Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Well, the House of Representatives has managed to scrape together enough Democratic votes to pass a Health Insurance Reform bill. Note that Congress has pretty much given up trying to clam that it’s “Health Care Reform,” because there’s nothing in the bill that will actually address the high cost of health care itself. Here’s some of what it will do if it actually passes into law (keeping in mind that the Senate also has to pass a bill, which will undoubtedly be different from the House bill, and then a joint committee will have to try to come up with a compromise that both bodies will accept – so we’re a long way from done yet):
It will force everyone to purchase health insurance, and fine anyone who doesn’t comply. I’d love to see a Constitutional challenge to this provision, because I don’t believe that the federal government can constitutionally force me to buy anything I don’t want to buy. And don’t start with the analogy of having to buy auto insurance. There are two big differences: First, the states, not the federal government, are the ones who pass laws requiring auto insurance. Second, you have an alternative – you don’t have to drive a car. If you don’t drive a car, you don’t have to worry about buying auto insurance. But force someone to buy health insurance? I don’t think so.
It will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, and also prohibit them from charging higher premiums because of sex, age, or medical history. Sounds good, right? Think about it for a minute: The fact is that insurance rates are driven more by statistics than anything else.
Consider the auto insurance industry. The reason young, single males pay more for auto insurance is because it is an undeniable fact that young, single males have the most traffic accidents of any demographic group. And if you get in too many accidents, guess what? Your insurance is probably going to be cancelled, and you’ll have to pay through the nose to get insurance from a company that specializes in high-risk policies. Why? Because another undeniable fact is that people who get in multiple traffic accidents are statistically more likely to continue to get in traffic accidents. Your premium is determined primarily by the risk of loss that you represent. The same is true of health insurance.
Requiring health insurance companies to write policies on people with pre-existing conditions has been likened to forcing property insurance companies to write fire insurance policies after the house is already on fire. That’s a good analogy. You are literally forcing them to underwrite policies on which they are almost guaranteed to lose money. And if you’re going to also tell them that they can’t charge those people a higher premium for their coverage, what do you think is going to happen?
There is only one possible outcome: everyone’s premiums will be going up. You young, healthy people out there, who would normally be able to get coverage for a pretty reasonable rate, should be royally p!$$ed, because you are going to end up paying more money to subsidize the rates of the folks who have already had two double-coronary-bypass operations. And all those morbidly obese folks out there who are walking coronaries looking for a place to happen? They’ll be subsidized by the premiums paid by the granola- and carrot-stick-eating marathon runners whose weight is twice their height in inches and who have resting heart rates below 45 beats per minute.
A few decades ago, when maternity coverage was optional (before it became a standard feature of most employer-provided plans), it cost about as much to purchase maternity coverage as it did to just pay for the delivery. Why? Because the insurance companies knew that they only reason you would buy maternity coverage is if you were planning to have a baby – so there was a nearly 100% chance that they would have to pay out a claim against the policy.
Today, most employer-provided plans cover maternity benefits. This means that people who have already had their families, people who do not plan to have any children, people who are medically unable to have children, and single people who are not ready to start a family are all subsidizing the premiums of the people who will actually have children and use the maternity benefits of the policies.
Congress knows what will happen. That’s why they want to force everyone to buy health insurance – because the only possible way to partially mitigate the effects of all these new requirements is to vastly increase the pool of insured individuals. But it won’t be enough. Rates will still have to go up. Congress knows this too, and doesn’t care, because when the rates go up, it will just give Congress more ammunition to further demonize the evil, evil insurance companies for continuing to raise their rates. It will be another example of why the country needs a “single-payer” (read “government-run”) health care system.
Oh, and you folks out there who are willing to take care of the little things out of your own pockets, and just want a “major medical” policy to protect you against a major loss in the event of a catastrophic illness – forget it. That used to be a pretty good option if you were relatively young, relatively healthy, and wanted to keep your insurance premiums as low as possible. But now the government also wants to dictate what things your policy must cover. They really want you buying the full-meal deal so you can help subsidize those high-risk people out there.
Finally, I would like to go on record as saying that I am absolutely sick (pardon the pun) of Obama’s line that if you’re happy with your current health insurance policy, the government is not going to force you to change it. Businesses are struggling to stay alive, and providing health insurance coverage to employees is an increasingly difficult benefit to pay. I know, because I’m a partner in a small business. If there is a “public option” that is less expensive than private insurance (and let’s be honest with ourselves – if the government-run insurance plan isn’t less expensive, then what’s the point of having it?) the financial pressure will be immense for businesses to move their employees from more expensive private policies to the less expensive public option. Thousands of them will do just that – and it won’t matter a whit how happy their employees were with their current plans.
So, no, the government may not force you to change your plan. The government is just going to create a financial incentive that makes it nearly impossible for your employer not to change your plan. But the end result is the same.
The rhetoric rings as hollow as the promises not to raise my income taxes. Great. Thank you. But if runaway deficit spending brings back the days of double-digit inflation, or if the dollar becomes so unattractive that the rest of the world decides that oil markets should be denominated in some other currency than the U.S. dollar, causing the price of oil to fluctuate wildly as the dollar rises and falls against that other currency, that’s going to erode my purchasing power, isn’t it? What’s the difference between eroding my purchasing power directly by increasing my taxes and eroding my purchasing power indirectly through irresponsible fiscal policies?
The difference is that the Democrats think that in the latter case we’re too stupid to make the cause/effect connection. Just like they think we’re too stupid to figure out what will happen if they succeed in taking over health care. And maybe we are. We’ll find out a year from now at the mid-term election.
Thanks for listening.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
What's That Price Tag Again?
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
A couple of weeks ago, a fellow named Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote a very interesting column in the Wall Street Journal. His column is about the true cost of the bill that’s been put forward by the Senate Finance Committee, and the tax burden that’s about to land on the middle class if it passes. Now Douglas is a pretty smart guy. He’s a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. And that’s just for starters – here’s a link to his full bio. So we should probably pay attention to what he has to say.
To begin with, he points to the myth that Congress is actually going to cut Medicare reimbursements. According to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, they should already have been cut – but year after year, Congress has voted to reinstate the money. In his words, “It is beyond fantastic to promise that future Congresses, for 10 straight years, will allow planned cuts in reimbursements to hospitals, other providers, and Medicare Advantage (thereby reducing the benefits of 25% of seniors in Medicare)…The very fact that this Congress is pursuing an expensive new entitlement belies the notion that members would be willing to cut existing ones.” (Or, as Nanny Ogg, one of my favorite characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels would say, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”)
The problem is, if Congress admits to that rather obvious truth, it pushes the total cost of the legislation to well over $1 trillion.
Then there’s the $400 billion in new taxes and fees that the bill plans to raise by imposing a 40% tax on “Cadillac” policies (which several Democrats are already scrambling to insure that the union members in their districts won’t have to pay), and a variety of fees on health insurers, drug companies, and device manufacturers. Excuse me, but where do you think the insurers, drug companies, and device manufacturers are going to get the money? There’s only one way – by passing their increased costs along to consumers. Holtz-Eakin points to the Senate-House Joint Committee on Taxation, which indicated that “87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.”
Complicating matters even further, he points out that Democrats chose to make many of the industry fees nondeductible. Typically, a business would be able to count these kinds of fees as a business expense, which is subtracted from the revenue of the business before the tax obligation is calculated, just as the business would subtract rent on their facilities, their monthly power bill, etc. But every dollar that is taken from a business the way the Democrats are proposing to do it is a dollar that comes directly off the bottom line, and the business must increase revenue by more than a dollar to get it back. Holtz-Eakin estimates that this will result in an increase of as much as $200 billion in insurance premiums over the next 10 years, with 90% of that increase being borne by the middle class.
Why would Congress do such a thing? I can answer that one: Because it will then give Congress an excuse to even further demonize the health insurance industry for making such awful, terrible, greedy, unconscionable increases in premiums, and use the situation they created to further justify a government-run health care system. Cynical? Yep, but do you doubt it for a minute? I’ve still got that beach property for sale…
Thanks for listening.
A couple of weeks ago, a fellow named Douglas Holtz-Eakin wrote a very interesting column in the Wall Street Journal. His column is about the true cost of the bill that’s been put forward by the Senate Finance Committee, and the tax burden that’s about to land on the middle class if it passes. Now Douglas is a pretty smart guy. He’s a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. And that’s just for starters – here’s a link to his full bio. So we should probably pay attention to what he has to say.
To begin with, he points to the myth that Congress is actually going to cut Medicare reimbursements. According to the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, they should already have been cut – but year after year, Congress has voted to reinstate the money. In his words, “It is beyond fantastic to promise that future Congresses, for 10 straight years, will allow planned cuts in reimbursements to hospitals, other providers, and Medicare Advantage (thereby reducing the benefits of 25% of seniors in Medicare)…The very fact that this Congress is pursuing an expensive new entitlement belies the notion that members would be willing to cut existing ones.” (Or, as Nanny Ogg, one of my favorite characters in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels would say, “Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.”)
The problem is, if Congress admits to that rather obvious truth, it pushes the total cost of the legislation to well over $1 trillion.
Then there’s the $400 billion in new taxes and fees that the bill plans to raise by imposing a 40% tax on “Cadillac” policies (which several Democrats are already scrambling to insure that the union members in their districts won’t have to pay), and a variety of fees on health insurers, drug companies, and device manufacturers. Excuse me, but where do you think the insurers, drug companies, and device manufacturers are going to get the money? There’s only one way – by passing their increased costs along to consumers. Holtz-Eakin points to the Senate-House Joint Committee on Taxation, which indicated that “87% of the burden would fall on Americans making less than $200,000, and more than half on those earning under $100,000.”
Complicating matters even further, he points out that Democrats chose to make many of the industry fees nondeductible. Typically, a business would be able to count these kinds of fees as a business expense, which is subtracted from the revenue of the business before the tax obligation is calculated, just as the business would subtract rent on their facilities, their monthly power bill, etc. But every dollar that is taken from a business the way the Democrats are proposing to do it is a dollar that comes directly off the bottom line, and the business must increase revenue by more than a dollar to get it back. Holtz-Eakin estimates that this will result in an increase of as much as $200 billion in insurance premiums over the next 10 years, with 90% of that increase being borne by the middle class.
Why would Congress do such a thing? I can answer that one: Because it will then give Congress an excuse to even further demonize the health insurance industry for making such awful, terrible, greedy, unconscionable increases in premiums, and use the situation they created to further justify a government-run health care system. Cynical? Yep, but do you doubt it for a minute? I’ve still got that beach property for sale…
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
I'm A Little Concerned About Calvin Woodward
Greetings from the Left Coast! Where we here at Left Coast Blues are a little concerned about the well-being and future career prospects of Calvin Woodward. Calvin’s byline appeared yesterday on an Associated Press story that revealed that, hard as it may seem for you to believe, you have once again been lied to by the Democrats. Here, in part, is what he had to say:
Now, the “Democrats and their allies” know darned well what the truth is. But they have some legislation they want passed, and they’ll do whatever they have to do to get it done. Let me remind you again of some of the Rules for Radicals I shared in my last post:
So, in this case, the issue at hand is that Democrats want to ultimately replace private health insurance with a government-run system. And that is the ultimate aim, no matter what they may say. Many leading Democrats are on record as favoring a “single-payer” (i.e., the government) system. Obama is on record as favoring a single-payer system. But the American people don’t want a single-payer system, because we’ve seen the dark side of such systems in other countries such as Canada and the U.K., and we’ve seen what a fiscal nightmare Medicare and Medicaid have become. So, in order to turn public opinion around, they are trying to "polarize" the issue by demonizing the health insurance industry. It doesn’t matter if they have to lie to make that happen, because truth is “relative and changing,” and all that matters is whether the effort will work.
They apparently believe that we’re too stupid to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. In fact, Nancy Pelosi has such contempt for our intellect that she said yesterday that a government-sponsored “public option” may be more attractive if they just call it something else. So you’re starting to hear it called “the consumer option,” and the “competitive option.” Harry Reid thinks that it will fly as long as the states have the ability to “opt out” of the public plan. Mind you, that doesn’t mean that the people in those states could also “opt out” of paying for the plan – just that they wouldn’t receive any of the stuff they were paying for. Knowing what we know about politicians, does anybody out there seriously believe that any state would go down that road? Anybody? You there in the back? No? Too bad, because if you're buying that, I've got some beachfront property in West Texas I'd like to sell you. (It's great beach - a long ways to the water, but great beach.)
I believe that the American people are not that stupid, and that a day of electoral reckoning is coming. There’s a reason why the Congressional approval rating is lower than whale feces, and this kind of stuff is part of it.
In closing, I’d just like to thank Mr. Woodward for being intellectually honest enough to report the truth. That doesn’t happen nearly often enough these days, which is one of the reasons why people’s trust in traditional media is also lower than whale feces. Unfortunately, reporting the truth about something like this can’t be good for Mr. Woodward’s career. We just hope things work out OK for him. If worst comes to worst, maybe he can find a gig on Fox News.
Thanks for listening.
“In the health care debate, Democrats and their allies have gone after insurance companies as rapacious profiteers making ‘immoral’ and ‘obscene’ returns while ‘the bodies pile up.’
“Ledgers tell a different reality. Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That’s anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries.
“Profits barely exceeded 2 percent of revenues in the latest annual measure…”
Now, the “Democrats and their allies” know darned well what the truth is. But they have some legislation they want passed, and they’ll do whatever they have to do to get it done. Let me remind you again of some of the Rules for Radicals I shared in my last post:
“An organizer…does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”
“Before men can act an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition is 100 per cent on the side of the devil. [The organizer] knows that there can be no action until issues are polarized to this degree.”
So, in this case, the issue at hand is that Democrats want to ultimately replace private health insurance with a government-run system. And that is the ultimate aim, no matter what they may say. Many leading Democrats are on record as favoring a “single-payer” (i.e., the government) system. Obama is on record as favoring a single-payer system. But the American people don’t want a single-payer system, because we’ve seen the dark side of such systems in other countries such as Canada and the U.K., and we’ve seen what a fiscal nightmare Medicare and Medicaid have become. So, in order to turn public opinion around, they are trying to "polarize" the issue by demonizing the health insurance industry. It doesn’t matter if they have to lie to make that happen, because truth is “relative and changing,” and all that matters is whether the effort will work.
They apparently believe that we’re too stupid to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. In fact, Nancy Pelosi has such contempt for our intellect that she said yesterday that a government-sponsored “public option” may be more attractive if they just call it something else. So you’re starting to hear it called “the consumer option,” and the “competitive option.” Harry Reid thinks that it will fly as long as the states have the ability to “opt out” of the public plan. Mind you, that doesn’t mean that the people in those states could also “opt out” of paying for the plan – just that they wouldn’t receive any of the stuff they were paying for. Knowing what we know about politicians, does anybody out there seriously believe that any state would go down that road? Anybody? You there in the back? No? Too bad, because if you're buying that, I've got some beachfront property in West Texas I'd like to sell you. (It's great beach - a long ways to the water, but great beach.)
I believe that the American people are not that stupid, and that a day of electoral reckoning is coming. There’s a reason why the Congressional approval rating is lower than whale feces, and this kind of stuff is part of it.
In closing, I’d just like to thank Mr. Woodward for being intellectually honest enough to report the truth. That doesn’t happen nearly often enough these days, which is one of the reasons why people’s trust in traditional media is also lower than whale feces. Unfortunately, reporting the truth about something like this can’t be good for Mr. Woodward’s career. We just hope things work out OK for him. If worst comes to worst, maybe he can find a gig on Fox News.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Maybe This Will Help
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
Seems like a lot of ordinary folks in the middle of the political spectrum are scratching their heads over President Obama’s actions, and wondering what the heck is going on. Buyer’s remorse appears to be setting in as a lot of people are realizing that this was not what they thought they were voting for – nor what Obama claimed during the campaign that he stood for. Perhaps the following quotes will help. They’re all taken directly from the pages of Rules for Radicals – the community organizer’s Bible – and they should help you understand why the Organizer in Chief does many of the things he does.
“An organizer…is in an ideological dilemma. To begin with, he does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
“All of life is partisan. There is no dispassionate objectivity.”
“In this world…’reconciliation’ means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.”
“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”
“…goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’” (Hope and Change, anybody?)
“Ego must be so all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego.”
“Before men can act an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition is 100 per cent on the side of the devil. [The organizer] knows that there can be no action until issues are polarized to this degree.” (Consider for a moment the current effort to demonize health insurance executives, and recall that they're only the latest victims of this strategy.)
“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization…All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.”
“There is a way to keep the action going and to prevent it from being a drag, but this means constantly cutting new issues as the action continues, so that by the time the enthusiasm and the emotions for one issue have started to de-escalate, a new issue has come into the scene with a consequent revival. With a constant introduction of new issues, it will go on and on.”
Explains a lot, doesn’t it? But there’s one lesson that Obama has not sufficiently learned, and that is that “people react strictly on the basis of their own experience,” and that “when you go outside anyone’s experience not only do you not communicate, you cause confusion.” You have to understand where the other person is coming from, and Obama doesn’t have the breadth of experience to really understand the majority of middle America.
He doesn’t understand what it’s like to run a small business and have to decide whether you’re going to make payroll or make your mortgage payment this month. He doesn’t understand those people who are bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. He doesn’t understand those people who want the government to defend the country, control the borders, help those who truly need a safety net, and otherwise get the hell out of the way so we can get on with taking care of ourselves and our families. He doesn’t understand why we should be so twisted up about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or Bill Ayres, or ACORN, or a Treasury Secretary who didn’t pay all of his own taxes, or a "czar" who casually calls the opposing party a**holes, or a "safe school czar" who admitted that, as a teacher, he had violated a state law by not reporting the sexual abuse when a 15-year-old told him he had had homosexual relations with an adult, etc., etc., etc. And that will ultimately be his undoing.
Thanks for listening.
Seems like a lot of ordinary folks in the middle of the political spectrum are scratching their heads over President Obama’s actions, and wondering what the heck is going on. Buyer’s remorse appears to be setting in as a lot of people are realizing that this was not what they thought they were voting for – nor what Obama claimed during the campaign that he stood for. Perhaps the following quotes will help. They’re all taken directly from the pages of Rules for Radicals – the community organizer’s Bible – and they should help you understand why the Organizer in Chief does many of the things he does.
“An organizer…is in an ideological dilemma. To begin with, he does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
“All of life is partisan. There is no dispassionate objectivity.”
“In this world…’reconciliation’ means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation.”
“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.”
“…goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’” (Hope and Change, anybody?)
“Ego must be so all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego.”
“Before men can act an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition is 100 per cent on the side of the devil. [The organizer] knows that there can be no action until issues are polarized to this degree.” (Consider for a moment the current effort to demonize health insurance executives, and recall that they're only the latest victims of this strategy.)
“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization…All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.”
“There is a way to keep the action going and to prevent it from being a drag, but this means constantly cutting new issues as the action continues, so that by the time the enthusiasm and the emotions for one issue have started to de-escalate, a new issue has come into the scene with a consequent revival. With a constant introduction of new issues, it will go on and on.”
Explains a lot, doesn’t it? But there’s one lesson that Obama has not sufficiently learned, and that is that “people react strictly on the basis of their own experience,” and that “when you go outside anyone’s experience not only do you not communicate, you cause confusion.” You have to understand where the other person is coming from, and Obama doesn’t have the breadth of experience to really understand the majority of middle America.
He doesn’t understand what it’s like to run a small business and have to decide whether you’re going to make payroll or make your mortgage payment this month. He doesn’t understand those people who are bitterly clinging to their guns and religion. He doesn’t understand those people who want the government to defend the country, control the borders, help those who truly need a safety net, and otherwise get the hell out of the way so we can get on with taking care of ourselves and our families. He doesn’t understand why we should be so twisted up about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or Bill Ayres, or ACORN, or a Treasury Secretary who didn’t pay all of his own taxes, or a "czar" who casually calls the opposing party a**holes, or a "safe school czar" who admitted that, as a teacher, he had violated a state law by not reporting the sexual abuse when a 15-year-old told him he had had homosexual relations with an adult, etc., etc., etc. And that will ultimately be his undoing.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Van Has Left the Building
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
So Van Jones resigns, blaming a “vicious smear campaign” for his troubles. I find that choice of words interesting. Since it was his own statements that ultimately were his undoing, does that mean he’s guilty of a vicious smear campaign against himself?
One of the more incredible statements I’ve heard from the left was that Jones wasn’t a “czar,” he was simply an adviser on “Green Jobs.” Oh, puh-lease. Even the New York Times has referred to him as Obama’s “environmental jobs czar.”
But whether or not you call him a “czar” is beside the point. The point is that Obama has brought over 30 people into his administration, at the very top of the Civil Service pay scale, for positions that unquestionably are intended to help shape policy, but which are not subject to the advice and consent of the Senate as Cabinet positions are. Many of them, like Jones, wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Hades of actually surviving a Senate confirmation hearing. In fact, if the mainstream media was doing its job as an impartial watchdog of democracy instead of acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, Jones – as well as some of the other “czars” – wouldn’t have lasted this long.
But the thing that makes me walk away shaking my head is the naiveté of those who say, “Gee, how did this slip past the Administration? Is this another failure of their vetting process?” How many examples do you need before you get it? This wasn’t a surprise to the Administration. They knew full well who Van Jones was, what he believed, and what political positions he had taken in the past. They simply didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. When you are a far-left ultra-liberal, you don’t object to other far-left ultra-liberals – you actively recruit them.
One of the other things my mother used to tell me is that I would be judged by the company I kept. Americans are finally figuring out that the company Obama has kept over the years, and that he continues to keep – as reflected by the people he surrounds himself with in his administration – really do speak volumes about who he is.
Thanks for listening.
So Van Jones resigns, blaming a “vicious smear campaign” for his troubles. I find that choice of words interesting. Since it was his own statements that ultimately were his undoing, does that mean he’s guilty of a vicious smear campaign against himself?
One of the more incredible statements I’ve heard from the left was that Jones wasn’t a “czar,” he was simply an adviser on “Green Jobs.” Oh, puh-lease. Even the New York Times has referred to him as Obama’s “environmental jobs czar.”
But whether or not you call him a “czar” is beside the point. The point is that Obama has brought over 30 people into his administration, at the very top of the Civil Service pay scale, for positions that unquestionably are intended to help shape policy, but which are not subject to the advice and consent of the Senate as Cabinet positions are. Many of them, like Jones, wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Hades of actually surviving a Senate confirmation hearing. In fact, if the mainstream media was doing its job as an impartial watchdog of democracy instead of acting like a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, Jones – as well as some of the other “czars” – wouldn’t have lasted this long.
But the thing that makes me walk away shaking my head is the naiveté of those who say, “Gee, how did this slip past the Administration? Is this another failure of their vetting process?” How many examples do you need before you get it? This wasn’t a surprise to the Administration. They knew full well who Van Jones was, what he believed, and what political positions he had taken in the past. They simply didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. When you are a far-left ultra-liberal, you don’t object to other far-left ultra-liberals – you actively recruit them.
One of the other things my mother used to tell me is that I would be judged by the company I kept. Americans are finally figuring out that the company Obama has kept over the years, and that he continues to keep – as reflected by the people he surrounds himself with in his administration – really do speak volumes about who he is.
Thanks for listening.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Listen With Your Eyes
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
When I was growing up, one of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”
We currently have a President who is a consummate public speaker (at least, as long as the teleprompter is working). His powers of vocal persuasion were honed through his years as a community organizer, where sometimes words are the only tools available to accomplish your goal. Unfortunately, we now see that there is a huge gulf between what he says and what he actually does.
He ran as a post-partisan candidate. He was going to bring us together again. The political climate had become too bitter and divisive, and he embodied the winds of change that would reach across the aisle, mend the partisan divide, and restore unity of purpose to the government. Nothing could be farther from the reality of the “my way or the highway” governing style he has adopted since he took office.
He ran as a moderate. It was just plain silly to call him a socialist. Why, pretty soon his opponents will “be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.” (Note: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” - Rule #5 from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.) We now see that he is, indeed, what his record as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate showed him to be – the most far-left President we have had in living memory. Obama and his supporters may object to the “socialist” label, but, as poet James Whitcomb Riley so aptly put it, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. He has now presided over the largest increase in the federal deficit ever. And he’s not done yet: He claims that we can provide health care coverage to all of the people who don’t currently have it, without raising taxes (other than on the “wealthy”), and without increasing the federal deficit in the process. It’s simply not possible. The math doesn’t work. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost another $1 Trillion over the next ten years. Let’s put that number into perspective: if you could spend $1 every second of every day of every year, it would take you just over 31,709 years to spend $1 Trillion.
He pooh-poohed the stories about his past associations with radicals and, shall we say, less savory characters. Why, he barely knew Bill Ayres, and besides, most of that stuff happened when Obama was just a kid. And he simply doesn’t remember hearing Rev. Wright saying any of that offensive stuff when he was sitting in the pew. Now look at the collection of radicals, tax cheats, and former communists he has appointed to positions within his administration. Look particularly at the “czars,” who drive public policy, but don’t require Congressional confirmation. (That’s why he hired them as “czars” – he knew they would never survive confirmation hearings.)
I could go on, but you get the idea. If my mother was alive today, I know what she’d say. It’s time to start listening with our eyes instead of our ears.
When I was growing up, one of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “What you do speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you say.”
We currently have a President who is a consummate public speaker (at least, as long as the teleprompter is working). His powers of vocal persuasion were honed through his years as a community organizer, where sometimes words are the only tools available to accomplish your goal. Unfortunately, we now see that there is a huge gulf between what he says and what he actually does.
He ran as a post-partisan candidate. He was going to bring us together again. The political climate had become too bitter and divisive, and he embodied the winds of change that would reach across the aisle, mend the partisan divide, and restore unity of purpose to the government. Nothing could be farther from the reality of the “my way or the highway” governing style he has adopted since he took office.
He ran as a moderate. It was just plain silly to call him a socialist. Why, pretty soon his opponents will “be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten.” (Note: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon” - Rule #5 from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.) We now see that he is, indeed, what his record as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate showed him to be – the most far-left President we have had in living memory. Obama and his supporters may object to the “socialist” label, but, as poet James Whitcomb Riley so aptly put it, “When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.”
He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. He has now presided over the largest increase in the federal deficit ever. And he’s not done yet: He claims that we can provide health care coverage to all of the people who don’t currently have it, without raising taxes (other than on the “wealthy”), and without increasing the federal deficit in the process. It’s simply not possible. The math doesn’t work. Even the Congressional Budget Office says it will cost another $1 Trillion over the next ten years. Let’s put that number into perspective: if you could spend $1 every second of every day of every year, it would take you just over 31,709 years to spend $1 Trillion.
He pooh-poohed the stories about his past associations with radicals and, shall we say, less savory characters. Why, he barely knew Bill Ayres, and besides, most of that stuff happened when Obama was just a kid. And he simply doesn’t remember hearing Rev. Wright saying any of that offensive stuff when he was sitting in the pew. Now look at the collection of radicals, tax cheats, and former communists he has appointed to positions within his administration. Look particularly at the “czars,” who drive public policy, but don’t require Congressional confirmation. (That’s why he hired them as “czars” – he knew they would never survive confirmation hearings.)
I could go on, but you get the idea. If my mother was alive today, I know what she’d say. It’s time to start listening with our eyes instead of our ears.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Ted Kennedy
The news today is full of stories about the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. We will no doubt hear at great length about all of the wonderful things he has done for the American people, and I fully expect an impassioned plea from the Democrats to get the health care reform bill passed as a tribute to the late, great Senator. Unfortunately, Mary Jo Kopechne is still unavailable for comment. 'Nuff said.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The "Science Czar"
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
You may not have heard of John Holdren, Obama's pick for the head of his Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...a.k.a. the "Science Czar." But you should have.
Like all of Obama's "Czars," he didn't have to go through any Senate confirmation hearings like Cabinet members do. That's one reason why Obama has so many of them. You don't have to deal with those pesky Republican Senators asking inconvenient questions about the person's background. And Holdren's background is particularly disturbing.
But rather than duplicate the information here, I'd like to direct your attention to this blog entry on the GOPUSA Web site. Please read it. You need to know the kind of people your tax dollars are paying for.
Thanks for listening.
You may not have heard of John Holdren, Obama's pick for the head of his Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology...a.k.a. the "Science Czar." But you should have.
Like all of Obama's "Czars," he didn't have to go through any Senate confirmation hearings like Cabinet members do. That's one reason why Obama has so many of them. You don't have to deal with those pesky Republican Senators asking inconvenient questions about the person's background. And Holdren's background is particularly disturbing.
But rather than duplicate the information here, I'd like to direct your attention to this blog entry on the GOPUSA Web site. Please read it. You need to know the kind of people your tax dollars are paying for.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Keep It Zipped, OK?
It's been said that power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. There must be some truth to that, or else I’m at a loss to explain why Henry Kissinger kept showing up at all those social events in the 70s with gorgeous women on his arm. It certainly appears that the halls of power, both in Washington DC and in state capitols, seem to cause a disproportionately high number of zipper failures.
So I have a message I’d like to send out to all Republican office-holders, and I really think that I speak for a majority of Republicans when I say this:
If you are not single, and you are porking an intern or campaign worker, or indeed anyone other than your wife; if you have a financial scandal or a drug problem that you’ve been concealing; if you like to play footsie in public rest rooms; in fact, if there’s anything going on that you would feel embarrassed about standing in front of the TV cameras and explaining to your constituents, then please do us all a favor: Come clean about it sometime in the next six months, so we can cross you off our list and figure out who we’re going to run against you in the next Republican primary.
If, for some reason, you are incapable of doing this, then please consider changing your party affiliation. Democrats apparently are much more tolerant about this kind of behavior (see Barney Frank, William Jefferson, Ted Kennedy, Marion Barry, or Roland Burris). On this side of the aisle, however, we tend to have certain values that we expect our elected representatives to live up to as we sit here bitterly clinging to our guns and religion.
Frankly, we’re getting tired of this kind of crap screwing up our party’s chances of recapturing some Congressional seats in the 2010 election so we can put some brakes on Obama’s out-of-control spending frenzy and government power grab. We’re also getting tired of you giving the media an excuse to paint all of us with the “sanctimonious hypocrite” brush.
So just stop it. OK? Thanks.
So I have a message I’d like to send out to all Republican office-holders, and I really think that I speak for a majority of Republicans when I say this:
If you are not single, and you are porking an intern or campaign worker, or indeed anyone other than your wife; if you have a financial scandal or a drug problem that you’ve been concealing; if you like to play footsie in public rest rooms; in fact, if there’s anything going on that you would feel embarrassed about standing in front of the TV cameras and explaining to your constituents, then please do us all a favor: Come clean about it sometime in the next six months, so we can cross you off our list and figure out who we’re going to run against you in the next Republican primary.
If, for some reason, you are incapable of doing this, then please consider changing your party affiliation. Democrats apparently are much more tolerant about this kind of behavior (see Barney Frank, William Jefferson, Ted Kennedy, Marion Barry, or Roland Burris). On this side of the aisle, however, we tend to have certain values that we expect our elected representatives to live up to as we sit here bitterly clinging to our guns and religion.
Frankly, we’re getting tired of this kind of crap screwing up our party’s chances of recapturing some Congressional seats in the 2010 election so we can put some brakes on Obama’s out-of-control spending frenzy and government power grab. We’re also getting tired of you giving the media an excuse to paint all of us with the “sanctimonious hypocrite” brush.
So just stop it. OK? Thanks.
Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Worse
Greetings from the Left Coast!
Most fair-minded people who take a moment to think about it will agree that if George W. Bush had taken Laura to New York City for a “date night” when the rest of the country was mired in recession, we would have seen a completely different response from the media in this country. The networks would have been shouting from the rooftops about what a waste it was of taxpayer dollars, and how insensitive it was when ordinary people were suffering so much.
And if Laura had stayed behind in Paris to do a little shopping with the twins while George traveled on to the Middle East and back to the U.S.? Please. You know the pundits would have been apoplectic. And don't even get me started on the Air Force One flyover in New York City.
The media has been so far in the tank for Obama that they’ve dropped any pretence of objectivity. But I thought that media bias had reached its maximum possible peak with the comments made by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas to Hardball’s Chris Matthews (he of the tingling leg) a couple of weeks ago. In case you haven’t heard, Thomas was comparing Obama to Ronald Reagan. While Reagan was “all about America,” Obama is “above that now.” “In a way,” he went on, “Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all different sides together.” Two days later, on Inside Washington, Thomas went on to explain that “We’re understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody. There’s some condescension in it, [ya think, Evan?] but he stands above everybody and says, ‘Now listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.’”
But, unfortunately, even this messianic pronouncement wasn’t the peak. Tonight, ABC’s Charles Gibson will anchor the evening news broadcast from the Blue Room of the White House. Following this, ABC News will broadcast an hour-long infomercial for Obama’s health care plan. Reportedly, Obama will answer questions from audience members who have been pre-selected by ABC News. No opponents and no opposing views will be presented. Opposing groups have attempted to buy commercial time during the broadcast – ABC has rejected the ads. They’ve tried to buy time before or after – ABC has rejected that as well. Needless to say, you won't see any Republicans there.
I’ve been around a while, folks. I was born in the final year of the Truman administration. Grew up during Ike’s tenure. Became politically aware during Johnson’s. Barack Obama is the ninth President to hold office since I’ve been old enough to have some grasp of politics. And I have never, in my entire life, seen anything like this. The mainstream media has become a caricature of itself. And they wonder why their ratings continue to decline. Thank God (and by “God” I do not mean Obama) for the “new media” of the Internet, cable TV, and talk radio.
Thanks for listening.
Most fair-minded people who take a moment to think about it will agree that if George W. Bush had taken Laura to New York City for a “date night” when the rest of the country was mired in recession, we would have seen a completely different response from the media in this country. The networks would have been shouting from the rooftops about what a waste it was of taxpayer dollars, and how insensitive it was when ordinary people were suffering so much.
And if Laura had stayed behind in Paris to do a little shopping with the twins while George traveled on to the Middle East and back to the U.S.? Please. You know the pundits would have been apoplectic. And don't even get me started on the Air Force One flyover in New York City.
The media has been so far in the tank for Obama that they’ve dropped any pretence of objectivity. But I thought that media bias had reached its maximum possible peak with the comments made by Newsweek’s Evan Thomas to Hardball’s Chris Matthews (he of the tingling leg) a couple of weeks ago. In case you haven’t heard, Thomas was comparing Obama to Ronald Reagan. While Reagan was “all about America,” Obama is “above that now.” “In a way,” he went on, “Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all different sides together.” Two days later, on Inside Washington, Thomas went on to explain that “We’re understanding what Obama is. He is the great teacher. He is this guy that stands above everybody. There’s some condescension in it, [ya think, Evan?] but he stands above everybody and says, ‘Now listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.’”
But, unfortunately, even this messianic pronouncement wasn’t the peak. Tonight, ABC’s Charles Gibson will anchor the evening news broadcast from the Blue Room of the White House. Following this, ABC News will broadcast an hour-long infomercial for Obama’s health care plan. Reportedly, Obama will answer questions from audience members who have been pre-selected by ABC News. No opponents and no opposing views will be presented. Opposing groups have attempted to buy commercial time during the broadcast – ABC has rejected the ads. They’ve tried to buy time before or after – ABC has rejected that as well. Needless to say, you won't see any Republicans there.
I’ve been around a while, folks. I was born in the final year of the Truman administration. Grew up during Ike’s tenure. Became politically aware during Johnson’s. Barack Obama is the ninth President to hold office since I’ve been old enough to have some grasp of politics. And I have never, in my entire life, seen anything like this. The mainstream media has become a caricature of itself. And they wonder why their ratings continue to decline. Thank God (and by “God” I do not mean Obama) for the “new media” of the Internet, cable TV, and talk radio.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Obama Votes "Present" On Iran
Greetings from the Left Coast!
So… over the last week or so, President Obama has gone from “gravely concerned” to “deeply troubled” to, as he said earlier today, “appalled and outraged” by what’s been going on in Iran. He’s even gone so far as to “strongly condemn” their beating and killing of their own citizens as “unjust actions.” Wow. At the same time, though, he made it clear that “the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran’s affairs.” In other words, we will do nothing but wring our hands and voice platitudes about how deplorable the situation is, and hope that it all blows over soon so we can get back to being nice to them in the hope that, contrary to all experience and reason, they’ll be nice to us in return. “We are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any adjustments about how we proceed.” Boy, now that's courageous leadership.
Meanwhile, regarding the murder of Neda Agha Soltan, which the ever-courageous MSNBC refers to as an “apparent shooting death,” Obama said, “While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.” Unfortunately, when they are in a ruthless theocracy like Iran, they are frequently on the wrong side of the gun barrels, since those in power go to great lengths to insure that they are the only ones with guns. But that’s OK, I’m sure her fiancé and family will take great comfort knowing she was on the right side of history, and that Obama is also suffering in this raw and painful loss.
Furthermore, “The Iranian people have a universal right to assembly and free speech. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights, and heed the will of its own people. It must govern through consent, not coercion.”
Here’s a news flash, Mr. President: they don’t care about the respect of the international community. Most people in this universe already have that figured out. If it wasn’t obvious before the blood started flowing in the streets, it should be now. They have utter contempt for the international community because they believe it is weak and cowardly, and so far, the international community has done little to prove them wrong. They know that you’re not going to do anything, because you and your party have spent the last several years watching them kill our servicemen in Iraq and doing nothing other than maintaining that the war was lost and we should just declare defeat and go home. And they know that the rest of the world isn’t going to do anything, because without strong leadership from the United States, it never does.
So we sit and watch and pretend that the West in general, and the United States in particular, has nothing at stake in the outcome – that it wouldn’t make any difference to us one way or the other if the people of Iran were able to bring down the theocracy. I guess that’s just another example of Obama’s God-like leadership as he stands above the world, the great teacher, working to bring all different sides together. Funny, but to me it seems a lot like the Second Coming – of Jimmy Carter!
Thanks for listening.
So… over the last week or so, President Obama has gone from “gravely concerned” to “deeply troubled” to, as he said earlier today, “appalled and outraged” by what’s been going on in Iran. He’s even gone so far as to “strongly condemn” their beating and killing of their own citizens as “unjust actions.” Wow. At the same time, though, he made it clear that “the United States respects the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is not interfering in Iran’s affairs.” In other words, we will do nothing but wring our hands and voice platitudes about how deplorable the situation is, and hope that it all blows over soon so we can get back to being nice to them in the hope that, contrary to all experience and reason, they’ll be nice to us in return. “We are going to monitor and see how this plays itself out before we make any adjustments about how we proceed.” Boy, now that's courageous leadership.
Meanwhile, regarding the murder of Neda Agha Soltan, which the ever-courageous MSNBC refers to as an “apparent shooting death,” Obama said, “While this loss is raw and painful, we also know this: Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.” Unfortunately, when they are in a ruthless theocracy like Iran, they are frequently on the wrong side of the gun barrels, since those in power go to great lengths to insure that they are the only ones with guns. But that’s OK, I’m sure her fiancé and family will take great comfort knowing she was on the right side of history, and that Obama is also suffering in this raw and painful loss.
Furthermore, “The Iranian people have a universal right to assembly and free speech. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect those rights, and heed the will of its own people. It must govern through consent, not coercion.”
Here’s a news flash, Mr. President: they don’t care about the respect of the international community. Most people in this universe already have that figured out. If it wasn’t obvious before the blood started flowing in the streets, it should be now. They have utter contempt for the international community because they believe it is weak and cowardly, and so far, the international community has done little to prove them wrong. They know that you’re not going to do anything, because you and your party have spent the last several years watching them kill our servicemen in Iraq and doing nothing other than maintaining that the war was lost and we should just declare defeat and go home. And they know that the rest of the world isn’t going to do anything, because without strong leadership from the United States, it never does.
So we sit and watch and pretend that the West in general, and the United States in particular, has nothing at stake in the outcome – that it wouldn’t make any difference to us one way or the other if the people of Iran were able to bring down the theocracy. I guess that’s just another example of Obama’s God-like leadership as he stands above the world, the great teacher, working to bring all different sides together. Funny, but to me it seems a lot like the Second Coming – of Jimmy Carter!
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Common-Sense Economics
Greetings from the Left Coast!
I’m going to walk through this as slowly and simply as I can: In your own family, you cannot indefinitely spend more money than you take in. Your savings will be exhausted, you will fall deeper and deeper into debt, and you will eventually reach the point where no one is willing to lend you any more money. When you reach that point, you have three choices: (1) Reduce your expenditures to a level that is low enough that you can at least break even, if not begin paying back some of your debt; (2) Increase your income somehow…although that only helps if you don’t increase your expenditures by the same amount; (3) Go broke.
How might those principles apply to a nation – say, the United States? First of all, we have increased our deficit spending to an amount that staggers the imagination. This year’s deficit will be at least four times as large as last year’s which was already the largest on record. And, no, the fact that the last administration had such a large deficit doesn’t justify the current administration quadrupling it. We don’t allow our kids to justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior – we shouldn’t let our Presidents do it either. And we’re rapidly approaching the point where no one is going to want to loan us any more money. Even the Chinese are getting nervous about our level of deficit spending. So where are we?
We’ve seen that it’s awfully hard to stop spending on a government program once it’s been started, so #1 is the hardest thing of all to do. #2 can certainly be done – and there are two ways to do it. One is to grow the economy, so that the same tax rates, or even lower tax rates, will yield more revenue. This is called “supply side economics,” and despite the fact that it has worked every time it has been tried, the Democrats still maintain that it doesn’t work, so we can’t do it. The other is to raise taxes. And don’t kid yourself that only the richest Americans will see increases. You could raise their income tax rate to 100% and still not offset this year’s deficit.
Governments, however, do have another choice other than going broke. They can simply print more money. Unfortunately, this causes two bad things. The first is inflation. If there’s more money in circulation, but the supply of goods and services to be purchased hasn’t increased, prices go up. The second is rising interest rates caused by the inflation – if you loan someone $100, and you know that the $100 you get back in the future won’t have as much purchasing power, you’re going to demand higher interest on your loan.
The current administration is spending money at a rate that makes drunken sailors, Alaskan Pipeline workers, and turn-of-the-century loggers hitting town after six months in the backwoods all look like Ebenezer Scrooge. It has to stop. All the “hope” in the world isn’t going to “change” the basic laws of economics. Some of us remember the days of high inflation and double-digit mortgage interest rates. They weren’t fun…and what’s coming down the road will make those look like the good old days.
Thanks for listening.
I’m going to walk through this as slowly and simply as I can: In your own family, you cannot indefinitely spend more money than you take in. Your savings will be exhausted, you will fall deeper and deeper into debt, and you will eventually reach the point where no one is willing to lend you any more money. When you reach that point, you have three choices: (1) Reduce your expenditures to a level that is low enough that you can at least break even, if not begin paying back some of your debt; (2) Increase your income somehow…although that only helps if you don’t increase your expenditures by the same amount; (3) Go broke.
How might those principles apply to a nation – say, the United States? First of all, we have increased our deficit spending to an amount that staggers the imagination. This year’s deficit will be at least four times as large as last year’s which was already the largest on record. And, no, the fact that the last administration had such a large deficit doesn’t justify the current administration quadrupling it. We don’t allow our kids to justify bad behavior by pointing to other bad behavior – we shouldn’t let our Presidents do it either. And we’re rapidly approaching the point where no one is going to want to loan us any more money. Even the Chinese are getting nervous about our level of deficit spending. So where are we?
We’ve seen that it’s awfully hard to stop spending on a government program once it’s been started, so #1 is the hardest thing of all to do. #2 can certainly be done – and there are two ways to do it. One is to grow the economy, so that the same tax rates, or even lower tax rates, will yield more revenue. This is called “supply side economics,” and despite the fact that it has worked every time it has been tried, the Democrats still maintain that it doesn’t work, so we can’t do it. The other is to raise taxes. And don’t kid yourself that only the richest Americans will see increases. You could raise their income tax rate to 100% and still not offset this year’s deficit.
Governments, however, do have another choice other than going broke. They can simply print more money. Unfortunately, this causes two bad things. The first is inflation. If there’s more money in circulation, but the supply of goods and services to be purchased hasn’t increased, prices go up. The second is rising interest rates caused by the inflation – if you loan someone $100, and you know that the $100 you get back in the future won’t have as much purchasing power, you’re going to demand higher interest on your loan.
The current administration is spending money at a rate that makes drunken sailors, Alaskan Pipeline workers, and turn-of-the-century loggers hitting town after six months in the backwoods all look like Ebenezer Scrooge. It has to stop. All the “hope” in the world isn’t going to “change” the basic laws of economics. Some of us remember the days of high inflation and double-digit mortgage interest rates. They weren’t fun…and what’s coming down the road will make those look like the good old days.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you, Representative Forbes...
Greetings from the Left Coast.
This past Sunday, I shared some thoughts about our heritage in my post about Flag Day. Just today someone pointed me to a YouTube video of Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA), who makes the case as well as I've ever heard it made. So I'd like to share it with you:
Thank you, Representative Forbes, for standing up to be counted, and as always, dear reader, thank you for listening.
This past Sunday, I shared some thoughts about our heritage in my post about Flag Day. Just today someone pointed me to a YouTube video of Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA), who makes the case as well as I've ever heard it made. So I'd like to share it with you:
Thank you, Representative Forbes, for standing up to be counted, and as always, dear reader, thank you for listening.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Some Thoughts On Flag Day
Greetings from the Left Coast!
Flag Day fell on Sunday this year. In the church I attended today, there were lots of red, white, and blue ties on display. The choir sang a beautiful arrangement of America the Beautiful. And as the closing hymn, the congregation sang The Star-Spangled Banner – all three verses. (It actually has four, but there were only three in the hymnal.) As the organist played the introduction, the congregation spontaneously stood. I did the best I could around the large lump that had somehow appeared in my throat.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about President Obama’s statement in Turkey that we were no longer just a Christian nation, and many have questioned whether we have ever been a Christian nation, since the Constitution forbids Congress to pass any law regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. But there is absolutely no question about the faith of the founding fathers and their views on how that faith affected the operation of our nation.
Consider these words from John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
And consider also the words of Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention of 1787: “In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.”
Unfortunately, freedom of religion has somehow degenerated into freedom from religion, and no one seems to be willing to draw a line anywhere between right and wrong, good and evil. Moral judgments aren’t allowed anymore, it seems, particularly in terms of judging someone else’s behavior. Yet, oddly, we also bemoan the results that years of moral relativism have had on our culture. Here's just one example. In an article published yesterday by Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria, writing about the causes of our current economic situation, said:
“Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favors. But very few people acted responsibly, honorably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system—capitalism, socialism, whatever—can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgment and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate. We will never know where the next bubble will form, what the next innovations will look like and where excesses will build up. But we can ask that people steer themselves and their institutions with a greater reliance on a moral compass.”
Really? What moral compass will we ask that they rely on? To what will we appeal if there is no objective standard of right and wrong? Where will that “ethical standard” come from, if, as Franklin suggested, we have “now forgotten that powerful friend?”
The Founders had that moral compass. They knew what their ethical standards were founded upon. And it is reflected in the writings they left for posterity. In closing, consider the final verse penned by Francis Scott Key in 1814:
Thanks for listening.
Flag Day fell on Sunday this year. In the church I attended today, there were lots of red, white, and blue ties on display. The choir sang a beautiful arrangement of America the Beautiful. And as the closing hymn, the congregation sang The Star-Spangled Banner – all three verses. (It actually has four, but there were only three in the hymnal.) As the organist played the introduction, the congregation spontaneously stood. I did the best I could around the large lump that had somehow appeared in my throat.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about President Obama’s statement in Turkey that we were no longer just a Christian nation, and many have questioned whether we have ever been a Christian nation, since the Constitution forbids Congress to pass any law regarding the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. But there is absolutely no question about the faith of the founding fathers and their views on how that faith affected the operation of our nation.
Consider these words from John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
And consider also the words of Benjamin Franklin to the Constitutional Convention of 1787: “In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a Superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human Wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.”
Unfortunately, freedom of religion has somehow degenerated into freedom from religion, and no one seems to be willing to draw a line anywhere between right and wrong, good and evil. Moral judgments aren’t allowed anymore, it seems, particularly in terms of judging someone else’s behavior. Yet, oddly, we also bemoan the results that years of moral relativism have had on our culture. Here's just one example. In an article published yesterday by Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria, writing about the causes of our current economic situation, said:
“Most of what happened over the past decade across the world was legal. Bankers did what they were allowed to do under the law. Politicians did what they thought the system asked of them. Bureaucrats were not exchanging cash for favors. But very few people acted responsibly, honorably or nobly (the very word sounds odd today). This might sound like a small point, but it is not. No system—capitalism, socialism, whatever—can work without a sense of ethics and values at its core. No matter what reforms we put in place, without common sense, judgment and an ethical standard, they will prove inadequate. We will never know where the next bubble will form, what the next innovations will look like and where excesses will build up. But we can ask that people steer themselves and their institutions with a greater reliance on a moral compass.”
Really? What moral compass will we ask that they rely on? To what will we appeal if there is no objective standard of right and wrong? Where will that “ethical standard” come from, if, as Franklin suggested, we have “now forgotten that powerful friend?”
The Founders had that moral compass. They knew what their ethical standards were founded upon. And it is reflected in the writings they left for posterity. In closing, consider the final verse penned by Francis Scott Key in 1814:
“Oh, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”
Thanks for listening.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
What a Fascinating Day!
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Earlier today, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered an absolutely brilliant speech on national security to the American Enterprise Institute. This speech, as you might expect, was scheduled weeks in advance. What a coincidence, then, that President Obama also chose to make a speech on national security today, just 45 minutes before Cheney’s remarks were due to begin! One can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with the fact that President Obama’s approval rating has fallen by 9 points since his inauguration (from 65% down to 56%, according to Rassmussen), while Cheney’s has actually risen by 8 points, according to a CNN poll! In campaign-speak, that’s referred to as a “17 point swing.”
One might almost think that President Obama’s speech was intended to be a pre-emptive rhetorical strike against Cheney, who has been increasingly vocal lately. One thing is certain – Obama’s remarks sounded downright defensive.
If you missed Cheney’s speech, and would like to read it in its entirety, you can find the text at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/21/raw-data-text-dick-cheneys-national-security-speech-aei/. I would strongly recommend that you read it, since it’s not going to be fairly reported by most media outlets. Indeed, liberal commentators are already frothing at the mouth over the fact that anyone is paying serious attention to anything Cheney says. Of course, they don’t debate the substance of what he’s saying, they just attack him personally. Most debate coaches will tell you that when you move to personal attacks, it’s a sure sign that you’re not capable of winning the contest of ideas.
One thing is for sure: if you wanted a clear contrast between the conservative and liberal positions in the war on terror, you now have one.
Some people are wondering out loud why we didn’t hear this kind of straight talk while Bush and Cheney were still in office. My guess is that it was because Cheney was, at the time, working for George Bush, who was content to let history be the ultimate judge of his national security performance. Cheney doesn’t work for Bush anymore, so he is as free as any other private citizen to speak his mind. And he’s doing so. Brilliantly.
Thanks for listening.
Earlier today, former Vice President Dick Cheney delivered an absolutely brilliant speech on national security to the American Enterprise Institute. This speech, as you might expect, was scheduled weeks in advance. What a coincidence, then, that President Obama also chose to make a speech on national security today, just 45 minutes before Cheney’s remarks were due to begin! One can’t help but wonder if this has something to do with the fact that President Obama’s approval rating has fallen by 9 points since his inauguration (from 65% down to 56%, according to Rassmussen), while Cheney’s has actually risen by 8 points, according to a CNN poll! In campaign-speak, that’s referred to as a “17 point swing.”
One might almost think that President Obama’s speech was intended to be a pre-emptive rhetorical strike against Cheney, who has been increasingly vocal lately. One thing is certain – Obama’s remarks sounded downright defensive.
If you missed Cheney’s speech, and would like to read it in its entirety, you can find the text at http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/21/raw-data-text-dick-cheneys-national-security-speech-aei/. I would strongly recommend that you read it, since it’s not going to be fairly reported by most media outlets. Indeed, liberal commentators are already frothing at the mouth over the fact that anyone is paying serious attention to anything Cheney says. Of course, they don’t debate the substance of what he’s saying, they just attack him personally. Most debate coaches will tell you that when you move to personal attacks, it’s a sure sign that you’re not capable of winning the contest of ideas.
One thing is for sure: if you wanted a clear contrast between the conservative and liberal positions in the war on terror, you now have one.
Some people are wondering out loud why we didn’t hear this kind of straight talk while Bush and Cheney were still in office. My guess is that it was because Cheney was, at the time, working for George Bush, who was content to let history be the ultimate judge of his national security performance. Cheney doesn’t work for Bush anymore, so he is as free as any other private citizen to speak his mind. And he’s doing so. Brilliantly.
Thanks for listening.
Friday, May 1, 2009
A Poll You Didn't Hear Much About
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
Last Wednesday, April 29, I happened to spot a poll on msn.com. It was being run by msnbc, and entitled, “The President has completed 100 days in office. Based on his performance so far, what grade would you give him?” At the time I cast my vote, 280,404 votes had been cast. They broke down as follows:
Last Wednesday, April 29, I happened to spot a poll on msn.com. It was being run by msnbc, and entitled, “The President has completed 100 days in office. Based on his performance so far, what grade would you give him?” At the time I cast my vote, 280,404 votes had been cast. They broke down as follows:
- 32.9% - A
- 8.8% - B
- 6.2% - C
- 13.9% - D
- 38.2% - F
Yesterday (the 30th), as the vote count continued to climb, the percentages stayed about the same. With 348,545 votes in:
- 32.1% - A
- 8.5% - B
- 6.1% - C
- 14% - D
- 39.3% - F
Yes, over half the people who voted gave him a D or an F. Of course, this poll wasn’t “scientific.” But here’s what’s funny: Go to msnbc and try to find the poll now. You can’t. If you do a Web search, you’ll find other posts about the poll. But if you try to follow the links back to MSNBC, you’ll find a page that says “The page you are seeking has expired and is no longer available at msnbc.com.” And if you search msnbc.com for polls on the first 100 days, all you’ll find is links to stories about polls that talk about what high marks Obama has received. You won’t find a peep about their own poll, where almost 40% of the respondents gave him an F. Why do you suppose that is?
Your American news media. In my lifetime, we’ve gone from “All the news that’s fit to print” to “All the news that fits our agenda.”
Thanks for listening.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
More Constitutional Abuse
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
There is a movement afoot to make an end-run around the Constitution, and fundamentally change the way our nation elects its President, and the lack of press coverage is astounding.
Buried in the “Northwest Briefly” feature of my morning newspaper earlier this week was a short, 5-sentence article entitled “Gregoire signs popular vote bill.” The bill would require Washington’s 11 electoral votes to be cast for the candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of whether that candidate actually won the State of Washington. It wouldn’t take effect until enough states sign onto this mutual suicide pact to account for 270 electoral votes – the number it currently takes to win the Presidency. So far, the compact has been ratified in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey, as well as Washington.
Let me explain this in terms that even liberal Democrats can understand. Under this scheme, if Barack Obama had won the State of Washington, but John McCain had won the national popular vote, then Washington’s 11 electoral votes would have been taken away from Barack Obama and given to John McCain. It astounds me that, in a state that is so vocal about making sure that every vote counts, our leaders would think it was a good idea to potentially throw out the majority of the votes cast in a Presidential election.
But there are other reasons why this is a bad idea. The Electoral College was one of the many brilliant checks and balances that the founders built into our political system, and, regardless of what you may have heard, it was not designed simply because they didn’t trust the wisdom of the voters. It was created in recognition that the interests of large, populous, industrialized states were not always the same as the interests of smaller, less populated, agricultural states. It was designed to preserve the importance of those smaller states in the election process, so that the Presidency could not be won simply by focusing on a few very large and heavily populated states. That purpose is as valid today as it was in 1790.
In my opinion, this is more evidence of the failure of our educational system to teach our children the basics about our form of government and why the founders made the decisions they made, as well as more evidence of a disregard for the Constitution in general.
Put simply, if you don’t like what the Constitution says, then change it. The founders wisely included a process by which it can be amended. It isn’t easy – because it wasn’t meant to be. But we know the process works, because it has been done 27 times in the last 220 years. Trying to circumvent that process is a hallmark of those who do not have the courage and leadership to stand up and articulate why it should be changed, and convince a sufficient number of their fellow-citizens to agree with them.
Thanks for listening.
There is a movement afoot to make an end-run around the Constitution, and fundamentally change the way our nation elects its President, and the lack of press coverage is astounding.
Buried in the “Northwest Briefly” feature of my morning newspaper earlier this week was a short, 5-sentence article entitled “Gregoire signs popular vote bill.” The bill would require Washington’s 11 electoral votes to be cast for the candidate who wins the national popular vote, regardless of whether that candidate actually won the State of Washington. It wouldn’t take effect until enough states sign onto this mutual suicide pact to account for 270 electoral votes – the number it currently takes to win the Presidency. So far, the compact has been ratified in Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, and New Jersey, as well as Washington.
Let me explain this in terms that even liberal Democrats can understand. Under this scheme, if Barack Obama had won the State of Washington, but John McCain had won the national popular vote, then Washington’s 11 electoral votes would have been taken away from Barack Obama and given to John McCain. It astounds me that, in a state that is so vocal about making sure that every vote counts, our leaders would think it was a good idea to potentially throw out the majority of the votes cast in a Presidential election.
But there are other reasons why this is a bad idea. The Electoral College was one of the many brilliant checks and balances that the founders built into our political system, and, regardless of what you may have heard, it was not designed simply because they didn’t trust the wisdom of the voters. It was created in recognition that the interests of large, populous, industrialized states were not always the same as the interests of smaller, less populated, agricultural states. It was designed to preserve the importance of those smaller states in the election process, so that the Presidency could not be won simply by focusing on a few very large and heavily populated states. That purpose is as valid today as it was in 1790.
In my opinion, this is more evidence of the failure of our educational system to teach our children the basics about our form of government and why the founders made the decisions they made, as well as more evidence of a disregard for the Constitution in general.
Put simply, if you don’t like what the Constitution says, then change it. The founders wisely included a process by which it can be amended. It isn’t easy – because it wasn’t meant to be. But we know the process works, because it has been done 27 times in the last 220 years. Trying to circumvent that process is a hallmark of those who do not have the courage and leadership to stand up and articulate why it should be changed, and convince a sufficient number of their fellow-citizens to agree with them.
Thanks for listening.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Some Thoughts on Good Friday...
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."
II Chronicles 7:14, emphasis added.
II Chronicles 7:14, emphasis added.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Still Using That Towel
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Continuing the Hitchhiker’s theme from our last post, the Obama administration continues to wrap its towel around its collective head in the apparent belief that if it can’t see the bad guys, they can’t see us either.
South Korea tests a long range missile, despite our stern warnings. (Gee, who would have thought that they would ignore our stern warnings?) In response, we…well we didn’t do anything other than bluster and go to the United Nations. Are you kidding me? The United Nations? The same bunch that passed umpteen Security Council resolutions against Iraq and refused to enforce any of them? That United Nations? I’m sure that Kim Jong Il is quaking in his boots.
Hard on the heels of that comes the attack by pirates on a U.S.-flagged vessel. Kudos to the crew, who managed to take their ship back…but it came at the cost of having their captain taken hostage. According to the administration, President Obama is staying “apprised of the situation.” According to the Secretary of State, “we are deeply concerned and we’re following it very closely.” But are we going to do anything? Apparently not, because “the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy,” which she goes on to describe as “criminal activity…on the high seas.”
“The world” isn’t going to do squat, and Mrs. Clinton knows it. "The world" is lazy and cowardly, and even more in denial than the Obama administration about the dangers of Islamic terrorists – of which the Somali pirates are just another manifestation. Some nations in the world might be willing to follow our leadership, but we haven’t got any. And “the world” did not end the scourge of piracy the first time around as Mrs. Clinton implied – the United States Marines did.
Ever wonder about that line in the Marine Hymn about “the shores of Tripoli?” That happened when President Thomas Jefferson unilaterally sent the Marines in to wipe out the pirates who had been preying on international shipping, literally selling their captives into slavery, and demanding ransoms that grew to represent a substantial percentage of U.S. revenues. These pirates were backed by the Ottoman Caliphate, whose ambassador told Jefferson and John Adams, who went to London to attempt to negotiate with him, that according to the Koran, “all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.”
That war lasted 14 years – but we ultimately eliminated the Barbary pirates as a threat to our shipping. And we could do it again. According to the New York Daily News, “U.S. military commanders have already prepared battle plans for ending the scourge of piracy on the high seas off Somalia if President Obama pulls the trigger.” The article quotes retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley as saying, “Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up. So far, no one has let them.” He went on to say that our Special Forces “could take care of the pirates in 72 hours.”
So…what do you think? Anybody want to lay odds on whether President Obama will give the green light to an operation to take out the pirates? Don’t hold your breath. The 3:00 am phone calls that Hillary warned us about during her campaign are starting to come in, and just as she predicted, Obama obviously isn’t up to the task.
North Korea will continue to do whatever they want to do. Obama will do nothing about it. Iran will continue to pursue nuclear weapons. Obama will do nothing about it. Pirates will continue to prey on shipping off the coast of Somalia. Obama will do nothing about it. He can’t see through that towel.
Thanks for listening.
Continuing the Hitchhiker’s theme from our last post, the Obama administration continues to wrap its towel around its collective head in the apparent belief that if it can’t see the bad guys, they can’t see us either.
South Korea tests a long range missile, despite our stern warnings. (Gee, who would have thought that they would ignore our stern warnings?) In response, we…well we didn’t do anything other than bluster and go to the United Nations. Are you kidding me? The United Nations? The same bunch that passed umpteen Security Council resolutions against Iraq and refused to enforce any of them? That United Nations? I’m sure that Kim Jong Il is quaking in his boots.
Hard on the heels of that comes the attack by pirates on a U.S.-flagged vessel. Kudos to the crew, who managed to take their ship back…but it came at the cost of having their captain taken hostage. According to the administration, President Obama is staying “apprised of the situation.” According to the Secretary of State, “we are deeply concerned and we’re following it very closely.” But are we going to do anything? Apparently not, because “the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy,” which she goes on to describe as “criminal activity…on the high seas.”
“The world” isn’t going to do squat, and Mrs. Clinton knows it. "The world" is lazy and cowardly, and even more in denial than the Obama administration about the dangers of Islamic terrorists – of which the Somali pirates are just another manifestation. Some nations in the world might be willing to follow our leadership, but we haven’t got any. And “the world” did not end the scourge of piracy the first time around as Mrs. Clinton implied – the United States Marines did.
Ever wonder about that line in the Marine Hymn about “the shores of Tripoli?” That happened when President Thomas Jefferson unilaterally sent the Marines in to wipe out the pirates who had been preying on international shipping, literally selling their captives into slavery, and demanding ransoms that grew to represent a substantial percentage of U.S. revenues. These pirates were backed by the Ottoman Caliphate, whose ambassador told Jefferson and John Adams, who went to London to attempt to negotiate with him, that according to the Koran, “all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.”
That war lasted 14 years – but we ultimately eliminated the Barbary pirates as a threat to our shipping. And we could do it again. According to the New York Daily News, “U.S. military commanders have already prepared battle plans for ending the scourge of piracy on the high seas off Somalia if President Obama pulls the trigger.” The article quotes retired U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley as saying, “Our special operations people have been itching to clean them up. So far, no one has let them.” He went on to say that our Special Forces “could take care of the pirates in 72 hours.”
So…what do you think? Anybody want to lay odds on whether President Obama will give the green light to an operation to take out the pirates? Don’t hold your breath. The 3:00 am phone calls that Hillary warned us about during her campaign are starting to come in, and just as she predicted, Obama obviously isn’t up to the task.
North Korea will continue to do whatever they want to do. Obama will do nothing about it. Iran will continue to pursue nuclear weapons. Obama will do nothing about it. Pirates will continue to prey on shipping off the coast of Somalia. Obama will do nothing about it. He can’t see through that towel.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Obama's Foreign Policy
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
One of Douglas Adams’ most delightful inventions in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal – a creature described as so mind bogglingly stupid that it believes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you either. Therefore, if you are attacked by one, the best thing you can do is to wrap your towel around your head.
I’m not sure how many of the folks in Hillary’s State Department are fans of Douglas Adams, but our new posture in regard to Islamic terrorism appears to be to wrap our towels around our heads. It was reported in the Washington Post last week that the Defense Department’s office of security review emailed Pentagon staff members to say that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”
In a related matter, Janet Napolitano, the new head of Homeland Security – you know, the agency that was created specifically to keep us safe from terrorist attacks – is now referring to these incidents as “man-caused disasters.”
Representative Lamar Smith of San Antonio, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, observed that it made about as much sense as referring to Mexican drug cartels as “recreational pharmacists,” to North Korea as a “gated community,” or to terrorist training camps as “desert day spas.” But then Representative Smith is another one of those goofy Texans – you know, like Ross Perot, who observed that at his company, EDS, “when you see a snake you kill it” (unlike GM, where, “when you see a snake, first you seek out the best consultants on snakes. Then you appoint a committee on snakes. And then you study snakes for a year or two.”).
Unfortunately, the Obama administration has gone even farther than GM – they appear to believe that if you call a snake a puppy, it will wag its tail and lick your hand. Talk about mind bogglingly stupid. And, no, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I only wish it was.
Thanks for listening.
One of Douglas Adams’ most delightful inventions in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal – a creature described as so mind bogglingly stupid that it believes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you either. Therefore, if you are attacked by one, the best thing you can do is to wrap your towel around your head.
I’m not sure how many of the folks in Hillary’s State Department are fans of Douglas Adams, but our new posture in regard to Islamic terrorism appears to be to wrap our towels around our heads. It was reported in the Washington Post last week that the Defense Department’s office of security review emailed Pentagon staff members to say that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”
In a related matter, Janet Napolitano, the new head of Homeland Security – you know, the agency that was created specifically to keep us safe from terrorist attacks – is now referring to these incidents as “man-caused disasters.”
Representative Lamar Smith of San Antonio, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, observed that it made about as much sense as referring to Mexican drug cartels as “recreational pharmacists,” to North Korea as a “gated community,” or to terrorist training camps as “desert day spas.” But then Representative Smith is another one of those goofy Texans – you know, like Ross Perot, who observed that at his company, EDS, “when you see a snake you kill it” (unlike GM, where, “when you see a snake, first you seek out the best consultants on snakes. Then you appoint a committee on snakes. And then you study snakes for a year or two.”).
Unfortunately, the Obama administration has gone even farther than GM – they appear to believe that if you call a snake a puppy, it will wag its tail and lick your hand. Talk about mind bogglingly stupid. And, no, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. I only wish it was.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I Have A Dream...
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can't be bothered.
I have a dream, ladies and gentlemen. A dream in which a credible Republican leader (and, yes, I realize that "credible Republican leader" is unfortunately an oxymoron at the moment) says to Barack Obama what Daniel Hannan is saying to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Give a listen, and mentally replace "Mr. Prime Minister" with "Mr. President," and the references to Great Britain with references to the United States. I think you'll find that the meaning transfers pretty well.
Thanks for listening.
I have a dream, ladies and gentlemen. A dream in which a credible Republican leader (and, yes, I realize that "credible Republican leader" is unfortunately an oxymoron at the moment) says to Barack Obama what Daniel Hannan is saying to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Give a listen, and mentally replace "Mr. Prime Minister" with "Mr. President," and the references to Great Britain with references to the United States. I think you'll find that the meaning transfers pretty well.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
An Open Letter to America
Are you happy now? Is this really the government you wanted? Where Congress demonizes private citizens to the point where they fear for their lives and safety? Where, after deliberately inserting language into the stimulus bill that allowed these bonuses to be paid, they then turn around and threaten to specifically target these people with a confiscatory 90% tax if they don’t give the money back – even though they were contractually entitled to it? Is this the government you wanted?
And don’t tell me that the bonuses weren’t deserved, because you don’t know that. You don’t know who got bonuses, you don’t know what they had to do to qualify for them, and you don’t know how much worse things at AIG might have been without these particular individuals. You simply assumed that because AIG lost a lot of money and got a government bailout, and because Congress and the media sensationalized the situation, and because we’re talking about large sums of money, these people didn’t deserve to have their employment contracts honored – even though the total amount we’re talking about is less than one-tenth of one percent of the bailout money AIG received – so you grabbed your pitchfork and torch and joined the mob. Shame on you.
There is no slope slipperier than the one you set foot upon when the government starts deciding what people in the private sector “should” be paid. To paraphrase the Reverend Martin Niemoller:
And don’t tell me that the bonuses weren’t deserved, because you don’t know that. You don’t know who got bonuses, you don’t know what they had to do to qualify for them, and you don’t know how much worse things at AIG might have been without these particular individuals. You simply assumed that because AIG lost a lot of money and got a government bailout, and because Congress and the media sensationalized the situation, and because we’re talking about large sums of money, these people didn’t deserve to have their employment contracts honored – even though the total amount we’re talking about is less than one-tenth of one percent of the bailout money AIG received – so you grabbed your pitchfork and torch and joined the mob. Shame on you.
There is no slope slipperier than the one you set foot upon when the government starts deciding what people in the private sector “should” be paid. To paraphrase the Reverend Martin Niemoller:
First they came for the Wall Street CEOs, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Wall Street CEO.
Then they came for the bonus recipients, and I did not speak out, because I was not a bonus recipient.
Then they came for big business executives with private jets, and I did not speak out, because I didn’t have a private jet.
Then they came for the “rich” people who made more than $250,000 per year, and I did not speak out, because I wasn’t “rich.”
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Some Food for Thought
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, of Great Britain, was approximately 30 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and turned 42 the year the U.S. Constitution was ratified. He watched the birth of the new nation from his side of the Atlantic. While unverified, the following quote has long been attributed to him:
We have a president who is determined to play the class warfare card at every opportunity. On page five of Mr. Obama’s federal budget, you will read, “While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.” Did you catch that? If you make a lot of money, President Obama apparently believes that you must have done something shady or underhanded to do it – you haven’t been “playing by the rules,” and he goes on to say that it is his duty to change that. I find that disturbing.
Demonize the rich. Make them pay for all those nifty government programs. After all, they don't deserve to have all that money! It isn't fair that they should have so much! They probably cheated to get it anyway! Keep that largesse coming.
May I recommend instead the words of another president: “Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” That was Abraham Lincoln, whom Barack Obama claims to admire.
And while we’re quoting great statesmen, consider Thomas Jefferson’s words: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
Thanks for listening.
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee, of Great Britain, was approximately 30 years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and turned 42 the year the U.S. Constitution was ratified. He watched the birth of the new nation from his side of the Atlantic. While unverified, the following quote has long been attributed to him:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”We’ve managed to beat the 200 year prediction so far, but some things are starting to worry me. As we’ve observed in earlier posts, 41% of all Americans paid no federal Income Tax in 2006. That’s pushing dangerously close to a majority. And we continue to hear that we can have it all, and only the “rich” will have to pay for it – 95% of all Americans, we are told, will get tax cuts.
We have a president who is determined to play the class warfare card at every opportunity. On page five of Mr. Obama’s federal budget, you will read, “While middle-class families have been playing by the rules, living up to their responsibilities as neighbors and citizens, those at the commanding heights of our economy have not.” Did you catch that? If you make a lot of money, President Obama apparently believes that you must have done something shady or underhanded to do it – you haven’t been “playing by the rules,” and he goes on to say that it is his duty to change that. I find that disturbing.
Demonize the rich. Make them pay for all those nifty government programs. After all, they don't deserve to have all that money! It isn't fair that they should have so much! They probably cheated to get it anyway! Keep that largesse coming.
May I recommend instead the words of another president: “Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” That was Abraham Lincoln, whom Barack Obama claims to admire.
And while we’re quoting great statesmen, consider Thomas Jefferson’s words: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
Thanks for listening.
March's Trip to the Perspective Store
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Golly, the government, from President Obama on down, are sure twisted up about the fact that AIG actually honored their contractual commitments to employees who were due “retention bonuses.” The grandstanding is over the top. Congress is looking for ways to actively punish the employees who received those bonuses. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are breathing out personal threats against them.
Did anyone ever think that maybe, just maybe, some of those employees actually deserved the bonuses? That things would have been worse if they hadn’t done whatever they had to do to qualify for their bonuses? Of course not – not when there’s political gain to be had in demonizing the evil corporate giant.
Here’s the thing: AIG is a gigantic company. You probably can’t even imagine how gigantic it is. At the end of 2007, according to their annual report, they had over $1 trillion in assets. Yes, they lost roughly $38 billion dollars in 2008, according to the “adjusted net loss” number publicly available on their Web site. Honest people can differ on whether they were truly in danger of failing as a result of this loss – because by my calculations that would still leave them with about $962 billion in assets – or whether any business should be viewed as “too big to fail,” but the bottom line was that the government invested somewhere around $170 billion of your money to make sure they didn’t.
The bonuses that everyone is so twisted up over totaled about $165 million. That may sound like a lot, but it’s only one tenth of one percent of the $170 billion the government pumped into them. And it’s less than two one-hundredths of one percent of their remaining assets, if my calculations are correct.
And have you noticed that you’re not hearing much about how many people received bonuses? If you do a little digging, you’ll learn that 73 people got $1 million or more, and the top recipient got $6.4 million. But we don’t know how many people overall were in that bonus pool. What we do know is that if companies are forced to break their contractual obligations to their employees, it’s going to make it more difficult for them to find the quality employees they’ll need to succeed in the future.
This should also point out, to other CEOs, the dangers inherent of taking money from the government –you can no longer just tell them to go pound sand when they start telling you how much you should pay your employees.
Thanks for listening.
Golly, the government, from President Obama on down, are sure twisted up about the fact that AIG actually honored their contractual commitments to employees who were due “retention bonuses.” The grandstanding is over the top. Congress is looking for ways to actively punish the employees who received those bonuses. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are breathing out personal threats against them.
Did anyone ever think that maybe, just maybe, some of those employees actually deserved the bonuses? That things would have been worse if they hadn’t done whatever they had to do to qualify for their bonuses? Of course not – not when there’s political gain to be had in demonizing the evil corporate giant.
Here’s the thing: AIG is a gigantic company. You probably can’t even imagine how gigantic it is. At the end of 2007, according to their annual report, they had over $1 trillion in assets. Yes, they lost roughly $38 billion dollars in 2008, according to the “adjusted net loss” number publicly available on their Web site. Honest people can differ on whether they were truly in danger of failing as a result of this loss – because by my calculations that would still leave them with about $962 billion in assets – or whether any business should be viewed as “too big to fail,” but the bottom line was that the government invested somewhere around $170 billion of your money to make sure they didn’t.
The bonuses that everyone is so twisted up over totaled about $165 million. That may sound like a lot, but it’s only one tenth of one percent of the $170 billion the government pumped into them. And it’s less than two one-hundredths of one percent of their remaining assets, if my calculations are correct.
And have you noticed that you’re not hearing much about how many people received bonuses? If you do a little digging, you’ll learn that 73 people got $1 million or more, and the top recipient got $6.4 million. But we don’t know how many people overall were in that bonus pool. What we do know is that if companies are forced to break their contractual obligations to their employees, it’s going to make it more difficult for them to find the quality employees they’ll need to succeed in the future.
This should also point out, to other CEOs, the dangers inherent of taking money from the government –you can no longer just tell them to go pound sand when they start telling you how much you should pay your employees.
Thanks for listening.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cognitive Dissonance and "Doublethink"
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Psychologists speak of a concept called “cognitive dissonance.” It’s the uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. For example, it is known that smoking causes lung cancer, and, arguably, most smokers want just as much as anyone else to live a long and healthy life. So the act of smoking is dissonant with the desire to live a long life. Humans generally relieve this kind of discomfort by rationalization. ("Only a few smokers actually develop lung cancer, and they're generally much heavier smokers than I am.") People who are very, very good at this kind of rationalization can take it to the next level: “doublethink.”
This term, coined by George Orwell in his famous novel, 1984, is described as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Some people have an amazing ability to perform this mental trick, which Orwell further describes as “controlled insanity.” As Exhibit A, I give you Warren Buffett, America’s “Billionaire Next Door,” and the thoughts he shared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on March 9. If you didn’t catch the program, you can still get the transcript and view the videos on the Internet, and I would encourage you to do so, because most of what you’re about to read was not widely reported.
Now, Warren Buffett is a pretty smart guy in a lot of ways. He is, at least, smart enough to have made one whole heck of a lot more money than, say, your humble correspondent. But Mr. Buffett is still human, and appears to have a remarkable talent for doublethink.
He clearly believes that the current recession is an “economic Pearl Harbor” (his term), and that we are in an economic war that requires decisive action. He believes the American people are confused and fearful, and that the government must send a very clear message, and that “The only authoritative voice in the United States who says, ‘This is what we’re going to do, this is what we’re not going to do’…is the president of the United States.”
Unfortunately, he acknowledges that “we’ve had…muddled messages, and the American public does not know…what’s going on and their reaction, then, is to absolutely pull back.”
He also takes issue with the general way that the Democrats have been behaving: “…if you’re in a war, and we really are in an economic war, there’s an obligation to the majority to behave in ways that don’t go around inflaming the minority…when Roosevelt convened Congress to have a vote on the war, he didn’t say, ‘I’m throwing in about 10 of my pet projects,’ and you didn’t have congress people putting on 8,000 earmarks onto the declaration of war in 1941…I don’t think anybody on December 7 would have said a ‘war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we’re going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and – but we expect to – expect the other party to unite behind us on the – on the big problem.’”
On staying focused, he said: “…I would absolutely say for the – for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are…contentious, and…I also would do no finger-pointing whatsoever…I would not say, you know, ‘George’ – ‘the previous administration got us into this’…I think, on balance, we ought to defer most of the things that cause people to get very riled up…I think the message ought to continuously be, ‘We are in an economic war. We’re going to solve this together. We’re not going to use it as a way to get all kinds of changes made.’”
On the stimulus bill: “…the stimulus plan’s going to take a long time to kick in…the stimulus plan is part of the recovery, but it’s not the most – it’s important to put it in, but there’s other things that need to be done now to restore confidence…There are things that need to be done up front that actually are more important. But I’m still in favor of having a stimulus bill.”
When asked about President Obama openly criticizing the use of corporate jets by CEOs, Mr. Buffett defended his own use of a private jet, and said that his company has been better off for it. Furthermore, “I think it’s a big mistake to start demonizing anybody in this game.”
On the “card check” legislation that would do away with secret balloting in union certification elections: “I think the secret ballot’s pretty important in the country. You know, I’m against card check, to make a perfectly flat statement…I think card check is a mistake.”
On the proposed “cap and trade” legislation: “Anything you put in that effectively taxes carbon emissions is – somebody’s going to bear the brunt of it. In the case of a regulated utility, the utility customers are going to pay for it…But that tax is probably going to be pretty regressive.” He goes on to say that, “our own guys at MidAmerican Energy…generally do not lean in favor of cap and trade.”
But yet on President Obama himself he says: “I think that the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that…I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he’s the right guy…”
What? Let me get this straight – you think we’ve been getting muddled messages from the administration, you’re opposed to the way the Democrats have been treating the Republicans, you’re opposed to all the pet projects and earmarks that have been hooked onto the recent legislation, you don’t think we should be pushing ahead with a lot of other “contentious” issues until we have the economy straightened out, you don’t think we should be pointing fingers at the previous administration, you think there are other things that were more important than a stimulus bill and that the stimulus bill is going to take a long time to kick in, you don’t agree with Obama’s criticism of CEO’s use of private jets, you don’t agree on the card check legislation, but you strongly support Obama and think the Republicans should fall in line behind his leadership? You disagree with dang near everything he’s trying to do!
That, dear reader, is classic doublethink.
Thanks for listening.
Psychologists speak of a concept called “cognitive dissonance.” It’s the uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. For example, it is known that smoking causes lung cancer, and, arguably, most smokers want just as much as anyone else to live a long and healthy life. So the act of smoking is dissonant with the desire to live a long life. Humans generally relieve this kind of discomfort by rationalization. ("Only a few smokers actually develop lung cancer, and they're generally much heavier smokers than I am.") People who are very, very good at this kind of rationalization can take it to the next level: “doublethink.”
This term, coined by George Orwell in his famous novel, 1984, is described as, “The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” Some people have an amazing ability to perform this mental trick, which Orwell further describes as “controlled insanity.” As Exhibit A, I give you Warren Buffett, America’s “Billionaire Next Door,” and the thoughts he shared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on March 9. If you didn’t catch the program, you can still get the transcript and view the videos on the Internet, and I would encourage you to do so, because most of what you’re about to read was not widely reported.
Now, Warren Buffett is a pretty smart guy in a lot of ways. He is, at least, smart enough to have made one whole heck of a lot more money than, say, your humble correspondent. But Mr. Buffett is still human, and appears to have a remarkable talent for doublethink.
He clearly believes that the current recession is an “economic Pearl Harbor” (his term), and that we are in an economic war that requires decisive action. He believes the American people are confused and fearful, and that the government must send a very clear message, and that “The only authoritative voice in the United States who says, ‘This is what we’re going to do, this is what we’re not going to do’…is the president of the United States.”
Unfortunately, he acknowledges that “we’ve had…muddled messages, and the American public does not know…what’s going on and their reaction, then, is to absolutely pull back.”
He also takes issue with the general way that the Democrats have been behaving: “…if you’re in a war, and we really are in an economic war, there’s an obligation to the majority to behave in ways that don’t go around inflaming the minority…when Roosevelt convened Congress to have a vote on the war, he didn’t say, ‘I’m throwing in about 10 of my pet projects,’ and you didn’t have congress people putting on 8,000 earmarks onto the declaration of war in 1941…I don’t think anybody on December 7 would have said a ‘war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we’re going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and – but we expect to – expect the other party to unite behind us on the – on the big problem.’”
On staying focused, he said: “…I would absolutely say for the – for the interim, till we get this one solved, I would not be pushing a lot of things that are…contentious, and…I also would do no finger-pointing whatsoever…I would not say, you know, ‘George’ – ‘the previous administration got us into this’…I think, on balance, we ought to defer most of the things that cause people to get very riled up…I think the message ought to continuously be, ‘We are in an economic war. We’re going to solve this together. We’re not going to use it as a way to get all kinds of changes made.’”
On the stimulus bill: “…the stimulus plan’s going to take a long time to kick in…the stimulus plan is part of the recovery, but it’s not the most – it’s important to put it in, but there’s other things that need to be done now to restore confidence…There are things that need to be done up front that actually are more important. But I’m still in favor of having a stimulus bill.”
When asked about President Obama openly criticizing the use of corporate jets by CEOs, Mr. Buffett defended his own use of a private jet, and said that his company has been better off for it. Furthermore, “I think it’s a big mistake to start demonizing anybody in this game.”
On the “card check” legislation that would do away with secret balloting in union certification elections: “I think the secret ballot’s pretty important in the country. You know, I’m against card check, to make a perfectly flat statement…I think card check is a mistake.”
On the proposed “cap and trade” legislation: “Anything you put in that effectively taxes carbon emissions is – somebody’s going to bear the brunt of it. In the case of a regulated utility, the utility customers are going to pay for it…But that tax is probably going to be pretty regressive.” He goes on to say that, “our own guys at MidAmerican Energy…generally do not lean in favor of cap and trade.”
But yet on President Obama himself he says: “I think that the Republicans have an obligation to regard this as an economic war and to realize you need one leader and, in general, support of that…I voted for Obama and I strongly support him, and I think he’s the right guy…”
What? Let me get this straight – you think we’ve been getting muddled messages from the administration, you’re opposed to the way the Democrats have been treating the Republicans, you’re opposed to all the pet projects and earmarks that have been hooked onto the recent legislation, you don’t think we should be pushing ahead with a lot of other “contentious” issues until we have the economy straightened out, you don’t think we should be pointing fingers at the previous administration, you think there are other things that were more important than a stimulus bill and that the stimulus bill is going to take a long time to kick in, you don’t agree with Obama’s criticism of CEO’s use of private jets, you don’t agree on the card check legislation, but you strongly support Obama and think the Republicans should fall in line behind his leadership? You disagree with dang near everything he’s trying to do!
That, dear reader, is classic doublethink.
Thanks for listening.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Dear President Obama...
Sad to say, we’ve become used to politicians that wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came up and bit them in the behind. It is the rule, not the exception, for them to tell us what we want to hear and say anything they have to say to get elected. There’s nothing new about that at all.
But you were supposed to be different. We the People elected you because you promised to change the way business was conducted in Washington. You promised transparency, and fiscal responsibility. You promised accountability. You promised change we could believe in.
Six weeks into your presidency, the reality is quite different.
Your promised bipartisanship went by the wayside as the stimulus bill was rammed through Congress with no attempt to involve Republicans in crafting it, or even in legitimate debate over what was in it. You told the American people that there was no “pork” at all in the stimulus bill. That is patently false, unless you plan to indulge in the kind of semantic gymnastics one of your predecessors indulged in over what the meaning of the word “is” is.
You promised to go line by line through the budget and eliminate waste. Those of us who know the Constitution understand that you don’t have the authority to do that – all you have is the power of the veto pen – but it doesn’t appear that you made any attempt at all to discourage the thousands of earmarks in the “omnibus” spending bill you just signed…even though you promised in your campaign to eliminate earmarks. Didn’t you understand at the time that you were making a promise you had no power to fulfill? If not, it reveals a stunning ignorance of the Constitution. If so, it means you were deliberately deceiving the people to win votes. Nothing new about that – but certainly not change I can believe in.
You stated publicly that although you found the spending bill distasteful, it was necessary to keep the government operating. That, also, is not true. Congress could have funded the government as long as necessary with more “continuing resolutions” that would simply have kept spending at last year’s level. By Senator Evan Bayh's estimate, that would have saved $250 billion over the next 10 years. That’s over a quarter of what the stimulus bill cost us. Instead, government got an 8% budget increase while the country is mired in what you keep telling us is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. My family didn’t get an 8% budget increase this year. The nation’s hundreds of thousands of unemployed didn’t either. I don’t see why the government should.
But in your eyes, it was “necessary” – just as it was necessary to pass the largest spending bill in our nation’s history before it was too late. Just as it is now necessary to move ahead NOW with health care reform, more money for education, and energy legislation that will kick the economy while it’s down.
I could go on, but the pattern is clear. You have an ideological agenda to implement, and you’re sprinting to the left as fast as you can, pulling the nation behind you, trying to get as much done as you can before enough people figure out what’s going on and put the brakes on. As Rahm Emanuel said, you don’t want to waste a good crisis.
There’s no change here in terms of how business is getting done. You’re just better than most at saying one thing while doing another and making people believe that up is down and day is night. But let me remind you of another quote from someone you claim to admire: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” I don’t believe that a majority of the American people share your ideological vision for the country – and you don’t either, or you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to implement your policies before it’s too late.
It’s a shame, really. You could have done so much good for the country. Instead, you’re proving yourself to be just another dishonest politician.
But you were supposed to be different. We the People elected you because you promised to change the way business was conducted in Washington. You promised transparency, and fiscal responsibility. You promised accountability. You promised change we could believe in.
Six weeks into your presidency, the reality is quite different.
Your promised bipartisanship went by the wayside as the stimulus bill was rammed through Congress with no attempt to involve Republicans in crafting it, or even in legitimate debate over what was in it. You told the American people that there was no “pork” at all in the stimulus bill. That is patently false, unless you plan to indulge in the kind of semantic gymnastics one of your predecessors indulged in over what the meaning of the word “is” is.
You promised to go line by line through the budget and eliminate waste. Those of us who know the Constitution understand that you don’t have the authority to do that – all you have is the power of the veto pen – but it doesn’t appear that you made any attempt at all to discourage the thousands of earmarks in the “omnibus” spending bill you just signed…even though you promised in your campaign to eliminate earmarks. Didn’t you understand at the time that you were making a promise you had no power to fulfill? If not, it reveals a stunning ignorance of the Constitution. If so, it means you were deliberately deceiving the people to win votes. Nothing new about that – but certainly not change I can believe in.
You stated publicly that although you found the spending bill distasteful, it was necessary to keep the government operating. That, also, is not true. Congress could have funded the government as long as necessary with more “continuing resolutions” that would simply have kept spending at last year’s level. By Senator Evan Bayh's estimate, that would have saved $250 billion over the next 10 years. That’s over a quarter of what the stimulus bill cost us. Instead, government got an 8% budget increase while the country is mired in what you keep telling us is the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. My family didn’t get an 8% budget increase this year. The nation’s hundreds of thousands of unemployed didn’t either. I don’t see why the government should.
But in your eyes, it was “necessary” – just as it was necessary to pass the largest spending bill in our nation’s history before it was too late. Just as it is now necessary to move ahead NOW with health care reform, more money for education, and energy legislation that will kick the economy while it’s down.
I could go on, but the pattern is clear. You have an ideological agenda to implement, and you’re sprinting to the left as fast as you can, pulling the nation behind you, trying to get as much done as you can before enough people figure out what’s going on and put the brakes on. As Rahm Emanuel said, you don’t want to waste a good crisis.
There’s no change here in terms of how business is getting done. You’re just better than most at saying one thing while doing another and making people believe that up is down and day is night. But let me remind you of another quote from someone you claim to admire: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” I don’t believe that a majority of the American people share your ideological vision for the country – and you don’t either, or you wouldn’t be in such a hurry to implement your policies before it’s too late.
It’s a shame, really. You could have done so much good for the country. Instead, you’re proving yourself to be just another dishonest politician.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Kudos to Senators Bayh and Feingold!
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
Lest you think that I never have anything good to say about Democrats, I am on record today as a fan of Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana. Senator Bayh has gone on record as opposing the $410 billion “Omnibus” spending bill that’s currently before the Senate. I’ve listened to an interview with him, and I’ve read his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, and he is opposing the bill for precisely the right reasons…as is Democrat Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Thank you, Senators, for putting the nation before your own party and risking the Wrath of Harry for doing so.
Now…I’ve got a few words for some other folks out there. You may want to send the kids to their rooms before I get rolling.
To all of the Republicans in the Senate and House: grow some gonads, pull your earmarks out of the budget bills, and stand up and show some leadership! Stop trying to be “Democrat Light,” for cryin’ out loud.
To the voters in the State of Maine: Do us all a favor, and don’t send Olympia Snow and Susan Collins back to Washington again. To the voters in the State of Pennsylvania: Same goes for Arlen Specter. If you want Democrats to represent you, then elect Democrats. The last thing the Republican Party needs is Republicans who vote like Democrats.
To the voters of the State of Nevada: Have you looked around your state lately? Even healthy companies are cutting back and cancelling conventions and out-of-town meetings…because they’re afraid of coming under government criticism – from the ruling party that is being ruled in part by your Senator. I’ve heard estimates that the travel and hospitality industry may lose 400,000 jobs this year. How many of those jobs will be in Nevada? Do you really think that Harry Reid is looking after your interests?
To the voting public as a whole, if we’re smart, we will do the following: any legislator who voted for the $787 Billion stimulus package without reading it (which is most of them), should be voted out of office. Spending $787 Billion of our children’s and grandchildren’s money needs a better reason than “because Nancy/Harry said so.” And any legislator of either party who is still slipping earmarks into legislation should be voted out of office. Just stop it. Now. If you want to spend our money, put the bills out there where they can be publicly debated and voted on.
And finally, to President Obama: If this $410 billion monstrosity of a spending bill lands on your desk – and it probably will, because there are plenty of legislators on both sides of the aisle who care more about hanging onto their power than about doing what’s right for the country – veto it! This is your chance to prove that you actually do stand for some of the things you campaigned on.
Everything you’ve done so far since your election has confirmed my suspicions that you are exactly what your voting record indicated you would be: the most far-left Senator in the United States Senate (and that’s saying something), and someone who cares more about ideology than about truth (or anything else, for that matter). This is not “last year’s business.” It is, as Senator Bayh says, this year’s spending, and our children’s money. You campaigned for fiscal responsibility. You campaigned against earmarks – in fact, you said you would ban them – and for transparency and accountability. Veto it, or stand exposed as just another in the long line of politicians who were happy to tell the voters what they wanted to hear in order to get elected, only to be exposed as a liar once they took office.
I’d love to have you prove me wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for listening.
Lest you think that I never have anything good to say about Democrats, I am on record today as a fan of Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana. Senator Bayh has gone on record as opposing the $410 billion “Omnibus” spending bill that’s currently before the Senate. I’ve listened to an interview with him, and I’ve read his opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, and he is opposing the bill for precisely the right reasons…as is Democrat Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. Thank you, Senators, for putting the nation before your own party and risking the Wrath of Harry for doing so.
Now…I’ve got a few words for some other folks out there. You may want to send the kids to their rooms before I get rolling.
To all of the Republicans in the Senate and House: grow some gonads, pull your earmarks out of the budget bills, and stand up and show some leadership! Stop trying to be “Democrat Light,” for cryin’ out loud.
To the voters in the State of Maine: Do us all a favor, and don’t send Olympia Snow and Susan Collins back to Washington again. To the voters in the State of Pennsylvania: Same goes for Arlen Specter. If you want Democrats to represent you, then elect Democrats. The last thing the Republican Party needs is Republicans who vote like Democrats.
To the voters of the State of Nevada: Have you looked around your state lately? Even healthy companies are cutting back and cancelling conventions and out-of-town meetings…because they’re afraid of coming under government criticism – from the ruling party that is being ruled in part by your Senator. I’ve heard estimates that the travel and hospitality industry may lose 400,000 jobs this year. How many of those jobs will be in Nevada? Do you really think that Harry Reid is looking after your interests?
To the voting public as a whole, if we’re smart, we will do the following: any legislator who voted for the $787 Billion stimulus package without reading it (which is most of them), should be voted out of office. Spending $787 Billion of our children’s and grandchildren’s money needs a better reason than “because Nancy/Harry said so.” And any legislator of either party who is still slipping earmarks into legislation should be voted out of office. Just stop it. Now. If you want to spend our money, put the bills out there where they can be publicly debated and voted on.
And finally, to President Obama: If this $410 billion monstrosity of a spending bill lands on your desk – and it probably will, because there are plenty of legislators on both sides of the aisle who care more about hanging onto their power than about doing what’s right for the country – veto it! This is your chance to prove that you actually do stand for some of the things you campaigned on.
Everything you’ve done so far since your election has confirmed my suspicions that you are exactly what your voting record indicated you would be: the most far-left Senator in the United States Senate (and that’s saying something), and someone who cares more about ideology than about truth (or anything else, for that matter). This is not “last year’s business.” It is, as Senator Bayh says, this year’s spending, and our children’s money. You campaigned for fiscal responsibility. You campaigned against earmarks – in fact, you said you would ban them – and for transparency and accountability. Veto it, or stand exposed as just another in the long line of politicians who were happy to tell the voters what they wanted to hear in order to get elected, only to be exposed as a liar once they took office.
I’d love to have you prove me wrong. But I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks for listening.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
The Community Organizer - Part 2
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
A couple of days ago, we quoted from Rules for Radicals where Saul Alinsky says, “The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.” This whole subject was important enough to him that he devoted an entire chapter to the “ethics of means and ends.” I think it’s important enough to present for your consideration the series of rules he laid out in that chapter:
Food for thought, isn’t it? Certainly one could survey history and find numerous examples that illustrate each and every point above. Still, the list strikes me as pragmatic at best, and cynical at worst. Nevertheless, it was written by a man who had an undeniable influence on Barack Obama’s formative years as a community organizer in Chicago, and the principles are likely to permeate his administration. At least now you know what to look for.
Thanks for listening.
A couple of days ago, we quoted from Rules for Radicals where Saul Alinsky says, “The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work.” This whole subject was important enough to him that he devoted an entire chapter to the “ethics of means and ends.” I think it’s important enough to present for your consideration the series of rules he laid out in that chapter:
- “One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.” In other words, we tend to be much more concerned about morality when we are not directly involved.
- “The judgment of the ethics of means and ends is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.” This is similar to the concept that whoever wins the war gets to write the history of it. If your side wins the conflict, you will get to be the one who passes judgment, and by definition, whatever means you used to win will be judged entirely ethical.
- “In war, the end justifies almost any means.” This is pretty self-explanatory, and one that liberals consistently ignore…at least when they’re not the ones in charge of the war.
- “Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.” Another one that liberals consistently ignore in their pursuit of revisionist history (e.g., the voyage of Columbus, the treatment of the Native Americans, the struggle to abolish slavery in the United States, the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, etc.)
- “Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.” In other words, if you have only one choice, the ethical question will never arise.
- “The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.”
- “Generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.” This is, of course, closely related to rule #2.
- “The morality of a means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory. The same means employed with victory seemingly assured may be defined as immoral, whereas if it had been used in desperate circumstances to avert defeat, the question of morality would never arise.”
- “Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.”
- “You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.”
- “Goals must be phrased in general terms like ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,’ ‘Of the Common Welfare,’ ‘Pursuit of Happiness,’ or ‘Bread and Peace.’”
Food for thought, isn’t it? Certainly one could survey history and find numerous examples that illustrate each and every point above. Still, the list strikes me as pragmatic at best, and cynical at worst. Nevertheless, it was written by a man who had an undeniable influence on Barack Obama’s formative years as a community organizer in Chicago, and the principles are likely to permeate his administration. At least now you know what to look for.
Thanks for listening.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The First Six Weeks
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
According to the local newspaper, today (3-3-09) is a “square root day” – a date when both the month and the day are the square root of the last two digits of the year. And that means…well…nothing of significance, really, except that it’s kinda cool in a nerdy sort of way, and we won’t have another date like it until April 4, 2016. But in the spirit of “square root day,” and all matters numerological, I thought I’d share a few more numbers with you.
We’re just finishing the first six weeks of the Obama Presidency. Over the last 6 weeks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped from 7949 on Inauguration Day to 6726 at today’s close. That’s a 15% decline, on top of the 17.5% decline between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Yep, an overall 30% decline since Election Day. Now you can blame the previous administration all you want, but the fact is that stock prices are driven not by what has happened, but by what investors believe will happen. And clearly they don’t have much faith in Obama’s ability to make things better. In fact, according to Rasmussen, investor confidence reached a record low on February 25. And the longer this goes on, the harder it’s going to be for Obama to dodge responsibility for it.
Also, according to yesterday’s Rasmussen tracking poll, his popularity has dropped from a 70% approval rating down to 58%. He’s now lower than Jimmy Carter was six weeks into his Presidency, and some of us still remember how that turned out. The number of people who strongly approve of President Obama has dropped to 39%, and the number who strongly disapprove of him has risen from the low teens on Inauguration day to 29%.
Yet, they don’t seem to be that concerned about the status of your 401k. Just a couple of weeks ago, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said, “I think it is unwise to believe that either everything we do is designed to cause an immediate market reaction or that the score should be kept by that.” So they continue sprinting to the left as fast as they can.
We’re looking at a budget plan that projects a $1.75 trillion deficit for 2009, and most honest analysts believe that’s an extremely conservative estimate. And despite his campaign promise to ban earmarks, the budget bill, which Obama has said he would sign, contains roughly 8,600 of them, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. How do they defend it? Well, according to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, “That’s last year’s business.” Said Peter Orszag, the administration’s budget chief: “We want to just move on. Let’s get this bill done, get it into law, and move forward.”
In a way, it is “last year’s business:” according to the congressional report that accompanies the budget legislation, President Obama himself, along with Rahm Emanuel, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and three other Cabinet secretaries who served in Congress last year are themselves responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of those earmarks. But I’m sure that’s not what Emanuel meant. He just wants to forget about what they said to get elected, and focus on the political agenda they now want to enact. Remember yesterday’s post about how truth to them is relative and changing?
Of course, much is made of Obama’s plan to “cut the deficit in half” by the end of his first term, but that strikes me like the department store “sale” where they mark up the prices so they can “discount” them back to where they were. The fact is that even if Obama can cut the deficit in half by 2013, it will still be bigger than any deficit under the Bush administration. And once you get past 2013, the deficits are expected to start growing again as more and more Baby Boomers hit retirement and start drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits. So I don’t quite get why “I inherited this terrible deficit, therefore…um, let me see…I know - I’m going to quadruple it! And then I’ll cut it in half over the next three years, and you'll be happy because you’re so dumb you won’t figure out that it’s still the largest in history!” is supposed to be an applause line.
But maybe math works differently on Obama’s side of the looking glass. Anyway, happy square root day. And thanks for listening.
According to the local newspaper, today (3-3-09) is a “square root day” – a date when both the month and the day are the square root of the last two digits of the year. And that means…well…nothing of significance, really, except that it’s kinda cool in a nerdy sort of way, and we won’t have another date like it until April 4, 2016. But in the spirit of “square root day,” and all matters numerological, I thought I’d share a few more numbers with you.
We’re just finishing the first six weeks of the Obama Presidency. Over the last 6 weeks, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has dropped from 7949 on Inauguration Day to 6726 at today’s close. That’s a 15% decline, on top of the 17.5% decline between Election Day and Inauguration Day. Yep, an overall 30% decline since Election Day. Now you can blame the previous administration all you want, but the fact is that stock prices are driven not by what has happened, but by what investors believe will happen. And clearly they don’t have much faith in Obama’s ability to make things better. In fact, according to Rasmussen, investor confidence reached a record low on February 25. And the longer this goes on, the harder it’s going to be for Obama to dodge responsibility for it.
Also, according to yesterday’s Rasmussen tracking poll, his popularity has dropped from a 70% approval rating down to 58%. He’s now lower than Jimmy Carter was six weeks into his Presidency, and some of us still remember how that turned out. The number of people who strongly approve of President Obama has dropped to 39%, and the number who strongly disapprove of him has risen from the low teens on Inauguration day to 29%.
Yet, they don’t seem to be that concerned about the status of your 401k. Just a couple of weeks ago, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said, “I think it is unwise to believe that either everything we do is designed to cause an immediate market reaction or that the score should be kept by that.” So they continue sprinting to the left as fast as they can.
We’re looking at a budget plan that projects a $1.75 trillion deficit for 2009, and most honest analysts believe that’s an extremely conservative estimate. And despite his campaign promise to ban earmarks, the budget bill, which Obama has said he would sign, contains roughly 8,600 of them, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. How do they defend it? Well, according to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, “That’s last year’s business.” Said Peter Orszag, the administration’s budget chief: “We want to just move on. Let’s get this bill done, get it into law, and move forward.”
In a way, it is “last year’s business:” according to the congressional report that accompanies the budget legislation, President Obama himself, along with Rahm Emanuel, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and three other Cabinet secretaries who served in Congress last year are themselves responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of those earmarks. But I’m sure that’s not what Emanuel meant. He just wants to forget about what they said to get elected, and focus on the political agenda they now want to enact. Remember yesterday’s post about how truth to them is relative and changing?
Of course, much is made of Obama’s plan to “cut the deficit in half” by the end of his first term, but that strikes me like the department store “sale” where they mark up the prices so they can “discount” them back to where they were. The fact is that even if Obama can cut the deficit in half by 2013, it will still be bigger than any deficit under the Bush administration. And once you get past 2013, the deficits are expected to start growing again as more and more Baby Boomers hit retirement and start drawing Social Security and Medicare benefits. So I don’t quite get why “I inherited this terrible deficit, therefore…um, let me see…I know - I’m going to quadruple it! And then I’ll cut it in half over the next three years, and you'll be happy because you’re so dumb you won’t figure out that it’s still the largest in history!” is supposed to be an applause line.
But maybe math works differently on Obama’s side of the looking glass. Anyway, happy square root day. And thanks for listening.
Monday, March 2, 2009
The Community Organizer
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
The rumblings of discontent have begun. Even some of those who voted for Barak Obama are now having buyer’s remorse. They’re simply amazed at the policies his administration is pursuing…although they shouldn’t be.
If you want to know what makes Barack Obama tick, you need to go back to his days as a community organizer in Chicago. You need to understand what community organizing is all about, and to do that, you need to go back to the seminal writings of Saul Alinsky, widely viewed as the father of community organizing. His Rules for Radicals, first published in 1971, is still available if you look for it. I did, and I read it. He states the purpose of the book very clearly: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Now I know that not many people have actually read this book lately, so let me share a few more passages with you. You should keep these in mind as you’re trying to understand why the Obama administration is doing what it’s doing, because this is where he came from, and this is the philosophy he was trained in:
Thanks for listening.
The rumblings of discontent have begun. Even some of those who voted for Barak Obama are now having buyer’s remorse. They’re simply amazed at the policies his administration is pursuing…although they shouldn’t be.
If you want to know what makes Barack Obama tick, you need to go back to his days as a community organizer in Chicago. You need to understand what community organizing is all about, and to do that, you need to go back to the seminal writings of Saul Alinsky, widely viewed as the father of community organizing. His Rules for Radicals, first published in 1971, is still available if you look for it. I did, and I read it. He states the purpose of the book very clearly: “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.”
Now I know that not many people have actually read this book lately, so let me share a few more passages with you. You should keep these in mind as you’re trying to understand why the Obama administration is doing what it’s doing, because this is where he came from, and this is the philosophy he was trained in:
"All of life is partisan. There is no dispassionate objectivity."If you think about it, this explains a lot, doesn’t it?
“An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma. To begin with, he does not have a fixed truth – truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing. He is a political relativist.”
“In this world…’reconciliation’ means that when one side gets the power and the other side gets reconciled to it, then we have reconciliation…”
“The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms…He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means only whether they will work.”
“…in action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind.”
“Ego must be so all-pervading that the personality of the organizer is contagious, that it converts the people from despair to defiance, creating a mass ego.”
“Before men can act an issue must be polarized. Men will act when they are convinced that their cause is 100 per cent on the side of the angels and that the opposition are 100 per cent on the side of the devil. He [the organizer] knows that there can be no action until issues are polarized to this degree.”
“The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization.”
“…every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization…The only issue is, how will this increase the strength of the organization…Power is the reason for being of organizations.”
“Every organization known to man, from government down, has had only one reason for being – that is, organization for power in order to put into practice or promote its common purpose.”
On tactics: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it…in a complex, interrelated, urban society, it becomes increasingly difficult to single out who is to blame for any particular evil…a target…must be a personification, not something general and abstract…Furthermore, any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When you ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these arguments and, for the moment, all the others to blame.”
“…human beings can sustain an interest in a particular subject only over a limited period of time…After a period of time, it becomes monotonous, repetitive, and emotional treadmill, and worse than anything else a bore. From the moment the tactician engages in conflict, his enemy is time.”
“There is a way to keep the action going and to prevent it from being a drag, but this means constantly cutting new issues as the action continues, so that by the time the enthusiasm and the emotions for one issue have started to de-escalate, a new issue has come into the scene with a consequent revival.”
Thanks for listening.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Remedial Economics 002
Greetings from the Left Coast, where we here at Left Coast Blues do the heavy thinking for those who just can’t be bothered.
That knocking sound you heard Sunday morning was the sound of me pounding my forehead on the kitchen table after reading about how, after pushing the projected 2009 budget deficit to 12% of GDP – fully twice the old record set back in 1983 – President Obama is now announcing his plan to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Now how, boys and girls, would you expect the candidate of Hope and Change to do that? Yes? A gold star to that cynical lad in the back row who guessed that he would fall back on the same old liberal Democrat positions we’ve heard over and over again: he’s going to raise taxes on the wealthy, increase the capital gains tax, “target corporate loopholes,” and, yes, allow those Bush tax cuts to expire. In fact, tax collections under the plan are expected to rise from 16% of GDP to 19% of GDP by 2013. As Iago the parrot says in Disney’s Alladin, “Oh there’s a big surprise…I think I’m gonna have a heart attack and die of not-surprise!”
White House advisor David Axelrod opined that “This is consistent with what the president talked about throughout the campaign,” and “restores some balance to the tax code in a way that protects the middle class…Most Americans will come out very well here.” Ah, yes, the old class warfare card – another Democrat standby. Unfortunately, it tends to work all too well…partly because only 5% of households make more than roughly $157,000, and that 5% already pays 58% of all Income Tax collected. Doesn’t sound very balanced to me, but there’s not much they can do when the other 95% of the population decides to gang up on them. Heck, 41% of all Americans paid no federal Income Tax in 2006! It’s not too tough to convince them that other people should pay even higher taxes.
But here’s where it all falls down: jobs are created by business growth, and business growth is fueled by investment. Boosting the capital gains tax by a third, which is what Obama wants to do, makes investing less attractive. That means we will have less of it, and that means that fewer jobs will be created than otherwise would be. Raising taxes on the wealthy means that the people who have the most money to invest will now have less money to invest. Therefore there will be less investment, therefore fewer jobs will be created. Raising taxes on those nasty corporations means they will have less money to pay employees. You guessed it – fewer jobs.
The problem is that, like many Washington politicians, Barak Obama has never run a business in the private sector or created a single private sector job. Neither has Barney Frank, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Neither has Chris Dodd, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee. They’ve never lain awake at night wondering whether they could meet their next payroll and still make their own mortgage payment. They’ve never worried whether they were going to miss the performance indicators required by their bankers and possibly lose their line of credit. They don’t have a clue about the realities that private sector businesses face day after day just to try to keep their doors open, let alone grow and create more jobs. Yet they’re the ones we’re supposed to trust to lead us out of what we are being told (falsely) is an unprecedented crisis.
Wall Street clearly doesn’t think that Obama knows what he’s doing…as indicated by the fact that the market has lost more value since the election than it did in September and October. It seems that every time he or one of his advisors opens his mouth about the stimulus plan or the next bailout the market loses another few hundred points. The frightening reality is that the market is probably right. That’s why, after allowing himself to be swept into power on a wave of pure emotion, Obama is now doing everything he possibly can to reduce people’s expectations – which were so high that no mortal man could have possibly met them all under the best of circumstances. I could almost feel sorry for him if it wasn’t for the damage he’s causing to the country’s financial future.
Thanks for listening.
That knocking sound you heard Sunday morning was the sound of me pounding my forehead on the kitchen table after reading about how, after pushing the projected 2009 budget deficit to 12% of GDP – fully twice the old record set back in 1983 – President Obama is now announcing his plan to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Now how, boys and girls, would you expect the candidate of Hope and Change to do that? Yes? A gold star to that cynical lad in the back row who guessed that he would fall back on the same old liberal Democrat positions we’ve heard over and over again: he’s going to raise taxes on the wealthy, increase the capital gains tax, “target corporate loopholes,” and, yes, allow those Bush tax cuts to expire. In fact, tax collections under the plan are expected to rise from 16% of GDP to 19% of GDP by 2013. As Iago the parrot says in Disney’s Alladin, “Oh there’s a big surprise…I think I’m gonna have a heart attack and die of not-surprise!”
White House advisor David Axelrod opined that “This is consistent with what the president talked about throughout the campaign,” and “restores some balance to the tax code in a way that protects the middle class…Most Americans will come out very well here.” Ah, yes, the old class warfare card – another Democrat standby. Unfortunately, it tends to work all too well…partly because only 5% of households make more than roughly $157,000, and that 5% already pays 58% of all Income Tax collected. Doesn’t sound very balanced to me, but there’s not much they can do when the other 95% of the population decides to gang up on them. Heck, 41% of all Americans paid no federal Income Tax in 2006! It’s not too tough to convince them that other people should pay even higher taxes.
But here’s where it all falls down: jobs are created by business growth, and business growth is fueled by investment. Boosting the capital gains tax by a third, which is what Obama wants to do, makes investing less attractive. That means we will have less of it, and that means that fewer jobs will be created than otherwise would be. Raising taxes on the wealthy means that the people who have the most money to invest will now have less money to invest. Therefore there will be less investment, therefore fewer jobs will be created. Raising taxes on those nasty corporations means they will have less money to pay employees. You guessed it – fewer jobs.
The problem is that, like many Washington politicians, Barak Obama has never run a business in the private sector or created a single private sector job. Neither has Barney Frank, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Neither has Chris Dodd, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee. They’ve never lain awake at night wondering whether they could meet their next payroll and still make their own mortgage payment. They’ve never worried whether they were going to miss the performance indicators required by their bankers and possibly lose their line of credit. They don’t have a clue about the realities that private sector businesses face day after day just to try to keep their doors open, let alone grow and create more jobs. Yet they’re the ones we’re supposed to trust to lead us out of what we are being told (falsely) is an unprecedented crisis.
Wall Street clearly doesn’t think that Obama knows what he’s doing…as indicated by the fact that the market has lost more value since the election than it did in September and October. It seems that every time he or one of his advisors opens his mouth about the stimulus plan or the next bailout the market loses another few hundred points. The frightening reality is that the market is probably right. That’s why, after allowing himself to be swept into power on a wave of pure emotion, Obama is now doing everything he possibly can to reduce people’s expectations – which were so high that no mortal man could have possibly met them all under the best of circumstances. I could almost feel sorry for him if it wasn’t for the damage he’s causing to the country’s financial future.
Thanks for listening.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
