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....

Hard Truth Rule #1

Wealth trickles down - Financial pain descends in torrents - Take your pick

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?

A Pig By Any Other Name

Is there anyone else besides me out there that is sick to death of hearing all these targeted, wealth transfers to the public sector called 'investments'? It used to be there was a somewhat clear separation in the minds of the citizenry between the private sector, the world of risk, consequences, pain and failure, aka 'the real world', and that safe, inefficient, riskless, namby- pamby, early retirement, do-gooder world of the life-long government job, aka 'the public sector'. Alas, there used to be a time when the vast majority of Americans trusted their own basic life experience at the post office, the planning commission office and the DMV and possessed some certainty that this riskless world where no one gets fired for nothing short of the public sexual harrassment of juveniles, couldn't by its intrinsic nature ever operate as efficiently as the true engine of wealth and prosperity, the private sector. But no. Now we American's stand numbly by as, what was perceived by most as a conservative Bush administration, 'invested' hundreds of billions into public education, farm subsidies, expanding medicaid, an entirely new national security department, etc. only soon to be outdone by the new, more enlightened Obama administration's massive increases in funding into ever greater public 'investments' in health care, head start education, green energy and stem cell research . It's time we did away with this egregious misnomer, 'public investments'. From this moment hence I dub all the myriad of unaccountable public sector 'investments'... hippropriations; the cross between a gargantuan, green-eating water-hog and a third party, fiscal misallocation . It's not an 'investment' unless someone loses their job or their personal money if it doesn't work ... END OF STORY!

'Hope' is that magical, mythical, missing ingredient redefined and revered by Democrats that, if we all hold hands, can turn pork into gold .....

Economic Freedom and Individualism Will Prevail

Leave men free and their natural inequalities will multiply almost geometrically, as in England and America in the nineteenth century under laissez-faire. To check the growth of inequality, liberty must be sacrificed, as in Russia after 1917. Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way. Utopias of equality are biologically doomed, and the best that the amiable philosopher can hope for is an approximiate equality of legal justice and educational opportunity. A society in which all potential ablities are allowed to develop and function will have a survival advantage in the competition of groups.

From "The Lessons of History," Will Durant, 1968.

Blind Blind Blind

This latest bailout of the auto 'Big 3' illustrates in no uncertain manner one of the fundamental differences between the way the those on the left and those who live in the 'real world' think and operate. Only a blind man could fail to see that the terms for the 17 billion $ loan are by magnitudes more generous than private capital or a bankrupcy court would offer. In the real world, companies and individuals have to pay their own way, make products that people actually want to buy, make contractual arrangements that are beneficial to all parties, do what they say they'll do, or else suffer the consequences. Government, now evolved into an instrument of infinite compassion, can never take a hard line with either business or it's citizenry. Government has come to be synonomous with a therapeutic, leftist world view that sees all of creation as not reponsible for their actions, but victims of circumstances beyond their control to a greater or lesser degree. The 'Big 3' couldn't have seen this huge credit contraction coming; people couldn't be expected to turn down no downpayment adjustable rate morgages; too much pressure on Johnny to pass that exam not to expect him to cheat; no one told me that my stock fund could go down 50%; it's McDonald's fault that I'm 50 lbs overweight; ad absurdum....

Conservatives like myself shake our heads if not cower in despair at how the majority of our citizens can't see what is so obvious. Are they blind? Personal responsiblity is one of the cornerstones of a free, prosperous, democratic society. Government, by spending tax dollars they don't have to insulate individuals and business from the consequences of their decisions and actions, can't but inevitably undermine the fundamental values that keep us safe, economically secure and free to succeed or fail on our own merits. There's no way for the government to help losers without punishing winners. You want more losers? Reward failure. You want less national wealth? Punish winners. It really is that simple.