Kurt Andersen and The Downside Of Liberty

Kurt Andersen has an editorial in the New York Holy Times called "The Downside of Liberty".  He gets it half right:

THIS spring I was on a panel at the Woodstock Writers Festival. An audience member asked a question: Why had the revolution dreamed up in the late 1960s mostly been won on the social and cultural fronts — women’s rights, gay rights, black president, ecology, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll — but lost in the economic realm, with old-school free-market ideas gaining traction all the time?

There was a long pause. People shrugged and sighed. I had an epiphany, which I offered, bumming out everybody in the room.

What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late ’60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It’s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won.

From the beginning, the American idea embodied a tension between radical individualism and the demands of the commonweal. The document we’re celebrating today says in its second line that axiomatic human rights include “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” — individualism in a nutshell. But the Declaration’s author was not a greed-is-good guy: “Self-love,” Jefferson wrote to a friend 38 years after the Declaration, “is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue leading us constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of our moral duties to others.”

IMHO, we've experienced prosperity because our founding documents declare that people should be left the hell alone. 

People make their best decisions when they're trying to decide what to do for themselves and for their own.

If a dude wants to sleep with another man, own 300 guns, get higher than the space shuttle, eat between 6 to 11 helpings of bread and pasta per day, or even fail to read the Harry Potter books, that's his business. 

Selfish?  Maybe. 

But here's another kind of selfishness, and here's where Kurt Andersen goes off the rails. 

When person A forces person B should give his stuff to person C, then person A is one selfish son of a bitch.  Especially if person A takes a wee little bit off the top of the transaction for himself and for his supporters. 

There are lots of ways to be unselfish with your stuff.  Churches, charities, donations to panhandlers, foundations and outright gifts. 

But fighting to keep a pack of Chicago con artists from getting their hands on more of your stuff isn't selfish.  It's common sense. 

There are a lot of people who care about the poor, the uneducated, the hungry and the great unwashed and who want to do something about their problems.  But they want to do it on their own terms, not those of The Teleprompter Jesus. 

So who is more selfish, the guy who wants to control his own stuff, or the egomaniac who wants to control everybody's stuff?

On The Fair Pay Act

Here's some info on the Fair Pay Act, courtesy of the National Committee on Pay Equity:

The major provision of the Fair Pay Act prohibits wage discrimination based on sex, race, or national origin among employees for work in "equivalent jobs." Equivalent jobs are those whose composite of skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions are equivalent in value, even if the jobs are dissimilar. The Act is a natural extension of the 1963 Equal Pay Act, which is limited to sex-based discrimination in the same jobs. For enforcement purposes, the Fair Pay Act allows class action lawsuits to be filed and provides for compensatory and punitive damages. It also fills the information gap for workers by requiring some employers to disclose to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) general job classifications and their pay statistics (although it maintains individual confidentiality). The bill prohibits a company from lowering any employee's wage rate in order to implement fair pay.

In other words, it's a feast for lawyers. 

How do you determine if pay is "fair" between dissimilar occupations? 

There has been a variety of experiences with pay equity implementation. In a school district, elementary school head secretaries were compared to audiovisual technicians. In a hospital, registered nursing assistants were compared to plumbers. In a shoe factory, console operators/sample stitchers were compared to cutters. In a retail food chain, cashiers and meat wrappers were compared to stock clerks. In state and municipal governments, job evaluation systems have allowed comparisons to be made between many female- and male-dominated jobs. These have included comparing Clerk Typists and Custodians; Secretaries and Lab Technicians; Finance Clerks and Maintenance Workers; Emergency Services Operators and Fire Dispatchers; and Dining Hall Coordinators and Automotive Parts Technicians. Through collective bargaining negotiations, Social Workers in a large county received a pay adjustment after being compared to Parole Officers.

In other words, the National Committee on Pay Equity will decide.  With the lawyers.  God help us all.  Your boss might consider giving you a raise instead of that slacker in the next cubicle, but would it be worth the risk? 

Ok, here's a thought experiment....  Name two people who have done your job, for the same time, who works as hard as you, with the same results that you achieve. 

You have thirty more seconds. 

Pencils down.  Turn in your papers. 

If you were able to think of anyone who has done your job for the same time with the same effort with the same results, you are probably unemployed.  Equality isn't possible for longer than 3 days on a job.   

This is the Obama Camp's opening salvo in the non-war on women from the Obama Camp. 

Government intervention in the price of something decreases demand for the thing.  There is going to be more money for lawyers, more money for government salary evaluators, and less money for you. 

Perhaps I've exagerrated.  Obama may wind up doing the exact job, for the same duration, with the same results as.....Jimmy Carter. 

As bad as it can get....

Facebook info really can't get worse than this, can it??

On gasoline speculators driving up prices

This is BRILLIANT.  Don Boudreaux at his best:

Here’s a letter to the Programming Director at Washington, DC’s, WTOP Radio:

During this morning’s 8 o’clock hour I heard one of the most ironic lines that I’ve heard in some time. That this irony was unintentional makes it all the more telling.

Asked by your “pump patrol” reporter about rising gasoline prices, a motorist at a gasoline station noted that “My tank is actually way more than half full now. I’m topping it off because I’m sure the price will be even higher this weekend.” When your reporter then asked her “What do you think explains these rising prices?” she replied “Speculators.” Your reporter followed up with “Do you think they should be stopped?” The motorist responded immediately: “Of course! They’re criminal.”

Speculating that the price of gasoline will rise, this motorist took action today – buying gasoline that she otherwise wouldn’t have bought today – that puts upward pressure on the price of gasoline today.

Had your reporter pointed out that this motorist herself is speculating in gasoline, I wonder if this motorist would have persisted in regarding speculation as being criminal. I wonder, too, how she would react if government – heeding her advice to stop speculation – were to forcibly prevent motorists from topping off their tanks.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

And that is why I want to somehow make a lot of money and retire and go study economics at George Mason University with Don Boudreaux, Russ Roberts, Tyler Cowen and Walter Williams while they all still live and breathe and walk among us. 

The "Make The Speculators Pay" logo came from this unrelated article about the European Union trying to blame their troubles on people other than themselves.

A terrifying glimpse into the mind of Barack Obama

Every now and then, someone pulls back the curtain and we get to see how Barack Obama's mind works. 
It is terrifying. 
Here is the Washington Examiner, quoting words that Obama said with his very own mouth:

As Obama called for passage of those bills, he also responded to a recent Republican push to require him to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. "However many jobs might be generated by a Keystone pipeline," he said, "they're going to be a lot fewer than the jobs that are created by extending the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance."

I'm afraid I'll have to spend the rest of my life listening to elected idiots blather about creating jobs, creating jobs, creating jobs. 

If The Obamessiah wanted to create jobs, he could outlaw use of the Interstate Highway System.  He could mandate that all freight be hauled in oxcarts.  He could sign an executive order stating that all fast food be cooked over campfires fueled by buffalo chips.    

All of these proposals would create more jobs than the Keystone pipeline.  But that is not the point of the Keystone pipeline.  The point of the Keystone pipeline is to save money on fuel.  The money saved could then be spent on other things, things that Barack Obama can't predict.  These things would (incidentally) create lots of jobs. 

The best way to improve an economy is to get people like Barack Obama out of the way so he can't take money out of the productive part of the economy.  Then unleash the entrepreneurs.  Millions of jobs will be destroyed, but far more will be created. 

Hell, how many jobs did the internet create in its first decade?  Hardly any.  How many typewriter factory employees became unemployed later on, all because of the internet?  Tens of thousands.  How many more jobs did the internet "create" later on?  Millions.  How many politicians (with plans, plans, and more plans) saw this coming? 

None of them.  Not a single one. 

I'm calling in sick today, as I intend to spend the rest of my time praying for the salvation of our nation. 

Good luck, everybody. 

Which variety of wasteful spending creates the most jobs?

Our government employees are now arguing over which type of wasteful spending creates the most jobs - Military waste, or Domestic waste. 

From ThinkProgress:

Facing deep spending cuts, the Department of Defense, including Secretary Leon Panetta, and military-industrial trade associations have complained that tightening the U.S. security budget will cause greater unemployment. And even while toeing the (dubious) conservative line that government spending cannot create jobs, right wingers like Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) insist that military spending must stay high to keep unemployment from increasing.


But a new study (PDF) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) highlighted by economist Dean Baker shows that, contra the conservative talking point, non-military spending can create more jobs than money going to defense programs. (Blah blah blah blah blah....Hit the link at the top to read the whole thing.)  Among them, military spending was the lowest, creating fewer jobs per billion dollars spent than even consumer-oriented tax cuts.


Here’s a chart from the study showing how many jobs each area produced from a billion dollars in spending:

Great God Almighty, where to begin, where to begin....

Let's start with the motivations of entrepreneurs in the real world.  Think of the people you know who have started their own businesses.  I've never heard someone describe the experience by saying "Well, you know, I had this overwhelming urge to work 80 hour weeks, with no guarantee of a reward, so that I could hire a lot of people."
But letting entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses are the only way to grow the economy, and that's the only way out of the current swamp where we find ourselves.  Uncle Sam's remedies are politcally-oriented, not economically-oriented.  The Obamamedia have done such an outstanding job of parroting Barry's "jobs created or saved" bullshit, no Congressman will ever again stand in front of a microphone and boast of lowering taxes on businesses so they can grow and make a lot of money (and incidentally, maybe hire people). 

On to the next point....  Do domestic spending boondoggles create more jobs than military boondoggles?  That's an interesting question, one that I hope will be fully answered in the next life. 
In the meantime, debating such gibberish is contributing to the problem. 
It doesn't matter if we're going to the Middle East to blow up brown children, or preserving the Department of Education to destroy our own children.  If we're doing either of these to create jobs in the U.S., we're screwing up.  It would destroy fewer resources and minds if we paid the soldiers and education bureaucrats to stay home.  Long-term welfare, according to a lot of experts, is harmful.  But it's not as harmful as maintaining bad programs to "create jobs", right? 

Third, nowhere in this idiotic article does the author acknowledge that the money from this crap comes from someplace else: taxes, loans, or Bernanke's printing press. 
Taxes are a necessary evil, even at the lowest rates.  At worst, they stifle growth. 
Taking out loans to be paid by unborn fetuses?  Let's go ahead and call that bad. 
Bernanke's printing presses should be carefully disassembled, and the component parts distributed to the bottoms of lakes and oceans all over the world. 

I hope that I never wake up in the morning and read something like this again. 

Are you smarter than a Wall Street Occupier?

A representative of New York magazine ventured into Zuccotti Park to ask the Occupy Wall Street Protesters a few basic political and economic questions related to some of their demands.  Call it a civics test.   

Hit this link to take the test.  The pollsters have supplied you with helpful charts showing the answers given by the occupiers.  (heh heh heh....)  Hit the link beneath each chart to see the correct answer. 

(Obligatory chest-thumping.... I got 'em all right, including #8.) 

Please brag and boast about your scores in the comment field. 

Overseas correspondents may add 2 points to their total. 

The link and the pic came from Denny's site. 

Was Cash For Clunkers A Clunker?

Was Cash For Clunkers A Clunker?

That's the question that Ezra Klein of The Washington Post asks if you go here. 

To even ask that question is to answer it. 

Yes, the program was a clunker.  It was a clunker of such magnitude that to even ask the question is to answer it.  If you're pay more for something than it is worth, or to expedite or reward a lopsided trade of that type, then you are participating in Clunkerite behavior. 

Good Lord in heaven, this thing made me crazy back in the day.  Now even the Official Newsletter Of The Obama Vandalism Team is almost admitting that the program was dumber than a box of rocks.  Here's Klein:

For one thing, the fuel-economy requirements were fairly lax: A person could, in theory, trade in a Hummer that got 14 mpg and get a $3,500 voucher for a new 18-mpg SUV. What’s more, that slight gain in efficiency would be partially offset by the energy costs involved in manufacturing the new car. And on the economic front, critics argued, the program might just move up purchases that would’ve happened anyway — thereby providing little actual stimulus.

And that's exactly the type of thing that the smarter people among us did.
 
My employer, Jukt Micronics, participated in a similar Texas program for forklifts.  It was supposedly about lowering carbon emissions, but in reality it was about using up some of the Texas government's 2009 budget.  Hit this link.  The forklift giveaway was pure, undiluted, insane, government mandated greatness.  I can't thank you good taxpayers enough for giving me these forklifts , by the way.  Oh, and we're letting these things idle all night so that the government inspectors will see that they're getting enough hours, which is the only way they can prove that I really needed them. 
Long story.  Hit the link.  I'm begging you. 
Go ahead.  Hit this link. 
You'll continue to vote for Democrat or Republican idiots unless you hit this link. 

But that's enough chatter about how I'm letting forklifts idle all night so the odometers will prove that I really did need the forklifts that you gave me so that I could help reduce carbon emissions.....Back to Ezra Klein at the WaPo:

So were the naysayers right? It seems so. A newly updated analysis from economists at Resources for the Future finds that the actual benefits of the program were pretty meager. The paper examined U.S. car sales using trends in Canada as a control group, and estimated that about 45 percent of cash-for-clunker vouchers went to consumers who would have bought new cars anyway. In the end, the program boosted U.S. vehicle sales by just 360,000 in July and August of 2009 and provided no stimulus thereafter. What’s more, the program increased average fuel economy in the United States by just 0.65 miles per gallon.

Ezra, you ignorant slut. 
The program was not about stimulus, or fuel economy.  I don't know why this is so hard to admit.   
The program was a political favor to Detroit which harmed most of the rest of us.  It annihilated the used car and used parts market.  Mission accomplished on that score. 

Now, there’s a case to be made that that’s better than nothing. For one, handing $3,500 vouchers to people who would’ve bought cars anyway still counts as stimulus. What’s more, as the RFF paper found, the program reduced overall U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by between 9 million and 28.4 million tons. But even so, that implies that it cost between $91 and $288 per ton to get those reductions — a pretty lousy bargain as far as carbon policy goes. Even if the program did have some benefits, it’s hard to argue that it was an efficient way to dole out cash.

Oh for Christ's sake !!!   It doesn't count as "stimulus".  Ezra, if I take money from you and give it to a forklift manufacturer, it doesn't stimulate anything but my do-gooder credentials.  You won't get to spend the money the way you wanted to, and the forklift manufacturer gets to spend it the way he wants to.  Net gain: Zero. 

And chances are, the manufacturer is going to spend some of it on campaign contributions for the person who took away your money, you idiot.  

Here's one of my least favorite videos of all time. 

Multiple Trustafarians exposed

There are moments that are so phenomenally delicious, so incredibly wonderful, so freakin' great, that I thank The Lord Zhool that I get to be alive for these moments. 

One was the release of the ClimateGate emails that showed the impartial scientists plotting to keep skeptics out of peer-reviewed periodicals, hiding declines in warming, and the like. 
Another was when John Kerry got busted for keeping his yacht out of state to avoid paying a ridiculous amount of taxes. 
And how can we forget Warren Buffett's advocacy for higher taxes, while his own Berkshire Hathaway has been in a two-year lawsuit to avoid paying a billion dollars in higher taxes? 

Yesterday I threw up a random video of an incoherent Occupy Wall Street protester. 
It seems I wasn't alone in thinking the guy was hilarious. 

It turns out, he's a Colombia Grad Student.  And what makes it better is that he has a freakin' trust fund set up by his grandfather. 



Where are all the "Trust Fund Babies Against Capitalism" signs?
Never mind.  I found one on Michael Shanklin's Facebook page. 

Mike's comment:

She needs guns pointed at her to share?!? Not sure why she can't just give her money away to those she feels needs it... it would be more efficient than any government monopoly. Sad, she can't even give charity on her own without government.... pathetic really. She is basically saying that she is too stupid to help people on her own,... and ironically enough, this stupidity extends into the belief that government is somehow efficient at it. What we are witnessing here is multiple stupidity syndrome.

That's the Trustafarian dilemma.  And they have absolutely no idea how the wealth on which they survive is created, and have no interest in learning about it or contributing to the process. 

But they could end their guilt by writing one big-assed check to Uncle Sam. 

You MIGHT Be A Fleabagger....

I've been kinda busy and haven't had time to comment on the Occupy Wall Street groups, and that has been frustrating.  As far as rationality goes, these characters make the occasionally confused "Keep Government Out Of My Medicare" Tea Partyers look like Mr. Spock.


Yeah, there's some bad stuff going on, and Washington is stealing from the middle to protect the top.  So why aren't they protesting in front of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C.?
 
Good Lord in heaven, what a crew.  Anarchists for Big Government.  Privileged Ivy Leaguers rioting for free tuition, supplied by working plumbers, retailers and electricians. An uprising against theft, but with nary a word spoken about the thieves in Washington who do the stealing.  And they have to pay Mexicans to show up to protest !!!   This is not the diversity we were promised !!!!

I mean, these children do know who Wall Street supported in the last presidential election, right?


And they do know who has given Wall Street its money's worth in bailouts and handouts, right?

Incredible.


For those who are interested, here's a sampling from the rolling Twitter Feed at #YouMightBeAFleabagger.  Constantly updated, of course, so hit this link.   

If you think everybody should have a job, as long as nobody gets rich enough to hire anyone, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think the only reason you aren't receiving a government handout is because of those "Zionist bankers". #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you hid your North Face jacket in the back of your Prius & bought a ragged Hoodie at Goodwill to protest in #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think sleeping in a park really changes the world #YouMightBeAFleabagger

#YouMightBeAFleabagger if you protest for "justice" at the same time you demand other people's money.

If you think that only 1% of the population should carry the other 99% #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think government corruptly hands taxpayer money to preferred corporations, and the answer is more government, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think the 90% unemployment rate amongst post-modern, bi-sexual haiku majors was caused by Goldman Sachs #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think the immigrant guy who owns the convenience store should pay for your interpretive dance studies, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

#YouMightBeAFleabagger if U blame Jooooooooooos instead of Dodd/Frank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

If you're paying $50k/year for a college degree that will qualify you for a $20k/year job, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If your idea of a "good time" is spitting on women Coast Guard officers... #YouMightBeAFleabagger #fb http://nation.foxnews.com/occupy-boston/2011/10/14/occupy-boston-protesters-spit-coast-guard

* If you enjoy the smell of destitution in the morning and want the rest of the world to embrace it as well... #YouMightBeAFleabagger *

#YouMightBeAFleabagger if your Messiah Obama raised the most money evah from Wall Street donors.

If you think Obama is part of the problem...but you're probably going to vote for him anyway #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If your Mom urges you go out and protest so she can have a chance to clean the basement #YouMightBeAFleabagger

#YouMightBeAFleabagger if you say you are for the environment and then trash and defecate in parks.
38 minutes ago »

If you use the iPhone 4 your parents gave you to send anti-corporate tweets from the park you've turned into a dump, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you think you're cleaning up Wall Street by taking a dump in the middle of it, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you hate Nestle Corp but plead for hot chocolate on #needsoftheoccupiers, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

If you hate cops but love IRS agents, #YouMightBeAFleabagger

And in closing, if you can watch this tragedy without laughing, you have a heart of stone.

The worst two minutes you'll experience today

On "The Tea Party's War With America"

Joe Nocera has an editorial in The New York Holy Times that almost perfectly illustrates the difference between the Statist and Libertarian mindsets.  Fisking the entire thing would grow tiresome, but the main points show up in the first few paragraphs. 
Here's Mr. Nocera:

You know what they say: Never negotiate with terrorists. It only encourages them.

You know what's coming after that, right?  Yeah.  The people who want more freedom for themselves and for others are "terrorists".  To paraphrase an Instapundit commenter,  "This has to be the first ‘Terrorist’ movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants…will leave you the hell alone.”

Back to Mr. Nocera:

These last few months, much of the country has watched in horror as the Tea Party Republicans have waged jihad on the American people.

Oh for the love of God.  Washington D.C. has indebted every f-ing taxpayer with a $130,000.00 bar tab.  The Statists want to increase that debt.  They've already doubled the debt since Bill Clinton left office.  The Tea Party Republicans have trotted out a 2.4 trillion in cuts (over 10 years), a 2.4 trillion that will be cut out of future increases, not from the current geysers of gloppy glutinous pork.  And these people making the pitiful little efforts to reduce the spending are jihadists ????

Back to Mr. Nocera:

Their intransigent demands for deep spending cuts, coupled with their almost gleeful willingness to destroy one of America’s most invaluable assets, its full faith and credit, were incredibly irresponsible. But they didn’t care. Their goal, they believed, was worth blowing up the country for, if that’s what it took.

I, for one, don't want America to have any more credit.  I want those Chinese bastards to stop mailing credit cards to Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner.  I want it to stop now.  I don't want my daughter to be burdened for the rest of her life with paying for George Bush and Barack Obama's ineffective wars on poverty, illiteracy, inflation, unemployment and brown people. 

Seriously, can you imagine a credit card company sending a card application to a person whose debt was 100% of his yearly income? 

Mr. Nocera thinks it would be a great idea.  Otherwise, things would, er....change. 

Like ideologues everywhere, they scorned compromise. When John Boehner, the House speaker, tried to cut a deal with President Obama that included some modest revenue increases, they humiliated him. After this latest agreement was finally struck on Sunday night — amounting to a near-complete capitulation by Obama — Tea Party members went on Fox News to complain that it only called for $2.4 trillion in cuts, instead of $4 trillion. It was head-spinning.

Well, numb-nuts, we are 14 trillion dollars in debt.  A 4 trillion dollar cut over a ten year period is nothing.  2.4 trillion cut from a 10 year period doesn't even cover the defict of each year. 

The "Tea Party" Republicans have suffered a hellish defeat.  Despite all the howling and cloth-rending from the Statist side, nothing has changed.  This is 100% business as usual. 

There's no point in going further with this.  Hit the link to read the rest of Nocera's editorial, in which he explains why taking money away from legit job producers and giving it to bureaucrats is the best way to end unemployment.  Gag me with a dirty diaper. 

Won't someone please raise my taxes?

There are several ways to become a millionaire. 
For the sake of this discussion, let's rule out winning lotteries or playing slots in Vegas. 

All of the other methods have one thing in common.  In order to become a millionaire, you have to shelter your money from the government. 

Here is a video put out by a group of "patriotic" millionaires.  Now that they've made their pile, they're asking to have their taxes raised. 



There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the overwhelming majority of these folks employ tax specialists who work very, very hard to keep these pampered puppies from paying no more taxes than absolutely necessary. 

This mindset is something I call "Pull up the ladder - I'm doing all right". 

There are people all over the U.S. who wouldn't mind becoming millionaires.  I wouldn't mind it a bit.  But if these characters are succesful in getting my taxes raised, my chances (slim to begin with) are lessened. 

Anyone who wants to waste his money by throwing it into the gaping maw of the beast can go here to make a donation.  Despite all these people whining, they've only gotten something like 5 million in contributions to the IRS in the last few years. 

Remember, every cent you give to Uncle Sam is a cent taken away from a worthwhile purchase. 

In which the Fort Worth Star-Telegram fails to ask the big questions

Jim Fuquay of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram has written a lengthy front page article about rising prices for food, fuel, and clothing. 

The print version explains that bad weather has driven up food prices. 

Mr. Fuquay says that  competition from China is sending fuel prices upward. 

Nowhere in the entire article does Mr. Fuquay ask the obvious questions....

"Why in the hell is the government printing so much money, and when will it stop?" 

Here's Ron Paul on the real cause of inflation:

Because no one understands that inflation is growth in the monetary supply, no one is able to combat it effectively. We hear all sorts of hand-wringing about increasing inflation, and all sorts of explanations about how rising oil and food prices will make inflation worse. At the same time, the fact that MZM, the closest approximation to total money supply that still is reported by the Fed, is still rising by almost 15% per year and that M2 is rising significantly as well is quietly ignored. The pundits have causation backwards: it is inflation that leads to rising prices of oil and food, and not vice versa.


Until the cause of inflation is understood, no effective strategy can be undertaken to combat it. The problem, however, is that the government does not want inflation to be done away with. Inflation benefits debtors and harms creditors, and the United States government is the biggest debtor of all. The United States government, the banking monopoly under the Federal Reserve System, and politically-connected firms and industries are the first entities to take advantage of new money injected into the system, before prices increase. As the increased supply of money begins to chase the same number of goods, prices rise, and the average American suffers. Poor and middle-class Americans are always the hardest hit by inflation, as the weakening dollar makes the imported goods that many Americans depend on more expensive.

Governments love to talk about "things" costing more.  They almost never talk about dollars being worth less.
Why is it that the unpaid bloggers are the ones who have to point this out? 

Matt Damon, you ignorant slut

Matt Damon, the guy who narrated last year's brilliant Academy Award winning documentary "Inside Job" on the origins of the housing bubble/crisis...

Matt Damon, who brilliantly plays Jason Bourne, the lead character in Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum series.  My favorite spy thrillers EVER.... 

Matt Damon, who plays one of the angels in Dogma, my favorite theological comedy....

Yeah, that Matt Damon.

Compliments of Libertarian Reddit, here's this embarrassing Matt Damon Facepalm moment in defense of the Nanny State:

I just got a 3 per cent tax cut. Do you think I'm going to start a small business with that money? You're out of your mind if you think so. I'm going to put it in the bank. So is every other guy that makes the kind of money I make.

Yeah.  Hit the links and you'll see that Matt Damon thinks he's undertaxed.  Banks don't loan out his money to start small businesses, do they?  Only the government has the wisdom and knowledge to loan out Matt Damon's money, via stimulus and kickbacks. 

Good God in heaven. 

Jon Meacham thinks Obama is kinda like Job. Jon Meacham is wrong.

Jon Meacham is laboring under the false impression that Barack Obama has something in common with Job, the Old Testament character who had it all and then lost it.

Unfortunately for the powerful, the plight of the biblical Job is a story with perennial resonance. A man seemingly rich in the gifts life has to offer, happy and blessed, finds himself — unjustly, from his perspective — bereft. Protected and apparently invincible one day, he is buffeted as God turns his back on his former beloved, producing rage, confusion and self-pity. In the history of the American presidency, reversal happens time and time again: Lyndon Johnson declining to run four years after his landslide victory in 1964, George H. W. Bush losing re-election after winning the Persian Gulf war of 1991, Bill Clinton in the 1994 midterms, and now Barack Obama.

....Outside politics, President Obama thinks of himself less as a professor or community organizer and more as a writer — a man who observes reality, interprets it internally, and then recasts it on the page in his own voice and through his own eyes. And he is a reader of serious books.

Given that, he might find Alter’s new book (on the Old Testament character Job) congenial. John Boehner is not exactly a case of boils, but the president may feel differently at the moment, and thus the story of Job could be of some use to him.

Like Obama, Job was once the highly favored one:

Would that I were as in moons of yore, as the days when God watched over me,
when he shined his lamp over my head. . . .

But the Lord withdraws his protection, inflicting pain and death and misery on Job, who cries:

Terror rolls over me, pursues my path like the wind. . . .
At night my limbs are pierced, and my sinews know no rest.
With great power he seizes my garment, grabs hold of me at the collar.
He hurls me into the muck, and I become like dust and ashes.

God is having none of it. He will not be questioned by a mortal, even a mortal whom he once loved and who has honored him. Fairly snarling, the Lord taunts Job from a whirlwind: “Where were you when I founded earth? / Tell, if you know understanding.”

Ah, the tragedy of it all !!!    The ManGod has fallen !!! 
Of all the grasping and desperate and failed attempts to apply some significance to the behavior of this mediocre Chicago con artist, this one from Jon Meacham is probably the worst. 

Barack Obama now has more in common with King Solomon than he does with Job. 
Barack Obama has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. 
In less than two years, Obama has:

1) Given 3/4 trillion dollars of pork to his contributors,
2) Temporarily socialized two major auto companies, both of which employ thousands of his contributors, and relieved them of the responsibility for their actions,
3) Relieved his upper and lower end contributors of having to face the music for their bad housing investments,
4) Socialized American medicine, a move guaranteed to increase the number, loyalty, and power of his party's contributors,
5) Began paying for these thefts with "quantitative easing", an economics term that means "printing a bunch of money",
6) And he did all this while maintaining his posture as an intellectual who reads "serious books", in Meacham's phrase. 

To those of us who see the goal of politics as a series of spectacular transfers of wealth, Barack Obama is not Job.  Not even close.  He's the most succesful president in American history. 

Obama is not having a dark night of the soul. 

Everything after this is not Obama's tragedy.  It is his victory lap.   

Joe Biden said this.

I don't know how I missed this, but Joe Biden, using his own lips, teeth, tongue and throat, under his own free will, made the following statement a few weeks ago:

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. … No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

You can go here to experience a joyous rebuttal from The Cato Institute:

Early American railroads were built almost entirely with private funds. These railroads provided such superior transportation that by 1850 they had put most toll roads and canals out of business. Individual states still competed with one another for business—and may have offered various favors to the railroads serving those states…. For the most part, however, no federal and few state subsidies went to railroads in the eastern United States.

But what about other areas?

Whenever politicians interfered in the railroad business, however, corruption and inefficiency inevitably occurred.....There was no money to be made from operating a railroad through a desolate wasteland, yet the federal government rewarded railroad contractors with big subsidies: a thirty-year loan at below market interest rates; twenty sections (12,800 acres) of government-owned land for every mile of track; and an additional subsidy of $48,000 for every mile of track laid in mountainous regions.

Thomas Durant, Oakes Ames, and other officers of the Union Pacific Railroad, which went a thousand miles west from Council Bluffs, Iowa, started the Credit Mobilier company in 1867 and retained it to do the construction. Credit Mobilier distributed to shareholders profits estimated at between $7 million and $23 million, depleting the Union Pacific’s resources. In an effort to stop congressional investigations, the officers bribed Speaker of the House James G. Blaine and other congressmen with Credit Mobilier stock. Seldom modest about their thievery, congressmen voted themselves a 50 percent pay raise. The Union Pacific Railroad fell deep into debt, without enough revenue from passengers or shippers, and went bankrupt in 1893.

Here's a Cato transportation timeline entry on all you need to know about the Credit Mobilier scandal:

1872:  The New York Sun exposes the Credit Mobilier scandal, perhaps the largest business subsidy scandal of the 19th century.8 Credit Mobilier is a construction company financially controlled by the leaders of the Union Pacific Railroad that makes huge profits at taxpayer expense. Congressman Oakes Ames (R-MA), who is an agent of Credit Mobilier and part-owner, distributes shares of the firm's stock to members of Congress at a discounted value. In return, those members treat Credit Mobilier favorably in a variety of ways, such as by voting to appropriate funds for the firm. The scandal illustrates the corruption that usually results when the government intervenes in the economy and subsidizes businesses.

If that's not enough, George Will opens a great column with Biden's quote.  In this case, its about our next transportation-subsidy-scandal-waiting-to-happen....The Chevy Volt. 
You might think that you've never purchased a Chevy Volt.  But you have.  Yes, you have. 

The federal government, although waist-deep in red ink, offers another bribe: Any purchaser can get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost (up to $2,000) of an extra-powerful (240-volt) charger. California, although so strapped it recently issued IOUs to vendors, offers a $5,000 cash rebate for which Volt buyers are not eligible but purchasers of Nissan's electric Leaf are. Go figure.

In April, in a television commercial and a Wall Street Journal column headlined "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," GM's then-CEO Ed Whitacre said "we have repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." Rubbish.

GM, which has received almost $50 billion in government subventions, repaid a $6.7 billion loan using other federal funds, a TARP-funded escrow account. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) called this a "TARP money shuffle." A commentator compared it to "paying off your Visa credit card with your MasterCard."

Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed "private sector" accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.

And finally, Reason magazine jumps on the dogpile with this:

What was the "government vision and government incentive" that produced the assembly line?Motion-picturefilm?  Airconditioning? The electric guitar?

How about the personalcomputer? The mobile phone? Non-violentresistance?  Aspirin?

Though Biden is generally not to be taken seriously, the government-centrism of his comments are an accurate reflection of his boss, and part of the reason why next Tuesday is going to be an awkward day
of work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

As it turns out, last Tuesday was an awkward day of work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Unfortunately, Democrats were replaced by Republicans.  Republicans who favor many of the same economic interventions but for different industries. 
Bummer. 

Oh well.  Joe Biden really did make that statement.  No eggs were thrown and no one laughed because it went largely unreported and unanalyzed in The Mainstream Media. 
Go here to read about The Mainstream Media's quest for a journalism subsidy. 

Joe Biden - A Real Man Of Genius

Guess who is to blame for the coming hyperinflation ??

Unbelievable. 
We're about to have some hyperinflation.  Printing money is the only way that Uncle Sam can pay his debts. 

It's not the fault of the Republicrats or the Demoblicans, who have spent money like they'll all be dead before the bills are due. 
It's not because of the Federal Reserve, which is now printing money faster than the stimulus projects can spend it. 
It's not the fault of the Nanny State. 
It's not because of open-ended wars. 
No, Time magazine, which I'm hoping will soon go the way of Newsweek, has found the culprit ! 

Go here.

A Semi-libertarian is elected to the U.S. Senate. MSNBC goes ballistic. Comedy Gold.

Here's the MSNBC election roundtable on Rand Paul's election to the Senate.
Hit it at the 7:30 mark.

Here's a Baltimore TV reviewer called Z On TV, on what you're about to see:
Some might call it an anchor desk, but I would not debase the word "anchor" by putting it in front of a desk that includes folks offering this kind of analysis. The team includes: Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Lawrence O'Donnell and Eugene Robinson.


This is their reaction Tuesday night to the victory speech of Rand Paul, the new U.S. senator from Kentucky. Check out O'Donnell's words, in particular, against MSNBC's claim that Fox News, not MSNBC, is the cable channel trafficking in fear. O'Donnell says Rand is now "empowered" to "creat a worldwide despression."

Paul Krugman couldn't find his way out of a sack

It's Fisking time, boys and girls ! 

I'll be needing a few tools....

Scalpel - thanks.
Laptop - got it.
Righteous Indignation - I've got plenty.
Various Free Market, Libertarian and Christian websites - check.
Copy of Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (3rd edition) - got it.
Chainsaw - yep.
Metzenbaum scissors - check.

Let the Fisking begin ! 

Paul Krugman, the most drop-kickable of all Statist apologists, has typed up this little beauty for The New York Times:

NOW THAT'S RICH
We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

My time is limited, and I don't have enough time or space to do anything but ask this simple question....  What in the hell does providing "public services" have to do with helping the economy?  Barack Obama has poured more swill and slop into the "public services" trough than any other president who has ever lived.  It has done nothing to help the economy, but it has saved a lot of Obama supporters government jobs.  All of this was done at the expense of the private sector.

But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.

These politicians don't want to cut checks, Paul.  They want to let people keep the money they earned.  The money doesn't belong to the government until the government decides to graciously give some back.  They money belongs to the people who earned it.

What — you haven’t heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I’m talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.

That's a nice attempt at class warfare.  But consider this:  47 percent of us pay NO income tax.  If taxes (and spending) are ever going to be cut significantly, the cuts will come from the taxes paid by someone other than the lower classes.  (Subject for further review: how many of our super-rich came from the middle and lower classes.  Another subject for further review:  who woke up one day and decided that America has classes?  One more subject:  Should people try hard to change their economic status?  What would be in it for them?)

Some background: Back in 2001, when the first set of Bush tax cuts was rammed through Congress, the legislation was written with a peculiar provision — namely, that the whole thing would expire, with tax rates reverting to 2000 levels, on the last day of 2010.

Paul says that like it is a bad thing.  Also, note the use of the word "rammed".  In Paul's world, Cash For Clunkers, ObamaCare ® and TARP were "passed".  Tax cuts are "rammed". 

Why the cutoff date? In part, it was used to disguise the fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts: lopping off that last year reduced the headline cost of the cuts, because such costs are normally calculated over a 10-year period.

Let's define Fiscal Irresponsibility.....How about "failure to reduce spending to reflect income"? 

It also allowed the Bush administration to pass the tax cuts using reconciliation — yes, the same procedure that Republicans denounced when it was used to enact health reform — while sidestepping rules designed to prevent the use of that procedure to increase long-run budget deficits.

Ditto.  Bush spent money like a recovering alcoholic cowboy.  So did Daddy Bush.  So did Reagan.  But they were mere hints of what was yet to come, a series of John The Baptists preparing the way for The Teleprompter Jesus....

Obviously, the idea was to go back at a later date and make those tax cuts permanent. But things didn’t go according to plan. And now the witching hour is upon us.

That's because The Crips And The Bloods The Republicans and Democrats will never, ever voluntarily cut spending.  That's why we need to elect some Libertarians and get back to a two-party system. 

So what’s the choice now? The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right —

Once again Paul reveals his belief that letting people keep their own money is expensive.  MAKING PEOPLE PAY RIDICULOUSLY HIGH TAXES IS EXPENSIVE ! ! !

....but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing.

Abso-freakin'-lutely.  Keep the whole thing.  Starve the beast.  Federal employees have compensation and pensions anywhere from 50% to 100% better than those found in the private sector.  And from what I've seen, they have about half as much responsibility.  What is so criminal about not wanting to be robbed to support the Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous?

And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt.

The mind recoils.  Paul Krugman won a Nobel in economics.  Next thing you know, they'll be giving Nobels to someone in the last three Democrat administrations, like Obama, Gore, or Carter.  Oh.  Never mind. 

What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.

That logic assumes that the super-wealthy will continue to produce income if they know that Obama is going to get more of the (potential) profit. 
But $680 billion....That's the amount of the previous stimulus package, right?  Well, if we don't give 'em the money, they can't redistribute it to their friends, right? 

For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

Let's not ask why the states needed $26 billion dollars.  We don't want to go there.  Surely California was spending its money responsibly, and isn't on the hook for ridiculous public employee pensions....

And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year.

Paul, you ignorant slut.  The money wouldn't GO to the richest 1 percent.  It would STAY with them.  They are the ones who are producing the alleged $680 billion.  They would get to spend it in the way that they think best, instead of forking it over to be spent the way George Bush, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid thinks best. 
Also, Paul, I'm betting that you are well paid.  I'm also betting that you have a tax expert go through your taxes, looking for every possible deduction.  I'm just betting that you talk the talk, but don't walk the walk.  

But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent. Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.

You can also take the same group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick out 470 of them.  These 470 are paying no income tax. 
You can probably pick out another 330 of them who are government employees or suppliers, and who live off of taxes paid by the top 100. 
What does all this mean? 
It means we have too many people living off of money taken by force.  If you announce that more money is going to be taken for redistribution to Statists, the infamous top 5% is going to start hiding its money.  Wait and see. 

How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits?

Well, because of Texas A&M University, I'm having a budget deficit.  Therefore, I spend less. 

Well, history is repeating itself. The original campaign for the Bush tax cuts relied on deception and dishonesty. In fact, my first suspicions that we were being misled into invading Iraq were based on the resemblance between the campaign for war and the campaign for tax cuts the previous year. And sure enough, that same trademark deception and dishonesty is being deployed on behalf of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

It is now impossible to cut taxes for anyone except the wealthiest 50% of Americans, dumb ass. 
Speaking of dishonesty, our government is now claiming that we're pulling the combat troops out of Iraq, but we are still going to have 50,000 troops over there, and I think they have guns.  Whassup with that? 

So, for example, we’re told that it’s all about helping small business; but only a tiny fraction of small-business owners would receive any tax break at all. And how many small-business owners do you know making several million a year?

Perhaps it is an aspirational thing.  I don't make several million a year, but I would like to.  I will try harder if I can keep the several million a year, instead of giving more of it to our costly adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and California. 

Or we’re told that it’s about helping the economy recover. But it’s hard to think of a less cost-effective way to help the economy than giving money to people who already have plenty, and aren’t likely to spend a windfall.

GIVING THE MONEY?  GIVING THE MONEY?  THE GOVERNMENT ISN'T GOING TO GIVE PEOPLE THAT MONEY ! ! !   THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TAKE THE MONEY, AND BLOW IT ON STUPID CRAP ! ! ! 
Paul, please go to "Clues 'R' Us", and get one. 

No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

According to The Washington Post, we're spending $25,000 per kid in many public schools.  How much more do you want to blow per classroom, under the heading of  "saving teaching jobs"?  Is there any amount that would be enough? 
So far, the Obama administration is standing firm against this outrage. Let’s hope that it prevails in its fight. Otherwise, it will be hard not to lose all faith in America’s future.

1)  People spend their own money more wisely than 3rd parties spend it. 
2)  Taxes must be taken by force. 
3)  High taxes act as a disincentive to wealth creation.
4)  Make-work jobs, those created by government, eventually run out of money. 
5)  Paul Krugman couldn't find his way out of a sack.