SALON Explains Food Stamps to Paul Ryan

What I learned from a week on food stamps: Paul Ryan couldn’t be any more wrong - Salon.com:

The entire "SNAP / Food Stamp" discussion is a great example of differing world views and people talking past each other. The MSM is of course extremely clear on the Republican view; "heartless, cruel, war on the POOR, blaming the poor, etc, etc ...." It often reminds me of the evil Tim Pawlenty being accused by Mike Hatch, and effectively by MPR commentators of wanting to "release the worst psychopathic sex offenders to save money".

That particular quote showed up on MPR a number of times, and each time it was uttered, one wondered what the person uttering it had between their ears. Really? Had there been a policy meeting in the Pawlenty office that went something like:

(Staffie A) "Hey, we have to save some money, let's release some sex offenders!"

(Sr Staff) "Great thought, but it seems a little weak as a news item ..."

(Staffie B)"Oh, wait, how about THE WORST sex offenders?"

(Sr Staff) "SUPER, I think you are REALLY on to something here, but let's hone it some more ..."

Eventually, the Pawlenty team apparently arrives at the ultimate idea, "Let's release the WORST psychopathic sex offenders to save money!!!"

So how does such an astute group of folks like those at MPR just repeat that back verbatim as being official policy from the Pawlenty administration without at least SOME little bell going off in their heads?

We ARE our biases!!! Unless we work VERY hard to THINK!

The current Republicans, SNAP and the media view are quite similar. Obviously Democrats including BO have signed off on everything to do with SNAP cuts -- BO has the vaunted veto pen, and the Senate is in the hands of Harry Reid, both willing to shut the government down rather than NEGOTIATE on  delaying BOcare at all ... and we now KNOW what a WINNER BOcare is!

So they have been willing to negotiate on SNAP, which means that it must not be nearly as good as BOcare for starters (or at least not be projected to buy votes as well). Yet, we see column after column assuming (apparently correctly) that the American public believes something to the effect that Republicans have some sort of a Hitleran Concentration Camp fetish, or USSR Starving Gulag wish relative to "the poor".

For starters there is the small (and hard to find) matter of CUTTING THE RATE of GROWTH, vs CUTS! http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/item/15241-joint-bills-introduced-to-cut-skyrocketing-snap-food-stamp-costs only in the whacked out place called Washington, can a program like food stamps DOUBLE in size, and be projected to GROW at 20% a year for TEN YEARS, and someone that comes in an talks about "cutting" (reducing the rate of growth) on a program that would cost $760B, so it "only" might cost $730B!).

But after YEARS of trying to explain to lefties the difference between "cutting the rate of growth" and a CUT,  I DO understand that when the choice is between "human beings" and "numbers", lefties simply care not for numbers ... so I'll focus on the "human interest".  If I expect a 10% raise next year and only got a 5% raise, my salary was CUT! It is just too hard for the left to see it any other way!

Here are some revelations that crept up on the intrepid Salon reporter as he tried to live on SNAP:

1. Some people look down on taking them as "welfare". Ah yes, for some of the young, life's little embarrassments are rather harsh. Wait until after age 50 when you can go through hours on the porcelain throne preparing to have many FEET of tube inserted in through the out door in the interest of not dying of cancer. Yes, even death is less than optimum, but so far, not even the supposedly godlike BO has proposed a law against it -- no doubt one which would also be blocked by evil Republicans!
   
2. Food Stamps don't cover lattes or even take out. Oh, the horror!
   
   "At first, $41 seemed like a lot of money for a week’s worth of food, but this was $41, full stop — not $41 (unless I’m running late for work and need to stop by a coffee shop for a muffin) and not $41 (and then ordering from Seamless because the temperature has dropped and I wanted to cozy up with some hot soup). This was $41 to pay for three meals a day for seven days. This was going to require some planning."
   
3. Oh, the "planning", and the work of prep! Having to reduce meat and cut out "organic" ...
   
   "Trying to stretch my meager food budget, I found that while some healthy items were expensive — anything organic or gluten free jumped in price, and meat prices are very high — fruits, veggies and oatmeal were far less expensive than frozen meals or cereal. The most difficult part was preparing and portioning out my meals."
   
4.  "Time was an unexpected source of frustration. I was late to class because I mistimed how long it would take to cook and clean up after a stir-fried lunch. When running behind schedule on a Thursday night, I resorted to a meal of cold, leftover brown rice and carrot sticks. Hardly nutritional, or filling."
   
    Dear me ... it takes time to cook! Perhaps the only human activity for which this is the case. No doubt it takes no time to GROW the food too -- if one was forced to think "holistically" !

We were once a nation founded by hardy souls that got on SMALL boats and migrated to a new land, taking MONTHS to arrive, with NO HOPE of assistance should they run into difficulty. Many of them were even aware they could not just "pick up a muffin", or "order Seamless" in the new land.

Even just 100 years ago, there were plenty of people in rural areas that had no power, no running water, no even "relatively instant" communications, and not only no "food stamps", but they also had to put up with the minor inconvenience of GROWING and preserving their food rather than just finding the time to cook it and clean up after! 

We are no longer that nation, and clearly a whole bunch of us believe that our sustenance ought to be delivered like mothers milk, with no effort at all on our part -- although no doubt even in mothers milk, this generation would demand more flavors and the assurance of "100% organic"! 

The very idea that someone might have to shop, prepare, plan, cook and manage storage and such ON THEIR OWN! Is beyond the ken of people like this author. 

So how DO we communicate with each other? Are the Chinese going to be willing to cover the tab so many of us don't have to bother to shop, cook, clean, plan, etc? One wonders how this poor reporter imagines that the foodstuffs show up at his local market or "Seamless"? He must view the sorts of people that deal with the much greater difficulties of working the ground, planting, tending, reaping, processing, etc as some sort of an alien race. (no doubt a race of aliens he is far superior to) 

Can we possibly be a self-governing people when some write columns like this and think they are conveying useful information, and some farm thousands of acres raising the food so that someone that has extreme difficulty in just cutting it up and preparing it can complain that it's too hard / complicated / time consuming / etc? How DO we talk to each other?

So the policies of BO have created the worst economic recovery since the Depression, and the ONLY idea of the Statists is to double down on more of the same policies, including INCREASING the minimum wage, which will reduce the number of available low paying jobs, and to INCREASE the ease of the safety net, rather than putting SOME limit on how fast it grows!! 

It is HEARTLESS to look at numbers, realize the difference between slowing rate of growth and "cuts", and it is HEARTLESS even if Democrats sign off on it! They bear no responsibility for that, because they ought not have to "negotiate" at all. There IS NO REALITY ... reality and Republicans should just shut up and die!

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Economic Malpractice and Overmedication

Times of Oman | News :: Bernanke urges more action to cement economic recovery:

Bernanke notices that productivity growth is "disappointing".

Bernanke said that an important factor holding back the economy was "disappointing" productivity growth. "The reasons for weak productivity growth are not entirely clear," he said.
He said it may be the result of the severity of the financial crisis that tightened credit conditions, inhibiting innovation, or may reflect longer-term trends unrelated to the recession. "Obviously, the resolution of the productivity puzzle will be important in shaping our expectations for longer-term growth." 

"Not entirely clear". If he looked closer, I bet he could notice that actual economic growth is "disappointing" as well.

The BO administration has showered the US economy with all the quack economic nostrums available to man, and then thrown in a few actions guaranteed to slow the economy (higher taxes), and doggone it! The damned patient just won't do what we want it to! Human kind is PROVEN to be warming the entire planet (avoid going outside, you will freeze), CERTAINLY we can manage our own economies to be guaranteed to grow!

Hubris is the core fault, the rest just grows from there. Humans have a constant illusion of control, and when that illusion is allowed to mess with something as complicated as the US economy, the results are always bad. Higher taxes never help. Not doing things like the Keystone, and slowing development of oil resources helps keep fuel prices artificially high is a general drain on the economy (as well as hobbling a major specific industry that could provide both productivity and growth!).

Forcing through a massive partisan, poorly designed and poorly implemented health law to very uncertainly nationalize 1/7 of the economy unsurprisingly has a dampening effect on the entire economy! The fact that changes are regularly illegally decreed directly by BO with no congressional involvement is enough in itself to tell the smart money to go elsewhere but the US.

Maybe worst of all, the extension of "childhood" for US young to 26-30 by government. A HUGE amount of the truly innovative new ideas, as well as just as importantly the willingness and even blindness to the likelihood of failure, coupled with the very real opportunity to get massively rich on start up companies (see Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Nike) has severely crippled the primary engine of productivity and growth generation through innovation in this country.

I could go on forever, but the big summary is essentially the "end of American Exceptionalism". It is NFL playoff time. People WANT to believe that "their team" is exceptional!!! Guess what, one of them will be in the end, and to a lesser degree, all those that did make the playoffs are more exceptional than those that didn't!

The "Vision of BO" is that America is just another big bureaucratic entity, similar to any country in Europe, but a little behind the times ... we need to trim off more of our aggression, have a better safety net, make sure any remaining nasty capitalists are heavily taxed and muzzled so they don't criticize the benevolent government (overturn Citizens United), generally level out out population by punishing the top and rewarding the bottom. Most of all, we need to insure that our people are more docile -- get rid of the "extreme right", and the "extreme Christians"  (thankfully, often a lot of overlap here).

Once we have achieved a nice bland, non-aggressive, less competitive, pluralistic (for all but Christians and Conservatives), and most of all, economically level nation, nirvana will have been reached! (oh yes, gotta get their guns as well!)

Yes, and if one compares that to what used to be America, the innovation and growth of any sort are going to be highly "disappointing".

Well, DUH!

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The Defining Challenge of our Age!

Why Inequality Matters - NYTimes.com:

Both BO and Paul Krugman are convinced that Income Inequality is the "Defining Challenge of our Age". I'm not going to go look for links to quote today, but I bet that pretty much the exact same thing has been uttered over "Global Warming", "Racism", "Gun Violence" and maybe even "Intolerance" .. as "Challenge of the Age".

It is the age of "crisis" for sure, but still it is interesting to see that "hunger", "refugees", "epidemic" or "war" were not on that list. There are a lot worse lists of challenge that could be easily had.

Note also that "inequality" has replaced "poverty". In a world where most of the poor have smartphones, cars, cable, big screen TVs, video games, etc, and are bothered by obesity rather than hunger, it was time for re-branding. So much as "Global Warming" was re-branded to "Climate Change" as things began to cool (see first snow in Mideast in 112 years), "poverty" was due for an " upgrade" ... as in "Poverty 2.0, Income Inequality".

One thing REALLY nice about "inequality" is that it will still work out when ALL the "bottom quintile" have 2K Sq ft living space, two baths, a health-club membership, free medical, dental, a yearly vacation to a warmer climate (needed due to "Climate Change"), free education, two late model cars, guaranteed retirement income, and a minimum of $100K in investments ... and so on.

Why? Because as long as Paul Krugman and BO are around making what they make, with the lifestyle they have,  there will STILL be "inequality"!  What is more, even if all the "poor" all have their very own "Inequality Force One", there will STILL be "inequality".

The sad part however is that LONG before we are faced with that "crisis", the actions that BO and Krugman applaud will return us to where food, clothing, shelter and any prospects for a life other than  total despair again become the issue of the day. At that point, they MAY realize that people and nations have MUCH more pressing problems than taking money from one persons pocket and putting it in anothers, which is 80% of what our current "government" ( Federal Mafia?) does. Zero remains zero, as long as there is economic progress, economic inequality gets "worse".

Uninterestingly to anyone that has a basic understanding of reality, the more "redistribution" that as been done, the worse the "inequality" has gotten! But this never was about helping anyone, it was and is about acquiring more power for the ruling Democrat Party

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The GLOBAL Wealth Confiscation Plan!, MUST READ!!

The International Monetary Fund Lays The Groundwork For Global Wealth Confiscation - Forbes:

That this is not front page news in nearly every global media outlet should be a VERY strong lesson of exactly how Russia, Germany and China slipped into tyranny.

Note three takeaways. First, IMF economists know there are not enough rich people to fund today’s governments even if 100 percent of the assets of the 1 percent were expropriated. That means that all households with positive net wealth—everyone with retirement savings or home equity—would have their assets plundered under the IMF’s formulation.

Second, such a repudiation of private property will not pay off Western governments’ debts or fund budgets going forward. It will merely “restore debt sustainability,” allowing free-spending sovereigns to keep tapping the bond markets until the next crisis comes along—for which stronger measures will be required, of course.

Third, should politicians fail to muster the courage to engage in this kind of wholesale robbery, the only alternative scenario the IMF posits is public debt repudiation and hyperinflation. Structural reform proposals for the Ponzi-scheme entitlement programs that are bankrupting us are nowhere to be seen.

Got that??? The ONLY listed alternatives were confiscation of assets from EVERYONE with positive net worth, AND the ONLY alternatives where hyperinflation and debt repudiation!!! (so much for the "safety" of holding government bonds!!

This is the IMF being reported on in Forbes folks. This is not some gold bug newsletter.

BTW, it you did or can make it to 55 prior to leaving the employer that you built your 401K with, it strongly appears that it is completely open withdrawal at current tax rates right off the bat ... no penalties, no "5 substantially equal payments".

http://www.forbes.com/sites/advisor/2012/05/09/did-you-know-you-can-access-your-401k-penalty-free-at-age-55/

The last quote from the report in the linked article is very much worth reading to the bottom for!

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Q-Blood Let 3 (QB3)

RealClearMarkets - Why Friday's Jobs Report Was Ominous:

If you read this blog regularly, you know a lot of this, but it is a good summary. For the REALLY quick summary:

1. Taking blood out of people makes them sicker 
2. Deficit spending just makes an economy sicker. 

The following conclusion of the article is entertaining, the article itself is somewhere between sobering, ominous and sepulchral. Three bloodlettings for the father of the country, 3 "easings" for the country?

It took about 2500 years and countless deaths (including that of George Washington) before doctors figured out that bleeding patients was actually harmful. One has to wonder how much real-world data it will take to convince the likes of Paul Krugman and Jared Bernstein that Keynesian (spending) stimulus just makes the economy worse. 

Oh, and by the way. The recent five-month decline in the FTE jobs ratio coincides exactly with Ben Bernanke's QE3. And yet, the "market monetarists" keep calling on the Fed to "do more". 

It is a historical fact that George Washington's doctors performed three rounds of bleeding on him before he died. We can only wonder if they referred to the last one as "QB3".

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Blessings, Blame, American Economy

Why Blame Obama?

The linked article makes the case pretty clear that Obama has a very large share of the blame for the current state of the American economy. The cornerstones that blame rests on:

• Understanding that CONGRESS sets the budget of the US. Slick Willie deserves credit for signing the budgets of the '90s that led to a surplus (under duress), but the Republican congress set them and took the blame for the reduction in the rate of growth of spending that led to the surplus (along with the Internet Bubble). 
• Understanding the difference between TARP and the Stimulus -- W helped engineer and signed off on TARP (which I also didn't like), but BO did the Stimulus with his Democrat congress cronies. 
• Understanding the history of US debt and the truly horrific effect that ONE term by ONE US president ( BO ) has had. 
• Understanding the destruction of the rule of law and it's replacement with crony capitalism and the effect that has on business investment. 

But there is still some mass confusion about "How do we get out of this?".

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/opinion/henry-ford-when-capitalists-cared.html

While liberals scream of the Republicans holding a convention that was supposed to be a huge lie about an America that never was by a bunch of evil folks out to hurt anyone less that super wealthy, the left wants to return to Henry Ford and 1914. Well, that's a start.

In 1914, US spending was 2.76% of GDP ...  21% LESS!! than government spending today. No doubt corporate leaders and wealthy people "cared" (as measured in $$$) much more in 1914 than they do today. They could AFFORD TO!!  The US Government forced them to outsource all that "caring" to Washington at the point of a gun and now complains that "Corporations don't care enough"!

Worse, America was highly competitive then. Today we are over regulated, over taxed, federally mismanaged, and our work ethic has been converted to "gimme" ... out of somebody else's pocket, ASAP.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/friedman-its-still-halftime-in-america.html?_r=1&hp&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Friedman is pining away for the 60's and like the entire left, he is forced to completely forget the '80s. Yes, JFK set a great goal with going to the moon, and NASA cashed the check. While fondly remembered by Friedman however, we also had a number of assassinations, civil unrest, a losing war in Vietnam, an acceleration in entitlements we couldn't pay for and the beginnings of the end of our economic world dominance.

By the '80s, the left had decided that "America's best years were behind her", and then came Ronald Reagan saying it was "Morning in America" and that the USSR (our competition for Superpower at that point) would be assigned to "The Ash Heap of History". And lo, it came to pass that the USSR was so consigned and the US set off on an economic odyssey that lasted right up through '07.

Perhaps we need to figure out what the game is again until we declare it "Halftime".  America used to be proudly pro-business and business used to be proudly pro-profit. Now what are we?? Pro-entitlement?? But what kind of a game is that?? The winners are the takers rather than the makers?

I'd say we already see how well that works. We have been sliding since 1914 or before and the '07 Democrat congress and BO just kicked in the solid fuel boosters in the wrong direction as we already hung at the edge.

There is STILL no free lunch! Figure that out, realize that competition is like gravity -- it is ALWAYS there, you just get to decide if it is to your benefit or your peril!

Let's get this country up off the mat and get back in the right game ... and then maybe we can talk about "halftime" after a couple decades of defending against the opposition and scoring some solid points!

LBJ, Reagan, BO, "Progress"

Election a stark choice on America's future - CNN.com

The second "choice" election came in 1980, when, after a decade of failed leadership, a man came galloping out of the West who seemed the most improbable of figures to get the country going again. And he was carrying with him many of Goldwater's ideas. But Ronald Regan turned out to be a strong leader with a million-dollar smile; Jimmy Carter, a man better suited to be a saint than a politician, went down decisively. Score one for smaller government.

I might actually do the list as "FDR, LBJ, Carter and BO" --- the merchants of ruin. In reality, each election once the anti-american virus of "Progressivism" entered the politics of the US in roughly 1900 has just been the "choice" between letting the disease run at the same rate or trying to speed it up.

If anything, this year's choice is starker than in 1980: Reagan had a pragmatic streak, so he was willing to compromise to get a deal done and keep moving forward (Tip O'Neill used to say that the Gipper would win more than half a loaf and come back for the rest later). Romney and Ryan, however, reinforced by the tea party, show no inclination to compromise. On the Democratic side, aides to President Obama are spreading the word that, if he wins, he has had enough of trying to accommodate the Republicans and will also be more confrontational

Ah yes, "pragmatism", it was even around in 1980. The left in no way shape or form found Reagan to be "pragmatic". He was a harsh ideologue that was itching to go to war with the USSR, hurt the poor and benefit ONLY the "rich". For the left, the Reagan administration was an unremitting disaster -- both in their minds and in reality. In their minds, because they hated the man to the core and totally believed that the USSR was  "as good as we were, and probably better". In reality, because he proved that America was far from dead while communism was on life support at best, and mostly because he allowed Americans willing to keep their eyes and ears open to see that the basic ideas embodied in the Constitution -- individual freedom, small government, free enterprise, WORK!

What is different is that since Reagan we have had ONLY progressive presidents -- HWB, Slick, W and BO ... and had we elected McCain he would have also been on that list. In my book, so is Romney -- but I suspect that the real danger the left sees is Ryan. Ryan has the potential to be as beneficial to America and as dangerous for the left has Reagan was.

I do agree with their assessment on the gravity of the election, only more so.

But there should be no doubt that the two tickets stand behind radically different visions of the role of government and individuals. Under President Obama, federal spending is now 24% of GDP, far higher than in recent decades. While Obama talks of trimming, his most thoughtful advisers think the government is likely to grow in coming years no matter who wins (see Larry Summers's provocative column in the Financial Times this week).

Of course these guys are pretty far left. The entire US Gov spending -- Federal, State and Local is about 50% of GDP, 9% of which is borrowed. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/percent_gdp

Like a lot of things in government though, it's worse than that http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

The bottom 50% of US earners pay only 2% of taxes while the top 25% pays 87% and the top 1% pays 37%.

One might say that the class war is over and the productive class LOST! When 50% of the country essentially pays no income tax, and 75% pays very little, it is easy to see why "make the rich pay more" seems like such a great idea to over 50% of the people. We hear a lot about Romney "only" paying 14% and hear very little about that coming to $6.2 M. They also hear very little about the $7 M he gave away.

So we come to an election where although there are many unemployed, the vast vast majority of Americans are really hurting very little, while the top 25% shoulders nearly 90% of the cost of the "progressives" massive government.  Even worse, 49.1% of US citizens receive some level of assistance from the government http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/05/26/number-of-the-week-half-of-u-s-lives-in-household-getting-benefits/.  No wonder our politics are polarized!! 25% of the people are not only paying the freight, 50% of the people are RIDING THE TRAIN!!

The "progressive" progrom is much the same as the communist one. In communism, you "win" when there are no other alternatives available and each tiny ember of hope that arises gets snuffed in the Gulag.

With "progressivism", you "win" when you put over 50% of the population in the non-productive / dependent class to continue to vote you into power so you can extract even more from the productive.

BO managed to bump the dependents by 4% in 4 short years -- putting him right at the cusp of the 50% needed. A quick look at these numbers tells you how vulnerable we are to getting close to 75% of the population firmly on the dependency side of the equation ... "make the top 25% pay!".

It really comes down to Paul Ryan being the last best hope -- by some miracle Romney-Ryan wins, 8 years of at best holding ground, and then MAYBE we start the long slog back to a nation of 80-90% productivity that can compete in the real world.

A Conflict of Visions (Brooks)

What Republicans Think - NYTimes.com

A good one by Brooks, the following paragraph is a pretty decent summary of how conservatives see the current welfare state model:

The welfare model favors security over risk, comfort over effort, stability over innovation. Money that could go to schools and innovation must now go to pensions and health care. This model, which once offered insurance from the disasters inherent in capitalism, has now become a giant machine for redistributing money from the future to the elderly.

Politics Is a Lie, Buy Gold

RealClearPolitics - Big Lies in Politics

Excellent column.  I'm not sure how one would question the truth of this. No matter what FDR or LBJ or BO tells you, there is STILL no free lunch. The net result, inflation, so BUY GOLD ...  not a ton of gold, but some -- and some TIPs and some offshore stocks. Oh, and note to self -- get those seeds for the gun cabinet!

"Fairness" Demystified

The 'Fairness' Fraud - Page 1

He pointed out that a child born to a poor woman in the Bronx enters the world with far worse prospects than a child born to an affluent couple in Connecticut.
No one can deny that. The relevant question, however, is: How does allowing politicians to take more money in taxes from successful people, to squander in ways that will improve their own reelection prospects, make anything more "fair" for others?

Countries whose politicians have been able to squander ever larger amounts of a nation's resources have not only failed to make the world more fair, the concentration of more resources and power in these politicians' hands has led to results that were often counterproductive at best, and bloodily catastrophic at worst. 

BO and even most of the Democrats are smart people. Don't they know this?? Don't they "care" about real results?? If their polices keep just adding to the deficit while the economy sputters along with gas and other prices rising, why would they keep yammering about "fairness"??

However, raising tax rates on "the rich" pays off politically, even if the government loses revenues when the rich put their money into tax shelters.

High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates -- or perhaps any taxes at all.

and there you have it. The payoff is purely political. Nobody beyond those seeking political power is "helped", but in their world, that is really all that is important. "Fairness" is a political device, and it's only purpose is to get people "in the fairness industry" elected. Note that the fairness industry along with "the environment industry", "the race industry", "the gay industry", "the illegal immigrant industry", "the labor industry", "the regulation industry", etc have been BOOMING since '06 and especially since '08.

 It is too bad that all those "industries" don't pay off with anything other than some government jobs and federal spending -- rather than the evil "oil industry", or "technology industry", or "manufacturing industry", which tend to produce products that people want to buy at a profit, along with the jobs and wealth ...and yes, taxes!

What is the main product of the "fairness industry" beyond "Democrats in office"??

High deficits and sluggish over regulated business. At least BO has create one kind of a "boom"!!

B ZERO POINT ZERO!

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/president-zero

B Zero.Zero ... The Blutarski President (Animal House).

ZERO jobs created in August!!!

Three years ago "The One" was being hailed around the world and speaking in front of faux Grecian pillars to his adoring zombies. Now our nation sits stagnant, bankrupt and waiting for yet another teleprompter read from the former "One" oops, off by 1! ... now ZERO!

A worthy though depressing read. The Government doesn't create jobs, it destroys them. Unions don't create jobs, they destroy them. Handing out money to the poor, the unemployed, even the middle class neither creates wealth or jobs, it destroys both ... along with the drive to succeed.

One doesn't have to be "hard hearted" to say that all forms of assistance need to stop at some point for all but the most gravely needy -- the bird must leave the nest, the child the home, the student eventually graduate, and thus the unemployed eventually work -- even if at a lower wage. 

Our nation must get to work making something that can be sold at a profit and investing part of that profit as well as part of our time in "delayed gratification" so that the future is brighter than the past. It makes not one whit of difference how low the wages at the competing nations are -- they are what they are. Playing the hand one is dealt is the only way to keep playing, and at the game of survival, the choice is keep playing or DIE! 

Policies that incent that happening -- the best approximation possible of

zero taxes on investment, zero taxes on employing people, low and flat taxes on income, minimal Federal government doing little more than defense and interstate commerce, minimal FEDERAL government regulation of all kinds. Government needs to be in the business of ENABLING  business, invention and GROWTH -- not burdening it!

It really is simple, and BO is simply a failure.

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350% Debt

The number that's killing the economy - CNN.com

Total US private and public debt to GDP ... 350%. 3.5x amount of debt as GDP ... the last 3 years, even though the government hasn't helped any, we lowered it from 370% to 350%

Prior to the great depression? 300% ... 3x.

Prior to 1870's depression? 166%

When you as a people, corporation or government take on too much debt, you have to keep working hard to create wealth and use a good deal of it to pay down your debt. There really isn't any other good alternative.

Note to folks that want to keep spending. 1st rule of holes. When you are in a hole, STOP DIGGING!!!

Economic Indigestion

Dana Milbank - Economist Christina Romer serves up dismal news at her farewell luncheon

I actually got to hear some of this mess, it was enough to give ardent left winger Dana Milbank a good deal of heartburn. Her cheery HS glee club delivery did add sort of an air of the surreal to the proceedings. She had no idea how bad the economic collapse would be. She still doesn't understand exactly why it was so bad. The response to the collapse was inadequate. And she doesn't have much of an idea about how to fix things. Here is Milbank on the topic:

What she did have was a binder full of scary descriptions and warnings, offered with a perma-smile and singsong delivery: "Terrible recession. . . . Incredibly searing. . . . Dramatically below trend. . . . Suffering terribly. . . . Risk of making high unemployment permanent. . . . Economic nightmare."

It must be a bit scary to even the liberal elite as they bask in the remembrance of that joyous time of Katrina, just 5 short years ago, when it was all so simple. The combination stupid and evil W was responsible for all that was ill. Through maximum press and political maneuvering, they managed to convince vast swaths of the electorate that what was needed was "change". 14 months later, the shining new "age of change" was ushered in Nov '06, as Nancy and Harry took the reigns of congressional power, and Dodd and Frank the control of legislation over our nations financial system. The evil W was the lamest of lame ducks, one last "declared to be a failure before it started" gasp in "The Surge", and happy days would be fully here.

A year and a half later, the financial system would teeter on collapse. Victim of a housing bubble exacerbated by Sub-Prime Loans and lax government oversight on one hand, and massive amounts of leverage from Wall Street on the other. To the Democrats, "sauce for the goose". The broad shoulders of W would do yeoman service as scapegoat, the likely shallow recession would be trumped up to "Depression" in the interests of electing the ultimate change agent: BO. Even sweeter, vast amounts of taxpayer money and debt would be transferred to the financiers that had bankrolled the Democrat takeover, as well as the Unions and any other group that was on the left side of politics.

Now in charge of the candy store, the joy of handing out free candy to all their friends is fading as the shelves become more and more bare. Clearly the world is unfair, the shelves ought to be automatically replenished by hard working conservative drones ... or something. For certain, the entire enterprise is a matter of extreme confusion to the liberal economists in the BO stable.

Live Free or Die

Obama Misreads Message of ‘Live Free or Die’: Amity Shlaes - Bloomberg

The founders wanted states to be the "labratories" that allowed Americans to test various government policies to see what worked, and to allow people to choose between different approaches, yet remain American. Shales does a good comparison between Maine and New Hampshire (thus the "Live Free or Die" ... state motto). As should surprise nobody, larger government loses.

This jury has been in forever, the only problem is that peoples memories are too short, and they confuse best available and unattainable perfection as goals. Free market policies are more successful, they are not perfect (humans are still involved). Recessions and potentially even depressions will happen, but there is nothing that can't be made worse (or less good) by the intervention of the government! As in the '30s, government can always make the pain deeper and longer lasting.

Just look at the current TX economy relative to CA or NY. The world had the best laboratory case that one could ever see with East and West Germany for 50 years + of the difference between more free and less free -- same people, different government, vastly inferior result on the more government side.

Greed is a deadly sin, but so is envy. Humans are very prone to both, but capitalism harnesses greed to grow the economic pie for all (imperfectly). Socialism harnesses envy to get supporters, but it only "produces" increasingly angry people fighting over an ever shrinking economic pie.

Aftershock, Wiedemer/Spitzer

"Protect Yourself and profit in the next global financial meltdown".

You may read the sub-head and say "I hope that is a long time", but these guys would tell you that we have not yet begun. They called the housing bubble correctly in their first book "America's Bubble Economy" that came out in '06--something they are NOT going to let you forget during the book, and remind the reader CONSTANTLY.

The thesis of this book is that we have a series of bubbles, and they are all going to "pop" -- once it started happening, there is no stopping it:

1. Real Estate
2. Stock
3. Private Debt
4. Discretionary Spending
5. Dollar
6. Government Debt

While I think a number of their conclusions are essentially correct, I really question some of their overly confident what I would call "pseudo science" methodologies that supposedly go into their predictions. A big one is "Science, Technology, Economics, Politics" ... "STEP".  Page 189 "If our current economy is part of a long evolution of society, life, and the universe---starting from the Big Bang--then there are certain predictable forces that drive economic evolution."

Really? Let's get this straight, the Big Bang was a random purposeless event that randomly kicked off a random process on the third rock from a ho hum sun called "evolution", eventually resulting in organisms that formed cultures and eventually economies -- all without any direction of course, completely on a random basis. But that begets? "predictable forces that drive economic evolution"?  Can anyone say "leap of faith"?

While some of their thinking may border on New Age, and they are clearly liberal in orientation:

p 188, "candidates will step forward who are willing to support real and responsible reforms, politicians more like Franklin Roosevelt than Herbert Hoover".  Sadly, it is hard to be much more historically unaware than that -- both FDR and Hoover were huge "progressives", Hoover was ALL OVER the model of heavy government interference and was taking steps just like FDR even before the election, and certainly during the lame duck period until FDRs inauguration. Another huge parallel to now -- with Bush heavily "progressive", just less so than BO.

p221, box, "The only silver lining to this dreadful situation may be that after a while, people will become unhappy enough with the high levels of violence that they consider ways of reducing it that were previously unthinkable in the United States, such as gun control."

See the very clear crystal ball that these guys have says that unemployment is going to be over 60%, inflation is going to be in the 100's of percentage points, the government will no longer be able to borrow money and this will go on for "a decade", but there will be no real general move to any sort of a massive government re-structure. No, the "gun nuts" will just stick to shooting their own family, friends, and co-workers, so hopefully, that can get us the basic good of "gun control" -- all a matter of what is important to you.

Even with all their slightly odd views, we now have liberal gold bugs! We must have crossed some sort of metaphysical tipping point. P138, "Gold is a rising bubble on it's way to becoming one of the biggest asset bubbles of all time. Second only to the fall of the dollar bubble, the bursting of the gold bubble will be quite impressive as well."

But that won't be for a long time in financial terms -- they of course have huge faith in the system, so recommend having your gold held in some certificates, but since I'm not as liberal as they are, I'm betting BO and company are going to be looking to CONFISCATE any gold that is listed in that kind of account, and giving you a "really good deal" on some "inflation protected" government debt rather than that gold.

It isn't that super of a book ... but as I say, it does break some new ground to see relative lefties pretty convinced it is all coming down around our ears.

Decisions Will Be Made, Moral vs Political Sentiments

America's new culture war: Free enterprise vs. government control

Good article, the point I would add is that on a national level, decisions will be made -- they will either be decided by a market economy or politically. BO tells the youth "don't decide on the basis of money" -- to him, "money", economic forces are "the dark side". He believes that government and political forces are the forces of good -- the intelligentsia running a massive and ever growing government beauracracy pulling the puppet strings of a controlled economy will produce a "better" result.

Here are some BO words on the topic:

Yet, in his commencement address at Arizona State University on May 13, 2009, President Obama warned against precisely such impulses: "You're taught to chase after all the usual brass rings; you try to be on this "who's who" list or that Top 100 list; you chase after the big money and you figure out how big your corner office is; you worry about whether you have a fancy enough title or a fancy enough car. That's the message that's sent each and every day, or has been in our culture for far too long -- that through material possessions, through a ruthless competition pursued only on your own behalf -- that's how you will measure success." Such ambition, he cautioned, "may lead you to compromise your values and your principles."

Let me try to translate into what those words might be if uttered by an American rather than a leftist Luo:

You're taught to chase after the brass ring of political power; you try to be on the this or that list of "most likely to be elected" or lists of most recognized official; you chase after power and figure how big your corner or oval office is; you worry about your government position grade or being elected to the next higher office. That's the message sent each and every day, and is now taking over our culture -- that through political and government power, through a ruthless competition pursued for the gain of you and your party -- that is how you will measure success. Such ambition is ending the experiment that was once called America.

This issue has been understood for centuries. Decisions will be made, they will be made via the market, or they will be made politically. The KEY thing that Adam Smith taught was NOT "The Invisible Hand", but "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". We may wish that we were all sorts of things, but the fact is that we are human, with a nature that is on average, inclined to focus on the good of ourselves or a fairly small set of our peers ( "a couple hundred"). Take your pick as to "why" this is -- millions of years of evolution based on relatively small social groups, or falling from God's grace through the temptation of the devil, but it is what it is, and we aren't going to change it.

What is human nature? To paraphrase, "... if all China were swallowed up tonight, we would be more afflicted by the knowledge that we were to lose our little finger tomorrow than by that great calamity." (I put the actual Smith text below).

In the words of Darth Vader "Search your heart, you know it to be true". Might we wish it otherwise? Sure. Might some of us even go so far as to claim "NO! It can't be true!!" ... however substitute something slightly different -- exploratory surgery for cancer, something with one of our kids, etc, and the truth is clear. We are by nature incapable of putting "the needs of the many" ahead of our own, or those of some fairly small group that we care about. That is who we are! How could it be otherwise? It makes absolutely perfect sense in either the "adaptive" sense (like why would evolution care about a billion people on the other side of the planet) ... or "fallen" (Satan has a really bad rep).

Human is ALSO who the supposed all powerful and all knowing government officials that operate a controlled economy are. When they are "corrupted" by having too much power, it really isn't "corruption" -- one could in fact call it "finding themselves". Those of us that are Christian believe that through the CONSTANT exposure to word, sacrament and prayer, Christ can improve on who we are. We cannot however be "fixed" while in this corporeal body, so all the suitable temptations of the flesh are still going to win if they are large and persistent enough. Give a centralized government enough power and it is absolutely corrupted -- it has to be.

So, we must live in the real world. One with corrupt humans and scarce resources that must be efficiently allocated to produce "the best possible". Those decisions WILL be made -- either through a competitive market in which we all play, or by a small set of powerful bureaucrats doing "what they think is right" via political power, where "right" will always manage to increase their power. What is been proven over and over is that the "magic" of the market works extremely well (but far from perfectly), while controlled economies work amazingly badly -- so bad it is hard to imagine how any rational person would choose to operate that way. But then, nobody ever said that we elected "rational people".

The Adam Smith words from "Theory of Moral Sentiments":

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. 

He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. 

And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. 

If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own.

A Conservative View of Deficits

Europe in Crisis - Walter Russell Mead's Blog - The American Interest

Here is a nice bookend to yesterdays HuffPo post. Just give it a read and then decide if you are a liberal or a conservative thinker.

The Greek meltdown is on the surface just another financial crisis: yet another delusional country pursuing the path of least resistance has made promises it can’t keep to public and private sector workers.  Now the bill must be paid and the IMF called in to reorganize the national finances.

It is as if the rest of the world has failed to read HuffPo. Why would Greece not follow one of their many worthy "myth-busters" of why massive government deficit spending is never a problem? Could it be that it is actually the "economists" quoted by HuffPo that have no clue about reality?

The euro was a glorious fudge.  The Latin countries plus Greece could enjoy the benefits of German discipline and virtue while carrying on with traditionally unsustainable public and private sector policies.  In the old, pre-euro days, the southern economies had to pay high interest rates on their debt; wary investors knew that inflation and devaluation were likely and so demanded interest rates that would compensate them for the risk.  The lira, the drachma: everyone knew they would lose value over time against the Deutsche mark and even the dollar, and interest rates reflected this understanding.  But as the southern countries moved into the euro, calculations changed.  For the last twenty years, countries like Greece and Italy were able to borrow money at essentially the same rate that Germany could.

Think of sub-prime mortgages getting stirred into the credit markets of the world by freddie and fannie and all the crooked lenders of sub-primes in the same role as the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) and you get a good picture of how fallacy works. It doesn't take much rat feces to spoil a whole pot of soup -- especially once the clientele sees a video of the rat crapping in the pot.

Lousy leaders gave greedy civil servants fat raises; promises were cheap and the government scattered them far and wide.  In Italy as well, once the national debt was less painful to carry, there was less pressure to reduce the national debt.

Has anything ever sounded like current politics in America more? I actually think it does a disservice to lousy leaders to compare them with BO, but if the Gucci fits ...

Ten Cents on the Dollar

RealClearPolitics - The Case for High-Deductible Health Insurance

Essentially, we all want to live forever. This makes health care a very desirable good. At the same time, the normal restraints imposed by price are frequently lacking. Today, of every dollar spent on health care in this country, just 13 cents is paid for by the person actually consuming the goods or services. Roughly half is paid for by government, and the remainder is covered by private insurance. And, as long as someone else is paying, consumers have every reason to consume as much health care as is available.

How likely is it that people will make smart purchasing decisions when they are only paying 13 cents on every dollar being spent for a good? What would happen if food bills were covered that way? Bar tabs? Women's clothing? I think we all realize that prices in all those areas would rise rapidly.

So what would make sense for health care? It would seem pretty obvious that an INCREASE in the deductibles, and instituting some form of mandatory health savings accounts would be a superb idea. So what do BO and company want to do? Well, the opposite of course! They are out to make the situation WORSE!

The president actually denounced high-deductible insurance and greater consumer cost sharing as "not real insurance." Both the House and Senate versions of health reform reduce co-payments and all but eliminate policies with high-deductibles. No co-payments at all are allowed for a wide variety of broadly-defined "preventive" services. The consumer share of health spending will actually decline to just ten cents of every dollar by 2019.

This all but guarantees that health care costs and spending will continue their unsustainable path. And that is a path leading to more debt, higher taxes, fewer jobs and a reduced standard of living for all Americans.

Health care reform cannot just be about giving more stuff to more people. It should be about actually "reforming" the system. That means scrapping the current bills, and crafting the type of reform that makes consumers responsible for their health care decisions.

Signs of the End

Identifying Sure Signs Of The Final Economic Plunge : Neithercorp Press

Is it really going to be financial Armageddon? I certainly don't know, but these guys have some interesting ideas. 

Krugman Vs Krugman

Op-Ed Columnist - Fiscal Scare Tactics - NYTimes.com

Here is Krugman in 2005

And so it has turned out. President Bush has presided over the transformation of a budget surplus into a large deficit, which threatens the government's long-run solvency. The principal cause of that reversal was Mr. Bush's unprecedented decision to cut taxes, especially on the wealthiest Americans, while taking the nation into an expensive war.

Here is Krugman today:

Yet they aren’t facts. Many economists take a much calmer view of budget deficits than anything you’ll see on TV. Nor do investors seem unduly concerned: U.S. government bonds continue to find ready buyers, even at historically low interest rates. The long-run budget outlook is problematic, but short-term deficits aren’t — and even the long-term outlook is much less frightening than the public is being led to believe.

See, not to worry. Deficits in the low 100's of billions in a growing economy under a Republican president "threaten long-run solvency". Deficits in the trillions in a stagnant to falling economy under a Democrat are really no big deal at all. Simple.

No need to ask multiple economists to get multiple opinions with Krugman around, just switch parties and the whole world is different!