On Price Controls At The Olympics

To charge fair market value for something like the Olympics would be unfair. 
Therefore, price controls were put in place. 

Here's the great Tom Woods, star speaker at the Texas Libertarian Party's recent State Convention, on why you've got empty seats:

The British Olympic organizers restricted ticket purchases, rewarded corporate purchases but not corporate use, imposed price controls on tickets available to the public and state violence against the resulting scalpers (touts) — and are distraught and surprised over the empty seats that characterize so many of the Olympic events so far. To reduce the embarrassment and sense of scandal, organizers have carted in British troops–dressed in their camo!–to fill seats at gymnastics events, while other easily manipulated, low-time-cost groups on the government’s payroll are also being bussed in to other sparsely-attended venues.

Meanwhile, many thousands willing to pay market prices to attend Olympic events are told to bugger off.

And they always act "surprised", don't they? 

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has been having fun for the last 5 years or so, working the word "unexpectedly" into the reports of markets and prices reacting to incentives in ways that surprise the Statists but not many other people.  Go here for a sampling....

Why shouldn't Olympic earnings be taxed?

Florida's Marco Rubio is trying to ensure that Olympians aren't taxed for bringing home gold, silver, or bronze medals. 

The Florida Republican introduced a bill today to exempt U.S. Olympic medal winners from paying taxes on their medals. In addition to gold, silver or bronze, medal winners receive cash payments to go with their hardware.

Rubio said the American medal winners get honorariums from the U.S. Olympic Committee of $25,000 (for winning gold), $15,000 (for silver) and $10,000 for bronze, with the Internal Revenue Service ever ready to collect.

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," said Rubio, a Tea Party favorite. "Athletes representing our nation overseas in the Olympics shouldn't have to worry about an extra tax bill waiting for them back home."

Similar measures have also been introduced in the House, by Reps. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.

Under the legislation, the gross income of U.S. Olympians "shall not include the value of any prize or award won by the taxpayer in athletic competition in the Olympic Games." If the bill becomes law, it would apply to prizes received after Dec. 31, 2011.

Ok, so Michael Phelps works his butt off to win $25K, and wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
 
Some other guy who isn't on television works his butt off to write a book, sell a painting, or even puts a lot of money at risk to win $25K at the blackjack tables in Vegas.  He still has to pay taxes on that, because he isn't representing our nation overseas?? 

Can someone please clarify the distinction that Rubio is trying to make? 

In case you're new to this site, I believe that 80% of all tax dollars are mis-spent.  The worst thing that can happen to an Olympian's hard-earned dollar is for Tim Geithner to get his grubby little paws on it.  But I don't think it makes sense to exempt Group A from taxes but not Group B.  Especially when Group B supplies the donations that make Group A's useless but entertaining activity possible. 

You Didn't Lift That

Finally. 

A nation whose citizens express proper gratitude to their leaders.

London, July 30(ANI): North Korean Olympian Om Yun Chol joined an elite list of weightlifters to have lifted three times their weight during the men's 56-kg, group B, clean and jerk weightlifting competition at the London Olympics, and he has credited his world-record feat to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.


Om won the gold medal in the process, and according to him, it was all thanks due to their late 'great leader'.

The 20-year-old Om, who stands just a shade under 5 feet, also set an Olympic record when he cleared 168 kilograms (about 370 pounds) in the clean and jerk in the men's 56-kilogram (about 123 pounds) category.

"How can any man possibly lift 168kg? I believe the great Kim Jong Il looked over me," CBS quoted Om, as saying.

Let us all take a brief timeout from our daily tasks, go to a quiet place, and offer up prayers of gratitude to the Kims, Pol Pots, Bushes, Clintons, Reagans, Obamneys, Pelosis, Reids and Boehners who take our money away from us and then pay other people to do things for us with it.  For without them, we would have more choice in the matter. 

Go here for the entire story about Om. 
Go here for the theologian who first noted Om's proper attitude of reverence to The One who helped him lift 168 kilos.  His blog is called The Dignified Rant.  Via a link from Instapundit. 
If you've been moved by Om's story, you can go here for information on how pay for even more government's spending.  (Bush/Obama spending, not North Korean spending).

Send your checks to this address:

Attn: Dept G

Bureau of the Public Debt
P. O. Box 2188
Parkersburg, WV 26106-2188

On wanting Obama to fail

Various conservative groups are rejoicing over Obama's failure to land the Olympics in Chicago. Go to The Huffington Post for a summary. This is supposed to reflect the mean-spiritedness, bitterness, and all around nastiness of our partisan political environment, blah blah blah blah....

Mike Lupica has a different take, reminding us that winning an Olympic bid is not the same as a victory for the U.S...

We can talk about winners and losers all we want to now that it is over. The biggest winners of all are the people of Chicago, because their city doesn't have to plunge itself into debt to host the Olympics. This is the kind of winner New York was despite Michael Bloomberg's insane quest to get the 2012 Games, which eventually - and blessedly - went to London.

....The biggest winners of any modern Games are the businessmen who build the stadiums and the villages, and tell us the same thing we hear when another professional sports team wants a new stadium.

But, as usual, I digress. My question is this: Is it ever ok to publicly rejoice when the President Of The United States fails? Here's my friend John Jay Myers on the subject:

I am not against Barack Obama. I am for freedom.
I do not believe that one man from Chicago has suddenly taken control of the United States and is single handedly trying to destroy the country.
I do, however, believe that lobbyists and money control our country, that banks, big insurance, and the military industrial complex etc., have so wrapped their tentacles around the throats of our politicians that the interest of the common man is no longer on their minds.
After all, one party hired Ben Bernanke - a man who 2 months before one of the biggest financial meltdowns in history didn't have a clue what was about to happen, claiming everything was great.
Then, the next party in power? They appoint the same guy. Someone wants that guy in charge, and it isn't the American people.
I think it's important for the Libertarian Party to understand that Obama bashing comes off as single minded and divisive, when doing it we have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
Republicans know where we stand; most Democrats think we are just hardcore Republicans.
So why do we so voluntarily lump ourselves in with them? We can stand for issues, stand against bad policy, but let's prove what I have always thought, that we are the thinking man's party. People like to feel smart. We should be advertising the fact that we are above the fray, that we will not sink to the level of the other groups, which only succeeds in truly dividing this nation.

If American can be divided, if the media can put you in a box, and if that box can be characterized, it's over.
If we try to play be the media's rules, we will never win.
When you choose the Anti Obama stance as a part of your "message" you are alienating 50% of the voting public. I assumed our goal was to actually gain support.
When you do this, you may get Republicans to say "I guess Libertarians aren't SO bad..."

But you are not going to get them to vote for you.

When I was a kid I worked on a parasail boat, and my job was to shout away the tourists on wave runners who would run over our lines, and I was a little over zealous in my shouting, (who'd've thunk it) the owner came up to me and said "Do you know who those people are you are screaming at??" He went on, saying "Those are my future customers!"
The left are our future customers, and we are selling freedom! And we are we shouting at them!!
All of this is not to say that the current administration isn't making bad decisions, they are indeed, but we need to stand on the merits of the decisions, and not demonize one man or a few people. People see through that type of partisan rhetoric. They are sick of it. We need to be a change, a true choice, something different, not a fledgling party who thinks we can now play by "their rules."
I am writing this message in a hope it will get to the powers that be, and that some thought might go into how we frame our stances, in what will be the most important time in the history of the Libertarian Party.

John Jay Myers
http://www.johnjaymyers.com/

Well, I guess that's the last time I can post pictures of Obama with an ACORN nutcap....

I guess I agree with John Jay. If your newsroom starts applauding when Rio Freakin' De Janeiro gets the Olympics instead of Obama's notoriously corrupt Chicago, you might be taking it too far. That's what Joe Voter is going to think, anyway.

So I'm going to try very hard at this new way of looking at things (and typing about them....)

I want Sasha and Malia to make good grades.

I hope that Bo, the Obama's Portuguese Water Dog, can go on a duck hunt this winter.

Speaking of corrupt business deals for sports stadiums, I hope the Washington Redskins beat the Dallas Cowboys twice this year. I hope everyone gathered around the White House flatscreen has a great time watching it happen.

That's all I can do for now. This is just too painful.

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony was incredible, wasn't it? I've searched in vain for some decent YouTube clips, but none are available yet. Lord have mercy, what a show.




I love China, and I want wonderful things to happen for those people. Yeah, they're acting like idjits over Taiwan and Tibet. I keep hoping they'll make so much money that they'll stop caring. (Hit the "China" label at the bottom of this post if you want to read some of my bizarre travelogues from over there.) They've been through so much crap with horrific political systems, imperialist humiliations from the west, the opium wars, Marxist lunacy, Chairman Mao, The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution. And now they're coming out of it. If you ever get a chance to go over there, jump on it.

About 30 years ago, their Commie government got sick and tired of watching people starve to death on fertile land while Tibet and Hong Kong, with virtually no natural resources, prospered. The Chinese government opened four "Free Market Zones": Shenzhen, Shantou, Hainan, and Xiamen. (I've made five trips to Xiamen. It's now the Cleveland, Ohio, of China.) Of course, everyone who could do so tried to get into these special economic zones. They might claim to be Socialists, but they're not stupid. Those places prospered.

Early this morning, I started wondering.... Could any other nation done anything comparable to this opening ceremony? Let's start with, for lack of a better term, the "anglo" nations. The U.S., Canada, Great Britain, or Australia?
Nope.
We could never get that many people to cooperate. The unified, thematically cohesive event we saw last night happened because the government was willing to underwrite and enforce the artistic will of one person. Heck, we couldn't have gotten that performance out of the committee/planning stage.
I think it's safe to include Japan in that category.

Other countries in Western Europe? Germany? Forget it. France? The unions would never cooperate, and you can't pull off something like that with a 32-hour work week.

Eastern Europe? Latin America? South America? Any of the nations in Central or Southern Africa? Nope. This would've bankrupted their treasuries.

Numerous Middle Eastern nations have enough money. Saudi Arabia, maybe. But imagine all of the Imams and ayatollahs raising hell because doing such and such is against Islam. They would never allow female athletes to compete in immodest sports like beach volleyball within their nations either. So scratch them.




Russia? No way. They've taken some wrong turns and lapsed into a Mafia state. The whole ceremony would be about Putin. North Korea, ditto, and the ceremony would have to be about Kim.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but I only came up with one other nation that is in that triangular area at the interstection of 1) creativity, 2) wealth, and 3) the ability to somehow enforce its will among its subjects.

Think about it, and then click here to see if you agree.

Free Association Friday

A guy named Don runs a blog called 2008 China Olympics, and he asked to be blogrolled here.

He found out about this site through this unflattering post about China.

For a while, you couldn't access this site from China, a situation brought about shortly after I posted this thing about the China Olympics logo.

My boss, Marvel Variants, was in China last week, and they had loosened controls enough for him to be able to log on. (The hits had already cranked back up about a month ago.)

If you're wondering about the name "Marvel Variants", it refers to obscure price variations in Marvel comic books. Mr. Variants is trying to do with those things what the Hunt brothers tried to do with silver.

If you're wondering what the Hunt brothers tried to do with silver....they tried to corner the market. At one point, they owned half of the silver known to exist in "commodity" form. Once people figured out what they were up to, the Feds intervened, and everybody involved went bankrupt.

Believe it or not, the Hunts were motivated to do this because at the time it was illegal for private U.S. citizens to own gold - a situation that existed from 1934 till sometime in the 1970's. (The government saw gold as a competitor to cash, and they wanted to monopolize the means of exchange.)

The only major political figure to make a big deal about this government monopoly in the last 30 years: Ron Paul. He wants us back on the gold standard. Don't read his book "The Revolution: A Manifesto" if you don't want to be bothered about why we have so much faith in the little pictures of dead presidents called "cash".

If we keep printing the stuff to cover our debts, it's going to be worth less and less against the euro, the peso, the pound, and especially the renminbi. It's also helpful to think of it being worth less and less against the loaf of bread, the hour of electricty, the haircut, the gallon of gas, or anything else you swap for cash. It's worth only what people will give for it since it is no longer tied to a rare commodity.

I mention the renminbi because it's the official currency of China, the nation that now holds a lot of our national debt. China and Japan hold about 20% of our IOU's. Some people think China is buying up U.S. debt to prevent us from intervening if they go nuts in Taiwan or Tibet.

Which is what most of the protests at the China Olympics are about.

And I guess that gets us back to the 2008 China Olympics blog. Check it out if you get a chance.

Just think. Getting through all that took up five minutes of your life. Five minutes that you can never, ever get back....

Banned in China

1) The People's Public of China is rumored to have 40,000 Internet censors working full time. They are mostly responsible for blocking internal dissent, anything smelling of a pro-Democracy movement, or criticism of The Party.

2) Sometime in December, this blog's hits from China started slowing down. In January, they stopped altogether.

3) My good friend and co-worker Ray is working in China now. Ray tried to log onto this site from The People's Republic, but couldn't.

4) Is it because of The Infamous Chinese Dog Story? Was the criticism of Chinese traffic too much for the nation to bear? Was it The Notorious Chinese Washing Machine Story, with its implied condemnation of Chinese manufacturing safeguards? Or was I banned for openly griping about the absence of Chinese Road Signs in The Celebrated Chinese Typhoon Story? Too many Free Market diatribes? We'll never know.

5) But now that I'm banned, why hold back? Bill M., another co-worker, sent me this a few months ago. It's about the Chinese Olympic symbol....

The United States executes about 60 people per year. That's 20 executions for every 100 million people.

China executes about 3,500 people per year. That's 270 for every 100 million people. Many of these executions have been for political reasons.

All stats from Tony Wheeler, via Amnesty International.

The only way the old men running the Communist Party can stay in power is to silence any and all dissent.

I defy anyone to look at this cartoon and not think of it all through the Olympics.

Addition from later today....I picked up my Sports Illustrated, and S.L. Price had a great editorial on the same subject. No cartoons, though. Not as memorable.