Libertarians just want to turn back the clock....

Engage an old leftie in political conversation, and he'll eventually resort to one of his favorite clichés.... 

"Libertarians just want to turn back the clock to a time when....." 

Insert: Black people were slaves.  Women were cattle.  The Lord Of The Manor had a right to your wife's virginity on the wedding night.  The Koch brothers could hollow out a volcano and plot to destroy your bibles with a death ray. 

Here's how I've  responded to that line. 

You're damn right I want to turn back the clock. 

LBJ famously declared War On Poverty fifty years ago today.  If you've read this blog for any time at all, you know that poverty was dying nicely without government help, but poverty made a full and complete recovery as soon as government tried to kill it. 

So yeah, we want to turn back the clock on this debacle to 1964 and start over.  (I don't think anyone has charted the depths which poverty has hit in the later years of the Obama administration.  Too depressing.) 

Speaking of taking a mulligan, how much do you owe?  I'm not talking about your debt on your house or your Amex, or your car, or your student loan bill. 

How freakin' huge is your share of what Obama is spending?  If you're a smart person and not even bothering to work any more, your share of the government's fifty-year spending spree is only around $50,000.00.  If you're one of the dwindling number of net taxpayers, your share is around $100,000.00.

Would you like to turn back the clock and make a few changes in this?  (BTW, the debt is now close to 17 trillion.  Remember the good old days shown here, when it was only 10 trillion?) 

Let's move on.  would you like to earn a dollar and be able to keep the dollar for longer than a few minutes without it losing value? 

The Federal Reserve was given the job of stabilizing the money supply way back in 1913.  Here's what has happened to the value of a dollar (as determined by the money supply) since 1971.  The red line represents the inflation rate - AKA the increase money supply. 

Want to invent a time machine, turn back the clock, and for the sake of everyone on a fixed income tell Tricky Dicky Nixon  to leave us on the gold standard? 

Let's move on to Nixon's dirty little War On Drugs, and what it's done to the incarceration rate.  (BTW, a white woman has a one in 111 chance of going to jail at some point in her life.  But for a black dude, it's a one in 3 chance.) 

Want to turn back the clock and convince Nixon that his War On Drugs is a bad idea?  Or is wanting to turn back the clock, under any circumstances, a sign that someone is a racist reactionary? 

Let's dive into that one a little further.  Here's a chart of the drug addiction rate vs the amount of Drug War spending....

Has it worked? 
No. 
Are we going to keep doing it? 
Well, do Barack and the Democrats rely on Narc, Jailer, DEA, Homeland Security, Torturer, Prison Contractor and Police Force votes to get elected? 
Yes. 
That's why we're going to keep doing this crap.  But check out the chart....

Speaking of wasted money....  Spending on public education has tripled since the early 1970's, and test scores are still flatter than the Global Warming trendline. 

Yes.  I'm guilty. 

I want to turn back the clock to somewhere around 1970 and say NO.  Please do not do this stupid crap.  Let people keep their own money because government will waste it. 
I'd rather see the money burned than see Washington D.C. misuse it for wars, bureaucracy, red tape and social programs that have done more harm than good. 
Don't burden people with your social engineering schemes, because they're not going to work.  You bureaucrats really aren't that smart. 

Libertarians want to turn back the clock.

Do you? 

North and South Korea - a perfect control group situation

North Korea and South Korea GDP. No further commentary necessary.

Spending Vs. Results

Here's a handy infographic showing U.S. spending per tricycle motor, and comparing it to English, Math and Science skills. 
Sources are the CIA Factbook and the U.N. 
Came from here. 
The spending, of course, is much, much higher in some places like D.C., which get truly miserable results. 
One day, someone is going to put out the definitive spending vs. results data for public vs private (and home) education. 


Via: MAT@USC | Master’s of Arts in Teaching

Jobs update !!!

It's been a busy weekend, and there's been little or no time to blog. 
So let's update the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on a gullible public !!!

The bottom line reflects what The Teleprompter Jesus promised we'd see if we just gave him 3/4 of a trillion dollars to spend on his buddies. 
The next line from the bottom was his "scary" number - the numbers we'd see if we didn't let him loot The Treasury. 
The next line shows the official government unemployment numbers. 
The little dot closest to the top shows the unemployment number we'd see if so many people weren't saying "screw it, I quit". 

So seriously, what do you think would've happened if The Porkulus Package had been even bigger? 

Porkulus increases (roughly) equal GDP decreases

From The Wall Street Journal, on the general lack of effectiveness of Porkulus Packages.  If you say that stimuly spending saved us from a meltdown, you're looking at is as a theologian.  It's a matter of faith for you, nothing more.  Logic and evidence don't interfere with your worldview. 

Here's Art Laffer:

Policy makers in Washington and other capitals around the world are debating whether to implement another round of stimulus spending to combat high unemployment and sputtering growth rates. But before they leap, they should take a good hard look at how that worked the first time around.


It worked miserably, as indicated by the table nearby, which shows increases in government spending from 2007 to 2009 and subsequent changes in GDP growth rates. Of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development nations, those with the largest spending spurts from 2007 to 2009 saw the least growth in GDP rates before and after the stimulus.

The four nations—Estonia, Ireland, the Slovak Republic and Finland—with the biggest stimulus programs had the steepest declines in growth. The United States was no different, with greater spending (up 7.3%) followed by far lower growth rates (down 8.4%).

Close..Still, the debate rages between those who espouse stimulus spending as a remedy for our weak economy and those who argue it is the cause of our current malaise. The numbers at stake aren't small. Federal government spending as a share of GDP rose to a high of 27.3% in 2009 from 21.4% in late 2007. This increase is virtually all stimulus spending, including add-ons to the agricultural and housing bills in 2007, the $600 per capita tax rebate in 2008, the TARP and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailouts, "cash for clunkers," additional mortgage relief subsidies and, of course, President Obama's $860 billion stimulus plan that promised to deliver unemployment rates below 6% by now. Stimulus spending over the past five years totaled more than $4 trillion.

Hit the link at the top to read the whole thing before it disappears behind a pay wall. 
Hit a Statist upside the head with this chart next time he or she says the stimulus wasn't big enough. 

What would it take to change your mind?

Patrick Crozier over at Samizdata asks the great philosophical question "What would it take to change your mind?" 
In the link, Mr. Crozier uses the example of Global Warming.  He believes that Anthropogenic Global Warming isn't falsifiable, as there is no weather condition that isn't occasionally used as proof of AGW.  Therefore, it is a religious belief, rather than a rational one.  He begins his post as follows....   

In the Telegraph, Tom Chivers asks: what would it take to change your mind? It's a good question; I'm forever using it in imagined arguments with socialists. It's good because it helps distinguish beliefs that are rational from those that are religious. If you can answer it without being facetious or coming up with an impossible and improbable test then your beliefs are rational. If not, they're religious. It's a question I ask myself from time to time, as in: what would convince me that freedom is wrong?

So what would it take for me to change my mind about freedom and libertarianism?

Here's what would be required for me to change my mind.  See if this works, if it is falsifiable, if it is non-facetious, and if it is rational.

The Heritage Foundation has long published The Index Of Economic Freedom.  They rank every nation by a standard of Limitied Government (low government spending and high fiscal freedom), Rule Of Law (property rights and freedom from corruption), Regulatory Efficiency (business freedom, labor freedom, and monetary freedom), and Open Markets (trade freedom, investment freedom, and financial freedom). 

No nation is perfect.  But the citizens of Hong Kong enjoy much more freedom than those of North Korea. 
 
Not every nation is starting from the same baseline.  The U.S. has enjoyed about four centuries of basic respect for British Common Law.  That helps.  Other places have a government and a citizenry who thumb their noses at any contracts or agreements, and the entire nation is run on bribery. 

China's airport have concession stands where helpful Sherpas will set up your new business in three days.  Try that in France.  You'll die waiting. 

Here's a link to see the ranking of all nations by their relative levels of freedom.  Write down the places that interest you.   

Now, check this out....

The Legatum Institute puts out a World Prosperity Index.  In addition to their overall prosperity rank, the nations are judged by their education systems, safety and security, health, and social capital. 

The nations of the world don't have an exact correlation between freedom (liberty) and prosperity.  But it's close.  Of the top 10 nations in the Freedom Index, there are 5 who make the top 10 in the Prosperity Index.  Find me a correlation like that on every pro football Sunday afternoon, and I'll be a rich man by December. 

Hong Kong, Singapore and Chile are all in the Top 10 of the Freedom Index, but not the Prosperity Index.  But these were all third world hellholes within my lifetime.  Then the great Milton Friedman visited them.  They're coming off a lower baseline than, say Norway, Denmark and Finland, but does anyone doubt that they're going to be more prosperous places than the Scandinavia within 20 years? 

I believe that the relationship I see between prosperity and freedom is rational, falsifiable, and non-religious (regardless of how many people accuse me of swapping extreme Baptist fanaticism with extreme libertarian fanaticism). 

I'll change my mind about libertarianism when the Heritage Freedom Index and the Legatum Prosperity Index no longer have a positive correlation. 

So....what would it take for you to change your mind about the benefits of Obama's Stimulus Package? 

The only employment number that matters

Barack Obama has spent a trillion dollars trying to improve this number.   This chart shows the percentage of Americans who are working. 

Do you think that spending other people's money on your friends and supporters to "stimulate" the economy just might be a mistake?  Does it do more harm than good? 
Is this how FDR turned a recession into a long, long depression? 
In short, does having a pack of thieves at the top of the pyramid scare the crap out of people, and cause them to stop investing in employment?

Chart compliments of Greg Mankiw's blog, from the U.S. Department Of Labor. 

Happy Memorial Day (But wouldn't it be great if we had fewer dead soldiers to remember?)

Here's a helpful chart showing total military expenditures on the left and military spending as a percentage of other nations' GDP on the right. 

We're spending a lot of this money to keep the people on the right side of the chart, and ourselves, safe from some other people on the right side of the chart.

Since we don't have enough money to pay for all this, we're borrowing a lot of it from the people on the right side of the chart, some of whom we're trying to protect everyone else, and ourselves, from. 

Otherwise, if we didn't borrow defense money from some of the bad guys on the right side of the chart, the bad guys on the right side of the chart would think we were weak. 

Got it?  Good. 

Happy Memorial Day !!!

 

How To Improve The Unemployment Rate - (encourage more people to give up)

I've heard a lot of Lamestream Media members almost pissing their pants for the last few weeks, gushing over the improvements in the U.S. unemployment rate. 

Yes, some people have gone back to work.  But here's why appearances are deceiving. 

The Washington drones who monitor the nation's employment stats don't count people who give up looking for work.  If you haven't applied for a job in several months, you don't count as "unemployed".  You enter the ranks of Obama's Disappeared. 

Nearly ONE MILLION WORKERS have disappeared from the work force under the regime of Barack Obama.  That's ONE MILLION WORKERS who have said "screw it", and moved back in with Mama, decided to work off the books, become a kept man, or go into the drug trade.  ONE MILLION. 

Here's a chart showing the increased number of workers in each post-recession recovery, going back to 1954:

Hey, if you operate from Chicago, where a massive number of dead people still vote, it's just as easy to assume that ONE MILLION WORKERS don't exist.

The only chart you need. Plus one other one.

The Business Insider website recently published this as "The only chart you need". 
They were mistaken. 
This is only the first of two charts that you need.  This one explains that we are screwed. 

Here is the second one, from The Department Of Numbers website.  It shows tax revenue as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product. 
You can tax people at 20% of their income, and you might get lucky and take in around 20% of the GDP. 

Or you can tax the rich at a 75% rate, you can punish the greedy corporations, you can end the evil Bush tax cuts, and you'll still take in around 20% of the GDP, which will be much smaller than its potential as a result.
 
People alter their behavior as a result of higher taxes.  How much risk would you have taken in the 1950's, back when there was a 70% confiscation rate on earnings? 

So why in the hell would people call for a higher tax rate?  What could possibly motivate an economic idiot to lobby for a higher and higher tax rate on productive investments? 

Here's the Pittsburgh Tribune:

Taxes on capital gains and dividends should be higher, for "fairness," even if this results in less investment, lower growth, more joblessness, smaller revenues for the government and more federal debt, according to Obama, as revealed during a presidential debate in his exchange with moderator Charlie Gibson regarding his proposal to increase the tax on capital gains from 15 percent to 28 percent.

"In each instance when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased -- the government took in more money," said Gibson. "And in the 1980s when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?"

Replied Obama, "Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness."

Yeah.  He really said that.  God help us all. 

So there are your two charts.  We're spending far more than 20%.  We can only collect 20%. 
That's all. 
All other debate and discussion is just noise. 

How manly is your drink???

All I'm going to say in my defense is that Michelob Ultra has only 2.5 carbs per serving, okay? 
Before I switched over to Michelob Ultra, the few things I consumed were clustered around the Keith Richards "Hair On Your Chest" axis. 
I got up to 237 pounds before I switched over to Michelob Ultra.  Now I weigh 185.  So there. 
I've never even been aware of the existence "Sophistication" scale running from left to right. 

I was never a frat boy. 
I used to be a lightweight, then I became a heavyweight, mostly from eating rice stuffed inside baked potatoes, wrapped in Texas Toast, and then deep-fried inside a pizza crust. 
That's the ONLY reason I switched to Michelob Ultra, okay?  To lower the carbs.  But it's actually pretty good stuff. 

I drive a Ford F-150 pickup.  I've stared down employees who are rapists, thieves, and convicted felons. 
Michelob Ultra is good stuff.  Especially the Pomegranate Raspberry flavor one.  I've always wondered why bartenders kinda giggle to themselves when I order that. 

I shot a 6-point buck the very first time I went deer hunting.  Top that, Justin Bieber. 

The defective, faulty, erroneous chart came from here.
I also kinda like the Barry Manilow CD where he covers Broadway show tunes, but that doesn't mean anything. 

Unfortunately, the Richland Hills, Texas, City Planning Department hasn't taken any hits

From the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

We can now say that the stimulus plan has helped those that it was intended to help, right???

Glenn Beck on Gay Marriage

Here's Glenn Beck, in a recent interview on gay marriage.  If Beck has figured it out, can the rest of America be far behind ?

O’REILLY: But let’s take the gay marriage deal. Big ruling in California. You really didn’t cover that much, right?
BECK: Nope.
O’REILLY: Why?
BECK: Because honestly I think we have bigger fish to fry. You can argue about abortion or gay marriage or whatever –
O’REILLY: Do you believe — do you believe that gay marriage is a threat to the country in any way?
BECK: A threat to the country?
O’REILLY: Yeah, it going to harm the country?
BECK: No, I don’t. Will the gays come and get us?
O’REILLY: OK. Is it going to harm the country in any way?
BECK: I believe — I believe what Thomas Jefferson said. If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket, what difference is it to me?
O’REILLY: OK, so you don’t. That’s interesting. Because I don’t think a lot of people understand that about you.
BECK: As long as we — as long as we are not going down the road of Canada, where it now is a problem for churches to have free speech. If they can still say, hey, we –
O’REILLY: Oppose it –
BECK: — we oppose it –
O’REILLY: Right.
Here they're talking about Canadian ministers who get in trouble with their Human Rights Commissions for using "hate speech" in opposing gay/lesbian marriage.  BECK: — but we’re not trying to kill anybody or trying to –
O’REILLY: In Sweden they have that too. OK, so gay marriage to you, not a big a threat to the nation.

But that's not the best part.  Here's a chart showing approval/disapproval for same-sex marriage.  All of this is from the "Beyond The Beltway" blog, BTW:

Note the bulge in the otherwise smooth line as things come to a head around the 2004 elections, the wide, wide base in 1988, and of course, the tip where things come together in 2010. 
My, my, my, what a big long trendline on gay marriage.