An explanation, an experiment, and a parable about Milton Friedman's Four Ways To Spend Money

Here's a chart showing Milton Friedman's famous Four Ways To Spend Money. 

Here's a 2004 interview with Friedman, in which he explains the famous Four Ways To Spend Money.  (All government spending is in that nasty bottom right quadrant, BTW.  Any project that is advertised in terms of number of "jobs created" is a waste.  I'm just sayin'....)

There are four ways to spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why you really watch out for what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well then, I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it costs, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40 percent of our national income.

Here's something from MSN Money, posted about a month ago.  It's an experiment that confirms Friedman's hypothesis about the top right and bottom left quadrants of the chart.  If you're helping someone else spend their money, or they're helping you spend yours, more money will be spent, often on silliness....

You and your friends are eating out and you plan to divide the tab evenly. Now you're faced with a dilemma. Do you splurge at the expense of your friend's pocketbook, or do you eat light, knowing you're going to end up paying for your friend's lavish meal? 

This seemingly innocuous event has caused enough consternation that a group of three scientists actually performed field experiments to see how unscrupulous people really are. 

According to io9.com, the experiment went a little like this: A group of strangers gather to eat at a restaurant. The participants are each told how they will pay for their meal. Some will pay individually, some are told they will split the check, and the remaining people are told that the meal will be free. 

The diners then ordered their meals without anyone else seeing what they had chosen.

The results of the dining experience are described by io9.com:

To no one's surprise, the people who paid individually were the most frugal, the people getting the free lunch were most extravagant, and the people who split the bill were in the middle, and therefore slightly unscrupulous.

Some diners were then told that they would have to pay just one-sixth of the cost of their individual meal. There was no difference between what those diners ate compared to those who were told they had to split the bill evenly, according to io9.com.

But what happens when you're in a large group of anonymous people?  Here's something from the immortal Russ Roberts, writing waaaaay back in 1995.  This essay, called "If you're paying, I'll have Top Sirloin", has already made it into the Libertarian Literary Canon.  The entire parable is scraped and reposted here, just to make my point....

As Congress prepares to try to cut spending, I am reminded of an evening last fall at the St. Louis Repertory Theater, our local company. Before the curtain rose, the company's director appeared and encouraged us to vote against a ballot proposition to limit state taxes. He feared it would lead to reduced funding for the company.

I turned to the woman sitting next to me and asked her if she felt guilty knowing that her ticket was subsidized by some farmer in the "boot-heel" of Missouri. No, she answered, he's probably getting something, too. She seemed to be implying that somehow, it all evened out.

I left her alone, but I wanted to say, no it doesn't even out. If it "evened out" for everybody, then government spending would really be depressing: all that money shuffled around, all those people working at the IRS, all those marginal tax rates discouraging work effort just to get everybody to get the same deal.

Here in St. Louis we recently completed Metrolink, a light rail system. It cost $380 million to build. We locals contributed zero out of pocket. It was paid for by the rest of the country. Shouldn't we feel guilty making people in Kentucky, Mississippi and Maine pay for our trips to the hockey arena downtown? No, say the beneficiaries. After all, we paid for BART in San Francisco and MARTA in Atlanta and all the other extraordinarily expensive, underutilized public transportation systems whose benefits fall far short of their costs. It's only fair we get our turn at the trough.

This destructive justification reminds me of a very strange restaurant.

When you eat there, you usually spend about $6—you have a sandwich, some fries and a drink. Of course you'd also enjoy dessert and a second drink, but that costs an additional $4. The extra food isn't worth $4 to you, so you stick with the $6 meal.

Sometimes, you go to the same restaurant with three friends. The four of you are in the habit of splitting the check evenly. You realize after a while that the $4 drink and dessert will end up costing you only $1, because the total tab is split four ways. Should you order the drink and dessert? If you're a nice person, you might want to spare your friends from having to subsidize your extravagance.

Then it dawns on you that they may be ordering extras financed out of your pocket. But they're your friends. They wouldn't do that to you and you wouldn't do that to them. And if anyone tries it among the group, social pressure will keep things under control.

But now suppose the tab is split not at each table but across the 100 diners that evening across all the tables. Now adding the $4 drink and dessert costs only 4¢. Splurging is easy to justify now. In fact you won't just add a drink and dessert; you'll upgrade to the steak and add a bottle of wine. Suppose you and everyone else each orders $40 worth of food. The tab for the entire restaurant will be $4000. Divided by the 100 diners, your bill comes to $40. Here is the irony. Like my neighbor at the theater, you'll get your "fair share." The stranger at the restaurant a few tables over pays for your meal, but you also help subsidize his. It all "evens out."

But this outcome is a disaster. When you dine alone, you spend $6. The extra $34 of steak and other treats are not worth it. But in competition with the others, you've chosen a meal far out of your price range whose enjoyment falls far short of its cost.

Self-restraint goes unrewarded. If you go back to ordering your $6 meal in hopes of saving money, your tab will be close to $40 anyway unless the other 99 diners cut back also. The good citizen feels like a chump.

And so we read of the freshman Congressman who comes to Congress eager to cut pork out of the budget but in trouble back home because local projects will also come under the knife. Instead of being proud to lead the way, he is forced to fight for those projects to make sure his district gets its "fair share."

Matters get much worse when there are gluttons and drunkards at the restaurant mixing with dieters and teetotalers. The average tab might be $40, but some are eating $80 worth of food while others are stuck with a salad and an iced tea.

Those with modest appetites would like to flee the smorgasbord, but suppose it's the only restaurant in town and you are forced to eat there every night. Resentment and anger come naturally. And being the only restaurant in town, you can imagine the quality of the service.

Such a restaurant can be a happy place if the light eaters enjoy watching the gluttony of those who eat and drink with gusto. Many government programs generate a comparable wide range of support. But many do not. How many Americans other than farmers benefit from the farm subsidy programs? How many Americans other than train riders derive benefit from the Amtrak subsidy?

People who are overeating at the expense of others should be ashamed. That shame will return when others are forced to cut back too. This requires deep cuts and an end to the government smorgasbord where the few benefit at the expense of the many.

There you have it.  The original Milton Friedman theory, a real-life experiment, and a Russ Roberts parable, all illustrating why government spending is generally a disaster. 
If you want someone to do a better job of pulling all this together, go elsewhere.  This is the best I can do. 
Here are some more charts, extravagantly posted on my site for your benefit, because I downloaded them from elsewhere at no expense to myself (ahem). 

There will be no spending cuts

There will be no spending cuts. 
There might be a slight decline in the increase of spending.
But there will be no spending cuts. 

On the value of government-funded research

Here's something interesting on the value of most government-funded research, from The Bureau Of Labor Statistics. 

Page two, point #3. 

It's near zero. 

Fascinating. 

Porkulus increases (roughly) equal GDP decreases

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

Here's Art Laffer:

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


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

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

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

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

Rats on the West Side, Bedbugs uptown !!!!

Ok, go to the video at the bottom of this post, hit play, ignore the annoying ad, crank up your speakers, and start reading.  Here's something from Reason magazine, via a link from Glenn Reynolds:

Tacking on overtime is only one of a long list of union-won perks behind New York's rising pension burden. To dodge a federal law capping public pensions to $195,000 a year, in 1997, Albany created a second fund for "excess benefits." Twenty-eight New York employees, nearly all teachers, exploited the loophole, leaving taxpayers with a $6 million check this year alone.

A prediction....  Next on the list will be Illinois and California.  They're going to go broke.  Shattered, Shattered.  Shadoobee, etc.... 

These and other sweeteners are part of the reason why the city's annual pension payout has increased 900% since 2000. And that's before health care benefits are included. For every dollar police officers contribute to their retirement, taxpayers contribute nine. Mayor Bloomberg's office warns that if one thing pushes New York City into bankruptcy again - 35 years after the last time - it will be pensions.

A prediction.... Next on the list will be Illinois and California. They're going to go broke. Bloomberg isn't worried about that as much as he's concerned about your right to purchase more than 16 ounces of Coca-Cola at once.  Rats on the West Side, Bedbugs uptown !!!  Shattered, Shattered....Go ahead, bit the Big Apple. 

As Gov. Paterson pins budgetary balance partly on more federal money, and lawmakers throughout the state struggle to balance the books, they have no further to look than their own legislative records for the cause of New York's growing fiscal stress. What is perfectly legal in New York's pension systems is also not fiscally sustainable. [...]

No, retirements that last longer than employments are not "sustainable".  And yet NPR's "Sustainability Desk" remains curiously quiet on the subject.  BTW, Illinois and California are going to be broke as the 10 Commandments in a few years....

Technically estimated at $452 billion as a result of flawed accounting, the real unfunded pension obligation in state pension plans is closer to $3 trillion.

The bill is now coming due.

It's also coming due in California and Illinois, BTW.  They're going to go broke. 

Professor Joshua Rauh of Northwestern University projects that even if public sector plans earn 8% on their investments, four states - Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut and Indiana - will run out of assets to pay retirees by the end of the decade. States and local governments will soon find themselves up against a painful tradeoff: between closing schools and libraries and cutting other essential services or paying inflated pensions to 50-year-old retirees.

Here's the Stones.  Rats on the West Side, Bedbugs uptown, this town's in tatters.  Even if New York, California and Illinois are going broke, this stuff here, the soundtrack to my high school years, it'll give you a great case of Happy Feet. 

John Bryson doesn't need to have seizures to do harm

Authorities are investigating a series of traffic collisions in the San Gabriel Valley involving U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson, authorities said Saturday.

Republicans are offering silent prayers to the ghost of Ronald Reagan, asking that he please, please, please give them a way to prove that Bryson was drunk. 
Democrats are getting indignant because someone at a Karl Rove SuperPac tweeted something snarky about "how do you have 3 crashes in 5 minutes without alcohol not being involved?"

Look, the man had some car wrecks on Saturday.  But he's been known to have seizures.  Four years ago, he apparently passed out in a board meeting and had to be hospitalized. 

It looks he was only in two car wrecks this weekend and chances are the total damage was $15,000.00 or less. 

But drunk or not drunk, stable or having seizures, stoned or straight, car wrecks aren't why John Bryson should be making the news.  Check out Bryson's requests for spending increases from the Department Of Commerce website:

•Advanced Manufacturing: Advanced Manufacturing: $156 million to expand NIST research in areas such as smart manufacturing, nanomanufacturing, advanced materials, and biomanufacturing, including $21 million for the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program, which will provide grants to industry consortia to tackle common technological barriers to the innovation and manufacturing of new products.

•Increasing U.S. Exports: $517 million for the International Trade Administration (ITA), including several key initiatives. The Administration requests $30 million for critical investments in trade promotion to help more U.S. businesses reach the 95 percent of consumers who live outside our borders. This proposal also includes $30 million to send Foreign Commercial Service Officers and locally engaged staff to high-growth markets to help support the National Export Initiative to meet the President’s goal of doubling U.S. exports by the end of 2014. The budget also supports a new trade enforcement unit-- the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center (ITEC), which will significantly enhance the Administration’s capabilities to aggressively challenge unfair trade practices around the world (details below).

•Attracting Investment to the U.S.: The $517M for ITA includes $13 million for SelectUSA to encourage, facilitate, and accelerate foreign direct investment in the U.S. to create jobs and spur growth.

God help us all.  I work for a manufacturing company, and Obama's Commerce Secretary wants more funding so he can help manufacturers.  Oh sweet baby Jesus help us all.  Please keep my family in your prayers.  Those folks have a worse financial record than Ed McMahon.

Here's more:

*Additionally, as part of the Administration’s efforts to revitalize manufacturing, the President’s budget proposes $1 billion in mandatory funding to establish a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI). Through collaboration between NIST, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation, the NNMI aims to promote the development of manufacturing technologies with broad applications.

*When it comes to trade enforcement, as part of the President’s plan to level the playing field for American workers and businesses, the President’s budget will invest $26 million in ITA ($24M) and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative ($2M) to support a new trade enforcement unit-- the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center (ITEC), which will significantly enhance the Administration’s capabilities to aggressively challenge unfair trade practices around the world, including in China. The ITEC will represent a more aggressive “whole-of-government” approach to addressing unfair trade practices, and will serve as the primary forum within the federal government for executive departments and agencies to coordinate enforcement of international and domestic trade rules.

They pay people to write that drivel.  With your money.  Taken by force.  I know you don't have time to read thast stuff, but they're asking for more money so they can help you get more money to give to them. 
Here's Assistant Commerce Secretary Michael Camunez, writing about a border boondoggle that ate up a couple of his action-filled weeks: 

At each stop, stakeholders repeated the theme that we—government and business—must work together to change the narrative about the border. The goal is not to diminish awareness of the fact that real security challenges exist; rather, we need to increase awareness that there is more to the border story. Both countries are critical to the economy of the other, and one of our goals for this trip was to highlight the fact that new commercial opportunities exist and that the border serves a critical role in facilitating the essential flow of goods and people between Mexico and the U.S.


Our delegation consisted of U.S. and Mexico government officials and members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We conducted stakeholder outreach events related to the border trade facilitation efforts under the U.S.-Mexico 21st Century Border Management initiative, which was established by Presidents Obama and Calderon in May 2010 as a vehicle to develop and promote a more secure and seamless border between our two countries. These events provided us with an opportunity to share information with stakeholders about the ongoing work and accomplishments of the initiative and to receive important, on-the-ground feedback from them, which can be incorporated into the 21st Century Border Management work streams.

Facilitating initiatives for stakeholder feedback within work streams outreach for increased awareness of changing narratives for an overview of the critical role of the infrastructure's ability to provide feedback for an increased level of dialogue for....

Hell, if you can read two consecutive sentences of that theft-funded drivel without throwing up in your mouth just a little bit, you're a better man than me. 

What's more offensive?  That John Bryson's assistant, Michael C. Camunez,  was paid to write that stuff, or that he's probably next in line to spend the Commerce Department's loot if John Bryson keeps running into cars? 

Let's keep this incident in perspective, folks.  Bryson may have done $15,000 damage on Saturday.  That's nothing compared to the damage he's done since 2008. 

Shut down the Department Of Commerce.  Fold the weather forecasting functions into the Air Force.  Knock down their headquarters building.  Hell, turn John Bryson loose, and let him knock down the building. 

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.  

Adrian Murray on losing our souls

I've recently had three frustrating conversations lately with three different friends about our overseas military adventures.  One friend is a Republican, one is a Democrat, and the other, as best I can tell, is indifferent. 

When the subject comes up, I try to point out that if the Chinese had military checkpoints between our homes and our jobs, we'd resent them.  Just a little bit.  Then I question how much we should continue to pay to defend South Korea, Japan, and Germany.  A few times I've offered to take donations for defending Germany's borders.  Nobody contributes.  Regular readers of this blog already are sick of me beating these dead horses with the same old sticks. 

There's also the old standby...."We've got 6% of the world's population, but we're responsible for 45% of the world's military spending."  My friends don't think this is odd or unnecessary, despite Italy, Brazil, Mexico, Japan and Germany having relatively small military forces and they seem to do just fine.  In fact, since they don't have to supply funding to an obscenely expensive army and Hillary Clinton's air miles, some of their manufacturers are doing great. 

These discussions with these three unrelated friends came down to one final point....But this is my job !! My job at Lockheed/Bell Helicopter/Carswell Air Force Base/Owen Oil Tools depends on a huge military.  Think of what it would do the economy if we were to reduce our military.  One of them even said "Whited, you realize this stuff you're doing in politics isn't a game, right?  There are hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake." 

Does it really come down to that?  Are we going to keep blowing up children just to ensure that unemployment doesn't go above 9% ???

My friend Adrian Murray is one of the bad guys that the Lamestream Media often warns us about.  Adrian has been associated with the Tea Party and Glenn Beck's 9-12 group.  He's also an evil capitalist of the worst sort, providing wiring harnesses for cars and trucks, and creating jobs for immigrants, all in exchange for a profit.  Adrian has apparently been thinking a lot about this topic.  Here's something he threw down on Facebook a few days ago: 

 Immediately following the attacks of September 11, 2001, pundits and others in the media said it was a day which would change America forever. We had lost our innocence, they told us. We had lost our sense of security. We had lost our trust of our fellow man.


But no one told us we would lose our soul.

For a brief moment after 9/11, Americans of all shapes and sizes, colors and ages and creeds, came together as one. For that brief moment, forever now lost in the narrow corridors of memory, we were kind to one another. The America that we always sensed, always believed in, was there for that brief shining moment. It is gone now. Gone forever, perhaps.

What happened to us that we find ourselves where we are today, tearing ourselves apart in fits of anger and fear and boiling rage? We are a nation being pulled asunder, a nation on the precipice of losing not just our country, but our entire identity as well. We had better understand what is happening to us if we are ever to find ourselves again.

We all have differing memories, different experiences and not all of us came to the same place by the same route at the same time. For me, the unease began in June 2002, when President Bush delivered a speech to the graduating class at West Point:

“Yet the war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act……And our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for preemptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives.”

We had just completed (or so we thought) a successful military campaign in Afghanistan where we had routed the Taliban and established a seventh century version of a Democratic government in a country permanently locked in the middle ages. We still bore the wounds of 9/11 and while we vowed never to forget, we were beginning to heal.

I remember the unease I felt when I heard those words above. Preemptive action? Were we about to attack somebody? Someday someone may astutely observe that that was the moment America began her slow slide into chaos.

Wars are alternately galvanizing and divisive events. One, of course, wants the home team to do well, to fight with honor and to come home safely. To do that, other people must die, many of them innocents. Many, sadly, are children. But they’re not our children so our grief is not long lasting. We move on to other things - celebrity weddings and all of that.

It became popular during the Iraq war to show one’s support for the troops with yellow ribbon stickers on trunk lids and rear windows. It was, we felt, fitting to show our support for the soldiers while not tacitly endorsing what was being done in our name and on our behalf.

No one at the time believed we would be supporting those troops in Iraq for nearly a decade. The Pentagon went in thinking they’d be out in six months. As 2003 turned into 2004 and 2005 turned into 2006 and the brutality and horror of what was happening in Iraq was too shocking for most Americans to behold. Major news networks, in order to protect American sensibilities, shielded us from the true nature of the carnage, showing just enough to provide a hint that there indeed was carnage, but never going so far as to actually show the beatings, the tortures, the slaughter of children and women, the destruction of homes and property, the random, senseless killing. We knew it was there, we all did, yet many turned away or changed the channel. America is a shining light in the world and we can do no wrong.

The slaughters then in Iraq and Afghanistan and now in Pakistan and Yemen, are remote to us. They come to u in thirty second bites on the evening news or as crawls at the bottom of the screen. We talk about bombings and air strikes and killing as casually as we discuss the weather, as if what is being done in our name is of no consequence to us, as if other life has no meaning. We weep for the baby in a well but close our eyes to the babies in hell.

I watched a video the other day, one that in one moment I wish I hadn’t watched and then in another I am glad I did. It was raw footage, purportedly from Libya , but I have no way of knowing, of bombs dropping near villages, bombs with huge fire and mushroom clouds hundreds of feet in the air, footage of screaming, terrified children in the streets, running in search of shelter or loving arms, footage of living children with their jaws blown off, shrapnel wounds the size of grapefruit in the back or limbs, dead children by the roadside, blown apart and I thought to myself, my dear God, what have we become?

My God, what if they were our children?

I don’t mean to be harsh towards those I do not know and they are many, I am sure, who came to this revelation long ago. But, America, out of our horror and our sadness and our anger from the events of 9/11, we have become a cold and a brutal people, content to inflict misery on others in order to prevent it from being inflicted upon us. We are like the citizens in the Capitol of Panem , cheering on children killing each other in order to be spared some personal discomfort. That may be fine for now and it may buy us some time and some leisure, but one day we are going to have to answer for all this, in this world or in the next.

Have we lost our soul?

Today it was reported by the Washington Post that President Obama has authorized the CIA and the military to expand the drone bombing campaign in Yemen. There was a time I would have read that and not given it a second thought. So what? I would have thought. Doesn’t impact me. Kill the bastards.

But then I thought of who we were and what we have become. The article in the Post contains this statement: “The expanded authority will allow the CIA and JSOC to fire on targets based solely on their intelligence ‘signatures’ — patterns of behavior that are detected through signals intercepts, human sources and aerial surveillance, and that indicate the presence of an important operative or a plot against U.S. interests. Until now, the administration had allowed strikes only against known terrorist leaders who appear on secret CIA and JSOC target lists and whose location can be confirmed.”

So now, just because we can, we kill people without discrimination or identification based on patterns of behavior. Just who authorized this in Yemeni government, or is the only sovereignty we respect our own?

The image of young military personnel lined up at computer screens deep in a mountain side in Colorado, joystick in hand, dropping bombs on people they don’t even know and can’t really even see thousands of miles away on the other side of the world based on “patterns of behavior” is not my image of America. It is not what I conjure up when I think of the home of the brave. It is most definitely not what John Winthrop envisioned when he told his fellow settlers in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

The eyes of all people are indeed upon us, but they no longer see that shining beacon of light and liberty. They see a nation fearful of liberty. They see a nation seeking the security of bondage. They see a nation that has lost its soul.

For our own sake and for the sake of our children and for the sake of children halfway around the world living in ramshackle villages sewers flowing in the streets, we must regain our sense of who we are or at least of who we were before we became who we are. We need to rediscover ourselves - and quickly. The time is running out. The choices before us are stark. We can either continue closing our eyes to the horrors around us, continue sinning the sins of the weak and the fearful, or we can shed the shackles of fear and restore America to her ideals.

There’s only one man left running for President who understands that. It took me much longer to come to that conclusion that it should have. If you’re on the edge, get off it. It’s an exhilarating discovery to realize Ron Paul has been there all along. Take the plunge.

It’s for America’s soul. 
 

 
Great essay, there, Mr. Murray. 
And just in case Ron Paul drops out of the race or doesn't get anywhere at the Republican convention, there's going to be a Libertarian candidate on the ballot who believes in the exact...same...things. 
 
Go Gary Johnson !  Or Lee Wrights !  Or anybody but one of the Obamneys !!! 

Who would build the Toads in a Libertarian society?

I found this link on Libertarian Reddit:

A $600,000 frog sculpture that lights up, gurgles "sounds of nature" and carries a 10-foot fairy girl on its back could soon be greeting Defense Department employees who plan to start working at the $700 million Mark Center in Alexandria, Va. this fall. That is unless a new controversy over the price tag of the public art doesn't torpedo the idea.

Decried as wasteful spending that will be seen by just a couple thousand of daily workers who arrive on bus shuttles, foes have tried to delay the decision, expected tomorrow, April 1. But in an E-mail, an Army Corps of Engineers official said that the decision can't be held up because it would impact completion of the huge project.


The City of Alexandria just announced that there are four works of art being considered and that a final decision needs to be made fast. The artwork was put on display for public comment from March 24 to today. The Alexandria News first reported the hasty announcement to decide a winner.

....The four art proposals for the bus terminal include works for a wall and sculpture. But the one drawing most attention is the fairy and frog from artist Cheryl Foster. Her proposals describes the sculpture this way: "A 10-foot fairy, using an American Toad as 'transportation,' scurries to the entrance of the station. The interior of the toad is illuminated and the sounds of nature emanate from his throat." She said that nature inspired her.


While there are Philistines among us who would complain about a $600,000.00 statue of a fairy riding a toad, we must first ask ourselves "How do you really put a price on something like this?  C'mon people, it lights up and sounds of nature emanates from the frog's throat !!" 

Children: The Ultimate Renewable Military Resource !!

From Big Daddy John Spivey's Facebook page:

Hey GOP buddies! 6,327 US Soldiers dead;
22,490 US Soldiers Wounded;
$4 Trillion total price tag (just for the wars);
700+ International US Military Installations;
$711 Billion Defense Budget (2011)...
If you think we should or even CAN continue on this way, please don't vote for Ron Paul.
He's the only one with plans to completely reverse this.
I guess we can always have more kids and print more money!

What if the Federal government was your household?

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

• Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000

• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000

Let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700

• Money the family spent: $38,200

• New debt on the credit card: $16,500

• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

• Total budget cuts: $385
 
There you have it.  All the rest is noise.  Eventually, somebody is going to have to pay for this mess, and it's going to be business owners.
Ok, but don't we need roads, police, defense, and a courts system? 
Yeah, but that's about it. Instead, we've got..... 

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Self-Regulatory BoardsAmerican Medical Association
American Bar Association
CME Group
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority
Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board
NASDAQ
National Futures Association
North American Electric Reliability Corporation
[edit] Government EnterprisesFederal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac)
Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)
Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)
NeighborHood Reinvestment Corporation (NeighborWorks America)
Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae)

Becker, Krugman, and spending other people's money

Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker has some more to say about Warren Buffett's assertion that Warren Buffett is undertaxed.... (Buffett is currently in a dispute with the IRS about how much he owes in back taxes, BTW.) 

Warren Buffett has persuaded 68 other billionaires to follow his example and promise to give at least half their wealth to charities. But why hasn’t Buffett proposed also that the very rich make large gifts to the federal government to offset what he considers ridiculously low taxes on their incomes and wealth? My guess is that he and the others who pledged to give away their wealth to charity would have little confidence in how the government would spend such gifts. Buffett, for example, is giving most of his wealth to the Gates Foundation, not to the federal government, and is relying on how this foundation will spend his vast gift. Given this reluctance to make large gifts to the federal government, why should anyone have confidence that the federal government will spend additional tax revenue in a sensible way?

Go here to read Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman's assertion that we need to either print, borrow, or steal enough money to give the government so they can't crank out another stimulus package. 

Can anyone out there name a single instance of wisely spent stimulus money?  Anybody?  Anybody at all? 

Here's a highlight from Krugman's editorial:

Although you’d never know it listening to the ranters, the past year has actually been a pretty good test of the theory that slashing government spending actually creates jobs. The deficit obsession has blocked a much-needed second round of federal stimulus, and with stimulus spending, such as it was, fading out, we’re experiencing de facto fiscal austerity. State and local governments, in particular, faced with the loss of federal aid, have been sharply cutting many programs and have been laying off a lot of workers, mostly schoolteachers.

And somehow the private sector hasn’t responded to these layoffs by rejoicing at the sight of a shrinking government and embarking on a hiring spree.

O.K., I know what the usual suspects will say — namely, that fears of regulation and higher taxes are holding businesses back. But this is just a right-wing fantasy. Multiple surveys have shown that lack of demand — a lack that is being exacerbated by government cutbacks — is the overwhelming problem businesses face, with regulation and taxes barely even in the picture.

No, no, no, no, no.   The United States government is going to spend more this year than it did last year.  They're going to spend more in 2012 than in 2011.  They're going to print or borrow the money to do this. 

ObamaCare is not yet repealed. 

Card Check is not yet dead and buried. 

Our government has not yet taken the suggestions of The Libertarian Party, and gotten the hell out of the economy.  And our government is really, really crappy at intervening in the economy. 

That's enough to make the U.S. a crappy place to do business, or hire people. 

I'm betting that Paul Krugman has made some good investments in his day.  If Congress passes another stimulus package, someone should challenge Krugman to "invest" in the same companies that Pelosi/Boehner/Reid pick for stimulus spending. 

Seriously, can you imagine someone saying "My broker is Barack Obama...and when Barack Obama talks, people listen !"  (This is a 1980's reference.  Sorry for the obscurity.) 

Debt Ceiling Quote Of The Day

The Debt Ceiling should be renamed "The National Debt Target" - Peter Schiff

To understand that quote is to understand the nature of the problem. 

22 billion in cuts for this year !!! (Ahem....there's a 1.6 trillion dollar deficit this year.)

The much-discussed, now defeated Boehner Bill would have cut 22 billion dollars from this year's Federal spending. 

22 billion is a lot of money, unless you tastelessly mention that this year's deficit is 1.6 trillion.  (That's one thousand billions, plus 600 billions - if you have trouble with all the zeroes.) 

I was looking for an illustration for this, something to show a comparison between 22 billion in cuts as compared to 1.6 trillion hole.  I only found this:

The trifling amount of cuts for this year in the Boehner Bill are roughly equal to the amount we spend on hunting trips. 

I couldn't find any pics of 1.6 trillion dollars.  However, I found a list of what all you could do with a mere one trillion.  Remember to compare the things on this list to the purchase of a tree stand, and to add another 60% to everything listed below....

If you stack up $1,000 bills, $1 trillion would need a pile that is 80 miles high.

$ 1 trillion is more than the combined gross revenues of Wal Mart, Exxon, General Motors and Ford Motors.

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

And in the long term, the Boehner Bill only cuts spending by 1.2 trillion over a ten-year period. 

We are freakin' doomed. 

Obi-Ron, you're our only hope....

Ok, whose turn is it this year to be the "responsible, small government party"?

This is from Weasel Zippers.  A summary of the 2006 vote to raise the debt ceiling. 
Please note how many small government Republican senators voted to put us further into debt. 

U.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 109th Congress — 2nd Session

As compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate
Question: On the Joint Resolution (H.J.Res.47 )
Vote Number: 54 Vote Date: March 16, 2006, 11:17 AM

A cynic might claim that our two political factions enjoy taking turns. 

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies." - Barack Obama, 2006

Can you not control your employees???

When I was interviewing for my first supervisor job, I asked the Operations Manager why some managers weren't succesful.  He didn't even pause to think about his answer. 

He said "Lack of control and lack of involvement." 

A few years later (because of a lack of enforcement of policies and procedures on my part !) I found myself interviewing for another job with another company.  I asked the Ops Manager why some managers weren't succesful. 

He said "Inability to control employees, and not caring." 

That's another way of saying "Lack of control and lack of involvement." 

Speaking of inadequate management, the founders of our country were the first to believe that a government should work for the people, and not vice-versa.  Our government only has authority because we allow it to have that authority.  It's called "government by the consent of the governed".  In other words, Barack Obama, John Boehner, the infamous "chair nazi" at Fort Worth's McCart Street Department of Motor Vehicles, the highway patrolman, David Petraeus, the person who teaches your 4th-grader, and Anthony Weiner all work for....YOU. 

Because of the actions and poor decisions of your employees (if you are a taxpayer) you are $129,000 in debt.  That's your share of the total. 

If you hired a lawn service that purchased a $50,000 mower, a $50,000 weed-eater, and contracted for $29,000 in employees and then sent you the bill, you would fire them.  You would go to court to have them stop spending in your name.  You wouldn't ask how much their purchases were helping the economy, you wouldn't stop to wonder if you were throwing their grandmothers off a cliff, and you wouldn't care how much your decision to fire them impacted the situation in the Middle East. 

You would fire them. 

But you continue to stick with Republican and Democrat employees, don't you? 

They're horrible.  Total miserable failures. 

What's your excuse?  Lack of involvement?  (You think the problem will just magically go away) Or lack of control?  (You just can't bring yourself to tell the crack whores running around with your credit cards that you're cutting them off.) 

The Libertarian Party awaits. 

What if Uncle Sam hired a consultant?

A couple of years ago, my employer, Jukt Micronics, got into some serious trouble with the bank. 

We were into our line of credit further than we wanted.  Business was ok, but we were in danger because of some slow-paying projects and a few other problems. 

The bank said they would cheerfully continue to lend us money, but there were going to be some strings attached.  And one of those string was....a consultant. 

This consultant, who I'm going to call Batman (because he just might have been Batman), came in like a whirlwind.  He toured our facilities and without even thinking about it.....

* Laid off 25% of our employees.  We found that we didn't really need them. 

* Sold off every excess part, machine, or asset he could get his hands on.  Turns out, we didn't miss much of it.  I'm still pissed that he got rid of 8 of my semi-tractor tires that I still think I really needed, and Marvel Variants is irked to this day about some case front parts that got chunked.  But this freed up a lot of cash. 

* Eliminated a lot of duplicated efforts.  If something could be consolidated, he consolidated it. 

* Put a policy in place that we couldn't purchase anything without his approval, and he didn't approve anything except raw materials and a few maintenance items.  Turns out that we didn't really need anything new except raw materials and a few maintenance items. 

* Renegotiated payment terms with almost every vendor. 

* Made an effort at getting us out of every unprofitable business/sideline that he could. 

(He didn't just slash and burn, though.  He let me spend a small fortune on pallet rack.) 

Our debt was a relatively small portion of our yearly income.  Not much at all, really.  But if we were going to avoid going further into the hole, the actions listed above were necessary.  They weren't easy, but it's what we had to do.  We're now doing well, thank you. 

The U.S. government's debt, however, is approaching 100% of our yearly GDP.
Our government is borrowing $188 million dollars per hour. 
We have troops all over the world, at no charge, protecting other countries from non-existent threats. 
We have multiple cabinet-level departments that have totally failed to produce the results for which they were created. 
We're paying for this by printing money to make up for what China won't loan us.  Prices on everything are going up.  Please don't be fooled by racket about wars, harvests, or scarcity.  Ben Bernanke is printing money.  He's ruining your savings. 
We've paying to put more black men in government cages than the Confederacy ever dreamed of.  When we try to reform marijuana laws, the narcs, cops, prison guards and beer distributors all lobby to keep them in their cages.  This ain't cheap. 
We're in the middle of a drug war that has killed more civilians than drugs ever have. 
We could tax the wealthy at 100% of their annual yearly income.  Take all of it.  And we still wouldn't have enough to pay for what Washington is spending per year.   

The people we laughably call "leaders" are suggesting plans that will have us spending less than our income within 6-12 years.   Rand Paul's plan wouldn't cut defense, and would have us spending more than our income for another 6 years.  Paul Ryan's would take even longer.  The thing Obama trotted out on Wednesday didn't even rise to the level of Symbolic Gesture. 

There is no other alternative.  We must kill the beast.  Cut.  Privatize.  Economize.  Bring the troops home.  Release the prisoners.  Shut down the Departments of Education and Energy.   Drive a stake through its heart.  Put a morgue tag on its toe.  Make it achieve room temperature. 

We don't need to worry about the economic impact.  I promise that if the government lets me spend my money, I will spend all of it.  Every penny.  Texas A & M university guarantees it. 

This is the largest debt in the history of the universe.  This is getting terrifying, folks. 

38 BILLION DOLLARS IN HISTORIC, UNPRECEDENTED CUTS !!!!

In the month of February, the Boehner/Obama/Reid Axis Of Weevils spent $223 billion that they didn't have.  Multiply that by 12 months with plenty of ups and downs, and you get a really, really big number.  Something like 1.5 trillion last year. 

Last night, in an episode that both factions called "historic" and "unprecedented, Congress hacked $38 billion from the budget. 

$38 billion.  That's all we got from about 4 months of Kabuki Theatre. 

That's nothing but the interest on the current debt level for just 11 days. 

If you vote for members of the Libertarian Party, the Libertarian Party will show you the government spending that is "non-essential". 

The Department of Education does nothing but take tribute money from the states, swipe some off the top, and then send a portion of it back to the states with rules and regulations attached. 

The Department of Energy was created by Jimmy Carter to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  They've spent billions, and the "dependence" hasn't budged, but DOE employees have increased their incomes nicely. 

We have more troops in Germany than in Iraq. 

We have more troops in England than we have defending the Texas border. 

And it goes on and on and on and on. 

Please consider the Libertarian Party.  We want to march on Washington and demand.....nothing.  We want less.