Van Jones and "Mockingjay"

Former Marxist/Communist Van Jones (who was booted from Obama's advisory team for being a former Marxist/Communist) has written a silly review of the new film "Mockingjay". 

For those without a young daughter, the Hunger Games/Mockingjay series is about a dystopian future where the children of the outlying regions are forced into gladiatorial combat for the purpose of entertaining the government elites at "The Capitol".  (Spelled with an "O"....)

Jones claims that the film is a "sweeping indictment of income inequality". 

Horseshit. 

It's a sweeping indictment of the Van Jones political philosophy. 

Here's a pic of the wealthiest counties in the U.S., most of which now surround the U.S. Capital.  (With an "A".) 

Every dollar forcibly extracted from taxpayers goes to the Capital, and a little bit trickles back to the outlying regions.  This is what you wind up with....

Every child in the U.S. now has a $100,000.00 share of our national debt. 

The unfunded liabilities are now around $1,000,000.00 per child. 

I bet a few kids wish they could be randomly chosen to get a free pass from the current mess by....

Naw, I'm not going to go there. 

Pass the popcorn. 

 

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? 

Interesting Gallup poll on Big Government

This is what makes me nuts. 
I'm talking.....insane. 
Chewing on the table legs. 
Shit it my hat, pull it down to my ears, and call myself Hillary Clinton. 
Sit out on the front porch with a jar of peanut butter and spend a day trying to spread it exactly 3/16ths of an inch thick. 
That kind of crazy.  Crazier than a rodeo goat or a shithouse rat. 

Let me tell you how absolutely, totally nuts this make me....

I had a great-uncle who was a bit too close to his mom, and when she passed away, he spent all of his time out at the cemetery.  He was in his early twenties. 
One day he took a break from hanging out at the graveyard and sat down and played the piano for a few minutes.  He was cranking along pretty well and then played a horrible discordant whonking racket, and went catatonic. 

He didn't say another word to another person for about 50 years.  He died in Whitfield, the Mississippi asylum for the insane. 

That's how crazy this makes me. 

Here's Gallup:

Seventy-two percent of Americans say big government is a greater threat to the U.S. in the future than is big business or big labor, a record high in the nearly 50-year history of this question. The prior high for big government was 65% in 1999 and 2000. Big government has always topped big business and big labor, including in the initial asking in 1965, but just 35% named it at that time.

Here's a chart showing the people who are waking up the fluctuations in distrust of government power.

Ok, which two parties grow the government?  That would be the Republicans and the Democrats. 

 

Check out the debt levels.  We really are going to have to pay this money back to somebody. 

Do you see how the debt level goes down when there's a Republican president vs. a Democrat president? 
Do you see how the debt level goes down when there's a Republican congress vs. a Democrat congress? 

I don't either. 

So why, oh why, do people keep voting for those teams of clowns?  This makes me insane.  I have a piano in my bedroom, and am starting to play the old gospel hymn "I Surrender All", but with nothing but tritones in the left hand. 

The Libertarian Party awaits. 
72% of you no longer trust the government. 
We'll kill it for you if the cognitive dissonance doesn't kill me first. 

.


 

James B. Stewart, of the New York Times, is confused

James B. Stewart, a writer for the New York Holy Times who is often fairly sensible, is confused.  I don't ordinarily read the NYT, since I prefer to read Obama's press releases without editorial reworking, spell-checks, and other modifications, but I saw this article in Starbucks and it jumped out at me. 

Here's how it begins....

The Republican Party has long claimed to be the champion of business, large and small, and an advocate for fiscal responsibility. Yet now Republicans in Congress have precipitated a shutdown of the federal government and are threatening to let the nation default on its once Triple-A-rated debt.

      

How could this be?

Let's disregard the unfortunate likelihood that this is all Performance Art, and that all of the useless and/or redundant Federal employees will be retroactively paid for their inconvenience.  Let's pretend that the Republicans are serious, and that they really will shut down the government, and default on some of the USA's bills. 

I know it's a stretch, but let's pretend that there are some adults in those rooms. 

We are broke.  The Federal debt per taxpayer is about to hit $150,000.00.  (It's $50K per citizen, if that tells you anything about the maker vs taker problem.) 

The debt is increasing by 1.75 billion per day.  As long as the Republicans and Democrats can keep borrowing, some foolish countries and businesses will keep lending.  (In reality, we're buying a lot of our own debt at the Fed, just to keep the bubble going for a few years longer.)  And the Fed is printing an extra 85 billion a month.  When the inflation hits, it's gonna be ugly, ugly, ugly. 

Mississippi novelist William Faulkner once put an ad in the Oxford Eagle newspaper stating that he would no longer be responsible for his wife's spending and debts. 

I wish I could do the same, and put an ad in the New York Holy Times for the benefit of James B. Stewart, explaining that I no longer wish to be held accountable for Washington's debts.  Let me pull out what I've paid into Social Security, without interest, and I'll be happy.

Please, please, please.... Do not give my government any money.  They are not me.  They are not you.  Government is not "society".  We will not fail if they do. 

Please, do not voluntarily give them any money. 

Nancy Pelosi thinks her cupboard is bare

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who by most accounts is stark, raving mad, is concerned that her budget is going to be cut. 

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that while deficit reduction is a laudable goal, there are precious few spending cuts left to negotiate in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.
"The cupboard is bare," the California Democrat said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "There's no more cuts to make."
"We all want to reduce the deficit," she added. "Put everything on the table, review it, but you cannot have any more cuts just for the sake of cuts. Right now you’re taking trophies."

In the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Bullshit".

No cuts would be "cuts just for the sake of cuts".  They would be for the sake of keeping this Statist harridan from putting more of her luxuries on my daughter's bar tab. 

Here are the easy cuts.  These are the ones that a Martian would instantly suggest after looking at our expenses for a few minutes.  This is about enough to balance the budget.  We could save even more by going to a 100% voucher system for education, shutting down the money printing facilities and bulldozing the Federal Reserve.  For the sake of convenience I've ripped these numbers off from John Stossel's site.  The accompanying snarkiness is from my own research, reading, and fantasies. 

 

Defense cut by 2/3: $475 billion.  Seriously.  We almost spend as much on military waste as the rest of the world combined.  And we consider most of the world to be our allies.  (Federal Budget, pg. 58)

 

Medicare/Medicaid*: $441 billion - Healthcare is expensive because of government regulations and subsidies.  Where are the incentives to lower costs if Medicare/Medicaid will pay x-amount 100% of the time?  (Cato Institute)

 

Social Security Means Testing: $170 billion - Social Security started going broke when LBJ raided the fund to pay for Viet Nam.  It's gone.  Let's stop pretending.  Honor existing entitlements with funny money, and left everyone else opt-out.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Education (includes Pell Grants): $106.9 billion - The Department Of Education has been an absolute, total disaster.  A stupendous waste of money.  Give it back to the states and be done with it.   (Cato Institute)

 

Social Security*: $85.7 billion - See above.  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Transportation: $84.8 billion - The Department of Transportation has made the Department of Education look downright efficient.  It's a venture capital firm for political cronies.  Kill that bastard !   (And when it's time to run a bulldozer through the DOT building, please, please, please let me drive it for just 30 minutes.  That's all I ask.)  (Cato Institute)

 

Tax Amnesty: $80 billion  - Forget Tax Amnesty.  What would be so bad about a Flat Tax?  Calculated on a postcard?  With no exemptions for green energy expenditures for saving medical devices for gay whales?  (Rep. Jared Polis D-Co.)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Labor*: $78.6 billion  - We don't have a department of hamburgers, but somehow, hamburgers are still brought to market.  Disputes between McDonald's and customers still get resolved somehow.  (Department of Labor and White House)

 

Eliminate HUD: $60.8 billion  - Christ almighty, this is an easy one.  Anyone remember the Pruitt Iago housing debacle?  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Agriculture*: $33 billion - But if we didn't give money to millionaire farmers, how would the farmers become millionaires?   (Cato Institute)

 

Cut civilian employee compensation: $30 billion - Cut the pay and retirement and bennies to be in line with the private sector.  (Cato Institute)

 

Stop maintaining vacant federal property: $25 billion  - ALLRIGHT, GENTLEMEN, ALL PROPERTY WILL BE SOLD AS-IS, WHERE-IS, WITH ALL FAULTS DULY NOTED!  Who'll give me $900 an acre for this federal wasteland?  YES!! YOU IN THE BACK !!  Do I hear a thousand?  Auction it off.  Put it to work.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Foreign Aid: $21.2 billion - Foreign aid is notorious for staying in the pockets of the foreign politicians whose policies made the foreign aid necessary.   (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Energy*: $20.8 billion  - God, what a waste that has been. (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate NASA: $19.6 billion Privatize it!!  If the U.S.'s westward expansion and exploration had been left to NASA, we might have made it to St. Louis by now.  (Cato Institute)

 

Federal Drug War: $15 billion - Let's not just end it, let's prosecute the assholes who are currently fighting it.   (White House)

 

Earmark moratorium: $16 billion  - We almost have that one going on.  Nancy, you win this one.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Fannie/Freddie Subsidies: $14 billion - But.....they've worked out so well !!  How will we re-inflate the next real estate bubble?  (Federal Housing Finance Agency (p. 10))

 

Eliminate Dept. of Commerce: $13.9 billion  - no more junkets to other nations to increase commerce, only to have the Department Of Labor slap tariffs and quotas on the commerce, negating the savings from the additional commerce.  (Department of Commerce)

 

Eliminate Dept. of Interior: $12 billion - Privatize, privatize, privatize.   (White House)

 

Legalize Pot, Online gambling, Immigrants: $12 billion  - Pot is nobody's business but pot-smokers.  Ditto for online gambling.  And illegal immigrants?  People with that kind of drive and ambition are exactly the kind of immigrants we want.  Anyone who will wait patiently in line for 17 years to live in Abbott Tx is probably going to be a drain on society.  (Rep. Jared Polis D-Co.)

 

Privatize Army Corps of Engineers: $10.6 billion - I don't see how their engineers are better tha anyone else's.  (Cato Institute)

 

Cut federal employee travel budget: $10 billion - No, let's END it.  Most of our policy problems have Condi, Hillary and Kerry as their cause.  Keep their butts at home.   (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate National Science Foundation: $7.4 billion  - Oh yes....  Totally cut it from the University system.  Watch the cost of both areas drop like a stone.  And scientific breakthroughs just might increase.  Just a gut feeling.  (National Science Foundation)

\

End EPA’s State and Local grants: $6.5 billion  - Yeah.  It's 90% political. (Cato Institute)

 

Repeal Davis-Bacon: $6 billion - We would have to learn to deal with increased labor competition from black people, but it's the right thing to do.  It's a racist law (See: Davis Bacon Acts) that has consistently produced racist results.   (Republican Study Committee)

 

Privatize TSA: $5.7 billion - Yep.  The current system is an illegal violation of the 4th Amendment.   (Federal Budget)

 

Cut Dept. of Justice’s State and Local grants: $5 billion  - As much as the cops in Waco, Tx might want a tank and a SWAT team, I bet we could be just as safe without that expense.  (Heritage Foundation)

 

Privatize Post Office: $4 billion  - FedEx and UPS are already doing it, and doing it better.  (White House)

 

Eliminate Small Business Administration: $1.8 billion  - The SBA works like this:  Behave like we want you to, and we'll give you someone else's money.  Let's end this one.  (Small Business Administration)

 

Lease coastal plain of ANWR: $1.5 billion - Hell, there's nothing there but ice and snow.  Let's put it to work. (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate Federal Flood Insurance: $1.3 billion  - If the private sector won't insure you're multi-million dollar McMansion on the beach in hurricane alley, you shouldn't build it there.  (CBO, pg. 3)
 

Abolish SEC: $1.3 billion  - Can anyone name a scandal that these guys caught before it became huge? (SEC)

 

Eliminate Corporation for National Community Service: $1 billion - McDonald's, Home Depot, Barnes and Noble, and Gold's Gym serve their communities without the CNCS.  We don't need it.   (Cato Institute)

 

Suspend acquisition of federal office space: $1 billion  - Let there be cubicles !! (Heritage Foundation)

 

End subsidies for public broadcasting: $500 million  - Yes!  If you love NPR that much, you can pay for it!  Yes ! Yes ! Yes !  (Cato Institute)

 

Eliminate the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp: $480 million - This one's an easy layup.   (Heritage Foundation)

 

Eliminate the FCC: $439 million  -  We've got 900 channels showing infomercials and reality show crap.  Deregulate.  If you don't like what's on the channel, change the channel.  (FCC)

 

Eliminate the Endowments for Arts/Humanities: $332 million - Another easy one.  Ken Burns is now a millionaire.  If he wants to do more documentaries on the role of Black People in the development of Black People's study of Black People, he should try to raise private funding.  It's not that difficult to put a voiceover on Powerpoint.  (NEA/NEH)

 

Total Cut: $1,882,619,000,000

Current deficit: $1,645,000,000,000

Surplus Achieved: $237,619,000,000

 

A few footnotes:

 

Department of Energy is eliminated except for Nuclear arms maintenance

Department of Agriculture is eliminated, except for food programs for the needy

Department of Labor is eliminated, except for 26-week unemployment benefits

Defense budget would still be $243 billion, more than twice what the next highest country (China) spends

Medicare and Medicaid savings breakdown:

Block grant Medicaid and freeze spending (226)

Repeal 2010 healthcare law (87)

Increase Medicare premiums (39.8)

Cut non-Medicare premiums (37.7)

Cut Medicare payment error rate by 50% (28.6)

Increase Medicare deductibles (12.6)

Tort Reform (10)

Social Security savings breakdown:

Price index initial benefits** 41.1

Raise the normal retirement age** 31.4

Cut Social Security disability program by 10% 13.2

 

There ya go, Nancy.  I fixed it for you.  And you'll still have plenty of pork in your cupboard. 

Nudges that I would like to see

Nudges are the big thing this year.  Instead of legislating that people do the “right” thing (in the eyes of our bureaucratic overlords) people are now being nudged. 

"Nudge" is a verb meaning:

1.push or poke somebody: to push or poke somebody gently, usually with a motion of the elbow

2.move something: to move something gently, especially by pushing it slowly and carefully

 

Here’s the New American:

In an effort to “nudge” Americans to support bigger and more intrusive government while changing behavior to suit the whims of the political class in Washington, D.C., the Obama administration is following the lead of U.K. authorities by building what the White House refers to as a “Behavioral Insights Team.” According to an official document about the scheme aimed at recruiting personnel, the controversial team will be charged with prodding the U.S. population to think and behave in ways that officials deem best on everything from "sustainability" to health and education.

Whereas a traditional Nanny Stater might demand that we recyle, and penalize those who don’t, a nudger might hand out free in-home recycling containers, literature on how much we save by recycling, and prizes for kids who experiment with recycling at the Science Fair. 

 

 

 

Another example: some employers beg, cajole, threaten and scare employees into participating in the 401K retirement plan.  At Jukt Micronics, we take a different approach…..  We sign up everyone, and then send out a memo stating that if you don’t want to be on the 401K plan, you have to fill out some paperwork.  In this case the nudge is a slight hassle to do the wrong thing. 

Here are a few nudges that I would like to see in place, and a few wouldn’t even require major legislation, but they would move the citizenry toward liberty.  (Of course, anyone wanting to remain a slave to the 20500 D.C. zip code inhabitants should be allowed to remain in bondage.) 

 

1)      Federal Income tax should be paid by the individual, not withheld by the person who happens to be purchasing labor from that individual.  If we get to hold the money in our fat little hands before it is sent to Washington to blow up Syrians, imprison black pot smokers, and subsidize failing schools, we are more likely to vote for smaller government.  Employers who want to continue to act as Obama’s bag man should be allowed to do so.    

 

2)      Federal income taxes should be paid once a month.  I really like the idea of 60 million American households pulling out the checkbook on October the first and writing a check to the Treasury.  And then doing it again on November the first.   And December the first.   And January the first.  Every month, you gotta write Barack a check.  (There’s a reason that election day and tax day are currently as far apart as possible.)  If households have to write a check each month, they’ll see The Teleprompter Jesus’s “investments” in green /education /infrastructure bullshit in a new and exciting way.  They would be more likely to vote for a different ” investment”  broker.  Preferably one who would leave them and their money alone. 

 

3)      We are currently in a Two-Party Death Grip.  The thumbs are the Silly Party and the fingers belong to the Stupid Party.   There are people in the Stupid Party who would be willing to vote for a 3rd Party candidate (like Gary Johnson), but they’re afraid that it’ll just help the Silly Party win.  And vice-versa.  If we had a system of approval voting (hit the link), Sillies, Stupids, and Libertarian Sluggards could vote for multiple candidates in each race, and the highest vote total would win.  It would end the “wasted vote” fallacy.  Until we do something to break the Two-Party Death Grip, we’re going to get the government we deserve.  This would cost nothing, it could eliminate expensive primaries, and voters would have a real choice instead of the lesser of two lessers.   Imagine a ballot with Barack, Hillary, Newt, Mitt, Rand Paul, Gary Johnson, a Green, a Constitutionalist, and anyone else who could get signatures or ballot access.  I might vote for Gary and Rand and the Constitution guy.  Someone in favor of debt slavery and war might vote only for Obama and Newt.   The single candidate with the highest total wins. 

 

4)      Current legislation is usually presented to the public with a price tag, but none of these price tags have a due date.  Wouldn’t it be nice to see  “to be paid in full no later than 12-31-2013” on a spending bill?  Along with some language detailing where the money would come from?  Do you think that might nudge politicians and voters to be more realistic? 

 

5)      I’ve written before about how my employer, Jukt Micronics, has achieved an astonishing level of racial diversity by the simple expedient of wanting to make a whole lot of money.  The Federal government tries to accomplish this goal by threatening to sue your ass until it glows like a Japanese power plant.  We should nudge employers to hire a wider assortment of minorities by ending all anti-discrimination “protections” for two years.  I promise that employers would be more likely to hire blacks, browns, gays, women, old farts and the handicapped if they couldn’t be sued for replacing the employee if the relationship went bad.  Money is one of the greatest nudgers ever, and if you don't discriminate regarding things that really don't freakin' matter, you have a much better chance of making a pile o' money. 

That's all I got.  Go ye therefore and nudge. 

 

Detroit's debt, compared to.....yours

There might be a few dozen federal taxpayers left in the rotting sinkhole known as Detroit. 

But if you're foolish enough to be a federal taxpayer in the year 2013, you might be interested in looking at this infographic.  It compares Detroit's debt (per resident) to your debt as a citizen who co-signed on the Bush/Obama debt festival.  Sorry for the poor quality of the picture. 

Enjoy the decline.  Or start voting for Libertarians.  There is no 3rd way. 

 

If Barack Obama Were To Enter My Department Store

It looks like it's going to be "All Trayvon, All The Time" through the November 2014 elections.  We're going to be overlooking the tragedy, and the easily preventable causes, of thousands of black kids murdered by other black kids every year (see previous post) and concentrate on the one black kid who was murdered by a Hispanic guy who was also partly black and part white.  I think. 

I'm so sick and freakin' tired of political hacks dividing us into Hutu's and Tutsi's.  But if you had Obama's track record to defend, you'd talk Trayvon too. 

Therefore, it's time to start ridiculing every statement that the President Of The United States makes on the subject of race.  He gave a shameful speech the other day, in which he identified with the black kid who had the Hispanic guy on the ground, pounding his head into the curb.  There was no indication that this shooting was a "hate crime", but that's the direction that Obama, going off-teleprompter, chose to take it. 

There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.

Oh, sweet mantle of victimhood !! 

Barack, if you think people were following you around before you were president, wait until you see what happens afterwards.....

The actor James Woods recently tweeted that they only reason they've ever followed you was to make sure you wouldn't raise their taxes. 

I can top that.....  If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he wasn't going to break my windows.  The "broken windows" parable of Frederic Bastiat really does appear to be his dominant economic misunderstanding. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd have him followed to make sure he didn't take what wasn't his.  I've never known a human who was so enthusiastic about taking money from Person A to give to Person B, but not before raking some off the top to give to his Washington flunkies in Group C. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, yeah, I'd have him followed.  "You Didn't Build That" isn't that much of a leap from "You Don't Deserve That", followed closely by "I Know Some People Who Could Use That And They All Voted For Me".

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, well, I gotta be honest.....  I'd ask him for a subsidy.  I'd point out my Green Energy Perpetual Motion Machines that are invisible to the naked eye, I'd show him the documentation that the entire store is heated and cooled by Compressed Green Fairy Flatulence, and I'd agree to change the name of my website to "The Greened Sepulchre".  And, like so many of his other green energy subsidy benefactors, I might get a buncha money that I could walk away with before letting the thing go bankrupt. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I'd ask him to simply buy it.  Then I'd watch him destroy it, the way we shamefully destroyed all those cars during the "Cash For Clunkers" debacle. 

If Barack Obama were to enter my department store, I wouldn't insist on a cash payment.  Hell, there's no telling how much more of the stuff was printed while his limo waited in the parking lot.  I wouldn't want a check.  All of his post-dated checks are going to be bouncing soon.  I would want his credit card.  Please dear God, I know that I'm a sinner, but let me get my hands on that damn fool's credit card.  Whatever he bought, I'd add $51,000.00 to the total charge.  That's the additional amount that he's put on mine. 

You might not care about politics, but politics cares about you.

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party usually has a meetup at a coffee bar, club, pub, or dive bar once a month.  It's always fun when the young newbies show up. 

One guy named Patrick stayed late to talk with us after the most recent meetup, and his complaint was a common one.  "We can hand out Nolan Charts on campus, talk about liberty, restraints on freedom, and all the big issues, and most college-age students will agree that they're probably libertarian-"ish", but they just aren't that into politics."

That's always fun one to respond to. 

You might not be into politics, but son, you better believe that politics is into you. 

"Politics", as currently practiced, has put $53,000.00 on your bar tab.  Have you ever had a good friend do that to you?  Don't you hate it when someone you don't really know that well goes out and has a good time at your expense, and leaves you with a bill for FIFTY THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS???

What are you majoring in at UT/A&M/UTA/Texas Wesleyan/TCU/TCCC? 

Oh, you're majoring in business?  That means you'll probably grow up to be a productive taxpayer.  In that case, they've put $148,000.00 on your bar tab. 

How old are you, son?  You're 21? 

Well, the unfunded liabilities (the bills that haven't come due yet) will add up to $1,09,906.00 per taxpayer. 

No one else is going to take care of this problem.  There isn't enough money in the nation to take care of the problem.  They're printing it. 

The folks in Washington are trying to distract you today with arguments about immigration.  Hell, illegal immigrants paying into Social Security and never taking anything out of it - they're the only thing keeping the system afloat. 

In the meantime, the area surrounding Washington D.C. is having the biggest boom in American history.  And you're paying for it. 

You might not care about politics, but politics cares about you. 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Krugman.

Paul Krugman says that our national debt is not a problem.
Go here for his explanation.  (For those with little time for such, his explanation is "Those who rob Peter to pay Paul Krugman will always have the support of Paul Krugman, especially when Peter is still wearing diapers.")

Here's a handy chart, showing our Fed debt per capita as compared to other countries.

Here are some videos of what's happening in Greece - which doesn't even take the silver or bronze medal in this race.
If you think it can't happen here, you're sadly mistaken.
And this one:
Start saving your metal. The Mormons always put away one year's worth of food. I'm stockpiling Jim Beam and Purina dachshund chow.
 I betcha Krugman's getting nervous too.

The Real Cost Of Shrinking Government

The New York Holy Times is having a conniption fit over the slight chance that government spending will be cut.
Most of this "sequester" spending cut is bullshit.  It's a cut from the rate of increase, not a "cut" in the sense that you use the word.
Here we go....

In less than two weeks, a cleaver known as the sequester will fall on some of the most important functions of the United States government. About $85 billion will be cut from discretionary spending over the next seven months, reducing defense programs by about 8 percent and domestic programs by about 5 percent. Only a few things will be spared, including some basic safety-net benefits like Social Security, as well as pay for enlisted military personnel.

Considering that we need to cut by about 50%, and then go further, this is a good thing.

The sequester will not stop to contemplate whether these are the right programs to cut; it is entirely indiscriminate, slashing programs whether they are bloated or essential. The military budget, for example, should be reduced substantially, but thoughtfully, considering the nation’s needs. Instead, every weapons system, good or bad, will be hurt, as will troop training and maintenance.

I've been through these types of cutbacks before with various companies.  It's fairly easy.  It hurts, but it's easy.  However, John Boehner has been confronted with a 3 billion dollar cut to an aircraft engine program in his district.  Defense Secretary Gates said we didn't need the engines.  Boehner said that the military did indeed need them.
That's why you'll never see "thoughtful" cuts.  We need slash and burn.  Your share of the debt (if you're a taxpayer) is more than 50K.

These cuts, which will cost the economy more than one million jobs over the next two years, are the direct result of the Republican demand in 2011 to shrink the government at any cost, under threat of a default on the nation’s debt. Many Republicans say they would still prefer the sequester to replacing half the cuts with tax revenue increases. But the government spending they disdain is not an abstract concept. In a few days, the cuts will begin affecting American life and security in significant ways.

Horseshit, horseshit, horseshit.  If Washington is putting their Corvette and caviar purchases on maxed-out credit cards over and over again, no sane economist would claim that their stopping would cost the economy more than one million jobs.
If taxpayers don't have to pay for pork projects, they'll use the money for other things - things that they choose, not what Washington and The New York Holy Times choose.  I'd like to buy another Ford F-150 instead of another F-16.  

While some departments may have exaggerated the dire effects of their reductions, Congressional budget experts say they have little doubt that the size and pervasive nature of the sequester will inflict widespread pain. Here are some examples from the government departments most affected:

They go on to list, department by department, the horrific outcomes we should expect from any cutbacks at all.  Most of these departments should've been privatized years ago.
Don't believe what they're selling.  They're partying their butts off on your dollars.
How long are you going to tolerate it?  

It's not fair !!! (But we voted for it anyway)

Here's a young woman griping and moaning about the national debt being unfair to the younger generation. 
Well, of course it isn't fair. 




So why do so many kids fall for the Hope'n'Change bullshit? 

Because they think they're being unselfish by bankrupting the nation . 
Because we haven't done a good enough job of explaining that true selfishness resides in Lockheed, Monsanto, Green Energy Scams, and D.C. Lobbyists, instead of in the people who don't want to burdern them with a 17 trillion dollar debt. 
Because my generation hasn't had to pay for anything yet, and these kids think they'll be able to pass on the mess just like we did. 
Because John Maynard Keynes didn't die in his crib as an infant, and billions of people around the world now believe that governments should try to control economies.  (Yeah, kinda harsh, I know, but I'm in a hurry and couldn't think of a better way to phrase it.) 
Because government schools promote government policies. 
Because the Republican Party's stance on most social issues is repugnant to many people under 30. 
Because the Republican Party, the primary opponent of the Hope'n'Change bullshit, is the party of big spending.
Because they truly believe, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary, that government can provide services more cheaply than the private sector. 
Because those of us who see through the Hope'n'Change bullshit don't always make the best evangelists.  We're too pissed about it, if such a thing is possible. 

Anyway, those are just a few reasons why I think the kids went for Hope'n'Change on their own credit cards.  I'm sure there are other reasons. 

"I can't be overdrawn. I haven't run out of checks." by Paul Krugman

Here's something from Paul Krugman of the New York Holy Times, on why we aren't having a debt crisis. 

We are not having a debt crisis. 
It’s important to make this point, because I keep seeing articles about the “fiscal cliff” that do, in fact, describe it — often in the headline — as a debt crisis. But it isn’t. The U.S. government is having no trouble borrowing to cover its deficit.

There you have it, folks.  From the #1 New York Times cheerleader and apologist for The Teleprompter Jesus. 
It's a variation on the old joke/bumpersticker that says "I can't possibly be overdrawn - I haven't run out of checks". 

WE'VE HIT 16 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT !!

Congrats to all of you in the USA!! 
We've hit the $16,000,000,000,000.00 in debt mark. 

Condolences to our friends in China who have loaned us a lot of this money.  We're going to pay it back by printing it in bulk, and it won't be worth very much.  Suckers. 

1 trillion is more than the combined gross revenues of Wal Mart, Exxon, General Motors and Ford Motors.  The Occupy Wall Street gang can tax the rich until every business in America closes, and it won't matter. 

Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge has extrapolated the trends, and estimates we'll be at 20 trillion in no time at all. 

•$17 trillion on June 10, 2013;


•$18 trillion on March 23, 2014;

•$19 trillion on January 3, 2015; and

•$20 trillion on October 16, 2015

All we need is another bogus "crisis" or "War On..." of some sort, and we'll get there.  You've gotta believe, you've just gotta believe.  Have faith in the fascists at the top, and their ability to spread it around to get elected, and we can do it.  20 trillion by 2015.    In the meantime, though, people who invest (their own) money are avoiding the U.S. money pit like it was on track to be the next Greece.  Which it is.     Here's an old pic of the team of economists that Obama assembled 3.5 years ago.  Four of the five have already resigned in disgrace:  

Geithner is still hanging in there because there's no way Congress would allow Obama to make the decision to replace him.  Not after the crap we've been through for the last three years.  They wouldn't let Obama appoint the next Assistant Ambassador to Lichtenstein.   

Here's what they've done for us with a quarter of a trillion dollars in stimulus.  Their results are worse than the numbers they were trying to scare us with !!

  Here's what could be done with a trillion dollars (and we're on the hook for 16 of them).    If you stack up $1,000 bills, $1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high.

Assuming the United States consumes about 17 billion barrels of oil a year and assuming the cost of a barrel of oil is about $65, a trillion dollars will buy an entire year’s worth of oil for the USA.

You could buy a thousand Queen Mary 2 with accommodations for 2,620 passengers

With a population of approximately 300 million people, you could give away $1 trillion by giving every man, woman and child in the U.S. $ 3,400 each.

We could buy everyone on Earth an iPod.

We could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with 23.5-karat gold leaf.

We could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses

There is only one solution. 
Stop the spending.  Now.  Keynesian stimulus doesn't work.  It didn't work when FDR stretched out the Great Depression for a decade, and it hasn't worked for FDR 2.0, also known as Barack Obama. 

Mitt Romney hasn't promised to shut down a government operation, much less a cabinet level department. 

But in his eight years as governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson vetoed more bills than all other governors combined. 

There is no "moderate" way out. 
There is no solution that isn't "extreme". 
There is no way out of a 16 trillion dollar debt that isn't "out of the mainstream". 

Gary Johnson will fix it. 

You Didn't Lift That

Finally. 

A nation whose citizens express proper gratitude to their leaders.

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


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

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

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

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

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

Send your checks to this address:

Attn: Dept G

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

Paul Krugman torture video

I haven't had time to watch all of this, but the Libertarian Blogosphere is touting it as the greatest episode of Paul Krugman torture available for children under 18. 
Posting it here for future reference, in case I'm in a bad mood one day and need cheering up. 

Here's what someone calling himself Tyler Durden had to say about the vid:

Forget Ali - Frazier; ignore Santelli - Liesman; dismiss Yankees - Red Sox; never mind Silva - Sonnen; the new undisputed standard by which all showdowns will be judged happened in Spain over the weekend.

During a debate on Europe's crisis, Pedro Schwartz (a mild-mannered Spanish 'Austrian' economics professor) took on the heavyweight Paul 'I coulda been a Fed Chair contender' Krugman, and - in our humble opinion - wiped the floor with his Keynesian philosophy.

From the medicinal use of more debt to fix too much debt, to the Japanization of world economies and the demand-side bias of every- and any-thing - interested only in the short-term economic growth; the gentlemanly Spaniard notes, with regard to the European crisis, the fact that "Keynesians got us into this mess and now we have to sacrifice our principals so that they can get us out of this mess".

Humble and generous in his praise - though definitively serious with his criticism - Schwartz opines: "Often Nobel prize winners are tempted to pontificate on matters that are outside the specialty in which they have excelled," noting "the mantle of authority whereby what ever they say - whether sensible or not - is accepted with resignation from some and enthusiasm by others."

Krugman's red-faced anger is evident at the conclusion as he even refused to shake Schwartz's hand after the debate.

For 15 minutes of both education and entertainment - this is as good as it gets...

•Starting from around 35:00 the Spanish professor praises and criticizes in a thoughtful and gentle tone

•At around 39:00, he addresses the demand-side description of the world

•Krugman's less-than-happy response (which sparks quite a rowdy argument) begins around 48:20

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 !!!

 

And you thought the Democrats were the big spenders?

In the last week, a lot of bandwidth has been wasted over which president caused the biggest spending increases. 
Rex Nutting of Market Watch published a graph that looks like so....

Parts of this silliness (the Obama part) were promtly blown out of the water by Yossi Gestetner at The American Thinker. 

1) While in regular times a budget gets approved months earlier, the FY2009 budget was pieced tighter in many separate votes and bills, one of them signed on... March 12 2009 by... President Obama! AP wrote back then the "bill includes significant increases" on a host of things. But of course it's Bush Fault. Right?

2) Obama was a member of the Senate Majority who... approved the FY2008 and FY2009 budgets. It's of his making either way. He didn't arrive to Washington in January 2009 as a Governor. Senator Obama in the majority party since 2007 created the mess together with Pelosi and Reid.

3) Much of the 2009 spending (from TARP, to Stimulus, to Auto Bailout, to Loan Modifications), were officially one time things. However, four years later and we are still spending well above the 2008 levels. A Spending Binge indeed!

4) Much of the 2009 spending were officially "loans" and "investments" that Obama claims were "paid back" by the Auto Industry and others. As such, it's inaccurate to claim that all the money that left Treasury in 2009 was "spending."

5) Even if you want to ignore all of the above notes; a headline reading "Obama Didn't Increase Spending Much Since 2009" would have been more accurate. But to suggest that we are not on a Spending Binge just because Government outlays didn't increase much since the year that we spent officially on one-time things and loans is spin of the highest order.

This guy has a slightly different take: 



But here's what nobody is arguing. Look at the percentage increases under Reagan, Daddy Bush, and Little Bush's first term.  (Yeah, yeah, yeah, Congress does the spending. But the president sets the tone.) 

As Veronique De Rugy has pointed out multiple times, if you want to increase government spending, elect a bunch of Republicans.

It really is that simple. Any time you hear someone describe himself as a "Reagan Republican", imagine a meth addict with stolen credit cards. Your credit cards. And you can't call Visa or Amex and report them stolen. You are the one who gave them away. We really shouldn't have co-signed on that loan with the Republican Party.

And one day the mailman WILL arrive with the bill.  

Everything was clean and green....

...except for their balance sheets. 

Go here to see a list of ELEVEN more Solyndra-like companies to whom Barack Obama gave your money.   

If all of them go under, and it's looking like they will, Obama will have blown 6.5 billion dollars of your money, money that he took from you by force. 

I'm gonna hold the tail while you hit it in the head for a while

Let's beat this dead horse a little longer. 
We'll all get some exercise, it'll make us feel better, and it doesn't hurt the horse. 

This is from John Stossel's site.  You may have seen it in a chain email.  I've posted it before.

There's a catch, though. 

After all the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth that went on a year ago, THEY DIDN'T EVEN CUT THE 38.5 BILLION. 

THEY STILL SPENT 362 BILLION MORE THAN THEY DID THE YEAR BEFORE !!!!

If you have time, here is where Stossel would start cutting.  It seems extreme, but it isn't enough. 

The demotivational poster of the Victorian dude sitting on the dead horse and not beating it, that picture came from here.