. The mission of the Bank is to create and sustain U.S. jobs by financing sales of U.S. exports to international buyers. The Bank is chartered as a government corporation by the Congress of the United States; it was last chartered for a five year term in 2006.

The Ex-Im Bank's current stated mission, from the Ex-Im Bank's website:

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is the official export credit agency of the United States. Ex-Im Bank's mission is to assist in financing the export of U.S. goods and services to international markets.

Ex-Im Bank enables U.S. companies — large and small — to turn export opportunities into real sales that help to maintain and create U.S. jobs and contribute to a stronger national economy.

But who owns the Ex-Im Bank? The second player in the Brazilian Connection: President Barack Obama. From Section 4 of the bank's charter:

The Export-Import Bank of the United States shall have a capital stock of $1,000,000,000 subscribed by the United States. Certificates evidencing stock ownership of the United States shall be issued by the Bank to the President of the United States, or to such other person or persons as the President may designate from time to time, to the extent of payments made for the capital stock of the Bank.

In case you doubt that Barack Obama is running the show at Ex-Im, consider that Fred Hochberg is currently the Chairman and President of the Ex-Im Bank. Mr. Hochberg was also a member of Obama's transition team. Mr. Hochberg gained his position at Ex-IM Bank in January 2009. Mr. Hochberg is also the third player in the Brazilian Connection.

This leads to the fourth player: Petrobras, a Brazilian oil company. From an Ex-Im Bank press release:

In May [of 2009], Ex-Im Bank approved a $2 billion preliminary commitment to encourage purchases of U.S. goods and services by Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), Brazil's national oil company. The amount of a final commitment may be increased above the $2 billion preliminary amount. Petrobras anticipates that it will invest $174 billion in development over the next five years.

Who stands to benefit from that investment in Petrobras? Anyone invested in Petrobras will. I personally hold 100 shares in my retirement portfolio. But that is nothing compared to what George Soros, our fifth player, holds (from Bloomberg.com from August 15, 2008):

Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding.

As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 percent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management LLC, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Soros still holds that stock.

It is also common knowledge that Soros has personally contributed to Barack Obama's presidential campaign, as well as supporting Obama via third party groups such as Moveon.org.

According to the Petrobras Form 6-K, filed with the SEC for the month of May 2009, the Ex-Im Bank's financing was approved on April 29, 2009.

First unanswered question: When did Ex-Im Bank begin negotiations with Petrobras for the financing? If the negotiations began this year, then it is probable that Hochberg MIGHT have initiated them at Obama's direction.

The final unanswered questions: Did Soros and Obama, either directly or through intermediaries, ever discuss the Petrobras deal with Ex-Im Bank? If not, then this is an amazing coincidence. If so, when? The answer to this question is the difference between insider trading and political favoritism, of which one is illegal and the other is despicable.

My retirement fund - updated

2009-08-19T10:06:00.006-04:00

Back in June, I did a post on how my retirement fund is invested. Here were the 9 investments at the time, in order of dollars within my portfolio:

1. Vanguard Precious Metals & Mining Fund (VGPMX)
2. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM)
3. Ford Motor Co. (F)
4. Eni SpA (E)
5. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT)
6. Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR)
7. CNOOC Ltd (CEO)
8. Honda Motor Co Ltd (HMC)
9. WisdomTree Dreyfus Brazilian Real Fund (BZF)

I sold the Ford stock after making a nice little profit on it. I also sold the Honda at a small profit.

Eni Spa, Wal-Mart, and CNOOC were all sold around where I bought them. They were not going anywhere anytime soon. Also, I felt I had too much exposure in oil with Exxon and Petrobras, and Eni Spa and CNOOC were not the best oil plays.

I also moved about $4,000 out of the Vanguard Precious Metals fund in a rebalancing of my portfolio.

Here is how my portfolio looks today:

1. Vanguard Precious Metals & Mining Fund (VGPMX): After reading Warren Buffett's inflation prediction in the New York Times today, I feel even better about this investment. So far, this one has returned over 9%. As long as Obama and Company want to inflate the dollar with their hare-brained schemes, precious metals will continue gaining value.

2. China Digital Communication Group (CMTP): I bought this stock back when it's symbol was "CHID" and it sold for 7 cents per share. I sold it for 11 cents per share.

Since then, it has had a 10/1 reverse stock split, and it is selling around $2.60/share. It has also reported much better earnings, with improved earnings forecasts for the future, plus a plan to list on NASDAQ. It has low debt/equity, and a disgustingly low price/earnings.

Did I mention they sell lithium batteries (the kind used in cell phones) in China? Can you say "large marketing opportunity"?

3. WisdomTree Dreyfus Brazilian Real Fund (BZF): I have increased my original stake in this fund because it has been a steady performer for me. Brazil's central bank is still tight with money, and they still have some of the highest money market rates in the world. A nice safe currency play.

4. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM): I haven't even changed the number of shares I hold in Exxon, and it has dropped from #2 to #4. This is just a long-term play on the price of oil.

5. Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR): You have to love an oil company supported by a corrupt government. Even more, you have to love it when that oil company makes a huge oil discovery, and the corrupt government practically gives the oil to the company. (see CNNMoney.com story)

6. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): Not my favorite holding, but I expect the next operating system coming out in the Fall will be far better than Vista. They should see sales pickup by the end of the year.

7. New Zealand Dollar Fund (BNZ): A similar play to the Brazilian Real Fund above.

8. ShengdaTech Inc (SDTH): A Chinese manufacturer of concrete filler. With China growing, this is a strong little Chinese stock with lots of growth potential and little debt/equity. One thing you will notice about all my investments is little debt/equity.

9. China Mass Media International Advertising Corp (CMM): A Chinese advertising agency. One of the things I like about this company is low overhead. Another plus is government PSA work.

10. China Information Security Technology Inc (CPBY): Chinese software company. Low P/E and low debt/equity.

11. American Oriental Bioengineering Inc (AOB): This one is probably mislabeled as a "biotech" company. Think more along the lines of repackaging traditional Chinese herbal remedies. And they are Chinese in spite of the name. Again, they have all the qualities I like: low P/E, low debt/equity, and low price.

With the lone exception of Microsoft, you will see the trends in my portfolio: gold/precious metals, oil, foreign currencies from countries with tight central banks and decent or great money market rates, Brazil and China (the two top emerging nations in my opinion). Underlying all this is the weakness in the U.S. dollar, caused by the Federal Reserve's insanely loose money policy.

RIP Robert Novak

2009-08-18T13:41:00.002-04:00

“Always love your country — but never trust your government!

That should not be misunderstood. I certainly am not advocating civil disobedience, [much] less insurrection or rebellion. What I am advocating is to not expect too much from government and be wary of [it's] power, even the power of a democratic government in a free country.

Ours is one of the mildest, most benevolent governments in the world. But it too has the power to take your wealth and forfeit your life. ... A government that can give you everything can take everything away.” - Robert Novak (1931-2009)

(Hat tip to the Suntimes.com for the quote)

Europe beats Krugman

2009-08-17T16:43:00.002-04:00

Remember the good old days, when liberals/socialists/Democrats used to use Europe as the example of what we should or should not do?

Recently, as Europe has been moving to the right economically, prominent leftist economists have been moving away from their unbridled adulation of Europe.

In today's Wall Street Journal, columnist James Taranto basically feeds some crow to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman (I never get tired of pointing out how great the Left thinks he is), using nothing more than Krugman's own writing in the New York Times, combined with one of their own stories:

-"There's a problem: conservative politicians, clinging to an out-of-date ideology--and, perhaps, betting (wrongly) that their constituents are relatively well positioned to ride out the storm--are standing in the way of action. No, I'm not talking about Bob Corker, the Senator from Nissan--I mean Tennessee--and his fellow Republicans. . . . I am, instead, talking about Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and her economic officials, who have become the biggest obstacles to a much-needed European rescue plan."--former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, New York Times, Dec. 15, 2008
-"Why is Europe falling short? Poor leadership is part of the story. European banking officials, who completely missed the depth of the crisis, still seem weirdly complacent. And to hear anything in America comparable to the know-nothing diatribes of Germany's finance minister you have to listen to, well, Republicans."--Krugman, New York Times, March 16, 2009
-"The European economy bounced back with unexpected strength in the second quarter, buoying hopes that a worldwide recession was drawing to a close. The sharp improvement from the first quarter underscored just how far Europe and indeed the global economy had come since a harrowing free fall in late 2008. Underlying the strong reading were solid performances in France and Germany, each of whose economies grew slightly in the second quarter, according to government data released Thursday."--news story, New York Times, Aug. 14, 2009

Of course, this is not the first time Krugman has made a bad economic analysis, or said something incredibly stupid.

Eagles get big Vick-tory

2009-08-14T07:46:00.005-04:00

Dog lovers among NFL fans have probably become Philadelphia Eagle haters with the news of the Eagles' signing of convicted dog-fighter Mike Vick. But from my experience growing up in the Philly area, I suspect most Eagle fans would happily shoot their own dog if Vick turns out to be a good player for them.

That is the primary reason Vick-to-Philly is a good move. Playing Vick on a part-time basis should actually be good for both the Eagles and Vick, because it forces opposing defenses to prepare for Vick in addition to the rest of the Eagles' offense. Frankly, I don't envy opposing defensive coordinators trying to prepare for the Eagles this year.

Having watched Vick for many years in Atlanta, I can tell the Philly fans: Vick can make your day or break your heart with his performances. However, if the Eagles play him on a limited basis, he should be much more effective. In addition, the rest of the offense should benefit from his presence, especially Donovan McNabb. Just don't get the idea that Vick can replace McNabb, because it ain't happening.

As for Vick himself, landing anywhere would have been good, but landing in Philadelphia has the most upside. Philly fans would love a Nazi-sympathizing mass murderer if he could play a great game of football. If Vick brings them a Super Bowl win, the city of Philadelphia might legalize dogfighting in his honor. You could say the Philly fans are just that rabid.

Your health care is in the mail

2009-08-13T07:54:00.006-04:00

"People say, well, how can a private company compete against the government? If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? No, they are. I mean, it's the post office that's always having problems." - President Barack Obama

Ironically, when President Obama made the above statement to defend how a public option for health care would not put private health insurance out of business, he actually made the argument against having a public option at all.

But let's take his comparison a step further. Think about the mailings for which you use the post office, versus the mailings for which you use UPS or Fedex. A simple greeting card? The post office is good enough, because if it doesn't get there, it doesn't matter (you can always tell grandma that you sent it). A business package which could cost you a deal? Fedex it.

Health care should work similarly: If you have important health problems, you will probably use the private option. If you are healthy, you will probably use the public option. Unfortunately, like in mailings, this will cause the price disparity to grow between the two options. As more unhealthy people choose the private health insurance, it will become prohibitively expensive, sending more people who cannot afford the private option into the public option. In turn, this will cause them to receive "post office"-quality health care, when they really need it "Fedex".

This begs the question of what the government response will be when the public option becomes more expensive than they expect? If it is anything like their handling of the post office, you can expect funding cutbacks. In health care, that means lower quality, or fewer available treatments.

In other words, the poor people who cannot afford the private option will STILL not be getting equal health care. But what if the government were to force the private insurers to charge the same thing as the public option?

Just consider what would happen to UPS and Fedex if the government forced them to charge what the post office does. Simply put, they would either go out of business, or provide approximately the same quality service you get at the post office.

Translate that possibility to health care, and the results are scary.

On the bright side, Obama's original quote above might be a nail in the coffin of this health care fiasco. At the very least, it should have the opposite effect of what he hoped to accomplish, and effectively kill the public option. If we don't need the post office to mail packages, why would we need a public option in health insurance?

Cash-for-Fortes

2009-08-12T08:52:00.002-04:00

I broke down (granted, it wasn't hard) and traded in my old '97 Ford F-150 for a new Kia Forte EX in a "cash for clunkers" deal. (see the Forte here)

For about the price of a fully loaded Honda Fit, or a completely stripped Honda Civic, I got a fully loaded Kia Forte. The engine has plenty of oomph, it maneuvers well, and it has plenty of bells and whistles (i.e. hands-free bluetooth, nice stereo system with audio controls on the steering wheel, cruise control, A/C, USB and iPod ports, and a 3 month subscription to Sirius). Finally, the gas mileage blows away my old fuel hog: 25 mpg city/34 mpg highway.

There is a more expensive version of the Forte, the SX, which has a bigger engine and foglights. But I couldn't see paying over $1000 more for that, and the engine really didn't give it that much more power. Also, I thought the SX engine ran just a touch rough.

Anyone who knows me will ask this question: How does someone like me, who is against all manner of government giveaways, justify taking advantage of my fellow voters and taxpayers this way?

I will admit to a crisis of conscience on this issue. But it occurred to me that I will be paying back my federal, state, and local governments for much of the cost of this car. Consider:

1. Georgia's ad valorem tax. I will probably end up paying the state of Georgia at least $1,000 over the life of the car.

2. Gas taxes. Assuming I own the car at least 5 years (and I plan to own it much longer), and based on my current driving habits and the current price of gas, I will end up paying over $4,000 in gas taxes to all levels of government.

3. Corporate taxes on the profits of Kia and my finance company. Arguably not a significant amount from the car's purchase and fiancing, but it still needs to be considered.

All in all, government will get back from the car more than they put into it.

But more importantly, my fellow voters told me, via their elected representatives, that they wanted me to get a vehicle with better gas mileage, and that they were willing to chip in their own hard-earned money to help me with the purchase. I grudgingly accepted their kind offer.

Also, Kia has a manufacturing plant in Georgia (although the Forte is built in South Korea), so I felt like I was helping, albeit indirectly, to support a local manufacturer.

Finally, I was planning to get a more gas efficient vehicle anyway, in order to help reduce domestic demand for gas, which in turn will reduce the need for the U.S. to import gas from terrorist nations. Even the most conservative voter can appreciate this motive.

So I would like to take this moment to thank my fellow Americans for supporting my purchase of a new car. I especially want to thank my children for paying for it.

Sinking Mae-flower

2009-08-11T12:20:00.003-04:00

Want to know where the next busting asset bubble will be? In the same place as the last one, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Much to their dismay, Americans learned last year that they “owned” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Well, meet their cousin, Ginnie Mae or the Government National Mortgage Association, which will soon join them as a trillion-dollar packager of subprime mortgages. Taxpayers own Ginnie too.

Only last week, Ginnie announced that it issued a monthly record of $43 billion in mortgage-backed securities in June. Ginnie Mae President Joseph Murin sounded almost giddy as he cheered this “phenomenal growth.” Ginnie Mae’s mortgage exposure is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of next year—or far more than double the dollar amount of 2007...Earlier this summer, Reuters quoted Anthony Medici of the Housing Department’s Inspector General’s office as saying, “Who would have predicted that Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae would have swapped positions” in loan volume?

Ginnie’s mission is to bundle, guarantee and then sell mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, which is Uncle Sam’s home mortgage shop. Ginnie’s growth is a by-product of the FHA’s spectacular growth. The FHA now insures $560 billion of mortgages—quadruple the amount in 2006. Among the FHA, Ginnie, Fannie and Freddie, nearly nine of every 10 new mortgages in America now carry a federal taxpayer guarantee.

Herein lies the problem. The FHA’s standard insurance program today is notoriously lax. It backs low downpayment loans, to buyers who often have below-average to poor credit ratings, and with almost no oversight to protect against fraud. Sound familiar? This is called subprime lending—the same financial roulette that busted Fannie, Freddie and large mortgage houses like Countrywide Financial.

On June 18, HUD’s Inspector General issued a scathing report on the FHA’s lax insurance practices. It found that the FHA’s default rate has grown to 7%, which is about double the level considered safe and sound for lenders, and that 13% of these loans are delinquent by more than 30 days. The FHA’s reserve fund was found to have fallen in half, to 3% from 6.4% in 2007—meaning it now has a 33 to 1 leverage ratio, which is into Bear Stearns territory. The IG says the FHA may need a “Congressional appropriation intervention to make up the shortfall.”

(Bold part added)

That is another trillion dollar exposure. Even if you assume the FHA maintains the default rate at it's current level of 7%, that is still another $70 billion down the drain.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

Is this a case where everyone has quickly forgotten what started this recession? Or is this a case where no one has learned anything from it? I think the variation on Santayana's saying is more appropriate: Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Sympathy for the Democrats

2009-08-11T08:51:00.003-04:00

Dear President Obama, Speaker of the House Pelosi, Senator Reid, et al,

I want to thank all of you. I personally have been rather upset with the direction of the United States for many years now. It has not been going downhill nearly fast enough.

While the Republicans were quietly and slowly ruining the country, you are loudly and quickly bringing the country to its' inevitable end. Thanks to your gross stupidity and arrogance, this country is rocketing to disintegration.

In keeping with my support for your direction for the country, I would like to make a few suggestions:

1. Please pass universal health care! And try to be as arrogant about it as possible. Calling the opposition "un-American" was a nice touch, but you really need to do more in this regard.

Most of these people speaking out against health care are just concerned individuals, so you really need to do more to stigmatize and alienate them. Frankly, the partisan divide in this country isn't nearly big enough. If you can work this angle harder, you can really make the divide grow. Then when you pass health care, these people will be spitting mad at you.

By the way, all those years you guys spent calling Republicans "Nazis"? Brilliant! You have so stigmatized the accusation, you can get away with all the fascism you like, and no one can say anything without looking like, well...you.

Also, with universal health care in place, you can give people even more reason to hate you, with long doctor waits for treatment, as well as high costs. If you can promise the moon on health care, charge an obscene premium for it, then make people wait for months to get the health care they need, you will totally rule, because they will need you to fix the system YOU broke! The fact you will have broken it for the second time is just an added piece of delicious irony.

2. More spending! The bailouts were good, but not enough. Sure, you are looking at hyperinflation for the next few years, but if you can pile it on some, think of all the good that could come?

First, you would ruin China's economy. At least you won't have to worry about them for awhile, as all the debt they already financed becomes as worthless as Confederate dollars.

Second, the American economy will be dead! Fortunately, your buddies in the banking industry will still be running, since all the new money will go to them first, and you will need them. If you have to pay $1,000 for a tank of gas, those debit cards will come in handy.

Third, and this is the important part for you, the welfare state will be in full bloom, since few people will have, or be able to get, a job!

3. More taxing! What is taking you so long with the cap and trade tax? If you wait too long, the effects of the increased energy costs will be felt by the consumer during an election year. Then they will just vote you out and replace you with someone who will end the tax.

While you are at it, we need more income taxes! Do you realize there are still people out there spending their own hard-earned money. THIS HAS TO STOP!

Think about it: As long as people can make money from working, what incentive do they have to be slothful? Don't get me wrong, I fully appreciate the way you have used the "greed" angle to get people to support your ideas. Now use it to get their support for higher taxes.

4. Keep the wars going! More death and destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the peaceniks can't complain, because they ALL voted for you! That is why pride is a sin: They hate being considered a hypocrite MORE than they hate war! People dying just so someone doesn't get called a hypocrite. Gotta love it!

Anyway, keep up the good work folks. And when the United States is gone, just know that I have a nice warm spot waiting for you at my place.

Sincerely,
Satan

P.S. Nixon says he's jealous.

The Money Supply Amendment

2009-08-06T09:23:00.004-04:00

We have seen what happens when we allow our elected leaders and the Federal Reserve to spend as they wish: They pay off their friends and campaign supporters and leave the American people to pick up the tab in the form of budget deficits, higher taxes, and inflation.

What if the American people could tax the government?

We need a Constitutional Amendment which states: Whenever the U.S. money supply is increased for any reason, and by any means, the money will be evenly distributed among all the American people, and may not be directly taxed by the government.

So they think we need an extra $1 trillion in the money supply? No problem, just send all Americans a check for $3,333.

The money is not distributed through the banking system, like the Federal Reserve does now. Nor is it handed out to any special interest groups, as Congress likes to do with earmarks.

I came up with this idea when it occurred to me that we need a means for all Americans to deal with inflation whenever our government decides to increase the money supply. By creating more money and distributing it to specific groups, our government hurts the value of the dollars which "We the People" hold.

This will help to force fiscal discipline on our politicians. If they want to increase spending, they will have to increase taxes to pay for it, or else write a check to every American and wait for the money to come back through the tax system.

(On a side note, it would also encourage switching from an income tax to a consumption tax, since it takes up to a year for the income taxes to come in, whereas consumption taxes could come in continuously.)

LafferCare

2009-08-05T16:20:00.003-04:00

Arthur Laffer has a history of brilliance (the Laffer Curve) and idiocy (predicting there wouldn't be a recession back in 2006). Today, he has an editorial in the Wall Street Journal which was brilliant.

While I don't think the government should be involved in health care at all, I have to give Laffer credit for at least coming up with what I would call a reasonable solution to the health care problem:

Rather than expanding the role of government in the health-care market, Congress should implement a patient-centered approach to health-care reform. A patient-centered approach focuses on the patient-doctor relationship and empowers the patient and the doctor to make effective and economical choices.

A patient-centered health-care reform begins with individual ownership of insurance policies and leverages Health Savings Accounts, a low-premium, high-deductible alternative to traditional insurance that includes a tax-advantaged savings account. It allows people to purchase insurance policies across state lines and reduces the number of mandated benefits insurers are required to cover. It reallocates the majority of Medicaid spending into a simple voucher for low-income individuals to purchase their own insurance. And it reduces the cost of medical procedures by reforming tort liability laws.

Depending on how LafferCare is implemented, it might work. It certainly won't be the catastrophe that ObamaCare will.

Ground Control to Major Simpson...

2009-08-05T11:13:00.005-04:00

It is news stories like this that make me think Homer Simpson is working for Nasa now (from the Guardian. Headline in bold):

Nasa aims to move Earth
Scientists' answer to global warming: nudge the planet farther from Sun

Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot.

All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.

This startling idea of improving our interplanetary neighbourhood is the brainchild of a group of Nasa engineers and American astronomers who say their plan could add another six billion years to the useful lifetime of our planet - effectively doubling its working life.

...The plan put forward by Dr Laughlin, and his colleagues Don Korycansky and Fred Adams, involves carefully directing a comet or asteroid so that it sweeps close past our planet and transfers some of its gravitational energy to Earth.

'Earth's orbital speed would increase as a result and we would move to a higher orbit away from the Sun,' Laughlin said.

Engineers would then direct their comet so that it passed close to Jupiter or Saturn, where the reverse process would occur. It would pick up energy from one of these giant planets. Later its orbit would bring it back to Earth, and the process would be repeated.

What happens if you miss, and one of those comets happens to hit the Earth?

DOH!

Abortion Deck Chairs

2009-08-05T10:19:00.004-04:00

From Fox News:

Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.

Federal funds for abortions are now restricted to cases involving rape, incest or danger to the health of the mother. Abortion opponents say those restrictions should carry over to any health insurance sold through a new marketplace envisioned under the legislation, an exchange where people would choose private coverage or the public plan.

Abortion rights supporters say that would have the effect of denying coverage for abortion to millions of women who now have it through workplace insurance and are expected to join the exchange.

Simple question: Regardless of your abortion views, will this issue determine your support of the health care bill?

To anyone who says yes, I say: You are arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

That said, the hypocrisy on this issue is enormous. For the pro-abortion rights side, they fight for the individual's rights on one issue, abortion, and then throw them away on another issue, health care. When government makes your health care decisions for you, where is your right to decide?

For the anti-abortion side, don't come crying about your religious rights being violated as you violate women's rights to decide what to do with their own bodies.

For those who are simply against public funding of abortions, but not against abortion rights, I ask: If you are going to be fiscally responsible on this one issue, why would you support general health care funding at all? Even in the best of economic times, there are plenty of good reasons not to do this. But in the face of our current national deficit, and our current recession, and our government's reduced tax revenues, this is a fiscal nightmare.

The abortion funding issue is just another request to the band, as our ship of state sinks deeper into insolvency.

Hating on Hate Crimes

2009-08-05T08:06:00.003-04:00

I am taking a momentary break from my normal hate-filled rhetoric against "Bugsy" Obama's health care takeover, in order to discuss something else I truly hate: Hate crimes.

Mind you, I don't hate people who commit them per se. Rather, I hate the fact we have laws which limit free expression, regardless of how stupid that expression may be.

When someone commits a crime, that is already illegal. If they are found guilty, they will go to jail. So what difference does it make what their views of their victim were?

If someone commits intentional murder, or even intentional assault, it is safe to assume they probably hate their victim. Whether they hate their victim for personal reasons or racial reasons is irrelevant.

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post makes some good points on this matter:

The penalty for murder is severe, so it's not as if the crime is not being punished. The added "late hit" of a hate crime is without any real consequence, except as a precedent for the punishment of belief or speech. Slippery slopes are supposedly all around us, I know, but this one is the real McCoy.

Let us assume that the "community" is really affected by what we call a hate crime. I am Jewish. But even with [James von Brunn's murder of the guard at the Holocaust Museum], I am more affected by a mugging in my neighborhood that might keep me from taking a walk at night than I am by a shooting at the Holocaust museum. If there's a murder in a park, I'll stay out of it for months. If there's a rape, women will stay out of the park. If there's another and another, women will know that a real hater is loose. Rape, though, is not a hate crime. Why not?

...For the most part, hate-crime legislation is just a sop for politically influential interest groups -- yet another area in which liberals, traditionally sensitive to civil liberties issues, have chosen to mollify an entire population at the expense of the individual and endorse discredited reasoning about deterrence.

The punishment of wrong thinking is a totalitarian ideal. Do we really want government prosecuting anyone based on what they think?

Car-pocalypse Now

2009-07-31T09:41:00.004-04:00

News reports tell us the government's "cash for clunkers" program, also known as the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), has already burned through the $1 billion allocated for it.

(On a side note, this means the CARS program is officially over. From the CARS website: "Program runs through Nov 1, 2009 or when the funds are exhausted, whichever comes first.")

What a surprise that people would take $3,500 or $4,500 if you offer it to them. All they have to do is make the huge sacrifice of going out and buying a new car. Oh the horrors of "new car smell"! Of course, the biggest sacrifice is the frequent visits to the mechanic and the gas station.

Sarcasm aside, the American people naturally did what the program intended. But as we have seen with too many recent government attempts to plan our economy, you CANNOT plan an economy.

The money quote on this subject comes from car salesman Rob Bojaryn (in an article on wcbstv.com):

"If they can't administer a program like this, I'd be a little concerned about my health insurance."

Good question indeed.

UPDATE: Grammar.

Doctors or Slaves?

2009-07-30T08:57:00.003-04:00

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

If we claim that health care is a "right", then by extension a doctor is required to treat anyone for any reason, regardless of cost or time required.

Fortunately, the 13th Amendment protects doctors from such a situation. Unless House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) has his way (from CNSNews.com):

“We need a real serious bill and, by the way, the fundamental question, ‘Is health care a constitutional right?’...I mean, do you have a right to health care in the American system of government or not? ...Well, we believe that people do and we’re introducing a constitutional amendment just to make it real clear so that you don’t have to infer or assume that that’s a given and all that.”

In other words, let's enslave all members of the health care profession to ensure that everyone has equal access to health care.

When the government becomes the only health care payer, doctors will no longer have even the right to determine what they charge. Patients will no longer determine what they are willing to pay. Free market decisions will be removed, with government bureaucrats deciding the cost of every procedure, AND which procedures can be performed.

How many people do you think will go into the medical profession, knowing they will be slaves to the state? How many people do you think will leave the medical profession knowing this?

Uncle Samuel

2009-07-29T15:30:00.006-04:00

I used to be of the belief that the Bible was not about politics, but rather a philosophical guide (some would say law book) to how one should live their life. I am happy to be proven wrong in this by Frank Chodorov, who died in 1966, but an essay of his appears over at Mises.org today, What Samuel Said about Solomon, which was published in 1956, but seems rather appropriate today.

Chodorov's essay is a political analysis of the Old Testament history of the development of the Kingdom of Israel, through the kings, to Israel's inevitable fall.

The analysis begins with the time before the kings (following is an edited version of the beginning of Chodorov's essay. Click here for the full essay.):

"In those days," we are told in Judges 17:6, "there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

To be able to do that which is right in one's own eyes is to be free, and freedom was the way of life among the Israelites before the coming of the kings. Yet, they were not without government; they were not lacking in those social controls that are the essence of government...

Tradition supplemented necessity in the orderly arrangement of life, for the tradition grew out of experience by the trial-and-error method and had proved itself beneficial. The laws of custom were sanctified because violation of them carried its own penalties, not only to the individual, but also to the group.

It was a conservative society; adherence to proven principles was the only way by which the pursuit of happiness could be furthered...

Nor was there lack of leadership before the coming of the kings. Someone had to plan strategy and improvise tactics for the wars the tribesmen engaged in during their march to the Promised Land, and someone had to adjudicate disputes so as to prevent the chaos of internecine struggles. So came the judges, men and women esteemed for their wisdom and integrity, the leaders provided by nature for the instruction of the rank and file.

The evidence leads to the conclusion that these judges ruled by natural selection and common consent, much like the chiefs of American Indian tribes. It was agreed that the authority of the judges was sanctified by God, but the proof of their anointment was the manner in which they exercised authority. They were leaders by virtue of their proven gift of leadership.

The important thing about the rule of the judges is that their office was not endowed with the power of coercion. "Every man did that which was right in his own eyes" meant that no man was compelled to do otherwise; and, since "in those days there was no king in Israel," it must be presumed that there was no constabulary to enforce rules of behavior. The sole enforcement agency upon which the authority of the judges rested was public opinion. "So said Yahweh" had the force of "so say we all."

According to one computation, this kind of government lasted about four centuries — a period, incidentally, comparable to the duration of the Roman republic. The manner of its termination is recorded in the First Book of Samuel (chapter eight), where it is told that the elders of the tribes came to the last of the judges and demanded that he set a king over them.

The immediate occasion for the revolutionary demand was what we would today call an emergency. In fact, there were two emergencies. In foreign affairs things were going badly for Israel; the Philistines had not only beaten them roundly in battle, but also made off with the sacred ark of the covenant.

On the domestic front, they had lost faith in their leadership. The two sons of Samuel, whom he had appointed as assistants, did not live up to the high standards of their office; they had "turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment."

Samuel seems to have been a political scientist of the first water, all the more remarkable in that he had no books to go by, but only his wisdom and his observation of kingship in operation. So that, when the elders said "make us a king to judge us like all the nations," he was displeased. The story says that he took the matter up with Yahweh, who assured him that nothing could be done about saving the Israelites from themselves, since they had given up on first principles.

It was because they had forsaken the rigorous tradition of their forefathers, with its insistence on self-reliance and personal integrity, that they had lost the victorious touch that carried them from Egypt to the outskirts of the Promised Land. The breakdown of the judge system could be traced to the same lack of self-discipline. Therefore, said Yahweh, give them what they ask for, but as a parting shot you might "shew them the manner of the king that shall rule over them"; and tell them also that when they realize their mistake, it will be too late to regain freedom: "The Lord will not hear you in that day."

So Samuel outlined the order of things under a king. First, there will be conscription, replacing the system of voluntarism that had served the tribesmen well throughout their peregrinations, and the conscription will not be confined to military service but will include service in the king's household. What's more, women too will be subject to involuntary servitude. Then, "he will appoint his captains over thousands and captains over fifties."

The term "captain" is ambiguous, referring sometimes to men of war, sometimes to what we would call nobles, sometimes (by the kind of work assigned to them) to bureaucrats; it was in the reigns of David and Solomon that "captain" took on many meanings.

And, continued Samuel, the king will take from you the best of your lands "and give them to his servants," thus establishing a landed aristocracy, which the laws of Moses clearly forbade. What's more, for the upkeep of his establishment "he will take a tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards"; apparently, compulsory taxation was new among the Israelites. To top it all off, "ye shall be his servants."

But the elders were obdurate in their demand for political authority. One could go behind the returns and make out a case against these revolutionists; perhaps they constituted a newly risen landowning class, and hoped to solidify their position under a kingship. More likely, fear had entered their hearts, as is usually the case when a people accustomed to success are faced with adversity, and they were quite willing to swap freedom for the promise of security under subservience.

In any event, Samuel anointed Saul. From the very beginning of the royal establishment, the troubles of Israel multiplied. There was the usual spate of wars with the Philistines, with varying degrees of success, and internal dissension, which was rare in the experience of the tribesmen, became common. Some followed Saul, others revolted against his rule; more exactly, they resisted the establishment of those institutions that Samuel had warned them would come with a king.

But, as Samuel said, there was no way of regaining freedom once the state had made its appearance, and the judge was soon on the lookout for a new deliverer. He sought out David, but it is significant that the new king, though anointed by Samuel, had to fight his way to power; he came to the throne on the wings of what we would call a revolution. The struggle for power, embellished with moral platitudes and social-sounding whereases, had seeped into the Israelite way of life.

Sound familiar?

Chodorov continues:

...It is the way of political power to become in itself, regardless of the person who wields it, a shrine for public worship. In modern times, we are quick to "throw the rascals out," but it never occurs to us that rascality is imbedded in the office or that the power invested in it might make a rascal of an honest man.

Though the people of Israel had asked for a king, the spirit of freedom did not depart from them immediately upon the granting of their wish, and Saul never really set the kingship on a solid basis. It takes time for the myth of authority to gain general acceptance. David, the second king, did better, for he had forty years in which to get the tribesmen in line with the new institution; a second generation had come to maturity during his reign and to them the exploits of royalty were "modern," real and vibrant, while the freedom of their forefathers sank into the limbo of a fairy tale.

Even so, something of the past hung on, and David had to contend with frequent insurrections and, at the end, with a war of succession. He did succeed, as we learn from the Second Book of Samuel, in setting up the necessary framework for the functioning of a successful state, that is, in surrounding the kingship with a supporting caste of "mighty men," analogous to what we would today call a privileged class, and with a group of efficient "servants" whose functions correspond with those of latter-day bureaucrats. In that way he facilitated the consolidation of power under Solomon.

The Saul-David-Solomon story is illustrative of the gestation of the state. At first, an aspiring chieftain fights his way to ascendancy as a lone wolf, knocking off rivals, and concentrates in himself all the power he can lay his hands on. This method has merit only in so far as the area of his sovereignty is limited to personal supervision. Beyond that, it proves to be quite inefficacious, even precarious.

As his quest for power reaches beyond his purview, as it always does, he finds it necessary to delegate some of his power to, and share his prerogatives with, a supporting oligarchy — military, ecclesiastical (or intellectual) and, in time, commercial or industrial groups — that lend themselves to his purpose in return for the special privileges he grants them. They serve as a moat to his castle.

In addition to these favored blocs, he must surround his citadel with a class of well-paid "servants" skilled in taking care of the details of his sovereignty, so that it can function with the least amount of friction.

The state is not, as most political scientists would make it, an inanimate thing; it consists of people, human beings, each of whom operates under an inner compulsion to get the most out of life with the least expenditure of labor. They differ from other human beings only in the fact that they have chosen (because they believe it to be easier) the political or predatory means of satisfying their desires, rather than the economic or productive means.

The fiction that the state is an impersonal institution, something society constructs for its own benefit, serves to hide, even from its members, the nature of its composition.

The truth is, we are already there. And our government is about to turn us into slaves of the state. Just like the Israelites, it is too late for us to stop it:

Resistance to the state diminishes in the degree of its confiscations, and ultimately, when the tax load becomes a yoke, subservience to the state becomes the necessary way of life.

The designation of taxation as a yoke is a nice piece of biblical directness. A yoke is worn by an ox, a beast of burden, which by nature is incapable of claiming a property right in the products of its labor.

It follows that when a human being is deprived of that right, his status approximates that of an ox, and if taxation takes all he produces beyond that needed to sustain life (the wages of an ox), it can rightly be called a yoke. The Israelites who pleaded with Rehoboam to lower the tax load that Solomon (the state) had put on them were quite literal.

The story goes on to say that Rehoboam rejected the plea of "all Israel," that he in fact promised them an increase in taxes. Then it tells of a revolt against taxes by the people of Judah, a political subdivision that periodically rejected the suzerainty of Jerusalem: when Hadoram, Rehoboam's chief collector of tribute, made his rounds among them, they so "stoned him with stones, that he died."

Tea parties, anyone?

Suffice it to say, Samuel's prediction of the Israelites "buyer's remorse" were on the money. Eventually, and inevitably, the Kingdom of Israel fell, as will the United States inevitably fall.

I would pray for divine intervention, but as God told Samuel, "The Lord will not hear you in that day."

The Birthers of a Nation

2009-07-29T10:37:00.002-04:00

The whole Birther movement, which claims President Obama was not born in the U.S., is ludicrous. Why is anyone wasting their time on this nonsense, when there are plenty of subjects over which to attack Obama?

Even IF Obama wasn't a U.S. citizen, if you want a reason to justify impeachment, his dangerous stupidity in running our country is plenty good enough for me. Consider:

1. His health care plan and Global Warming policies, which are nothing more than a Democratic Party power grab. Even Nixon couldn't have come up with something as devious as these two issues.

2. His Wall Street bailout. The ONLY reason Bush got away with his own bailout plan was because Obama supported it. If Bush had tried something like that in his first year, like Obama did, the Media would have run him out of office, with full American support.

3. He's a foreign policy nightmare. He insults our allies (even I know American DVD's won't work in British DVD players, so giving the British PM a set of American DVD's was just dumb), and cozies up to enemy dictators. Most of the European Media has already turned on Obama.

4. He has more crooked friends than John Gotti. I am just waiting for the news story where one of Obama's buddies gets caught committing a felony. It is coming. Until then, we have Henry Louis Gates.

5. Speaking of Gates, Obama is doing more to hurt race relations in the U.S. with his inept presidency than even the KKK could have hoped. His handling of the Gates situation was more reminiscent of Al Sharpton than Martin Luther King.

While the topics I have mentioned are debatable, the Birther controversy doesn't even merit debate. It has been disproven over and over again, and it is time to look at what IS important about Obama. Quit wasting precious air time and print space on foolish conspiracy theories, and start using them on real and important topics that will affect all of us.

Look at it this way: While you Birthers are talking about your wild goose chase, Obama and the Congress are hard at work trying to take away your access to health care, as well as your hard-earned money. Your distraction makes it so much easier for them to work without the public spotlight.

Voinovich errrrs

2009-07-29T09:39:00.004-04:00

A quote from Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich (from the The Columbusdispatch.com) about "The GOP's biggest problem":

“We got too many Jim DeMints (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburns (R-Ok.). It’s the southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re southerners. The party’s being taken over by southerners. What they[sic] hell they got to do with Ohio?’”

Senator, to use the line from an old Lynyrd Skynyrd song, a Southern man don't need you around, anyhow.

Seriously though, it is easy to tell that Northern elitism has gotten bad when even Republican politicians have no problem with slamming the South.

If you Northerners despise the South so much, here is my message to you: Break up the Union. Frankly, those of us in the South are tired of paying for your idiotically utopian social programs. We are tired of you trying to run our lives while simultaneously taking our money to promote your welfare statist ideals. We are tired of being called "racist" at every turn, while you promote your reverse racism. We are tired of you spending money that neither of us has. We are tired of you saving Wall Street with money from Main Street. We are tired of you trying to save the world from the non-existent threat of Global Warming by adding taxes and regulation to normal and harmless human activities.

In summary, we are tired of YOU. So I beg of you, please break up this Union. And don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Getting the fat out

2009-07-29T08:12:00.003-04:00

The CDC reports Americans are too obese. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the new health care bill monstrosity currently rolling through the Congress has provisions to help prevent obesity.

Exactly WHY do we want to do this?

Obesity prevention is simple: Eat less and/or exercise more. No health care program, public or private, will get someone to do this if they don't want it.

In addition, if someone enjoys food to the extreme of willing to put on tons of weight in order to enjoy food, who are we to stop them? While gluttony is a sin, so is pride. You want to have a government program to make people more humble too?

I know: Obesity creates greater health care costs. So does pregnancy. Condoms for everyone!

But obese people don't live as long, right? Guess what: We are ALL going to die. Deal with it. Personally, I would rather live a shorter life that I enjoyed, rather than suffer through a few extra dull years of life just to reach the same end.

To the obese people of the world, I say: Enjoy!

To the busybodies of the world, I say: Screw off!

Health Care Looting

2009-07-28T09:45:00.004-04:00

From Section 2002 of the new Health Care bill in congress (as reported by WSB Radio's Jamie Dupree):

"Amounts appropriated under this section, and outlays flowing from such appropriations, shall not be taken into account for purposes of any budget enforcement procedures including allocations under section 302(a) and (b) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act and budget resolutions for fiscal years during which appropriations are made from the Fund"

Yes, that says what you think it does: They will spend the money, but it doesn't get counted in the cost of the bill. So when the Congressional Budget Office reports the cost of the bill, that part of it is excluded.

According to Jamie Dupree, similar wording also appears in Section 164, and it is possible that it might appear elsewhere.

So how much does this bill REALLY cost? Who knows? But like burglary victims, we won't know how much our politicians have stolen until it's gone.

Policing Health Care

2009-07-27T08:38:00.003-04:00

In the whole Barack Obama and Henry Louis Gates vs. the Cambridge Police fiasco, the great irony of the situation seems to have been lost in most of the Media firestorm following Obama's press conference.

The original Obama press conference was supposed to be used to promote Obama's vision of health care reform, but the Media coverage following it got derailed by Obama's reference to the police department's actions against Gates as "stupid". The irony here is in the fact that Obama promoted more government involvement into all our lives on one hand, while criticizing government involvement in one specific man's life.

But this disconnect in Obama's words is telling. Obama likes more active national government, and dislikes active local governments.

Even if you assume the police were wrong in the Gates situation, how many people were hurt by their actions? Only Gates himself. On the other hand, if the national government makes a mistake in their takeover of the health care industry, how many people will be hurt? At least millions, if not all 300 million of us.

In this scenario, the only way a government takeover of health care can be justified is on a simple assumption that national bureaucrats are somehow more efficient and effective than local bureaucrats. But are national bureaucrats efficient and effective enough to be able to handle the much larger numbers of people for which they will be responsible? Or will they just be overseeing a bunch of local bureaucrats who will handle the new health care responsibilities, much like how programs like welfare are currently handled?

Either way, Obama just provided another reason NOT to support this "stupid" health care takeover.

Out of the office

2009-06-30T17:20:00.000-04:00

Just taking a little break from blogging. I will return to regular posting at the end of July. In the meantime, enjoy your summer folks!

Revenge of the Possum Part 2: A New Hope

2009-06-24T13:18:00.002-04:00

(Continued from Part 1)

The second comment I received on the possum story came in April of this year. "Oxankle" started out his comment positively:

I have no sympathy for possums; they are indeed vermin and have killed uncounted numbers of chickens for me. I killed a possum this morning and six within the past three weeks.

Finally, some sympathy, right? Not quite:

However; Anon was right when he said that you, Ed, went about it the wrong way. When we inflict show death, pain, suffering on a living creature we diminish our own humanity. You could very easily have taken the possum by the tail with your gardening gloves, pulled it from the hole and dispatched it quickly.

I do not even have anything against the use of the sword, but you have to know how to use it efficiently. Imagine how you would have suffered had you taken a gut thrust and been left on the field.

Unfortunately there are millions of people who know so little about wildlife that they cannot do what our ancestors did as a matter of routine.

I went from "Ed, you're a horrible inhuman beast" in the first comment, to "Ed, if you're gonna kill a possum, at least learn how to do it right".

In my response, I had to agree with Oxankle:

Admittedly, I'm not a swordsman, nor am I a nature expert. For what it's worth, my intent was to kill the possum quickly. I failed.

At least I can admit when I am wrong.

The "Warm" has turned

2009-06-24T10:36:00.003-04:00

Robert Tracinski and Tom Minchin point out how it looks like Australia might have finally come to its' senses regarding the whole Global Warming scam:

As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation's collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US—and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Since the Australian government first introduced its Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) legislation—the Australian version of cap-and-trade energy rationing—there has been a sharp shift in public opinion and political momentum against the global warming crusade. This is a story that offers hope to defenders of industrial civilization—and a warning to American environmentalists that the climate change they should be afraid of just might be a shift in the intellectual climate.

Tracinski and Minchin continue by pointing to that rarest of events. The conversion of a Global Warming advocate:

One of the most remarkable changes occurred on April 13, when leading global warming hysteric Paul Sheehan—who writes for the main Sydney newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, which has done as much to hype the threat of global warming as any Australian newspaper—reviewed Plimer's book and admitted he was taken aback. He describes Plimer, correctly, as "one of Australia's foremost Earth scientists," and praised the book as "brilliantly argued" and "the product of 40 years' research and breadth of scholarship."

What does Plimer's book say? Here is Sheehan's summary:

Much of what we have read about climate change, [Plimer] argues, is rubbish, especially the computer modeling on which much current scientific opinion is based, which he describes as "primitive."…

The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt and redistribution of solar energy. Despite this crucial relationship, the sun tends to be brushed aside as the most important driver of climate. Calculations on supercomputers are primitive compared with the complex dynamism of the Earth's climate and ignore the crucial relationship between climate and solar energy.

To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable—human-induced CO2—is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly.

I put in bold the part above, which is what I have been saying for years, yet the Religion of Global Warming parishioners cannot seem to refute it.

But I digress. Back to Tracinski and Minchin's story about how cap-and-trade is doing in the Australian Senate:

There are 7 other votes in the Senate: five Greens who say the scheme doesn't go far enough but who could be induced to go along; one independent, Nick Xenophon, who has pledged to vote against the bill unless the government waits till after Copenhagen; and one other, Senator Steve Fielding of the Family First Party, who has decided to investigate the whole thing first hand. Fielding could turn out to be the single deciding vote.

...Fielding went to the US to assess the American evidence for global warming at close quarters. As Melbourne's Age reported on June 4:

Senator Fielding said he was impressed by some of the data presented at the [US Heartland Institute's] climate change skeptics' conference: namely that, although carbon emissions had increased in the last 10 years, global temperature had not.

He said scientists at the conference had advanced other explanations, such as the relationship between solar activity and solar energy hitting the Earth to explain climate change.

Fielding has issued a challenge to the Obama White House to rebut the data. It will be a novel experience for them, as Fielding is an engineer and has an Australian's disregard for self-important government officials. Here is how The Age described his challenge:

Senator Fielding emailed graphs that claim the globe had not warmed for a decade to Joseph Aldy, US President Barack Obama's special assistant on energy and the environment, after a meeting on Thursday…. Senator Fielding said he found that Dr. Aldy and other Obama administration officials were not interested in discussing the legitimacy of climate science.

Telling an Australian you're not interested in the legitimacy of your position is a red rag to a bull. So here is what Fielding concluded:

Until recently I, like most Australians, simply accepted without question the notion that global warming was a result of increased carbon emissions. However, after speaking to a cross-section of noted scientists, including Ian Plimer, a professor at the University of Adelaide and author of Heaven and Earth, I quickly began to understand that the science on this issue was by no means conclusive….

As a federal senator, I would be derelict in my duty to the Australian people if I did not even consider whether or not the scientific assumptions underpinning this debate were in fact correct.

At least the Australians seem to be smart enough to recognize bull when they hear it, even if it took them awhile. In the meantime, the U.S. is stuck with Obama's Global Warming cultists running the show, who make policy on faith, not science. All we can do is hope the American people come to their senses before the fools in Washington throw another log on the true "warming" problem: the economic meltdown.

Revenge of the Possum Part 1

2009-06-23T16:11:00.003-04:00

Back in July of 2006, I wrote my now almost infamous possum post.

While I did not receive any comments on my blog at the time I posted it, I have received a slow trickle of venomous commentary since then, most of it posted anonymously.

The first anonymous comment came in May of 2007:

Google "possums" and learn something about them. I've rescued and had close encounters with a number of them. They are gentle, slow-moving creatures that pose little threat. They almost never carry rabies.

"Almost never carry rabies"? That's good to know with a wife and two kids in the house. On the off chance this is one of those rare possum WITH rabies, I should ignore that possibility because they are "gentle" and "slow-moving"?

You might as well have been stabbing and dismembering a human baby for all the danger that possum posed to you.

Human babies don't have sharp teeth.

You imagine yourself a warrior? Practice the first rule: Know your enemy.

I wasn't planning on having a possum as a house guest. Next time, I will be better prepared. For example, did you know that possum like carrion? Grab an old piece of meat, put it on a large mousetrap, and SNAP! Possum problem solved.

And if you did know your "enemy", you'd realize you slowly tortured the very essence of innocence.

I don't normally associate "innocence" with an animal which has the same dietary habits as buzzards.

...nothing in your story described any behavior remotely threatening to you or your [wife] yet you slowly vivisected this unfortunate, harmless animal that, like you, has lungs, liver, kidneys, a heart....and, like you, experiences fear, trauma,...and pain.

So do rats and bats, but I don't want them in my house either.

The commenter then goes off into a long rant about the difference between foolishness and bravery. My original reply bears repeating:

Anonymous (if that is your real name), you obviously missed the humor in this. Are you familiar with a concept called "irony"?

You are absolutely correct in stating there is nothing brave in killing a possum. A possum is vermin, much like a rat, hence the irony. I added the "bravery" aspect to this post in order to play up the irony of the situation.

I should add there is nothing brave in leaving anonymous comments on the Internet either.