You know, sometimes I think it would almost be worth it, to me, to live in a country where everyone was middle class or less just so I wouldn’t ever have to hear again, ‘In such a rich country it’s a shame this… or a disgrace that...’ Now listen up s.f.b.’s ... COUNTRIES WOULDN’T BE RICH IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THEY HAD DIVIDED UP THE WEALTH OF THOSE WHO HAD ATTAINED IT! DEVELOPING COUNTRIES THAT ADOPT THIS LEFTIST, NEO-MARXIST, CLAPTRAP IDEALOGY REMAIN POOR FOREVER! That’s why liberals only exist in rich countries: there’s no ‘somebody else’s money’ to spend more compassionately in the poor ones. Leftists in poor countries are revolutionaries, not liberals. They simply physically expropriate, at the point of a gun, wealth from the few remaining 'haves' to pay for their cigars and the people’s annual medical exams* . Not a bad definition of a liberal enshrouded there; a liberal is someone who wants to force someone else to spend their own money to assuage what they and their ilk perceive to be the world’ s injustices.
Actually heard a caller on Mark Levine state that they didn’t have health insurance but saw no reason why someone else should be taxed at half their income to provide it for them. Are there more than 10% of Americans born after 1960 that would agree with that?
*Ever heard that, ‘In Cuba at least they have health care.' ( Eee Gad )
M.D.T.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Free Will Revisited
The very essence of what it means to be human is predicated upon the existence of free will. It’s impossible to even imagine any story, book or movie where at least part of the drama or interest isn't derived from the observer's identification with a character's moment of decision; that moment when we as observers wonder what he, she or they are going ... to do next. What else are our lives but grand, unique stories that we ourselves assist in writing the pages each and every day? A human life without choice is the very definition of an ‘absurd’ existence. One’s life can never be, in any real sense, ‘absurd’ for those that have the courage, intelligence, imagination and faith to posit their own values to the world at large as 'good'. How can any chosen human action be deemed to be 'for the greater good' or to have any value whatsoever if we share no commonality of what 'the good' actually is? *To believe that all values are individual and equal is not tolerance but nihilism. If irreconcilable value systems are at the root of all war, so be it. Live free or die. Those who swim in the miasma of value relativity cannot but ultimately drown in their own shifting and ephemeral re'solutions de jour. And paradoxically, isn't the position that we should all be nonjudgmental a judgment in itself? Can't one be more intolerant of the intolerants than the intolerants themselves? Perhaps sadly, perhaps divinely, to live is to choose; and for all but the world's would be Raskolnikovs, at some point perhaps the best any of us can do is to relish this one in a gadzillion opportunity to choose our own way, day by day, and pray for guidance.
And just where does our common idea of the good come from? Now that's about the biggest question imaginable! No progress since Plato.
M.D.T.
And just where does our common idea of the good come from? Now that's about the biggest question imaginable! No progress since Plato.
M.D.T.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Icarus's Wings
Leftist leaders and 'visionaries' love to take refuge in a future that’s too far off to accurately predict – slowing climate change and creating a new sustainable green economy conveniently will take decades and massive public investment before we'll even have a hint whether it's working. With the overwhelming majority of their ongoing projects it’s always too soon to tell with any accuracy how things are going plus their progress is always serendipitously too difficult to measure. How do we measure what a child is learning? Has the percentage of Americans living in poverty changed in 40 years? Are there fewer homeless per capita? Just how long will it take to achieve ‘social justice’? To succeed the Democratic agenda axiomatically seems to always require limitless money (aka 'public investment') and unspecified amounts of time. Similarly, there is no definable end nor identifiable line items that can ever be individually budgeted or checked off as ‘done’ within their agendas. Ponder just how absurd it is to ask, ’How long will it take to reduce greenhouse gases 25%, how are we going to do it ,what will it cost and can we afford it?’ Or, 'Just how much would it cost to eliminate povery once and for all and how would we do it?' Any idea how many global summits are required to achieve global nuclear disarmament? Meanwhile, all the prosaic, flat-earth, unintuitive, pragmatic (not infrequently Christian) selfish business people ( aka the mules pulling the cart ) are puting in overtime dealing with such pedestrian matters of the day as providing food to the grocery stores every morning by 6AM and gasoline that's cheaper than bottled water or developing a vaccine for the swine flu. (Though presumedly they could all do it cheaper and better if they had a little competition from the government - l.o.l.)
Is the idea of a conservative ‘visionary’ by definition an oxymoron simply due to the conservative’s inherent nature to feel compelled to supply actual constructive, measurable means to achievable ends? Wasn’t it John Kennedy that said some look at the world and say why, but I look and say why not? What if he had said, ‘But I look and say what, when and how much?' Nothing very inspiring about that now, is there! How many visionaries does it take to build a nuclear plant, a Las Vegas Casino or a new version of Windows? About the same amount as angels that can fit on the head of a pin.
Everyday necessity has a stubborn habit of consistently trimming Icarus's wings. It's a good thing too, lest the left's visionaries fly too high with our uninspired pocket books.
M.D.T.
Is the idea of a conservative ‘visionary’ by definition an oxymoron simply due to the conservative’s inherent nature to feel compelled to supply actual constructive, measurable means to achievable ends? Wasn’t it John Kennedy that said some look at the world and say why, but I look and say why not? What if he had said, ‘But I look and say what, when and how much?' Nothing very inspiring about that now, is there! How many visionaries does it take to build a nuclear plant, a Las Vegas Casino or a new version of Windows? About the same amount as angels that can fit on the head of a pin.
Everyday necessity has a stubborn habit of consistently trimming Icarus's wings. It's a good thing too, lest the left's visionaries fly too high with our uninspired pocket books.
M.D.T.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Slip Sliding Away
Nothing terrifies a liberal more than the prospect of having no one to blame and no one to ridicule. That would leave them alone with their own incompetence. If there weren’t greedy rich people to carry the shibboleth of ‘oppressors’ thereby absolving themselves and their purported victims of responsibility, it would be necessary for the left to invent them. At the very foundation of liberalism is a cause and effect world; a godless world where human behavior can be reduced ultimately to a combination of environmental factors; the study of human behavior, personality and outcomes perceived as a science. It’s not Ginger’s fault she’s a drug addict and a prostitute – she came from the slums, had no productive role models, was ignored in our under-funded schools, was molested as a child etc. For them it’s just simple cause and effect; poverty equals human failing. Post hoc ergo proptor hoc. ( A logical fallacy ) The left believes, by in large, there’s no free will in this world; that free will’s a Christian invention, a historical anachronism that doesn’t jibe with their scientific-materialistic world view i.e. a world without spirit. There's nothing divine or radically exceptional about mankind. We're part of the natural order. But there’s a lot more involved within the Darwin vs. Creationism argument than monkeys and men; there’s free will vs. determinism; there’s personal responsibility vs. environmental absolution. Can Man be deemed in any way truly free if he has no soul or if some part of him doesn’t stand somehow outside of nature, beyond cause and effect?
Now, with the specter of G.W. fading in the distance, it’s a virtual certainty that these impostors, these incompetents, aka, the radical elements of the Democratic party now in power, will invent ever new bugaboos at every turn to justify their lack of results and policy failures. Already they posit an institutional racism rooted intransigently within the indigenous American psyche that’s purported to be blocking health care reform. ( It’s not Obama’s fault ) Cries of racism wail siren-like over the media airwaves as the economic downturn and current malaise resists the antiquated fix-its of the old left; those tired and historically discredited fix-its such as leveling the playing field by disincentivising economic outcomes and ‘stimulating’ the economy with massive Keynesian deficit spending supplemented by yet ever greater environmental and financial regulation. When the pillorying of the powerless Republican Party as obstructionist no longer holds water with the American public, then the blame will shift to other countries, the Chinese, Israelis, Indians, Mexicans with their alleged unfair trade practices coupled with illegal immigration. The dark harbinger of protectionism looms. Finally, at last, only the people themselves and democracy itself* are left to blame; those sad, demented souls twisted by over 200 years of capitalist greed and ethnocentric religious dogma – so ethically contorted that they no longer even know what’s good for themselves. Ultimately the more vocal individualistic political opposition is criminalized, barred from the public forum, their opinion banned as ‘hate speech’ and key nonconforming industries are quasi-collectivized to insure their forwarding of ‘the public good’. ( Let’s tax away profitable self-sustaining industries such as coal and oil but subsidize non-competitive ones like solar and wind ).
And so can go the slow anesthetizing descent of a free society founded upon individual liberty and responsibility into one where ‘the buck never got here’; a society of faith, self-criticism, success and failure morphs into a soft totalitarian regime; a society that cherishes free speech above all else transmogrifies into one that enforces some bizarre, Kafkaesque, shape-shifting, unconstitutional nostrum of political correctness. And so we slip by one single, new, self-ordained societal victim at a time. And so the far left paves the way for a new generation of leaders; leaders cloaked in a lupine mantle of supreme compassion yet strong and ruthless enough to govern a country by imposing fairness and equality; a country that crushes wrong thinking; a country simplified to only the oppressors and the oppressed. And so our national flight away from personal responsibility and the sacrosant ideality of individual free will paves the way for America’s own Juan and Evita Chavez.
M.D.T.
Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man
We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away
Paul Simon
*I include the following excerpt from a recent, self-absolving The Guardian U.K. editorial.
“But it must be recognised that it's not just Obama's shortcomings that are causing the problem. The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures. For example, thwarting Obama on a regular basis is an unrepresentative senate where "minority rule" prevails and undermines what a majority of the country may want. With two senators elected per state, regardless of population, California with more than 35 million people has the same number of senators as Wyoming with just half a million residents. This constitutional arrangement greatly favours low population states, many of which tend to be conservative, producing what one political analyst has called "a weighted vote for small-town whites in pickup trucks with gun racks."
Now, with the specter of G.W. fading in the distance, it’s a virtual certainty that these impostors, these incompetents, aka, the radical elements of the Democratic party now in power, will invent ever new bugaboos at every turn to justify their lack of results and policy failures. Already they posit an institutional racism rooted intransigently within the indigenous American psyche that’s purported to be blocking health care reform. ( It’s not Obama’s fault ) Cries of racism wail siren-like over the media airwaves as the economic downturn and current malaise resists the antiquated fix-its of the old left; those tired and historically discredited fix-its such as leveling the playing field by disincentivising economic outcomes and ‘stimulating’ the economy with massive Keynesian deficit spending supplemented by yet ever greater environmental and financial regulation. When the pillorying of the powerless Republican Party as obstructionist no longer holds water with the American public, then the blame will shift to other countries, the Chinese, Israelis, Indians, Mexicans with their alleged unfair trade practices coupled with illegal immigration. The dark harbinger of protectionism looms. Finally, at last, only the people themselves and democracy itself* are left to blame; those sad, demented souls twisted by over 200 years of capitalist greed and ethnocentric religious dogma – so ethically contorted that they no longer even know what’s good for themselves. Ultimately the more vocal individualistic political opposition is criminalized, barred from the public forum, their opinion banned as ‘hate speech’ and key nonconforming industries are quasi-collectivized to insure their forwarding of ‘the public good’. ( Let’s tax away profitable self-sustaining industries such as coal and oil but subsidize non-competitive ones like solar and wind ).
And so can go the slow anesthetizing descent of a free society founded upon individual liberty and responsibility into one where ‘the buck never got here’; a society of faith, self-criticism, success and failure morphs into a soft totalitarian regime; a society that cherishes free speech above all else transmogrifies into one that enforces some bizarre, Kafkaesque, shape-shifting, unconstitutional nostrum of political correctness. And so we slip by one single, new, self-ordained societal victim at a time. And so the far left paves the way for a new generation of leaders; leaders cloaked in a lupine mantle of supreme compassion yet strong and ruthless enough to govern a country by imposing fairness and equality; a country that crushes wrong thinking; a country simplified to only the oppressors and the oppressed. And so our national flight away from personal responsibility and the sacrosant ideality of individual free will paves the way for America’s own Juan and Evita Chavez.
M.D.T.
Whoah God only knows, God makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man
We're workin' our jobs, collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway, when in fact we're slip sliding away
Paul Simon
*I include the following excerpt from a recent, self-absolving The Guardian U.K. editorial.
“But it must be recognised that it's not just Obama's shortcomings that are causing the problem. The very structure of the American political system is at the heart of these failures. For example, thwarting Obama on a regular basis is an unrepresentative senate where "minority rule" prevails and undermines what a majority of the country may want. With two senators elected per state, regardless of population, California with more than 35 million people has the same number of senators as Wyoming with just half a million residents. This constitutional arrangement greatly favours low population states, many of which tend to be conservative, producing what one political analyst has called "a weighted vote for small-town whites in pickup trucks with gun racks."
Sunday, July 5, 2009
If It Breaths Tax It
Clearly, it’s understandable that a such a trifling matter as new U.S. protectionist trade legislation against China passing the House couldn’t even make the pages of our major newspapers during a time when celebrity funeral chasing has become the event de jour for our national media. Our ever reliable Wall Street Journal however heretically printed,
China's central government reiterated its opposition to carbon tariff policies and said they could provoke a trade war, ratcheting up the rhetoric as lawmakers in the U.S. consider legislation to reduce greenhouse gases.
But last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that included such tariffs in order to level the playing field between U.S. industry and foreign competitors. China's export-reliant economy is extremely vulnerable to any moves such as a carbon tax that could raise the costs of its exports. WSJ 7/03/09
The specter of exploiting ‘climate change’ to protect domestic industry looms ominously over any world economic recovery. It’s frequently appeared to me that the greatest potential for evil occurs when there’s too much consensus on any given issue. Wherever there's mass consensus, there’s always someone sufficiently keen and malevolent enough lurking to exploit it. Peace is everyone disagreeing. (Can't get enough people moving together in one direction to do any real harm). The next Great Depression might easily be the result of the legislatures in economically stagnant democratic countries agreeing that punitive tariffs on developing countries are necessary to ‘Save the Planet’. Clearly no sacrifice is too great when the future well-being of every cuddly, slimy, scaly, buzzing, photosynthesizing, growling, chirping, fornicating thing on earth is at stake. Make no mistake, a deadly cocktail comprised of record deficits, increased intrusion by government into the private sector and trade protectionism is exactly what triggered the greatest economic collapse of modern times and the consequent world war that followed*. And yes, friends, recyclers, countrymen, it could happen again.
Ronald Reagan famously said, ‘Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.’ He should have added, ‘If it moves or breaths, tax it’, exhalation being a major contributor of CO2.
*One's compelled to ask oneself could they really be this stupid? Well, enlighted people paid thousands for tulip bulbs and bought condominiums with no money down on adjustable rate mortgages that hadn't been built yet with no intention of living in them and some folks walk around naked so they don't have to wash their clothes so often to cut down on the use of chemical cleaners that they use in their washing machines. Wanna really reduce your carbon footprint? Kill yourself. Maybe under national health care we'll finally get our free, organic, prescription, pain-free suicide medication. In Oregon, there's still a co-pay.
M.D.T
China's central government reiterated its opposition to carbon tariff policies and said they could provoke a trade war, ratcheting up the rhetoric as lawmakers in the U.S. consider legislation to reduce greenhouse gases.
But last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that included such tariffs in order to level the playing field between U.S. industry and foreign competitors. China's export-reliant economy is extremely vulnerable to any moves such as a carbon tax that could raise the costs of its exports. WSJ 7/03/09
The specter of exploiting ‘climate change’ to protect domestic industry looms ominously over any world economic recovery. It’s frequently appeared to me that the greatest potential for evil occurs when there’s too much consensus on any given issue. Wherever there's mass consensus, there’s always someone sufficiently keen and malevolent enough lurking to exploit it. Peace is everyone disagreeing. (Can't get enough people moving together in one direction to do any real harm). The next Great Depression might easily be the result of the legislatures in economically stagnant democratic countries agreeing that punitive tariffs on developing countries are necessary to ‘Save the Planet’. Clearly no sacrifice is too great when the future well-being of every cuddly, slimy, scaly, buzzing, photosynthesizing, growling, chirping, fornicating thing on earth is at stake. Make no mistake, a deadly cocktail comprised of record deficits, increased intrusion by government into the private sector and trade protectionism is exactly what triggered the greatest economic collapse of modern times and the consequent world war that followed*. And yes, friends, recyclers, countrymen, it could happen again.
Ronald Reagan famously said, ‘Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.’ He should have added, ‘If it moves or breaths, tax it’, exhalation being a major contributor of CO2.
*One's compelled to ask oneself could they really be this stupid? Well, enlighted people paid thousands for tulip bulbs and bought condominiums with no money down on adjustable rate mortgages that hadn't been built yet with no intention of living in them and some folks walk around naked so they don't have to wash their clothes so often to cut down on the use of chemical cleaners that they use in their washing machines. Wanna really reduce your carbon footprint? Kill yourself. Maybe under national health care we'll finally get our free, organic, prescription, pain-free suicide medication. In Oregon, there's still a co-pay.
M.D.T
Sunday, June 21, 2009
A New Panegyric for Revolution
The most remarkable thing about Revolutionaries is how they so hate Revolution. Yes, they are the ultimate NIMBYs -- once they got theirs, nobody else is entitled. According to all Revolutionaries, Revolution (read: their Revolution) is wonderful, it represents the will of the people, sets up a much needed Thugocracy, whether it be Marxist or Religious in character and always ends up replacing one evil King with another evil King or, in the case of Iran, a counsel of bearded evil Kings. Revolutions are supposed to be one-way - my revolution is the Last Revolution. Hitler and Hess broadcast the same notion: "woe to those who would revolt against the revolution." (Yes, they really did say that). Well, the only way to end revolution is to allow the ultimate revolutionary floodgates to be opened - and to give people a Republic, a Constitutional Libertarian based government and the freedom to change leadership. In reviewing the struggle of man to be free, one has to work back, in amazement, over the past 2500 years of Western Accomplishment - initiated in Greece, continued by Rome and preserved for all of us in institutions modeled on these ancient principles by our founding fathers. Yes, our country is founded on Roman principles of Comitia Curiata, Senate, original division of powers, limited terms of office, independence of action - checks and counter-balances. The infectious pollen of freedom was first born by the flower of Greece, continued into the construction of the Republic after the overthrown of the Tarquin kings of Rome - blood upon blood spilled from the veins of men desiring freedom. The best way to preserve a revolution is to allow people to speak through the ballot box while ensuring fundamental freedoms that no majority or minority can take away -- even through the ballot box. So, after the sacrifices of life and fortune of the courageous many who have spoken for freedom over the millenia -- what do we have today? Obama is afraid to speak up and be accused of "meddling" in Iranian affairs. Diane Feinstein says that "we don't want our fingerprints on what is happening in Iran" and we have to watch what we say. If the people who founded this country and sailed to America in leaky boats 400 years ago to start this country had this much courage, they would have never have left the harbor.
Doug Foley
Doug Foley
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Apothegm
If well behaved women seldom make history, what about Presidents? - Free Tibet - Free Iran
M.D.T.
M.D.T.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Scratching the Surface
So why can’t I go out in the marketplace and get a competitive bid to take care of my flabby white ass in the event I get cancer and only cancer? Or how about only for heart attack or stroke? Or how about only problems stemming from diabetes? Why can’t I take a look at my own family history, then get a competitive bid on just the type and amount of coverage which I think necessary? Where’s the ala carte menu? I’ll tell you why. Because our beneficent government thinks most of us are too damn stupid to make those decisions for ourselves and they don’t allow insurance companies to sell such policies. Just like most of us are too damn stupid to save for our own retirement, and too damn stupid to buckle our seat belt, etc. etc,
OK. I admit some Americans are too damn stupid to not wear a life jacket in a boat in a maelstrom, but why does that mean that those of us that aren’t that damn stupid have to be subject to the same rules as they? Well maybe it’s because the government thinks, perhaps accurately, that some of us think we’re smarter than we are. In a word, we’re not smart enough to tell if we’re smart. Good point. But just who in gad-jeezus gave the government the monopoly on smarts anyway? What makes them smart enough to determine if they’re smart enough to determine if we’re smart enough to determine if we need to wear bike helmets?
Those who believe that government is a force for good also have to believe that those who occupy its decision making positions, are smarter than the rest of us and that it’s possible to elect such people.* That’s why it’s impossible to be a statist/liberal without being an elitist. You have to believe that those smarter and most virtuous should make decisions for everyone else. When a liberal votes for someone, they’re essentially voting for someone to take care of them. No practical experience necessary, just a good heart, a good mind, and a belief in government as a force for good? (Remind you of anyone?)
But if our government doesn’t think we have the head-horse-power to make most practical decisions for our own well-being, how can they believe in a free society? If the only decisions we are allowed to make for ourselves are those that won’t potentially hurt us, are we in any real sense of the term, free people? And if we’re not allowed to make the most important decisions in our lives, what happens over time to our drive to succeed and to accomplish more with our lives, our will to take care of and defend ourselves, our sense of self-reliance and self-worth, even our creativity? Does the word maturity mean anything in a society where these goals and qualities aren't held in high esteem?
Clearly, those who believe that a uniform panoply of laws, regulations and disincentives must be imposed to protect each and every individual from their own bad choices can’t simultaneously, in any real sense, believe in a free society. If political freedom isn’t the ability to make meaningful decisions about one’s own life and future, what is it? It is a testament to the left’s elitist belief in their own goodness and wisdom that they can’t bear to allow any of us to hurt ourselves. But where's the line between a society that controls all potentially hazardous human activity and a totalitarian society? Strange, how quelled within seemingly innocuous terminology like ‘public safety’, lurks the potentially quintessential evil of tyranny. One needn’t scratch the surface of liberalism too deep to find totalitarianism. Failed controls bequeaths more control. A government strong enough to give you all you need is a government strong enough to take away all you have; but to gain that much power, it first has to cajole you into giving up your freedom. And in a democracy, paradoxically, giving up one’s freedom, is a choice.
*I’ve asked a score of liberals this question and never got a nay when asked for instance, ‘Do you think that if we got the right people in office we could fix health care?’
M.D.T.
OK. I admit some Americans are too damn stupid to not wear a life jacket in a boat in a maelstrom, but why does that mean that those of us that aren’t that damn stupid have to be subject to the same rules as they? Well maybe it’s because the government thinks, perhaps accurately, that some of us think we’re smarter than we are. In a word, we’re not smart enough to tell if we’re smart. Good point. But just who in gad-jeezus gave the government the monopoly on smarts anyway? What makes them smart enough to determine if they’re smart enough to determine if we’re smart enough to determine if we need to wear bike helmets?
Those who believe that government is a force for good also have to believe that those who occupy its decision making positions, are smarter than the rest of us and that it’s possible to elect such people.* That’s why it’s impossible to be a statist/liberal without being an elitist. You have to believe that those smarter and most virtuous should make decisions for everyone else. When a liberal votes for someone, they’re essentially voting for someone to take care of them. No practical experience necessary, just a good heart, a good mind, and a belief in government as a force for good? (Remind you of anyone?)
But if our government doesn’t think we have the head-horse-power to make most practical decisions for our own well-being, how can they believe in a free society? If the only decisions we are allowed to make for ourselves are those that won’t potentially hurt us, are we in any real sense of the term, free people? And if we’re not allowed to make the most important decisions in our lives, what happens over time to our drive to succeed and to accomplish more with our lives, our will to take care of and defend ourselves, our sense of self-reliance and self-worth, even our creativity? Does the word maturity mean anything in a society where these goals and qualities aren't held in high esteem?
Clearly, those who believe that a uniform panoply of laws, regulations and disincentives must be imposed to protect each and every individual from their own bad choices can’t simultaneously, in any real sense, believe in a free society. If political freedom isn’t the ability to make meaningful decisions about one’s own life and future, what is it? It is a testament to the left’s elitist belief in their own goodness and wisdom that they can’t bear to allow any of us to hurt ourselves. But where's the line between a society that controls all potentially hazardous human activity and a totalitarian society? Strange, how quelled within seemingly innocuous terminology like ‘public safety’, lurks the potentially quintessential evil of tyranny. One needn’t scratch the surface of liberalism too deep to find totalitarianism. Failed controls bequeaths more control. A government strong enough to give you all you need is a government strong enough to take away all you have; but to gain that much power, it first has to cajole you into giving up your freedom. And in a democracy, paradoxically, giving up one’s freedom, is a choice.
*I’ve asked a score of liberals this question and never got a nay when asked for instance, ‘Do you think that if we got the right people in office we could fix health care?’
M.D.T.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Let's Buy China
Wouldn’t it only seem reasonable that if our government is going to enter into the usual realm of private business, e.g. autos, banking, health care, that they be compensated to some degree, in the same manner as those who, dare I say, swim in those deeper waters? In conformance with our renewed spirit to control executive compensation and tie executive pay to performance, I propose that we require all of our federal legislators that believe so strongly in preserving our domestic union auto industry be required to take 10% of their annual remuneration in GM and Chrysler stock for the next 10 years. After all, if it’s a good deal for the taxpayer it should be a good deal for them, don’t you think? And why shouldn’t they financially benefit from their financial acumen in discerning such an undervalued asset? Why not a single private capital source was prescient enough to put up a dime during their descent into bankruptcy? Those fools living outside the beltway just don’t know excellent value when they see it!
Why, those brain-dead-execs can’t even see the proverbial King Solomon's gold mine just screaming to be exhumed from the green energy revolution. Big oil, big coal and their like should have been investing billions in wind power, bio-fuels and solar, right? If they’re too stupid to see such salient opportunities right in front of their faces, what’s wrong with rewarding our more sagacious market maven legislators with a share of profits? Let’s make them take 20% of their annual compensation in after tax and subsidy profits of our new private/public partnership energy companies. Let them pile up the big green for being green!
Why stop there? If we can save money and still provide quality health care by having the government run it, let’s pay them another 20% of every dollar they save us on health care. And certainly we would be remiss if we didn’t reward our savant salons with additional compensation for the improvements yet to be realized in public education. Let’s give them another 20% of their take-home in bonuses for increasing standardized test and SAT scores and decreasing the drop-out rate. What a great deal for them and for the taxpayer! It’s a total win-win. I'm confident that if we dig a little deeper we can find, without too much sweat, a way to base the total compensation of our entire federal and state legislatures on performance. Who’d mind paying our senators and congressmen seven figures plus a year if it was based upon real, measurable savings and profits? But wait a minute. What do we do when our senators and congressman run into their own executive compensation limits? We couldn't pay them all that they've earned. No worry. They can easily amend the law, at least for themselves, by adding some obscure line-item to a late night anti-poverty bill.
( Unfortunately, if we actually paid lawmakers based upon a percentage of profits we would fall into violation of the federal minimum wage laws so I guess we’d be obligated to pay them at least $6.55/hr no matter what. But would anyone besides me be truly surprised if that’s all they ended up making? Perhaps that’s all they’re really worth? )
Saints be damned! Why not have President Obama appoint George Soros and Warren Buffet to implement measurable pay for performance standards unilaterally for all state and federal employees as our new Public Employee Compensation Czars. Can anyone imagine how much money could be saved if government operated at a profit? Can anyone imagine a government that didn't need more money? What if public institutions were actually run as efficiently as the private sector? Hell, we could start buying up hundreds of Chinese companies with our profits instead of them buying ours. Shazam, no trade deficit! At the very least, 'we the people' could buy the entire depraved U.S. pharmaceutical industry and our newly liberated, financially adept government entrepreneurs could show those idiots how to make money while lowering drugs prices. And then we could buy the depraved tobacco industry and then the depraved auto... woops, already bought that! Maybe there might be enough cash left over to buy Starbucks and lower the price of my favorite mocha! Why not just let them run everything! With Uncle controlling our auto, energy, retirement, banking, health care, mortgage industries, education etc., we'll finally be able to just quit worrying, 'git ourselves one of dem der new green guberment jobs', drink the people's lattes, relax and play with our iPhones*. Why take any chances? Freedom is choosing your ringtone......
* Isn't that cute the way Apple uses the lower case 'i'. Might this possibly suggest some sort of subconscious mass sublimination of the the big 'I' individual ego. Suppose it's better than a 'wePhone'. Paranoid me.
M.D.T.
Why, those brain-dead-execs can’t even see the proverbial King Solomon's gold mine just screaming to be exhumed from the green energy revolution. Big oil, big coal and their like should have been investing billions in wind power, bio-fuels and solar, right? If they’re too stupid to see such salient opportunities right in front of their faces, what’s wrong with rewarding our more sagacious market maven legislators with a share of profits? Let’s make them take 20% of their annual compensation in after tax and subsidy profits of our new private/public partnership energy companies. Let them pile up the big green for being green!
Why stop there? If we can save money and still provide quality health care by having the government run it, let’s pay them another 20% of every dollar they save us on health care. And certainly we would be remiss if we didn’t reward our savant salons with additional compensation for the improvements yet to be realized in public education. Let’s give them another 20% of their take-home in bonuses for increasing standardized test and SAT scores and decreasing the drop-out rate. What a great deal for them and for the taxpayer! It’s a total win-win. I'm confident that if we dig a little deeper we can find, without too much sweat, a way to base the total compensation of our entire federal and state legislatures on performance. Who’d mind paying our senators and congressmen seven figures plus a year if it was based upon real, measurable savings and profits? But wait a minute. What do we do when our senators and congressman run into their own executive compensation limits? We couldn't pay them all that they've earned. No worry. They can easily amend the law, at least for themselves, by adding some obscure line-item to a late night anti-poverty bill.
( Unfortunately, if we actually paid lawmakers based upon a percentage of profits we would fall into violation of the federal minimum wage laws so I guess we’d be obligated to pay them at least $6.55/hr no matter what. But would anyone besides me be truly surprised if that’s all they ended up making? Perhaps that’s all they’re really worth? )
Saints be damned! Why not have President Obama appoint George Soros and Warren Buffet to implement measurable pay for performance standards unilaterally for all state and federal employees as our new Public Employee Compensation Czars. Can anyone imagine how much money could be saved if government operated at a profit? Can anyone imagine a government that didn't need more money? What if public institutions were actually run as efficiently as the private sector? Hell, we could start buying up hundreds of Chinese companies with our profits instead of them buying ours. Shazam, no trade deficit! At the very least, 'we the people' could buy the entire depraved U.S. pharmaceutical industry and our newly liberated, financially adept government entrepreneurs could show those idiots how to make money while lowering drugs prices. And then we could buy the depraved tobacco industry and then the depraved auto... woops, already bought that! Maybe there might be enough cash left over to buy Starbucks and lower the price of my favorite mocha! Why not just let them run everything! With Uncle controlling our auto, energy, retirement, banking, health care, mortgage industries, education etc., we'll finally be able to just quit worrying, 'git ourselves one of dem der new green guberment jobs', drink the people's lattes, relax and play with our iPhones*. Why take any chances? Freedom is choosing your ringtone......
* Isn't that cute the way Apple uses the lower case 'i'. Might this possibly suggest some sort of subconscious mass sublimination of the the big 'I' individual ego. Suppose it's better than a 'wePhone'. Paranoid me.
M.D.T.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Mark & Milton Fix Health Care
If Americans weren't averse to creating a two-tier health care system, this national uninsured crisis could be solved in a snap. We don’t change the whole damn system ( at least not yet ) to insure that everyone lives in a nice house, has a nice car, can afford to shop at Sacks, or eat at Ruth's Chris. Why do it for health care? Does everyone deserve to go to the Mayo Clinic? Does everyone need an MRI if their knee hurts? My nose has always been too big. Federally funded Viagra, anyone? If we just created a voucher for poor or selectively qualified uninsured people to go and purchase whatever health care plan they wished and we deregulated health care insurance* so insurance companies could create in their coverages what the market dictated, presto – crisis la morte . The real free society-threatening problem is that those ‘universal advocates’ can’t live with well-to-do people having better health care than less-to-do people. The central issue isn’t whether the unfortunate have a decent, basic health care package, but whether it covers birth control pills, abortion, cell-phone elbow and sex change operations; it‘s not whether they have a roof over their head but whether they have a respectable condo near the public transit line; it’s not whether they get enough food, it’s whether the food stamps are good for t-bone steak and the delivery system doesn’t embarrass them ( we make them look like credit cards now ); it’s not whether everyone gets an adequate education, it’s whether the not-so-quick are interred with the smart kids so they don’t develop low self esteem. But I digress. If we gave every poor person a voucher** for $3000/yr to buy whatever health care they could buy it would cost a fraction of what a national health care system would cost and, not only that, the price of health care for everyone would come down as it would create an honest to God new market necessitating insurance companies to compete for those new customers.
The bitter irony is that the same Cadillac benefits that our benign dictocrats have added to state minimum insurance package requirements which has relentlessly driven up the cost of health insurance will be the same ones that will be rationed or cut when national health care is implemented. It’s been all too easy for the guv to mandate what’s covered in private carriers' packages when they didn’t have to pay. When it's on the taxpayers dime Americans might be surprised what Big Brother deems a necessary test or procedure for poor, old Aunt Tillie.
There are few ways the world has discovered to lower costs. The only sure-fire ways I know are price controls/rationing and free market competition/ increased productivity. If you don’t understand why prices for health care would plummet if fee for service were the only option, go back and retake ‘Real World 101’ at your local community college. In a free market every individual does their own cost benefit analysis before purchasing anything. What doesn’t work is ferreted out because over time no one is willing to pay for it with their own money. And what does get ferreted out will have private doctors and institutions competing for that business. Not to mention that when uncle is deciding what gets covered and what doesn’t, it inevitably becomes politicized. He/she that makes the most noise gets coverage; like breast cancer research getting tons more funding even though diabetes affects and kills multitudes more people. Spending decisions become dictated by the ‘cause de jour’; in other words what makes the politicians look good. Taking health politicization to its’ illogical extremes, the end result will be a society with the most caring, concerned, selfless and sadly beloved politicians the world has ever seen and a populace waiting agonizingly in line for hip surgeries and bypasses. ( So what did Obama actually mean when he said this week, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet?’ I’m afraid to guess! )
All I can say is, if the fundamental requirement for dealing with all human ills is that the solution must be applied equally and unilaterally, we’re doomed before we start because need is endless. The good becomes the enemy of the perfect. Sort of like ‘save everybody or save nobody’. Well, my teacher, Professor Hardnoks, told me in ‘Real World 101’ that if the boat’s sinking, it’s women and children first; not let’s tinker and talk till we figure out how to keep everyone from drowning.
*Deregulation would require competitive bidding across state lines. What idiot(s) decided limiting access by state was a good idea? Eee Gad!
** One would hope that even the left and right could agree that if people get the best health care available for nothing that would leave no incentive to work hard in life and contribute to an upgrade in benefits. Where are Milton Friedman’s public policy heirs? If we ever needed them, we need them now.
M.D.T.
The bitter irony is that the same Cadillac benefits that our benign dictocrats have added to state minimum insurance package requirements which has relentlessly driven up the cost of health insurance will be the same ones that will be rationed or cut when national health care is implemented. It’s been all too easy for the guv to mandate what’s covered in private carriers' packages when they didn’t have to pay. When it's on the taxpayers dime Americans might be surprised what Big Brother deems a necessary test or procedure for poor, old Aunt Tillie.
There are few ways the world has discovered to lower costs. The only sure-fire ways I know are price controls/rationing and free market competition/ increased productivity. If you don’t understand why prices for health care would plummet if fee for service were the only option, go back and retake ‘Real World 101’ at your local community college. In a free market every individual does their own cost benefit analysis before purchasing anything. What doesn’t work is ferreted out because over time no one is willing to pay for it with their own money. And what does get ferreted out will have private doctors and institutions competing for that business. Not to mention that when uncle is deciding what gets covered and what doesn’t, it inevitably becomes politicized. He/she that makes the most noise gets coverage; like breast cancer research getting tons more funding even though diabetes affects and kills multitudes more people. Spending decisions become dictated by the ‘cause de jour’; in other words what makes the politicians look good. Taking health politicization to its’ illogical extremes, the end result will be a society with the most caring, concerned, selfless and sadly beloved politicians the world has ever seen and a populace waiting agonizingly in line for hip surgeries and bypasses. ( So what did Obama actually mean when he said this week, ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet?’ I’m afraid to guess! )
All I can say is, if the fundamental requirement for dealing with all human ills is that the solution must be applied equally and unilaterally, we’re doomed before we start because need is endless. The good becomes the enemy of the perfect. Sort of like ‘save everybody or save nobody’. Well, my teacher, Professor Hardnoks, told me in ‘Real World 101’ that if the boat’s sinking, it’s women and children first; not let’s tinker and talk till we figure out how to keep everyone from drowning.
*Deregulation would require competitive bidding across state lines. What idiot(s) decided limiting access by state was a good idea? Eee Gad!
** One would hope that even the left and right could agree that if people get the best health care available for nothing that would leave no incentive to work hard in life and contribute to an upgrade in benefits. Where are Milton Friedman’s public policy heirs? If we ever needed them, we need them now.
M.D.T.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Carry That Weight
One of the central problems of having a professional political class is that we have life-long public servants voting on and controlling the compensation of all the other life-long public employees; in effect people who produce no tax revenue voting on how much those that do need to pay to adequately compensate themselves.* Is it any wonder they overlook their collective failings in reforming our troubled institutions? Is it any wonder that they believe in higher taxes? When you have a group of people whose individual financial futures depends on increasing every person in their group's compensation, how can the group evolve into anything but a mutual admiration society. After all, if Susie's chance of getting a raise is just as likely if Joe does a great job as if she does, why not commend Joe's performance? Plus, by commending Joe instead of yourself ( you're Susie ), you have the added benefit of appearing selfless and caring. 'You do such a great job! No you do such a great job! No you ....' In the twisted psychology of the collective, 'I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. Koo Koo Kachoo'. ( But how does that make us walruses? Although they do 'Carry that Weight.' )
It took me years to figure out why school teachers never speak ill of one another's abilities; at least to outside parties. With them, everybody's always doing a great job. After all, the better 'we' do, the easier it is for me to justify 'my' raise this year. And what good is it to criticize substandard performance if you can't get rid of them anyway?** Why take the risk of unnecessarily creating an enemy? Just where are those bad teachers flunking half their classes? Obviously, in somebody else's school. Not just to pick on teachers, the same would hold true for any and all union dominated professions. Isn't it entirely possible, if not likely, that the impossibility of truly standing out and being rewarded individually within public service psychologically discourages those with more intelligence and ambition, aka 'the best and the brightest', from entering those fields? What's sadder is that when mediocrity surrounds itself with mediocrity - the incompetent don't know they're incompetent.
When almost everybody's doing a great job, almost nobody's doing a great job.
*It makes no sense to say people pay taxes when their compensation, benefits and retirement packages far exceeds any realistic return on their withholdings. Similarly it makes no sense to say a federal employee pays federal taxes as the withholdings are simply returned to the payer. I suppose it could be argued that higher earners who work for state government pay some federal taxes.
** In the private sector the incentive is just the opposite. A peer's underperformance lessens the probability that a higher performer will get a raise. The more money the business makes the more likely the top producers will do well.
M.D.T.
It took me years to figure out why school teachers never speak ill of one another's abilities; at least to outside parties. With them, everybody's always doing a great job. After all, the better 'we' do, the easier it is for me to justify 'my' raise this year. And what good is it to criticize substandard performance if you can't get rid of them anyway?** Why take the risk of unnecessarily creating an enemy? Just where are those bad teachers flunking half their classes? Obviously, in somebody else's school. Not just to pick on teachers, the same would hold true for any and all union dominated professions. Isn't it entirely possible, if not likely, that the impossibility of truly standing out and being rewarded individually within public service psychologically discourages those with more intelligence and ambition, aka 'the best and the brightest', from entering those fields? What's sadder is that when mediocrity surrounds itself with mediocrity - the incompetent don't know they're incompetent.
When almost everybody's doing a great job, almost nobody's doing a great job.
*It makes no sense to say people pay taxes when their compensation, benefits and retirement packages far exceeds any realistic return on their withholdings. Similarly it makes no sense to say a federal employee pays federal taxes as the withholdings are simply returned to the payer. I suppose it could be argued that higher earners who work for state government pay some federal taxes.
** In the private sector the incentive is just the opposite. A peer's underperformance lessens the probability that a higher performer will get a raise. The more money the business makes the more likely the top producers will do well.
M.D.T.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Pay Your Tithing
So if President Obama made a public announcement tomorrow that he had a plan to end world hunger within his term would you believe him? How about if he proposed to have a plan to end war? Or a plan to eradicate world poverty? Would you believe that? So why do the majority of Americans believe that this administration can provide quality, accessible, affordable health care to everyone in America? Where does such faith in our government spring from? What evidence do we have for the success of such an undertaking from real life experience? Pray tell. History would indicate you might make it affordable at the expense of quality or preserve quality but not lower costs without limiting access -but not both. Maybe some things just aren’t fixable. Is capitalism a failure because not everyone in the country has free 21st century health care? Why isn’t the measure of our success that fewer die of cancer now than at any other time in human history? That life expectancy continues to rise? That miraculous new treatments and drugs appear every year?
The Obama administration, like the Clinton administration before it, believes itself to be able to succeed in delivering the big health enchilada where all else have failed. What’s even more bedazzling is that the voters saw fit to endorse this ‘reform’ without even having heard the plan. That’s what I call the ‘Audacity of Hope’! Even now, as this epic piece of legislation looms forbiddingly on our horizon, a seemingly unarrestable act of nature, there are no details whatsoever about how universal health care can be affordably provided; just some vague rumblings about a parallel public system to compete with the private. ( Maybe they could publish this new plan on the internet and let us read it before they vote on it like they did with the trillion dollar plus stimulus bill? ) They have endeavored to lead us to believe that all that is necessary to pay for this mother of all leviathans is to raise taxes on the top 3% of wage earners, cut compensation to a bunch of rich doctors and break the backs of those evil, rich drug companies, insurers and HMOs. But now the train’s about to leave the station they’re suddenly about $600,000,000,000 short of what they had hoped by their own estimates. And just try to remember the last time that the government’s own estimates didn’t end up at half or less off actual cost. This thing could easily cost double that. You think health care's expensive now, just wait til it's free! It’s appears to be an article of faith with the left that there’s always unlimited money out there. ‘It’s such a rich country…this. In such a rich country … that.'
But maybe it just can’t be done. Maybe it's impossible to provide unlimited, 21st century universal health care to all Americans. Maybe the doctors will choose not to treat the patients in the new public system because the remuneration is too low. Maybe the government’s driving down costs with ultimately a one payer solution will drive all the talent out of the sector, causing doctor shortages making your low cost health care not even worth the lower price you pay for it. Maybe government plans to pay for a secure retirement, quality health care, universal pre-school through college education and a greener environment for every person in the country will bankrupt us. Maybe private investment in new medicines and technologies will plummet when the government’s controlling prices and life expectancy will go down instead of up. Maybe the plan will result in rationing and more suffering as millions wait to be treated. Maybe Kennedy was baying at the moon when he said, "Many look at the world and say why, but I look at the world and say why not".
But I say, why are we all required to take part in this dreamy, idealistic and utopian faith by the would be reformers of this world? This latest but always predictable, historical incarnation of the ‘vanguard of the proletariat’? Why can’t we just opt out of this mega-scheme? Why can’t we just pick up our chips, cash in and go home? But no, President Obama and his ilk insist that everyone has to play but not everyone has to pay. Yep. Kennedy said ‘why not’. Clinton was the ‘man from hope’, Obama dares us to have the ‘courage to change’. Excuse me but I thought we had the freedom to worship in the church of our choice in this county? The tithing to bring heaven to earth in this latest mandate from the Church of Big Government is just too damn high for this infidel and, more than likely, for the rest of you as well.
M.D.T.
The Obama administration, like the Clinton administration before it, believes itself to be able to succeed in delivering the big health enchilada where all else have failed. What’s even more bedazzling is that the voters saw fit to endorse this ‘reform’ without even having heard the plan. That’s what I call the ‘Audacity of Hope’! Even now, as this epic piece of legislation looms forbiddingly on our horizon, a seemingly unarrestable act of nature, there are no details whatsoever about how universal health care can be affordably provided; just some vague rumblings about a parallel public system to compete with the private. ( Maybe they could publish this new plan on the internet and let us read it before they vote on it like they did with the trillion dollar plus stimulus bill? ) They have endeavored to lead us to believe that all that is necessary to pay for this mother of all leviathans is to raise taxes on the top 3% of wage earners, cut compensation to a bunch of rich doctors and break the backs of those evil, rich drug companies, insurers and HMOs. But now the train’s about to leave the station they’re suddenly about $600,000,000,000 short of what they had hoped by their own estimates. And just try to remember the last time that the government’s own estimates didn’t end up at half or less off actual cost. This thing could easily cost double that. You think health care's expensive now, just wait til it's free! It’s appears to be an article of faith with the left that there’s always unlimited money out there. ‘It’s such a rich country…this. In such a rich country … that.'
But maybe it just can’t be done. Maybe it's impossible to provide unlimited, 21st century universal health care to all Americans. Maybe the doctors will choose not to treat the patients in the new public system because the remuneration is too low. Maybe the government’s driving down costs with ultimately a one payer solution will drive all the talent out of the sector, causing doctor shortages making your low cost health care not even worth the lower price you pay for it. Maybe government plans to pay for a secure retirement, quality health care, universal pre-school through college education and a greener environment for every person in the country will bankrupt us. Maybe private investment in new medicines and technologies will plummet when the government’s controlling prices and life expectancy will go down instead of up. Maybe the plan will result in rationing and more suffering as millions wait to be treated. Maybe Kennedy was baying at the moon when he said, "Many look at the world and say why, but I look at the world and say why not".
But I say, why are we all required to take part in this dreamy, idealistic and utopian faith by the would be reformers of this world? This latest but always predictable, historical incarnation of the ‘vanguard of the proletariat’? Why can’t we just opt out of this mega-scheme? Why can’t we just pick up our chips, cash in and go home? But no, President Obama and his ilk insist that everyone has to play but not everyone has to pay. Yep. Kennedy said ‘why not’. Clinton was the ‘man from hope’, Obama dares us to have the ‘courage to change’. Excuse me but I thought we had the freedom to worship in the church of our choice in this county? The tithing to bring heaven to earth in this latest mandate from the Church of Big Government is just too damn high for this infidel and, more than likely, for the rest of you as well.
M.D.T.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
True Believer
Much of the future of western democratic capitalism depends on resolving the question of whether average and lower income people would rather see CEOs/rich people making less even if it meant that they themselves would make less. Is it an issue of ‘fairness’, or a misguided belief that the excesses paid to the rich can be redistributed to the rest of society with no negative economic consequences? All objective historical evidence supports the politically incorrect likelihood that within any given country, the more rich people there are and the more they make, the more middle class people there are and the fewer poor there are? Who would argue that in countries where there are very few or no rich people there inevitably follows wider spread poverty and little or no middle class. So why wouldn’t the opposite be true?
But then again, a large percentage of Americans also believe that it is inherently wrong for the U.S. to consume 25% of the world’s resources. Do these same people by in large believe that if we, (the rich USA), consumed less that those in underdeveloped nations would have more - consume more? It might be just the opposite would be true; that if the rich consume less, the rest of the world’s economy produces less, exports less and consumes less as well. Is it even possible to limit, control or regulate consumption of any class without increasing deprivation at all levels?
Perhaps the unconscious goal of liberalism's class warfare really is for everyone, including the poor, to make do with less - to spread misery equally. Would the statist choose to eliminate what they perceive as exploitation even if it meant that the majority would suffer more? Is it better for everyone to make do in this world with less than live in a world where the majority is subjected to a minority egregiously brandishing their wealth. Could all of liberalism perhaps be founded upon simple resentment? Could only a faultily organized world excessively reward materially primarily those of lesser spiritual development? Or is moral superiority itself a psychological substitution for one’s inability to succeed materially? Can any rich person truly be a ‘good’ person?
Obama in a late campaign interview was asked whether he would raise capital gains taxes knowing that in every historical instance it has resulted in less revenue for the government? He answered that he would because of the issue of fairness. Better less economic growth than unequal growth. My definition of a leftist ‘true believer’ is one that would see us all of us do worse rather than facilitate a few doing significantly better. Obama is a true believer, and the failure of the American people to understand the economic significance of that bodes ill for all of us, rich and poor alike, for the unforeseeable future.
'Equality, I spoke the word, as if a wedding vow. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. Bob Dylan
But then again, a large percentage of Americans also believe that it is inherently wrong for the U.S. to consume 25% of the world’s resources. Do these same people by in large believe that if we, (the rich USA), consumed less that those in underdeveloped nations would have more - consume more? It might be just the opposite would be true; that if the rich consume less, the rest of the world’s economy produces less, exports less and consumes less as well. Is it even possible to limit, control or regulate consumption of any class without increasing deprivation at all levels?
Perhaps the unconscious goal of liberalism's class warfare really is for everyone, including the poor, to make do with less - to spread misery equally. Would the statist choose to eliminate what they perceive as exploitation even if it meant that the majority would suffer more? Is it better for everyone to make do in this world with less than live in a world where the majority is subjected to a minority egregiously brandishing their wealth. Could all of liberalism perhaps be founded upon simple resentment? Could only a faultily organized world excessively reward materially primarily those of lesser spiritual development? Or is moral superiority itself a psychological substitution for one’s inability to succeed materially? Can any rich person truly be a ‘good’ person?
Obama in a late campaign interview was asked whether he would raise capital gains taxes knowing that in every historical instance it has resulted in less revenue for the government? He answered that he would because of the issue of fairness. Better less economic growth than unequal growth. My definition of a leftist ‘true believer’ is one that would see us all of us do worse rather than facilitate a few doing significantly better. Obama is a true believer, and the failure of the American people to understand the economic significance of that bodes ill for all of us, rich and poor alike, for the unforeseeable future.
'Equality, I spoke the word, as if a wedding vow. But I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now'. Bob Dylan
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Take the Pain
So, let us check in on the health of the patient. Yes, everyone's health is truly a snapshot - you have a cold today, perhaps a fever - and then you recover tomorrow. It is a truism that in order to stay alive, your body has to fight every illness and win - a single loss, and you're history. It is often said about medicine and the "healing arts" -- "the trick is to amuse the patient while nature does the healing." For untold ages, quacks and witch doctors have been selling their nostrums and chanting their weird mumblings in an effort to impress their patients as well as their snookered, overly eager-to-believe and pay relatives.
So what has changed? As a simple spectator on the presently proffered cures for modern life (the cure just happens to be the disease) -- more cheap and easy money to rescue us from the era of cheap and easy money -- I am reminded of the old Keynesian quip about how it is better to bury money and hire people to dig it up, than simply let the economy work on its own (yes he really did write that). If spending money is good, why is it better that somebody spends my money for me on something that I don't want -- or that money I don't want to borrow -- is borrowed for me that I will be required to pay back? And if saving money is a good thing, why not let me save my own money -- in an amount that I deem prudent for myself? Although we can always whimsically look back at the past and create a mythic golden age in our filtered recollections -- there was a better day and age when credit cards were the exception and not the rule -- revolving credit loans were not prolific and easy – people only borrowed for necessities -- not big screen tvs, computers, atvs (yes, I know these things didn't exist in the way back) -- and debt was something that you only considered for a necessity -- something that you could manage and afford -- and if, in the end you failed -- and whether you were an individual or an institution NO ONE BAILED YOU OUT. Ah, yes, the great golden age of the 1950s -- no, not a perfect world, but a world of higher minority employment than today (yes, check your history books), very few children born out of wedlock, thrift was important and people didn't expect someone else to rescue them when you messed up and you found yourself in a pickle because it was your own damn fault.
At that time, Government as a percentage of GDP was remarkably much lower, and when JFK became president at the conclusion of that golden decade, military spending was close to half of the federal budget -- not because war and guns are cool -- but because government was small and everyone understood that the government was limited by its constitutional functions -- one of which is maintaining and army and navy (yes, the constitution says nothing about a marine corp and an air force -- that is at least why it used to be called the army air force, I suppose). No, I don't want to go back to the fifties -- after all, I would have to be in bed by eight pm and living under parental tyranny -- as opposed to governmental tyranny – (the former I couldn’t fight, the latter I can – although neither it seems could I ever defeat). But I do want to return to those principles.
Yes, I am nostalgic for a better and simpler -- and more understandable world -- where people invested for value, people worked hard and saved - the only lottery was the Irish Sweepstakes -- there were no Indian Casinos, few credit cards, there was far more social responsibility -- and two parent households were the rule with both parents concentrating on raising good kids rather than abrogating their responsibility and unleashing little monsters onto the world. Yes, I would rather Leave it to Beaver, rather than Big Brother.
So, how do we get there (metaphorically)? I can’t answer all of that except for the financial part. I have come to the conclusion that we need to take the pain – at least short term – and that we break the fever. Please don't get me wrong -- I am no fan of populism - and the mob is almost always wrong. But the present opinion of the man in the street - whether he be assembled in a mob or not -- that propping up and, thereby, rewarding bad behavior in the end only creates more bad behavior - is right on. I am all for making people (individuals, business and government) pay for their mistakes. Well, does that make the rest of us suffer too if things get "really bad" (whatever that means) if we don't keep empowering the idiots and institutions - public and private that brought us here? Perhaps. But the best way -- and I maintain -- the only way to heal a market is to let it clear -- all on its own. I am very tired of smart people -- the self-appointed best and the brightest -- who claim they can see beyond the horizon and who are able to tell us the consequences of not doing something they have engineered. These painless society people are the problem. Rather than running on a slogan of "Change," the real truth seeker in the last election should have been holding up another one word sign: "Pain." Yes, I am all for "Pain we can believe in." The only way to get through this is to let inefficiencies die out, run their course and let the truly smart people (including the former smart people who have perhaps become rehabilitated and learned their lesson) step forward and reassemble and reignite that great dynamo called capitalism – a world in which everyone takes care of themselves and suffers for their own mistakes -- and where charity, not a welfare bureaucracy takes care of the rest who cannot effectively participate. That world has existed in the past and it could exist again.
At least that was the perfectly imperfect world of a once-upon a time America.
So, I end this where I began.
Take the Pain.
Doug Foley
So what has changed? As a simple spectator on the presently proffered cures for modern life (the cure just happens to be the disease) -- more cheap and easy money to rescue us from the era of cheap and easy money -- I am reminded of the old Keynesian quip about how it is better to bury money and hire people to dig it up, than simply let the economy work on its own (yes he really did write that). If spending money is good, why is it better that somebody spends my money for me on something that I don't want -- or that money I don't want to borrow -- is borrowed for me that I will be required to pay back? And if saving money is a good thing, why not let me save my own money -- in an amount that I deem prudent for myself? Although we can always whimsically look back at the past and create a mythic golden age in our filtered recollections -- there was a better day and age when credit cards were the exception and not the rule -- revolving credit loans were not prolific and easy – people only borrowed for necessities -- not big screen tvs, computers, atvs (yes, I know these things didn't exist in the way back) -- and debt was something that you only considered for a necessity -- something that you could manage and afford -- and if, in the end you failed -- and whether you were an individual or an institution NO ONE BAILED YOU OUT. Ah, yes, the great golden age of the 1950s -- no, not a perfect world, but a world of higher minority employment than today (yes, check your history books), very few children born out of wedlock, thrift was important and people didn't expect someone else to rescue them when you messed up and you found yourself in a pickle because it was your own damn fault.
At that time, Government as a percentage of GDP was remarkably much lower, and when JFK became president at the conclusion of that golden decade, military spending was close to half of the federal budget -- not because war and guns are cool -- but because government was small and everyone understood that the government was limited by its constitutional functions -- one of which is maintaining and army and navy (yes, the constitution says nothing about a marine corp and an air force -- that is at least why it used to be called the army air force, I suppose). No, I don't want to go back to the fifties -- after all, I would have to be in bed by eight pm and living under parental tyranny -- as opposed to governmental tyranny – (the former I couldn’t fight, the latter I can – although neither it seems could I ever defeat). But I do want to return to those principles.
Yes, I am nostalgic for a better and simpler -- and more understandable world -- where people invested for value, people worked hard and saved - the only lottery was the Irish Sweepstakes -- there were no Indian Casinos, few credit cards, there was far more social responsibility -- and two parent households were the rule with both parents concentrating on raising good kids rather than abrogating their responsibility and unleashing little monsters onto the world. Yes, I would rather Leave it to Beaver, rather than Big Brother.
So, how do we get there (metaphorically)? I can’t answer all of that except for the financial part. I have come to the conclusion that we need to take the pain – at least short term – and that we break the fever. Please don't get me wrong -- I am no fan of populism - and the mob is almost always wrong. But the present opinion of the man in the street - whether he be assembled in a mob or not -- that propping up and, thereby, rewarding bad behavior in the end only creates more bad behavior - is right on. I am all for making people (individuals, business and government) pay for their mistakes. Well, does that make the rest of us suffer too if things get "really bad" (whatever that means) if we don't keep empowering the idiots and institutions - public and private that brought us here? Perhaps. But the best way -- and I maintain -- the only way to heal a market is to let it clear -- all on its own. I am very tired of smart people -- the self-appointed best and the brightest -- who claim they can see beyond the horizon and who are able to tell us the consequences of not doing something they have engineered. These painless society people are the problem. Rather than running on a slogan of "Change," the real truth seeker in the last election should have been holding up another one word sign: "Pain." Yes, I am all for "Pain we can believe in." The only way to get through this is to let inefficiencies die out, run their course and let the truly smart people (including the former smart people who have perhaps become rehabilitated and learned their lesson) step forward and reassemble and reignite that great dynamo called capitalism – a world in which everyone takes care of themselves and suffers for their own mistakes -- and where charity, not a welfare bureaucracy takes care of the rest who cannot effectively participate. That world has existed in the past and it could exist again.
At least that was the perfectly imperfect world of a once-upon a time America.
So, I end this where I began.
Take the Pain.
Doug Foley
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Kiss Me First
So here we are. Possibly going into a 30's style depression. This week's polls show 51% of Americans think so. Unbelievable. Most Americans I think understand that this downturn is to a degree self-fulfilling. That if I spend less, then businesses I patronize take in less; and then they lay off workers; and then workers go on unemployment; and the government extends unemployment benefits with money it has to borrow; and government debt goes up; and the government spends more money that it doesn’t have digging holes and stuff to replace the money that’s not being spent by businesses and individuals; and the government debt goes up; and the world loses faith in the government to repay the loans and quits buying our debt; and then inflation goes up because the government has to print money to pay back the loans because they dare not raise taxes enough to pay them.
What I think most American’s don’t understand is that we either pay for the government's overspending with higher taxes or higher inflation. There is no other way. When uncle prints more money to pay debt then there are more dollars in circulation chasing the same amount of goods. That’s what causes inflation. Someone called inflation ‘the cruelest tax of all’. Maybe they did so because taxes on spending, in the form of higher prices, are paid disproportionately by the little guy. Little guys spend all their money on housing, goods and services; fat cats only a small percentage. Income taxes are paid disproportionately by the fat cat. So wanton government spending and borrowing hurts the little guy more than the fat cat unless the spending is paid for with higher taxes. Does anyone in the asylum believe that this government is going to raise taxes enough to cover the trillion plus annual deficits in this and coming years? If you do, you better put that pitchfork back in the shed and go back and get that G.E.D. you never completed. (And don’t forget to put your tooth under your pillow)
But the real reason inflation is called the cruelest tax is that it’s a tax on the stupid, on the unknowing, on the uneducated; those who don’t even know their paying it. It’s an invisible tax. When the cost of living goes up even 1% per year more than your after-tax wages, in 10 years you’re making only about 90% of where you started, even after all those raises. And it all happens so gradually most don’t even notice. Anyway you cut it, huge unpaid deficits ultimately lead to a lower standard of living for everyone. The future of democracy and the world’s prosperity depends on whether governments realize that there’s a limit to how much they can tax capitalists and investors before they take their ball and go home, either materially or spiritually.
So why do 51% of the American people think we’re going into a depression? Maybe it’s because they viscerally understand what they might not be able to articulate; that we individually and collectively owe and spend more than we can ever repay and whether we choose to raise taxes or print money to pay it, we’re screwed either way. We know it, but our government doesn’t know it. Scary.
What I think most American’s don’t understand is that we either pay for the government's overspending with higher taxes or higher inflation. There is no other way. When uncle prints more money to pay debt then there are more dollars in circulation chasing the same amount of goods. That’s what causes inflation. Someone called inflation ‘the cruelest tax of all’. Maybe they did so because taxes on spending, in the form of higher prices, are paid disproportionately by the little guy. Little guys spend all their money on housing, goods and services; fat cats only a small percentage. Income taxes are paid disproportionately by the fat cat. So wanton government spending and borrowing hurts the little guy more than the fat cat unless the spending is paid for with higher taxes. Does anyone in the asylum believe that this government is going to raise taxes enough to cover the trillion plus annual deficits in this and coming years? If you do, you better put that pitchfork back in the shed and go back and get that G.E.D. you never completed. (And don’t forget to put your tooth under your pillow)
But the real reason inflation is called the cruelest tax is that it’s a tax on the stupid, on the unknowing, on the uneducated; those who don’t even know their paying it. It’s an invisible tax. When the cost of living goes up even 1% per year more than your after-tax wages, in 10 years you’re making only about 90% of where you started, even after all those raises. And it all happens so gradually most don’t even notice. Anyway you cut it, huge unpaid deficits ultimately lead to a lower standard of living for everyone. The future of democracy and the world’s prosperity depends on whether governments realize that there’s a limit to how much they can tax capitalists and investors before they take their ball and go home, either materially or spiritually.
So why do 51% of the American people think we’re going into a depression? Maybe it’s because they viscerally understand what they might not be able to articulate; that we individually and collectively owe and spend more than we can ever repay and whether we choose to raise taxes or print money to pay it, we’re screwed either way. We know it, but our government doesn’t know it. Scary.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
This Time
I see the light! All these years running my business, those 50 and 60 hour weeks for a couple of decades, weren't enough, because my spirit wasn't pure. Unlike that CEO who gave away 60 million to his employees and ex-employees, I sought my own self aggrandizement; my own personal riches. And it was that spirit, the pre-Obama spirit, that 'decades of greed and selfishness' spirit that has held this country back; that has held my business back. Starting tomorrow, I'll no longer make decisions without consulting all my employees and taking a vote. Starting tomorrow, we'll do away with performance based compensation and instead split up all the profits equally. Starting tomorrow I'll show real courage and contrition and ask the government for help providing health care for my employees which we previously funded ourselves. And I won't quit asking until the government provides it affordably and of high quality! And I'll just keep asking and asking for help until we get it because we Americans are not quitters! How could I have been so vainglorious to think I could provide for myself, my family and my employees! Starting tomorrow, I'll consult the local municipal and state governments about how to invest my profits to expand my business with the hopes of forming a private/public partnership. Clearly we private business people are spiritually tainted and defiled by years and years of seeking only short-term gain instead of planning long-term. Actually, we're nothing more than capitalist, gun-toting cowboys; a hopeless historical anachronism. I think I'd better check to make sure that my business even belongs in this new master plan for our economy; this new green economy that this administration has been bequeathed with the wisdom to create. Just what is my carbon footprint? Maybe our time is over. Maybe it would be best thing for everyone if I just liquidated? How was I so blind not to see that for the whole history of our country, up to 'this time', the majority of Amerikind has been pursuing the wrong goals with the wrong spirit and without the requisite moral oversight which, at long last, we finally have - the leadership, the moral compass, the vision to take us to the promised land! Did I hear tonight that we're finally going to cure cancer? What's so deeply puzzling for me, however, is how could we Americans have created the most prosperous, resilient, successful, multiethnically tolerant, pluralist society in the history of the earth all before 'this time', in spite of all our faults.
Is there some sort of ecological confessional where I can go to absolve myself? I failed to recycle some newpapers and cans last month....
Is there some sort of ecological confessional where I can go to absolve myself? I failed to recycle some newpapers and cans last month....
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Brain Science
Someone simply must speak to this unmitigated, doleful tone from our new commander in chief! The message is clear; things suck, they're going to suck for at least the rest of the year, and if you don't vote for my trillion dollar spending bill, things are going to suck so bad you gonna think today's sucking look good! It's mystifying to me how the American people can so passively accept such an oppressive and pessimistic scenario. Since when has the hope, enterprise and the 'we shall overcome' spirit of the American people been so woefully underestimated - let alone by our own President! I'm here to tell you that America can and will rebound and soon if our almighty government will just quit trying to fix everything, doesn't raise or better yet lowers taxes, slows the growth of government spending and keeps their hands, money and laws off of the private sector. This downturn is nothing new. We Americans have had a dozen of them in our history. What's new is how this new bunch of Democrats is choosing to deal with it. This bunch says tax cuts got us into this mess. (Well, if they'd bother to check, they also got us out of the recessions of 1980, 1992 and 2000. And it didn't take years either! ) This bunch thinks the government can spend money more effectively than the private sector. ( Well I'd rather put my faith in Exxon to fill my tank with affordable energy than Uncle Sam thank you very much ) This bunch thinks that you can fix an international monetary crises caused by too much borrowing by borrowing more. ( If I borrow more than I can possibly repay I declare bankruptcy; what does the government do? ) This bunch can't tell the difference between investment and spending. ( Does anyone really think that building new school buildings will raise test scores? )
I may not have the leadership skills to be President of the United States but I know you don't need no P.H.D. in brain science to be certain that telling the America people that things are going to suck for at least a year no matter what they, we, or our government does, can only make national economic failure and the accompanying despair self-fulfilling and as a direct result prolong our eventual national recovery. So where's the 'Man from Hope' when we need him? ( Yes, I'll take Clinton over this guy )
Could it possibly be that those that can lead can usually inspire but those that can inspire can't necessarily lead?
I may not have the leadership skills to be President of the United States but I know you don't need no P.H.D. in brain science to be certain that telling the America people that things are going to suck for at least a year no matter what they, we, or our government does, can only make national economic failure and the accompanying despair self-fulfilling and as a direct result prolong our eventual national recovery. So where's the 'Man from Hope' when we need him? ( Yes, I'll take Clinton over this guy )
Could it possibly be that those that can lead can usually inspire but those that can inspire can't necessarily lead?
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