I'm not dead...

I'm just very, very busy. 
Just finished Precinct, County, District and State Conventions for the Tarrant and Texas Libertarian Parties. 
Swamped at work. 
Good things are happening. 
We've gotten our feet in the door with the "Open Carry" gun rights movement.
Our candidates have an open invitation to speak at DFW/NORML events. 
There were at least 3 obviously gay dudes at the state convention - all of 'em are sick of Team Blue. 
All of those sections of society are starting to figure out that they have a common enemy - the people who are trying to take their money, their kids, their rights and their freedom. 

The Libertarian Party is the answer !!

 

Another shooting in a gun-free zone

Here's a chart showing U.S. defense spending relative to that of other nations. 

Here's one of those cartogram things showing U.S. defense spending relative to our space on the globe. 

Here's a pie chart showing U.S. defense spending as a total of all discretionary spending. 

Go here to read an account of THE SECOND mass shooting at Fort Hood, Oklahoma.  Fort Hood is one of the largest U.S. Army bases.  This time the gunman killed 3 people and wounded 16 others. 

Look at the spending.  Read the account of the shooting.  The victims were having to call 911 (the emergency police number in the U.S.) to get help.  On a military base. 

Does this make any sense at all?  I hate that these innocent people lost their lives.  I'm not making light of this tragedy. 

But if they aren't allowed to protect themselves, what the hell are they doing for us?  Am I missing something? 

 

We have a clear, stark choice ahead of us

To all delegates to the Libertarian Party of Texas State Convention:

We have a clear, stark choice ahead of us. 

We've had these words, or similar verbiage, in our national and state platforms since the mid-1970's. 

The Tarrant County (Fort Worth/Arlington) Libertarian Party recently participated in the Fort Worth Gay Pride parade, after taking part in the larger Dallas equivalent for almost a decade. 

We were very well-received.  You can't imagine the looks of undiluted joy in the faces of the crowd when we pulled this rig through Downtown Cowtown !

We actually won the trophy for Best Non-Profit Entry. 

Contrast that greatness with this, from the new Vice-Chair of the Harris County (Houston) Libertarian Party.  Yes, this is coming from an official rep of the LP.....

The stats in this thing have been discredited more times than "The Hitler Diaries". 

Pick a side folks.  Pick a side. 

Kathie Glass For Governor !!

After long and thoughtful consideration, I've decided to support Kathie Glass for the Libertarian Party's nomination for governor of The Great State Of Texas. 

Kathie (along with her husband Tom) and I have been opposing each other, off and on, for about two years. 

So why the change of heart?  I've looked at the facts.  And when confronted with new facts, I often change my mind.  For documentation, hit the links.  You won't understand ANY of this unless you hit the links!!

*  In her previous gubernatorial run for the LP, Kathie proved that she could attract and maintain major donors to the party. 

*  As Chair of the Harris County Libertarian Party, she has surrounded herself with people who adhere to the LP's history of respect for all lifestyle choices. 

*  Kathie boldly and confidently stands up for the Libertarian Party's positions on ending the Drug War, decriminalizing marijuana use, and legalizing gambling.  She's a fighter! 

*  Kathie is aided in her campaign by her husband Tom, who, in his campaign for State Chair two years ago, conducted himself with genuine dignity and total honesty. 

* When our State Executive Committee takes actions that she believes are a mistake, she accepts our verdict and moves on. 

*  Pat Dixon, our State Chair, enjoys dealing with Kathie, as do our two Austin employees, Heather Fazio and Lauren Daugherty.  In fact, Heather and Lauren sometimes refer to Kathie as "Mom". 

*  Kathie has contributed staggering sums of money to the Texas LP over the years. 

*  As Chair of the Harris County LP, she doesn't always agree with everything done by other counties, but she always respects their process !!

*  Anyone who can create a good work atmosphere can probably create a good governing atmosphere as a civil servant.   Kathie has spread goodwill throughout our Austin offices. 

*  Unlike so many political candidates, Kathie is respectful of the political and the parliamentary process, and gracefully adheres to the rules of debate. 

*  Kathie believes that those who have worked hardest in the party deserve to represent the party!!

I hope everyone who reads this has a GREAT April 1st, with all that the date implies.  I hope you've looked at the facts in the links provided.  If you're confronted with new facts, do you change your mind?  I hope so. 

What Kathie Glass has done for the Libertarian Party of Texas, she can do for us in Austin! 

Most of the documentation for emails and quotes can be found here.  Others (unfortunately) are taken directly from emails within the Libertarian Party Of Texas. 

A Hypothetical Question on "Illegal" Immigration

I put this little hypothetical situation on Facebook the other day, and it has generated some lively discussion.  If you haven't friended me on FB yet, feel free to do so! 

Who does the American taxpayer more harm: 1) the guy from Mexico or Canada who is in the U.S. without a permission slip from Obama, who is working away mowing yards, hanging sheetrock, or pouring concrete for about $25,000 per year, and who is paying money into Social Security that he'll never be able to collect, OR, 2) the machinist or engineer at General Dynamics being paid $60,000 per year, directly by the taxpayers, to make aircraft we don't need?

(General Dynamics is a manufacturer of munitions and armaments for the military-industrial complex.) 

 

Our government is like a bad factory

Next week I'll be going to Indiana. 

My employer purchased a percentage of a company up there.  It's an 8 million dollar per year operation that somehow managed to lose 3 million dollars. 

Yeah.  3 million. 

How in the hell can that happen?

Well, here are the basic reasons....

1) The old owners were not present.  "Everyone" was supposed to own the factory.  Therefore, nobody owned it.  The inmates were running the asylum. 

2) There were no incentives to keep costs down.  They were buying things from buddies and family.  (And they're still trying to, which I will end about one hour after walking in the door.)   

3) The place has a strong union mentality.  One co-worker of mine went up there to help out for a few weeks, and he swears that they weren't going to ship $300,000.00 worth of products because they had run out of #8 machine screws.  He drove down to Home Depot and bought some freakin' machine screws, and the orders shipped on time. 

4) Everyone was getting raises like clockwork, profitability and performance be damned. 

Those are the big reasons why the factory was losing money.  We almost have the place sorted out, but there's still a lot of work to do.

Does that factory remind you of another organization?  It should.   

Here are the reasons government doesn't work. 

1) Nobody owns the government.  "Everyone" is supposed to own it.  Therefore nobody owns it.  The inmates get to run the asylum. 

2) There are no incentives to keep costs down.  Bureaucrats are actually incentivized to create bigger budgets and hire more and more people. Therefore, their pay scale goes up. 

3) Government has the strongest union mentality in our nation.  Examples abound. 

4) Everyone working in government can probably tell you, plus or minus a few percentage points, how much they'll be earning five years from now, efficiency and performance be damned. 

That's all I got.  Hope you've had a good weekend !! 

 

On the U.S. trade deficit

I'm making this argument here for the last time.  THERE IS NO TRADE DEFICIT. 

As long as a trade isn't the result of theft, deception, fraud or government mandate (pardon all the redundancies), all trade is balanced.  There are no surpluses; there are no deficits. 

I give Starbucks $2.12 and they give me a double-espresso. 

They buy no freight or warehousing services from me. 

China provides me with fruitstand components.  I provide China with pieces of paper that have Benjamin Franklin's picture on them.  It's balanced. 

And there's only one place where you can swap Benjamins for other goods and services. 

That would be in the USA, or with someone who will eventually spend them in the USA. 

It's always balanced. 

Those who claim otherwise have ulterior motives. 

Thanks for listening. 

A quick note from the author

I haven't had time to post anything on this site in the last eight days. 

I'm chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.  We're in a bit of a struggle within the Texas LP, primarily because of Tom and Kathie Glass, Republican Carpetbaggers from Houston.  (They're married to each other, and deserve the honor....) 

Kathie hopes to win the LP nomination for governor of Texas. 

When we had our Precinct Conventions last Tuesday night, about 17 people walked in that I'd never seen before, or had seen only once.  They were obviously there to deny our long-time Libertarian activists a chance to go to our State Convention in April.  That's because Tarrant County (Fort Worth) has a lot of "lifer" Libertarians who've seen Tom and Kathie in action for the last four years or so.  Therefore, very few of us who are active will ever support either Tom or Kathie for any office.  We know them.  It's a long, tiresome story that I'll post sometime between now and our State Convention. 

I had to go into full-blown "Barbarians At The Gates" mode to keep the Glasses from taking over the County Party, and it worked.  Our slate of delegates had an overwhelming victory.  To make it better, the Glasses of Houston were there for the event.  (Don't ask me why they felt it was their business to infiltrate a Tarrant County Convention.)

I believe they had some limited success with this type of behavior in Denton County, but nowhere else. 

We had some great people show up for the first time at our County Convention.  I hope they'll come back, despite having been used as pawns by the Glasses.  If they continue to show up and help out, they can be delegates to their hearts' content.  This is the first year I haven't had to beg people to go. 

Once we get the video, I'll post a few snippets of Tom Glass, the Houston interloper, slithering back and forth in the aisles, whispering instructions and passing notes to his unfortunate surrogate.   And both of them GETTING IT WRONG!!  Tom, you can't just add 11 additional delegates to a slate of 16 delegates when there are only 16 spots in the delegation !!!  Good Lord in heaven, man!!  You're a freakin' lawyer !!!

Anyway, I have a District Convention to orchestrate this Saturday.  Once that's over with, I'll be back to posting regularly.  I've missed it.  I've seen a dramatic dropoff in ad revenue from this site, and I miss that money, too ! 

I don't know who put it together, but this Kathie video is pretty funny if you know the back-story. 



Click here to return to my April Fool's Day endorsement of Kathie Glass for governor. 
 

Ballot Access - North Korea vs USA

From CNN (although I could have used numerous other sources, all mocking the idea that North Korea actually has an election process):

This Sunday, North Koreans will be required to show their assent for this political system at general elections universally expected to return the current incumbent Kim Jong Un.

 

While critics say the poll is merely a political show to legitimize the country's rubber stamp parliament -- previous elections in 2009 returned Kim Jong il (Kim Jong Un's predecessor and father) with a 100% mandate on a 99.98% turnout -- observers will be poring over the list of legislators for clues as to how Kim will govern the Communist nation over the next five years.

Kim himself is running for a seat in the Paekusan Constituency No.111; significant because the numbers are regarded as auspicious in Korean culture and because North Korea claims Mount Paektu, located in Paekusan on the border with China, to be the legendary birthplace of his father.

 

The ruling Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland holds all 687 seats within the Supreme People's Assembly and voters have only one candidate to vote for in each of the seats.

 

While the umbrella grouping officially contains four parties -- the Workers' Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, the Cheondoist Chongu Party and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan -- all candidates must be sanctioned by the party including three independents currently sitting as deputies in the assembly.

 

While it is possible for a voter to cast a ballot against a candidate, they must walk to a special booth to do so. Critics say few are brave enough to cross out the name on the ballot.

 

From The New York Holy Times (although I could have used numerous other sources, all mocking the idea that the USA actually has an election process):

 

Two Libertarian candidates were tossed from Ohio’s primary ballot on Friday by Secretary of State Jon Husted in a ruling that sparked immediate plans for a legal challenge. Mr. Husted, a Republican, said he had adopted a hearing officer’s recommendations in disqualifying a candidate for governor, Charlie Earl, and an attorney general candidate, Steven Linnabary.

 

Their nominating petitions were challenged on two grounds: that signature gatherers failed to comply with Ohio laws requiring them to be either Libertarian or a political independent and another requiring them to disclose their employer.

 

Mark Brown, a lawyer for the Libertarian Party of Ohio, said it will challenge the decision in federal court. He said the ballot protests were an extension of Republican efforts to keep second third parties off the state’s ballot.

 

Mr. Earl could draw votes from Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, in his re-election bid this fall.

 

So.... We Libertarian Party folks are accustomed to skullduggery from the Beltway Party, trying to keep us off the ballot.  (I won't deny that we sometimes stumble when trying to get over the hurdles they place before us.) 

 

But it does appear that North Korea does offer an easier process for other parties to be represented. 

 

Just go to the alternative booth to vote for someone other than those in power.   

 

I've often said that it's easier for a Southern Baptist to get on the ballot in Saudi Arabia than it is for a Libertarian to get on the ballot in Oklahoma.  Or Ohio. 

 

And we are the country that sends its army and navy all over the world to guarantee free and fair elections. 

 

 

 

 

Ah, the good old days of U.S Foreign Policy

Whose picture should be on our currency?

Our currency in the U.S. (often known in the black community as "Dead Presidents") honors people who won wars.  Andrew Jackson killed a lot of Indians.  General Grant killed a lot of Confederates.  Franklin Roosevelt killed the economy. 

We should commemorate people who spread liberty and freedom. 

Don Boudreaux (who should be on a commemorative penny, at least) has come up with a list of people who we should honor on our Federal Reserve Notes and our debased coinage. 

Here's his list.  It's greatness.... !

$1 bill: George Washington.  For all of his flaws, Washington was not as mad for power as is the typical politician.  That character trait was enormously beneficial to the early American republic.

Ok.  Agreed.  They wanted him to be king, and he declined.  Although I sometimes think we would be better off with some hereditary despots who relied on promoting freed, as opposed to the current system of beauty contests. 

$2 bill: Henry Ford, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

I dunno.  Towards the end of his life, he became increasingly anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-liquor, 3 concepts that I like a lot. 

$5 bill: John D. Rockefeller, Sr., for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

He added hundreds of hours of light (via kerosene) at increasingly lower prices to the common man.  You could make the argument that Rockefeller saved the whales !!

$10 bill: Gustavus Swift, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Ok.  Good choice. 

$20 bill: Norman Borlaug, for saving countless millions of people from starvation.

Excellent choice.  He developed new strains of wheat (and was harshly criticized by many on the left, because it would increase population!) and probably saved a billion (with a "b") lives. 

$50 bill: Sam Walton, for being such a pioneering and innovative retailer.

Wouldn't that make the Statists go just absolutely batshit crazy?  Sam Walton helped bring one million people per month out of bone-grinding poverty in China.  He did more than anyone in history to hold down inflation in the era of the Fed.  He's the reason the jeans I'm wearing now cost less than they did in 1977.  Here's why he deserved a Nobel !!

$100 bill: Benjamin Franklin, for his scientific achievements and his bourgeois wisdom.

Meh.  Interesting guy, but I'd rather see Calvin Coolidge (greatest president) get a spot. 

One-cent coin: Richard Sears, for being such a pioneering and innovative retailer.

Ok.  He changed the world. 

Five-cent coin: Steve Jobs, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Well, he did more good than Roosevelt. 

10-cent coin: John Bogle, for inventing the indexed mutual fund.

Ok. 

25-cent coin: Milton Friedman, for teaching not only the general public, but fellow economists, economics.

HELL TO THE YES.  YES, YES, YES!!

50-cent coin: Gail Borden, for being such a pioneering and innovative producer.

Ok. 

$1 coin: Andrew Mellon, a productive financial genius

And the opposite side of the Andrew Mellon coin should show Franklin Roosevelt burning in hell.  Read Amity Shlaes great account of The Roosevelt-induced Depression "The Forgotten Man" for details of how FDR persecuted this great man. 

That's Don Boudreaux's list.  You probably have your own. 

Libertarian Leadership Training Conference - Saturday, March 1 !!

The Libertarian Party of Texas has a Spring Leadership Conference this Saturday ! If you are a candidate, candidate supporter, liberty lover, potential convention delegate or county chair, this is the meeting for you! You can pay at the door. Twenty-five bucks is all it takes for a full day of training, teaching, and hanging out with good, like-minded folks who are fighting for your freedom.

Here's a link....

DFW Airport Marriott South 4151 Centreport Drive Fort Worth, TX 76155Saturday, March 1, 2014 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM (CST)

This conference is designed to be INTERACTIVE. Please bring your laptop!
Lunch is included in the very low, $25 registration. Please do your part to spread the word and invite all the Libertarians you know who are ready to join the revoLution here in Texas. NOW is the time!

8am - Registration (Breakfast available at Cafe)

9am - Welcome*Convention Process Overview

10am - Breakout Stations (Attendees choose three and rotate every hour)

*Creating a Facebook Page

*LPT Resources/Navigating the LPTexas.org Website

*District Research for Block Walking and Voting Trends

*Convention Chair Training/ District Convention Planning

*Delivering the Message (Role Play, Q&A, etc.)

1pm - Lunch (US Senate Candidate Forum)

2pm - Delegate Training

3pm - Mock Convention (FUN!)

 

The Progressive Art Of Single-Entry Bookkeeping

Dan Mitchell, at the International Liberty Blog, has written the best summary I've ever read of the failures of Keynesian economics. 

Go here. 

A slice....

To explain how this works, let’s briefly digress and explain Keynesian economics. This is the theory that you can jump-start a weak economy by having government borrow a lot of money and then “inject” this money into the economy. And that’s precisely what Obama did with the stimulus, mostly with more spending, but also with some tax cuts for favored constituencies. According to the theory, the money that is being spent by the government (and the recipients of tax cuts) will goose growth and create a ripple effect as producers hire people to deal with the increase in “aggregate demand.”

The Keynesians basically assume that there are no “opportunity costs” when government borrows money and spends it. That’s a bit of economic jargon, but it’s simply a way of saying that Keynesians think that money, for all intents and purposes, will sit idle and gather dust during an economic downturn in the absence of government.
 

This is a very nice theory…but only on a blackboard.
 

In reality, there is an “opportunity cost” when government borrows money and spends it. Resources are diverted from the productive sector of the economy. This might not be a problem if government spent money wisely, but stimulus schemes tend to reward interest groups with the most political clout. So instead of outlays for physical and human capital, which at least theoretically might improve the economy’s productive capacity, the White House directed the bulk of the stimulus to redistribution programs and handouts to state governments.

Yeah.  What he said.  Everything looks rosy as long as you restrict your analysis to what Kevin Williamson recently called "The Occult Art Of Single-Entry Bookkeeping". 

 

Would you pledge allegiance to The Tzar?

A Facebook friend that I've never met, Mr. David Singhiser, has been throwing down some excellent posts and rants about the military, pledging allegiance, immigration, and loyalty to The State.

(The catalyst for all this has been disagreement in his family about a relative going to work in the U.S. Marines.) 

Check this out.  Pure, undiluted greatness....

For those few family members who are still friends and followers: When Little Grandma's grandparents accepted going to Russia in the early 19th century, they were promised certain rights and privileges such as: keeping their own language (What? They were not compelled to learn Russian?), sending their children to their own schools, going to their own churches, and their young men were free from conscription and fighting in the Tzar's wars.

Let's be clear. They prospered. I have seen pictures of the Milljos and Singeisens. They were well off. They were well off! They owned vineyards and other property.

However, when a later Tzar took back those rights and privileges, Little Grandma and her family and community left for America. I doubt that any of them questioned their commitment to freedom. None accused them of their lack of patriotism, their lack of loyalty to the Tzar and the royal family.

That was a non-issue. It was freedom that was important. It was obvious, freedom was more important, not a Tzar, not a government, not a country that "gave" them prosperity. They earned it, and the Imperial Russian Government decided to confiscate property and send their young men to war.

Wasn't the Russian government within its rights? Shouldn't the Swiss and German colonialists be obligated to pay their dues? But in the eyes of the colonialists, the Tzar broke the promise.

Freedom could be found elsewhere. Liberty was what was important, more than prosperity, more than a false loyalty to a bankrupt and lying government, more than even a place.

Well my dear family, the US government broke it's promises. It took Eddie and Bill (Little Grandma's sons during WWI) and Lawrence during WWII and Bill during the Korean War (her grandsons).

Government officials have lied to us, spied on us, confiscated out wealth and prosperity. We owe them nothing.

Her generation however, understood freedom. Freedom was more important than a government or a nation.

When the government became oppressive, she and her community left. Simple, not easy, but simple; they left, ….for Freedom!

We owe these government officials no loyalty, only our contempt. If we are true to our heritage, we follow liberty, no matter where it is in the world. We are not serfs; we are not slaves. We bow to no one. We do not send our children into war to fight for a government and an elite. We are better than that.

How sad.

Most of you have lost this message, if you ever knew it. How sad you chose to be loyal to a government that lied to you. How sad you chose land - DIRT - over freedom. I am sorry you fell for the propaganda. I am sorry that some of you have even encouraged a family member to march into war.

You are victims of the propaganda as well. I too fell for the propaganda, but I woke up. I continue to wake up.

I wish you would too.

I wish you loved freedom more than a place, more than a state, more than a government.  

Latest sign that The Apocalypse is upon us

From a recent conversation with a college graduate.....

Whited Sepulchre: We give out three awards at our Libertarian Party National cCnvention.  There's The Thomas Jefferson award....,

Twenty-five year old: Cool.

Whited Sepulchre: And we give out an award for best communicator of the Libertarian message called The Thomas Paine award....,

Twenty-five year old: (nods head)

Whited Sepulchre: And for service as an activist, we have The Samuel Adams award.

Twenty-five year old college graduate:  (looking genuinely perplexed) Why did they name that one after a beer?

 

Small businesses can now cut every expense but labor.

Every day, I become more and more convinced that we are being governed by idiots, and that Barack Obama is their king. 

As anyone who has ever run a 5-employee coffee bar knows that businesses have an income and businesses have expenses. 

Expenses are coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor. 

Income is income.  It could be dollars, or it could be javelins, Coca-Colas, gasoline, eggs, butter, ammunition or anything else you would swap for a double-espresso.   It's what people swap for your coffee, cups, cleaning supplies, cash register tape, stir sticks, flavor for shots, milk, chocolate and, yes, employee labor.

Let's pretend that you have a chain of coffee bars, and you have 100 employees.  If so, you're going to be hit with Obamacare costs.  But if you have 99 employees, you can avoid that expense for another year. 

Any sane human will find a way to avoid that expense.  All sane humans will avoid that expense, if at all possible. 

If the costs of cups goes up, they will try to find a cheaper cup.  Ditto for coffee or cash register tape.

So if expenses go up to the point where costs have to be cut (whether it is in cups, labor or chocolate), how will Obama's Mouth-Breathers protect their reputations? 

They will make it illegal to reduce the number of employees.  I swear to God, they're going to make you swear to them that you didn't cut payroll to avoid paying the Obamacare shakedown tax. 

 Consider what administration officials announcing the new exemption for medium-sized employers had to say about firms that might fire workers to get under the threshold and avoid hugely expensive new requirements of the law. Obama officials made clear in a press briefing that firms would not be allowed to lay off workers to get into the preferred class of those businesses with 50 to 99 employees. How will the feds know what employers were thinking when hiring and firing? Simple. Firms will be required to certify to the IRS – under penalty of perjury – that ObamaCare was not a motivating factor in their staffing decisions. To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so.

If you've ever run anything and tried to make a profit by doing so, you know that this is lunacy.  Labor is the same as cups, coffee, or chocolate. 
If you aren't making money, you have to cut where you can.  Anywhere you can. 

Godalmighty, I'm ready for the Rodham Administration to take over. 

I, Valentine

From Wikipedia (because I'm feeling lazy and don't want to condense their words into my own) here is a summary of Leonard Read's immortal Free Market essay "I, Pencil", an essay which proves that no small group or individual can organize the production of something as simple as a pencil, much less control the U.S. healthcare system.  Nobody can make a pencil.  Pencils are too complicated.  But anyone with 15 cents can get a pencil  Go here to download a copy or an MP3. 

"I, Pencil" is written in the first person from the point of view of a pencil. The pencil details the complexity of its own creation, listing its components (cedar, lacquer, graphite, ferrule, factice, pumice, wax, glue) and the numerous people involved, down to the sweeper in the factory and the lighthouse keeper guiding the shipment into port.

No Master Mind
There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.
... Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.
... The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

—"I, Pencil", 2008 edition

I instantly thought of that when one of my freight carriers sent me this Infographic showing the growth, movement, preservation and storage of the roses that you (better) buy for Valentine's Day. 

Nobody plans it, everybody plans it. 
Nobody did it, everybody did it. 
There is no "Rose Czar". 
The Invisible Hand makes it happen.  No one involved in the process cares that much about your Valentine's Day gift.  They care for themselves, and therefore, they care for you.   
Once again, from "I, Pencil".....

Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

And you'll never run out of roses. 

The New York Times Should Raise Its Price By 50% Between Now And 2016

How do you get people to purchase more of something?  According to the New York Holy Times, you raise the price. 

How do you make yourself more attractive to employers?  Keep raising your requested wage until someone says "I'll hire you". 

How do you increase employment?  According to the New York Holy Times, you put an added burden on people who purchase labor. 

Good God in heaven.....

Go here.  They've come out with another editorial demanding that the minimum wage be increased by some random amount yet to be determined. 

HOW HIGH SHOULD IT BE? There’s no perfect way to set the minimum wage, but the most important benchmarks — purchasing power, wage growth and productivity growth — demonstrate that the current $7.25 an hour is far too low. They also show that the proposed increase to $10.10 by 2016 is too modest.

You're damn right, there's no perfect way.  There is no way. 

I want to be paid as much as possible for my labor.  Employers want to pay as little as possible.  That varies from person to person, industry to industry, and enterprise to enterprise.  And the last humans on earth that I would want to determine that rate?  The New York Holy Times Editorial Board, Barack Obama, and the U.S. Congress.  The "perfect" rate will be determined by political considerations, not economic ones. 

I'm not going to rant about the racist origins of minimum wage legislation.  (Google the Davis-Bacon Acts.) 

I'm not going to rant about the obvious fact that if your skills aren't worth $10.10 per hour, it'll be illegal for you to work. 

I'm just going to ask the New York Times to raise it's price by 50% between now and 2016.  It will help sales.  600 economists have said so. 

One last thing.....

One of the favorite talking points that these guys like to trot out goes like this....   "If wages had kept pace with productivity, workers would be earning 43.07% more per hour."

Here's their chart.

That's probably an accurate chart. 

The other chart, the one they don't show, reveals that the iPhone in the typical minimum wageworker's pocket, would have cost 3.1 MILLION dollars in 1991. 

Is there anyone who thinks that the world would be better if cell phone prices were in line with worker productivity? 

200 years ago, something like 98% of us had to work on farms.  Food was a massive percentage of everyone's budget.  Do you with that your food costs reflect the increase in worker productivity, just out of fairness? 

God, they make me crazy. 

 

From my garage archaeology project - a stash of 8-track tapes

From the Whited Sepulchre Garage Archaeology Project. A vintage 8-track of the Kansas classic "Point Of No Return".

I put away about 75 of these tapes on an upper shelf more than two decades ago, and dug them out last night.  Good times, good times. 

As I explained on Facebook to a 30-year-old-youngling, back when the earth was young, and the lava was still cooling, we didn't have cell phones that stored music.
We didn't have MP3's or Pandora, or even the now-primitive relic that you know as a CD. This was before we even had cassettes.
These were called 8-track tapes. 
It was a long spool of tape that had 4 separate L and R channels. You couldn't speed up or reverse. You could only switch around from track 1 to track 4. 
 As the tapes aged, you could often hear two songs playing at the same time, which you remedied by folding up a piece of paper to tilt the cassette upward in the player. 
 Most of them were eventually "eaten" by the tape player. They were the only recorded music that could be played in an automobile for a long, long, long, long time. 
 Late 1960s through the early 80's.

Here's Kansas doing "Paradox", one of my favorites from this album.  (I was a moderately bad violinist as a kid, and Robbie Steinhardt's rock violin artistry absolutely fascinated me.)  You can safely ignore the first 50 seconds.  It doesn't start crankin' until then. 
 

You'll never meet a really good waitress or bartender who is a Socialist

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party has a website, a Meetup page, a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and might even have a long-forgotten MySpace account. 

About a week ago, in a desire to restrict all of the above to general announcements, we started something on FB called Cowtown Libertarians.  That's where we can post pics, memes, weird internet statist junk, and Barack Obama speeches sweetened up with a laugh track.  I hope you'll check it out. 

Here's a little taste.  It beautifully explains why you'll never meet a really good server, waitress, or bartender who is a true Socialist. 

Here's what I'm going to throw on there this afternoon, assuming someone else doesn't beat me to it.

Cowtown Libertarians.  Common sense distilled into interesting little pictures.