Because Larry Page and Sergey Brin were allowed to get filthy rich....

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, are now filthy rich.

They supposedly give a lot of their money to Democrat and (LOL) "progressive" causes.  I don't hold that against them. 

I think they deliberately lowered their Blogger/BlogSpot (their program that powers this site) search rankings so that conservative/libertarian voices will be muted.  I don't hold that against them any more. 

Their house, their rules. 

Because they were allowed to get filthy rich, my world is a better place.  I've taken on a new job in purchasing, and therefore I search the crap out of everything via Google.  Sheet metal.  ABS plastic.  Janitorial supplies.  1/4-20 hex cap bolts.  Extruded aluminum F-channel.  You name it, I'm looking for it, and Larry and Sergey help me out. 

Here's why I'm writing this.....   I got a weird-assed email from a Chinese vendor today, and it referenced some earlier conversation that was in Chinese. 

20 years ago, this would've been a huge problem.  I don't read Chinese very well.  But I just went to "Google Translate", copied and pasted, and there you have it.  It's not perfect, but it made sense.  Here's what I got, kinda sorta.  Mandarin Chinese is on the left, English is on the right.  What everyone wanted to say, but couldn't, is at the top:

 (Victor says that according to Allen Patterson, Frank is supposed to deal with Victor's next consignment shipment.  Allen thinks you can work it out.  This is probably Allen's way of dumping his responsibilities onto you.  Please let me know you got this and send a return receipt.  That way, the monkey is on your back.) 

Just as an FYI, Frank (who speaks perfectly good English because he's from Missouri) later said that Allen Patterson shouldn't dump this problem at Frank's door, and that Allen and Victor should work it out through other channels, namely, some other vendor. 

Larry and Sergey have done some good stuff.  They've made some wise decisions about which fields of online....."stuff"....(sorry, I'm very old) to invest in, and which stuff to avoid. 

But what if they'd been subject to FDR's "Undistributed Profits Tax"? 

This was a New Deal abortion that declared that if a big business didn't immediately plow its profits into dividends or wages, any profits could be taxed at up to 27%.  (This is a tax rate that most of us would now kill for, so please up it to around 75% to put it in perspective.) 

What if Larry's and Sergey's profits, every year, had been taxed at 75%?  Well, they would have hidden the money, unless they had something they could immediately pump it back into.  To hell with planning, to hell with putting some aside for a rainy day, and to hell with research and development.  It Google couldn't invest it in dividends or wages, Obama was going to get it to spend on the Democrat Vote Farm. 

What is Larry and Sergey were subject to the 90% tax rate that American Lefties always claim grew the Middle Class back in the 1950's ?  (Nobody paid 90%, by the way.  There were loopholes in the tax code.) 

What if they'd been required, at gunpoint, to "give something back"? 

What if Larry and Sergey had been forced to end "income inequality" by giving their money to Crack Whores?   

What if Larry's and Sergey's money had been used to fund Obama instead of Google Translate? 

I'd still be wondering what the hell Victor's email meant.  If there was such a thing as email. If there was such a thing as the internet (and no, politicians didn't invent it).  If there was such a thing as a computer.  If there was such a thing as a cell phone. 

The best way for us to get great stuff at a low price is to allow the Larrys and Sergeys to get filthy, stinkin' rich. 

Good for them.  And guys, thanks for inventing Google Translate.  Or to put it into Mandarin Chinese....

谢谢，Larry和Sergey，发明了谷歌翻译 

 

Why Detroit Will Remain A 3rd-World Country

In the early 1980's the Chinese government, mostly because of citizens starving to death, decided to liberalize their economy.  They did this by opening some "Special Economic Zones" on their east coast.  These would be places where businesses and individuals would be left the hell alone to make money and provide for themselves as best they could (relative to the rest of China, of course). 

The experiment was a huge success, and has changed the world. 

Here's Wikipedia:

Special Economic Zones of the People's Republic of China (SEZs) are special economic zones located in mainland China. The government of the People's Republic of China gives SEZs special (more free market-oriented) economic policies and flexible governmental measures. This allows SEZs to utilize an economic management system that is more conducive to doing business than in the rest of mainland China.
Since 1980, the PRC has established special economic zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Shantou in Guangdong Province and Xiamen in Fujian Province, and designated the entire province of Hainan a special economic zone.

Here's a chart showing the changes in GDP in each economic zone. 

Xiamen is where I used to go as a Quality Control supervisor, and is probably the most hog-stomping example of free-market capitalism I've ever seen.  The government doesn't care how rich you get, as long as you don't get too powerful.  Therefore people are clawing all over each other to get in. 

This is what Shenzen looked like before the government got out of the way, circa 1978.  The main industries were fishing and harvesting bamboo.  The city had 30,000 people and not a single traffic light:

This is Shenzen now.  There's a good chance that the device you're using to read this was partially manufactured in Shenzen. 
(Some of you may be offended by this picture, as there is now more income inequality in Shenzen than 30 years ago.  Despite pulling millions and millions of people out of bone-grinding poverty, the people who accomplished this miracle are condemned by many because they are now filthy, stinkin' rich.)

 
So what's the difference between the SEZ's and the rest of China?   Back to Wikipedia:

1. Special tax incentives for foreign investments in the SEZs.
2. Greater independence on international trade activities.
3. Economic characteristics are represented as "4 principles"  (See 4-7)
4. Construction primarily relies on attracting and utilizing foreign capital
5. Primary economic forms are Sino-foreign joint ventures and partnerships as well as wholly foreign-owned enterprises
6. Products are primarily export-oriented
7. Economic activities are primarily driven by market forces

SEZs are listed separately in the national planning (including financial planning) and have province-level authority on economic administration. SEZs local congress and government have legislation authority.
Leong (2012) investigates the role of special economic zones in liberalizing the Chinese and Indian economies and their impact on economic growth..... The presence of SEZs increases regional growth but increasing the number of SEZs has negligible effect on growth. The key to faster economic growth appears to be a greater pace of liberalization.

Liberalization, of course, is being used in the old-school sense of the word, meaning "leave people the hell alone".  The American sense of liberalization means "how many ways can the government f**k with your life".   

You have no idea how much better off the Chinese are in these SEZ's.  It's a brand new world for them. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in a city that's just as screwed up as pre-reform China:

This week, Senator Rand Paul, who is likely running for president, suggested that Congress act to pass legislation which would declare Detroit an economic “freedom zone.” That is to lower taxes in Detroit to near 0% levels, spurring business activity and development.

We at "Against Crony Capitalism" wholeheartedly agree with this idea. We even called for something similar last year. Unleash the market in Detroit and the city will bloom.

Few cities have been as ravaged by inept governing and crony capitalism as Detroit has. Because of decades of mismanagement and neglect, what was once one of the great cities of the world is now a rusting heap. But it need not remain so.

Detroiters are now presented with an incredible opportunity in the proposed Freedom Zone. In the face of despair and economic ruin, they can show that the city which spawned Joe Lewis can become a contender on the world stage – again.

Seems a bit optimistic given where Detroit is now to imagine the city solvent, never mind thriving. But if the power of the market were unleashed in the city, if Detroiters and entrepreneurs from across the country and around the world could realize the simple benefit of keeping almost all of the fruits of their labor in the city, Detroit would roar back to life.

Michigan would see massive wealth inflows. The young and ambitious would come from the coasts instead of the other way around. People would actually WANT to buy homes in the city. If Detroit truly became a nearly tax fee zone, with services engineered through the market, the ambitious and smart, not to mention moneyed, of the world will come.

Here's why Detroit won't see these simple, common sense reforms take place in my lifetime.

1.  The current president of the United States is a class warrior.  He has persuaded a majority of us that it's better to keep everyone down than to allow entrepreneurs to get rich  (and in the process make all of us better off).  They'll never to allow an entrepreneur to increase his wealth by 10,000% if it increases the well-being of the rest of us by only 10%.  We now have a zero-sum mindset. 

2.  Detroit's government is full of bureaucratic parasites, goldbrickers and featherbedders.  Worse than most.  The city has 40 people who do nothing all day but write checks by hand.  They still have a blacksmith on staff, just in case departments that haven't had a horse in 50 years need to have a horse shoed / shod / given new horseshoes.  (Sorry.  I don't know the tenses of the verb "to shoe). 
Chinese bureaucrats are some of the worst people in the world, but they could easily be commanded by decrees from Beijing.  If they resisted, they were propped against a wall and shot.  Detroit's parasites have more autonomy than China's. 

3.  Any possible improvements to Detroit will be burdened with race-based set-asides. 

4.  Detroit hasn't hit rock bottom yet.  The city is still getting money from Uncle Sugar without having to change anything. 

Great idea, Mr. Paul.  But they'll never do it.

 

We're going to protest against....YOU

The Tarrant County Libertarians have participated in protests against the Federal Reserve, the Porkulus Package, gun restrictions, and anti-gay/lesbian legislation. 

If I get my way, the next protest will be in your yard.  We're going to protest against you.  Yeah, you.  You there, sitting at work, reading this when you know you should be working.  You're the one we're talking about. 

We are so irritated at you that we can't see straight. 

There are tens of millions of teenagers, minorities, and unskilled laborers working in minimum-wage jobs.  All of these good people could be paid more. 

Advocates of minimum wages believe the villains in this situation are companies like KFC or Dunkin' Donuts.  They are wrong.  The enemy is you. 

McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, Sears, Target, Wal-Mart, Domino's and Macy's and several others are acting as a safety-net for these low-skilled workers.  These companies are purchasing the time, labor, and effort of low-skilled workers for much more than you are willing to pay. 

How do I know that you aren't willing to hire low-skilled workers?  Because they're all still working at McDonald's and Burger King!!  And we are pissed about it.  You could start purchasing labor at higher than market prices, but you don't.  And we're not going to take it. 
No Justice, No Peace, Mofo. 

Besides setting up picket lines in your front yard, we're going to picket Fort Worth defense contractor Lockheed Martin.  This morning, there are clerks and stockboys working at Target and Subway sandwich shops who could be getting paid 5 times as much by working as an engineer or project manager, designing and building F-16's for Lockheed. 

But no.  Lockheed isn't going to purchase labor from those people.  Lockheed (and General Dynamics and Apple and Google and Goldman Sachs) leaves that task to Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants.  Bastards.   

Costco doesn't pay minimum wage.  Wal-Mart does.  Wal-Mart is willing to purchase the labor that Costco won't. 

Admit it....  If you're on the political left, you think of Costco as good and Wal-Mart as evil, don't you?  We're going to change all that.  Purchasing the labor of unskilled workers isn't someone else's job, it's YOUR job. 

So get ready.  We're coming to your driveway, and we're going to block your car.  We're going to attack you with glitter bombs.  We're going to do some hardcore "shaming".  You know that you could create an industry that would pay every teenage mall-rat a Living Wage of $15 per hour. 

You could be paying more for labor than Pizza Hut does, but you don't.  You greedy, selfish bastard. 

Why stuff you pay for is always better than free stuff

In my quest to read every Pop Economics book ever written, I've come across numerous discussions about why items you pay for are better than things that are free.

Look at the mess going on with Britain's National Health Service. Thousands of patients have needlessly died, but the NHS is "free". Nobody is interested in making a profit, or pleasing customers/patients. The priority is to maintain one's place within the NHS hiearchy by following certain rules. No more, no less. Medical staff don't work for the patients, they work for Her Majesty's Government.

Or try this... Next time Facebook goes through one of its new format changes, try griping to the owners about it. They don't care. You're not a customer. You're a "user".

I got royally pissed when Fox Business cancelled John Napolitano's show. Fox Business doesn't care about my opinion, because I never paid anything to watch Fox Business.

Google's Blogger/Blogspot program is free. Doesn't cost me a dime. I make a trifling amount of money for Google (and myself) with the ads, but Google has bigger fish to fry. They don't care that I can't write anything on the "compose" page. And they shouldn't, even though it's frustrating the crap out of me. I don't send them a check for this thing every month. But if Google's Blogspot staff were a car dealership, I would've driven this thing through their display window sometime yesterday.

That's why Socialism doesn't work, and Capitalism does.

Sorry for turning my little 1st World Problem into a gripe and moan session. I grew up Baptist, spent about 3 decades listening to Baptist sermons, and I now see everything that I experience as a parable.

Ungrateful Cubans

Things like this make me sick....This is from the Seattle Times:

MIAMI - They led a life of privilege in a society of chronic scarcity. Children of top Cuban officials from Fidel Castro on down, they attended elite schools and often received coveted visas to study abroad.


They were being groomed to lead Cuba into the 21st century. Yet, with the passage of time and the decline of communism in the world, many of the children of Cuban revolutionaries have stopped believing in their parents and their values. Some never did believe.

The recent spectacular escape to the United States of Castro's own daughter dramatized the crisis of confidence among the children of the Cuban revolutionary "aristocracy." Alina Fernandez Revuelta, Castro's 37-year-old daughter, is only the latest in a growing number of elite defectors, a few of whom are now in Miami.

Fidel Castro has provided his people with programs for jobs, healthcare, and education.  There's hardly a Cuban alive who hasn't benefited from his economic, medical, or academic systems. 

He's given them roads.  He provided infrastructure - telephone lines, plumbing, and electricity.  Every time a Cuban looks at anything on his island, he should proudly step back and say "I didn't build that". 

But there are so-called "reformers" in Cuba who want to destroy the very system that has supported them their entire lives!!! 

Some of them want to overthrow Fidel Castro.  Yeah.  You heard it right.  But whose roads are the idealistic revolutionaries going to march on?  Fidel's.  Whose food will they eat?  Fidel's.  Whose roofs will they sleep under?  The ones provided by Fidel Castro. 

The hypocrisy makes me ill. 

Cubans didn't plow those sugar cane fields, erect those buildings, or pave those roads.  The Cuban government did it. 

If any of those ungrateful little Cubans can read this blog post, it's because Fidel Castro provided a system that taught them how to read. 

I want to purchase 5 tires from China

From Industry Week:

The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) is pointing to Continental Tires' announcement on April 28 that they are building a new plant in the U.S. as an example of trade laws working.


In September, 2009 the Obama Administration imposed duties on surging imports of subsidized tires from China. The three-year plan was designed to provide relief for U.S. tire manufacturers under Section 421 of U.S. trade law, the first time the law had been used since its inception, the group noted.

Only one year after the import duties were applied, a study by AAM found that the U.S. tire industry had already reversed a significant decline. Sales were up, and workers were being hired.


I need to buy some new tires for the truck.  Two would be nice, since the ones up front are about a month away from having steel belt poking through. 
A sane person would go ahead and replace the back ones also.  They would never pass an inspection. 
Most normal humans would go ahead and purchase a new spare.  Don't ask about the condition of my spare. 

Most of my tire budget is going to Texas A and M University, in College Station, where my little Aggie is laboring to become a critter doctor.  So I need a really good deal on tires. 

China makes some good tires, and is willing to subsidize my purchase of their tires.  China wants to get me the best possible deal on five tires !!! 

China's government subsidizes Chinese manufacturing in a number of ways.  As far as I can tell, they don't go so far as to cut checks to manufacturers, the way our silly government does for ethanol producers, farmers, or producers/researchers of ridiculous "green" products, but they help out with manipulating the RMB, import/export laws and quotas, and the like. 

I think I should be allowed to purchase five Chinese tires at the lowest price possible.  I want to call one of my friends in Xiamen, tell him what I'm looking for, and have him throw five of those bad boys on the next shipping container coming my way.  I want to swap some pieces of paper with Benjamin Franklin's picture on them for five tires.  The deal doesn't need to involve Barack Obama, George Bush, John Boehner, Goodyear, Firestone, the National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Commerce, or a gaggle of theologians asking "Where Would Jesus Shop?"

And those pics of Ben Franklin?  There's only one place where they eventually come home to be spent.  Trade deficits are based on totally bogus numbers.  I run a huge trade deficit at the Starbuck's where I'm writing this, BTW.....

I also want to purchase a new suit.  And if The Men's Wearhouse sells a suit for $800, but Joseph A. Bank has decided to take a loss on the same suit and sell thousands of them at a loss for $400, I'm going to buy the suit from Joseph A. Bank. 

But what of the jobs lost at The Men's Wearhouse? 

Most of us would say that The Men's Wearhouse needs to change its ways, or get ready to go out of business.  Or we would purchase $400 suits from Joseph A Bank until Joseph A Bank went bankrupt. The health of either organization is a secondary consideration to getting a good deal on some clothing. 

When I shop in Dallas, I don't worry about the impact of money not being spent in Fort Worth. 
Ditto for when I shop in Mississippi.  I don't want to pay an extra import tariff on things I bring across the Vicksburg bridge, just to keep it fair for East Fort Worth.  
If I want to bring a bottle of tequila, a silly hat, three tasteless T-shirts and a box of Cuban cigars back from a vacation in Mexico, its nobody's business but mine. 
The same thing goes for Chinese tires.  They should cross borders at the same tax/duty rate as everything else produced anywhere else. 

This would cause some discomfort for American politicians and bureaucrats who earn their living by selling exemptions and exceptions to the rules. 
This would eventually bankrupt China.  Or China would quickly learn not to imitate the U.S. - subsidizing pet political constituencies.  Whichever came first. 

I choose Kroger over Albertson's whenevr Kroger has the best deal on Campbell's soup and Michelob Ultra. 

All this, despite Kroger NEVER EVER using my shipping and freight services.  I have a massive trade deficit with Kroger, but I still shop with them.  Am I a silly person, or what? 

Why are we not allowed to make the same choice with everything else? 

The picture of the worn out tire came from here. 

From the emails of The Blogfather

From an email sent to Glenn Reynolds....

Reader Geoff Lackey emails: “You’ve been writing about this lately, so I thought I’d pass this on: Yesterday, about a week after Verizon announced its iphone data plans, AT&T notified me that the size of my data plan was now doubled (2GB up to 4GB) with no rate increase. Wow, this free-market competition stuff kinda works. Someone tell Obama.”

Is there any doubt that opening up the medical/pharmaceutical monopolies to some unregulated competition would help with costs?  Give me a choice between something that Joehn Boehner and Barack Obama have regulated and a product with an "unregulated" sticker on it at a lower price?  Guess which one I'm picking. 

Lord have mercy, I love Glenn Reynolds' site (Instapundit).  From now on, Mr. Reynolds shall be known as "The Blogfather". 

Unintended consequences of the war on warming

The following post makes no sense.  I'm trying to make some kind of point about all the contradictions in various government ripoffs.  The task is so huge that I can't quite get my arms around it.  Oh well. 

They have finally backed themselves into a corner. 
The New York Holy Times, apologists for The Teleprompter Jesus and all his works, came up with a great excuse for last month's anemic job growth.

The snowstorms in January probably had some effect on the anemic job growth, given that the transportation and warehousing sector and the construction sector both shed jobs.

Here's a CNBC video on the same topic.  The cold weather is killing us. 

So....here's a shout-out to all my guys driving trucks and working in warehouses.  Don't even THINK about shutting your rigs off at lunch or break time.  Let those bad boys idle.  Forklift drivers, let your machines run all night. We have a planet to warm.  Heck, that's what they're paying us to do, right?  Hit this link to see that, yes, they really are paying us to run the forklifts all night.  Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to prove that we needed the forklifts through a Cash For Clunkers-type boondoggle.  But we're doing it to fight Warming.  We supposedly want Cooling.   

It all gets really confusing when the government gets involved in anything but Defense, Enforcing Contracts, and Intervening In Disputes. 
Doesn't it? 
Think about how freakin' great it would be if the government just sat back and stopped trying to save us by fighting warming, cooling, unemployment, wealth, poverty, weather, Arabs, enemies of favored dictators, The Non-Existent Soviet Union, imports, exports and unclean African genitals?
Think of all the money we could save if they just....stayed.....home. 

New legislation would prevent shoppers from changing retailers without documentation ! !

I spend a lot of money at Home Depot. 
When I give them my money, it's proof that I value ceiling fan pull chains, deck lumber, weed eater string, fertilizer and the expertise of Home Depot employees more than I value my money. 
When the group at Home Depot gives me their merchandise and their expertise in exchange for my money, it's proof that they had rather have my cash than their inventory of chains, lumber, string, fertilizer, or their free time. 

Each party in the exchange believes that they're getting the better end of the deal.  Otherwise, no exchange would be taking place.  

I'm no longer happy with the Home Depot closest to my home.  I want to start swapping my money with a Lowe's Home Improvement Center. 

Unfortunately, Congressman Alan Smithee (R-California) has introduced legislation that would require me to give my neighborhood Home Depot a series of documented verbal and written warnings prior to spending my money at Lowe's.  Plus, in some cases, the burden of proof would be on me to prove that I didn't stop purchasing time and materials from Home Depot because of the race, religion, age, sexual orientation, or political views of their employees.

Should I fail to follow the letter of the law, I could be required to pay unemployment compensation to the Home Depot employees who are affected by my shopping decision.  My attorney has told me that making the switch probably isn't worth the risk. 
 
And that's not the worst part....all I want to do is walk into a freakin' Home Depot, find an electrical department employee who can explain how to wire a multi-speed ceiling fan, buy a pull-chain from him, and get the hell out.  But the Smithee Bill would make me responsible for the electrical department employee's health insurance ! ! ! !   I don't want to be the employee's mother, I just want to purchase some of his time, his work, his opinions, and a pull chain. 

Please help lobby to kill the Smithee Bill, and all legislation similar to it. 

If you know what I mean. 

Government Motors vs Toyotas that discriminate against the elderly

You may have witnessed the Government Motors Board of Directors grilling the upper management of Toyota a few days ago.   

Here's Theodore Frank, writing in The Washington Examiner.  It seems that the Toyotas with the accelaration problems tend to discriminate against the elderly. 

In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger.

These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators).
But Toyota is being mau-maued by Democratic regulators and legislators in the pockets of trial lawyers—who, according to the Associated Press, stand to make a billion dollars from blaming Toyota for driver error.
And that is before hundreds of past run-of-the-mill Toyota accidents that killed or injured people are re-classified in future lawsuits as an electronics failure in an attempt to win settlements against the company.

So why are G.M.'s owners so enthusiastic about orchestrating a full-blown witch hunt against Toyota?  Well, after saving G.M. and Chrysler from bankruptcy, and taking a bazillion dollars in donations from the UAW, it probably seemed like the most logical step.   

The scariest map you'll ever see

Want to see something scary? This is what U.S. unemployment looked like in January 2007.

Blue/Green on this map represents high employment. Red/Brown equals moderate unemployment. Yellow/Tan means low unemployment.

I found it on Small Dead Animals, but that's not the link you need to hit just yet.

Hang with me a second. Do you ever wonder why "small l" libertarians and "Capital L" Libertarians make such a big deal over the 10th amendment? (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.)

The 10th Amendment allows us to experiment. For instance, if Mississippi once had laws prohibiting any industry but cotton farming, and Alabama didn't, well, one can glance at a map like this one and see that Mississippi is getting punished for that decision. And plenty of others. In 2007, the Alabama/Mississippi boundary was as plain as the lines separating Haley Barbour's chins.

The 10th amendment, very much under attack in the current Federalist nightmare, allows individual states to opt out of lemming-like conformity to one another.

What the heck was wrong in South Carolina in 2007? I won't pretend to know. But South Carolina operates under one set of laws and regulations, while nearby Georgia operates under another. Otherwise, they are only separated by an invisible line.

Why was rust belt Indiana faring better than the regulatory hell of Michigan? Or its backwoods neighbor Kentucky? I don't know.

Now hit this link to watch a monthly update of the same map, from January 2007 to now. Almost every U.S. county changes to a less desirable color, but some places are doing much better than others.

Last, go to this map published by the State Policy Index site, ranking every U.S. state by economic freedom, economic freedom being defined as an overall absence of nanny-state maternalism. Look for pages 22 and 23.

There isn't a perfect correlation between high employment and economic freedom, but perfect correlations don't exist. Economic freedom is a good thing. Regulatory hells are not.

Note to everyone moving to Texas from California, trying to outrun the consequences of your votes: Please stay home on election day.

Note to everyone living outside the Texas/Wyoming "Freedom Belt": Welcome to Mississippi.

A note to the new Pay Czar

From Michelle Malkin, on the compensation level of Obama's "Pay Czar", the individual tasked with determining how much money someone can earn:

Kenneth Feinberg made $5.76 million last year as a partner in his Washington law firm, Feinberg Rozen LLP, according to a government ethics filing obtained by Reuters.
And his assets, which include a stake in his law firm, two homes and dozens of investments, are worth anywhere from $11 million to $37 million, according to the filing, which places assets in broad value categories.
His homes are a $1.66 million house in Bethesda, Maryland, near Washington, and a $1.96 million vacation home in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, on Martha’s Vineyard.

Please allow me a brief digression about Martha's Vineyard....Who was Martha? Why is her Vineyard so popular with those of a certain political persuasion? Did Martha begin with a small summer camp for pious hypocrites, and it grew from there? Just wondering.

As long as I can remember, groups of Lefties have advocated topping organizational salaries at a multiple of someone else's earnings. I can remember people admiring the restraint of Ben & Jerry's founders (Ben & Jerry), who refused to take home more than, say, 10 times the salary of their lowest paid employee. I don't remember the exact number. This exercise in posturing didn't extend to Ben & Jerry's stock options, though, and after cloaking themselves with righteousness for a decade, they walked away with a lots more than 10 times the salary of the lowest 8 percent of the least compensated quartile of the blah blah blah blah blah. The whole thing makes me ill.

Anyway, the salary czar seems fixated on evil CEO's, Wall Street villains, people who burn orphanages, and the like. I think he should roll out something like this:

No lawyer can earn more than 12 times the amount earned by the paralegal who prosecuted Ted Kennedy's manslaughter case.

No actor, regardless of his political activism, can earn more than 17 times the director's salary of the Merigold Mississippi Community Theatre.

Take the cost of shipping one truckload of freight from Fort Worth, TX to a convention center in Chicago. Include Fuel, driver, use of tractor, use of trailer, road use taxes, and wear and tear on the vehicle for the 800 mile trip. From this number, subtract the cost of two union guys spending 20 minutes on forklifts unloading this freight at a Chicago convention center. Assume that this cost is lower than the freight cost. Sometimes it isn't. The leftover amount is the maximum monthly pay for any union leader.

No athlete can earn more than 7 times the annual salary of that guy from your high school who was a bust in the NFL draft, but who never learned how to do anything in school, and now spends his weekends watching his high school and college glory days on old videos.

No government official who leaves "Public Service" (ahem) to become a lobbyist can earn one cent more than the earnings of one of Fort Worth's Rosedale/Lancaster street whores. Equal work, equal pay.

Russell Roberts on The Unimaginable

Several years ago, Russell Roberts, half of the George Mason University Economics blogging duo Cafe Hayek, wrote a parable called "The Choice: A Fable Of Free Trade And Protectionism".


(I found it at Half Price Books in Dallas a few years ago. Good stuff.)


At one point in the book, Perfesser Roberts needed to come up with the most idiotic Straw Man argument he could think of to illustrate that destroying things so you could make them again doesn't improve the economy.

He had to think for a long time. He wanted something so bizarre, so unlikely, and so... so.... so.... freakin' dumb that anyone reading his book would get his point and be forced to agree.


So what scenario did he think of, waaaaay back in 2005, to show that cleaning up after vandalism doesn't create wealth? Here goes....


"Let's flip it around. Suppose you wake up in the morning, and there's no new car in the driveway - just the same one you've been driving. But the president makes a similar speech. A government official will be coming to get your car and drive it off a cliff, where the remains will be buried. Sure, you're going to have to buy a new car but employment in the U.S. auto industry will increase, and prosperity will follow, won't it? Or will it? Will that policy make America richer or poorer?"
"It would make Detroit richer."

"That's right. The auto industry would expand. But the country as a whole would be poorer for it. You don't get rich destroying things. You get poorer."


There you have it, written in 2005. Irony is now dead. Irony has achieved room temperature, and is pushing up daisies. You can put a morgue tag on its toe.


Russell Roberts sat down with his doctorate in economics, and tried to imagine a government program so dumb that no one would dare try it.


He failed.


If you didn't hit the link at the top, after giving us the excerpt from his book Perfesser Roberts goes on to write "Cash for Clunkers has ended for now. It was an intellectual travesty. I am grateful that it was poorly administered. It might have done even more damage."

The Descent Into Tribalism

This is how it begins. Here's The Washington Post:

Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.

I try to explain this in online debates. I labor in vain to explain it at parties. I blog about it at least every two weeks. I point back to the causes of The Great Depression.

I get nowhere.

Let's try again....

A "Buy American" provision in a piece of legislation is no different than a "Boycott Foreigners" provision.

This pisses off the foreigners, and they pressure their governments to retaliate.

Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S." and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts -- the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects.

But wait, there's more ! !

Take, for instance, Duferco Farrell Corp., a Swiss-Russian partnership that took over a previously bankrupt U.S. steel plant near Pittsburgh in the 1990s and employed 600 people there.
The new buy American provisions, the company said, are being so broadly interpreted that Duferco Farrell is on the verge of shutting down. Part of an increasingly global supply chain that seeks efficiencies by spreading production among multiple nations, it manufactures coils at its Pennsylvania plant using imported steel slabs that are generally not sold commercially in the United States. The partially foreign production process means the company's coils do not fit the current definition of made in the USA -- a designation that the stimulus law requires for thousands of public works projects across the nation.

There are only two reasons we could have ignored this much history to do something this destructive.

Pick one: 1) the Swiss and the Russian owners of this company can't contribute to election campaigns, or 2) Barack Obama is a drooling idiot.

Neither choice reflects well on us.

In recent weeks, its largest client -- a steel pipemaker located one mile down the road -- notified Duferco Farrell that it would be canceling orders. Instead, the client is buying from companies with 100 percent U.S. production to meet the new stimulus regulations. Duferco has had to furlough 80 percent of its workforce.

"You need to tell me how inhibiting business between two companies located one mile apart is going to save American jobs," said Bob Miller, Duferco Farrell's executive vice president. "I've got 600 United Steel Workers out there who are going to lose their jobs because of this. And you tell me this is good for America?"

Bob, your largest client purchased cold-rolled or hot-rolled steel from you because you had the best product for the best price. This created a substantial savings for the end users, whether they were purchasing cars, knives, lawnmowers, scissors or road signs. And what did we consumers do with these savings?

We went to parties. We had fun with our children. We saw movies, lectures, Tennessee Williams plays, Verdi operas, Rogers & Hammerstin musicals, Bob Dylan concerts, and NASCAR races.

People are incredibly creative, and I'm not just talking about Tennessee Williams, Verdi, or Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

I'm talking about Russian and Swiss steel manufacturers. Canadian pop-rivet suppliers. Israeli electronics distributors, They've all allowed us to save time and money. They've allowed us to come down from the trees, take advantage of their wonderful inventions, and profit from them. And you shouldn't have to be from Russia, Switzerland, Canada, or Israel to benefit from their work.

Here's one of my favorite NickM quotes. (Nick's "Counting Cats" site is down today for some reason. Perhaps the British Blog embargo is already underway.... Otherwise, I'd link it.)

"We emerged from tribalism and through the PC mob we are returning to tribalism."

If there's a better way to explain what we're now seeing, I'm all ears.

Idiot picture from here. A tiresome prophecy where I predicted all of this can be found here. You can visit the Duferco Farrell website by clicking here. For daily updates verifying that Barack Obama is an idiot, click here.

Ron Paul on NAFTA and CAFTA and 900-page Free Trade Agreements

Someone (who will remain nameless...heh heh heh) emailed me asking how I can be a Ron Paul fan when Dr. Paul opposes many of our Free Trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA.

Click here to go to a great Reddit discussion of the same topic. Here's the first entry.....

Because NAFTA and CAFTA are not free trade agreements.
They are just named "free trade agreements".
If I named myself "Mr. Rape Victim Helper", yet I go around raping people, am I for or against rape?

And later on....

A free trade agreement should fit in a paragraph.
NAFTA and CAFTA are hundreds of pages of regulations.

I still like NAFTA and CAFTA, just because they eliminate some of the protectionist B.S.
And I'm not naive enough to believe that the good Dr. Paul might be protecting his own backside with some of his votes, and using the impurity of the agreements as a cover.
But it does make you wonder why something called a "Free Trade Agreement" has to be 900 pages long.

It's time to boycott Georgia

Here's CNN, on the congressional investigation into a Georgia peanut plant accused of knowingly covering up a salmonella outbreak:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The president of a peanut company and a plant manager accused of knowingly distributing contaminated food refused to answer questions posed by members of Congress on Wednesday, citing their Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.

The testimony of Stewart Parnell, president of the Peanut Corp. of America, and Sammy Lightsey, manager of the company's Blakely, Georgia, plant, before a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee lasted less than 10 minutes.

Remember the good old days before trucking was de-regulated in the 1980's? It used to be more difficult and expensive to ship products across state lines into Texas. Back then, we didn't have to worry as much about contaminated peanut butter being shipped in from Georgia.

This salmonella outbreak is the legacy of "Free Trade". A loss of lives, a loss of jobs, and a loss of income for Texans. Do you think we'd have this problem with peanut butter if it had to be produced in Texas, with Texas inspectors reviewing the peanuts through every step of the peanut butter process? Wouldn't you be willing to pay more, just to know that your peanut butter was from Texas peanuts, grown by Texans, buttered by Texans, and inspected by our own Texas bureaucrats?

Because of Georgia's obvious Quality Control problems, don't you think it's time to boycott all Georgia products?

No?

Well think about that next time you read something like this.

Kincaid's - A Libertarian Dilemma

Star-Telegram.com: 03/13/2008 Lease dispute could mean move for Fort Worth landmark Kincaid's

This is where we Libertarians get conflicted. The landord of Fort Worth's beloved Kincaid's (aka Charles Kincaid's Grocery & Market) is raising the rent from around $7.00 a foot to more than $27.00. Plus 6% of the gross. Nobody in the burger business can pay that kind of rent. Not on that stretch of Camp Bowie.

Well, dang it, the propery belongs to the landlord, doesn't it? Even if it's just an uninsulated cinderblock building. And even if the price they're wanting is ridiculous. The building doesn't belong to us. It belongs to the landlord in Oregon.

I think the city council should intervene and change the zoning so that nothing else can ever be built there. One of the foundations of the Libertarian idea is that your property is your property. No one should be able to tell you what you can or can't do with it. Otherwise, you won't risk improving it, take out loans against it, or develop it. It's the difference between here and Cuba.

Maybe we could contact the Architectural Preservation Council and have them declare Kincaid's a city monument. One of the primary differences between our growing and dynamic economy and that of less developed societies is our respect for property rights.

You've gotta understand how good these burgers are. Plus, there's the history of the place, and all the funky stuff on the walls. It's where my Central Shipping Manager and his wife met as employees. Heck, as I understand it, Gentry (the manager) GAVE them a car ! ! ! They're that kind of people. And the people who currently own this property now live in Freakin' Oregon ! ! ! What do they know about Fort Worth??? Kincaid's is a civic landmark. Government must intervene in this heartless Free Market power grab ! ! ! Anyway, we Libertarians have to remain consistent. The building belongs to those folks in Oregon, to do with as they please.

For more info on this Kincaid's bidness, visit the good folks at Fort Worth Hole in The Wall. Mr. Fort Worth Hole In The Wall does nothing over there but restaurant reviews. Seriously, save this link. Next time you're looking for a good place to eat in Tarrant County, follow his suggestions even if I'm still pouting because he won't email me to join him for lunch at "Cancun Mexico" in the 7400 block of Camp Bowie, and let me convince him that dollar for dollar, it's the best Mexican Food in town.

So eat at Kincaid's while it's still there. Market Forces have spoken, and we must let the Free Market have its way. Dammit, I took my parents to eat at Kincaid's the first time they came to Fort Worth because it had been written up in "Southern Living" magazine. Can we get former Congressman/Secretary of the Army Pete Geren involved in this somehow?

Free Trade has given you a great standard of living. Don't you hate it?

According to Nina Easton, of Fortune magazine, Americans have soured on Free Trade. This, of course, is mainstream media-driven horse manure. If you're reading this post, you have a lifestyle beyond the wildest dreams of anyone who didn't live in the Free Trade era.

It's all in how pollsters ask the question.

If asked, "Are you willing to pay 4 times as much for an iPod manufactured in Vail, Colorado as opposed to one manufactured overseas?", most Americans will say no. Try it on your friends and neighbors.

If asked, "Are you willing to pay 3 times as much for clothing that has a Made In The USA tag?" most Americans will say no. (Wal-Mart learned this the hard way....)

If asked, "If you could increase your household income by 4K to 12K by removing all trade barriers, would you be willing to do so?" most Americans would say yes. Once again, conduct a non-scientific survey of your own to verify.

If asked, "Do you feel that we should continue subsidizing millionaires so that we can pay more for our groceries?" most Americans will say not just no, but hell no.

If asked, "Would you feel less self-righteous driving an SUV powered by cheaper Brazilian ethanol than you would feel using Iowa Ethanol?" most Americans will not answer until they hear what Lou Dobbs has to say. (Since Iowa has the first election primary, they proudly lead the nation in corporate welfare.)

The point of Free Trade is that we do what we do best. Other nations are good at different things, and they do the same. Then we voluntarily swap stuff with each other. If we put trade barriers in place, we don't get the advantage of the other country's lower costs. Bill Clinton understood this. Hillary, at least according to the link above, does not.

When the Mafia prevents businesses from trading/purchasing goods and services from anyone they please, it's called extortion. (i.e. - have your tablecloths cleaned by our company, or we'll burn down your restaurant.)

When the Government prevents me from trading/purchasing goods and services from anyone I please, it's called "Pertectin' Amurrican Jobs". Some jobs are saved, but at a huge cost to the larger group. If Hillary lived with Bill in the White House for 8 years but hasn't learned this one economic fact, she's the dumbest woman God put guts in.

Here's a Samizdata post from years ago on the subject. I read it shortly before my first China trip, and it's one of many things that set me on my Free Market Crusade.

Bill gave us 8 years of growth because of his embrace of Free Trade. Hillary is actively campaigning to screw it up.

I feel better now. Glad that's out of my system.

Public Schools, Private Schools, and Carl Carter

My first 12 years of education were almost totally segregated.
Carl Carter, my 2nd grade classmate, and whose family had the courage to integrate A.W. James Elementary school in Drew, Mississippi, has been the subject of a history book, "Silver Rights", and a children's book "The School is not White". Can a movie be far behind?
Carl was the only minority in my 2nd grade class. His mother had decided that he and his sisters were going to have the best education possible. Tradition be damned. Carl Carter was our Jackie Robinson.
During my 3rd grade year, a 1st through 12th grade private academy was formed to circumvent the government's intent to integrate the public schools of the Mississippi Delta. White children left the public schools by the thousands. Carl Carter and a few of my white friends stayed behind.

I got a good education at the private academy. I got a great background in English, despite my tendency to use too many parenthetical expressions, commas, and cliches. (I read better than I write....) As a public speaker, I can usually hold a crowd's attention. Ruby Sue Issa taught us a lot more than history in our Social Studies classes. My faults are not because of my school or my teachers.
But even as a middle-schooler, I knew something was wrong. At one point, I sat down with my parents and discussed transferring to the Public School. I told my parents that the private school just wasn't right. I didn't say it was evil, I didn't say segregation was wrong. I didn't have the ability to articulate what I felt. I simply knew that something wasn't right. But then I talked myself out of transferring, simply because it was unheard of.
We weren't too upscale, but if your parents had the money and you were white, you went to the private academy. By the time I graduated, I was once again totally comfortable with the place.
Then one of my sisters went through a similar phase. She tried a different academy, hated it, and came back.
When my youngest sister started making the same noises, my folks decided to move to a town with good public schools. The schools happened to be integrated. My sisters and brother weren't bitten by anyone.
(My old school has since re-invented itself as a "Christian" academy. I hope they will find a way to integrate the place sometime soon. After all, it's 2007, and there's no shortage of minorities there to use as integrators....)
Then, having moved to Texas, I found myself with a daughter who needed educating, and sent her to a (barely) integrated church school through grade 6. My mother thoroughly enjoyed the irony of my kid attending a private academy. For middle school, she was in an integrated charter Arts school. High school has been the traditional public school. (But not the high school in my own beloved funky East Side neighborhood. That school is a Gladiator Training Center. I might be extremely liberal on some issues, but I ain't stupid.) Various strings got pulled to get her into the best public high school in the area, a public school that is nowhere near my house. I'm both happy with the decision, and proud of it. We didn't move to a White-Flight suburb.

Wait a minute....

Where the heck was I going with all this? My intent was to sit down and write a brief intro to the link below, which is a great Boston Globe article about keeping the Government out of the schools as much as possible. See below......But then I led off with Carl Carter and his family.
Don't leave educating our children to the government - The Boston Globe
I hope you read Jeff Jacoby's article.
Before I started writing this, I agreed with the whole thing. Now, I still agree with individual sentences, and most of the paragraphs, but I have to rein in my Libertarianism there. I can't agree with the entire article.

I still hate the idea of an educational monopoly. Or any other monopoly.

I think bi-lingual education is a joke. (No matter how little money I have, I'll always be able to pay some unfortunate victim of bilingual education to mow my yard.)

The overall public school expense to society, as comparated to a private school, is ridiculous.

But Jeff Jacoby erred in this article when he didn't give the government a slight tip of the hat for integrating A.W. James Elementary school. It wouldn't have happened any other way, and Carl Carter's life would have been immeasurably impoverished without the government's intervention. (But if I still lived in Mississippi, would I now avoid A.W. James Elementary as a "Gladiator Vo-Tech", like my parents did?)

It's funny what you can remember when you sit down and start typing.

(That sentence would have been a nice sentimental ending to this post, wouldn't it ? But I can't resist throwing in this....Jimmy Carter and I sent our daughters to Public Schools. Bill and Hillary didn't. Therefore, they're racist Arkansas Hillbillies. There. That feels better.)