If you had ten million dollars....

If I were an entrepreneurial type and were to start my own business and somehow wind up with ten million dollars in the bank....

Or if I were to inherit ten million dollars....

Or if I were to hit the blackjack tables in Vegas and clear ten million....

I like to think that, after taking care of my daughter at Texas A and freakin' M university, I'd give a chunk of money to The Reason Foundation. 

Here's what they do:

Reason Foundation advances a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law.
Reason Foundation produces respected public policy research on a variety of issues and publishes the critically-acclaimed Reason magazine.
Together, our top-tier think tank and political and cultural magazine reach a diverse, influential audience, advancing the values of choice, individual freedom and limited government.

I believe that educating people about the Free Market and Small Government and Personal Freedom would do more good than anything else I could do with my money.  Freedom helps people, Big Government hurts people.   

I'd probably give another chunk to The Cato Institute. 

The Cato Institute is a public policy research organization — a think tank – dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace. Its scholars and analysts conduct independent, nonpartisan research on a wide range of policy issues.

Founded in 1977, Cato owes its name to Cato’s Letters, a series of essays published in 18th- century England that presented a vision of society free from excessive government power. Those essays inspired the architects of the American Revolution. And the simple, timeless principles of that revolution — individual liberty, limited government, and free markets – turn out to be even more powerful in today’s world of global markets and unprecedented access to information than Jefferson or Madison could have imagined. Social and economic freedom is not just the best policy for a free people, it is the indispensable framework for the future.

I know that, despite avoiding the place for the last 5 years or so, I'd give a chunk to the Agape Meal at Broadway Baptist Church.  If you want to give something to the poor folks in Fort Worth, Texas, Broadway BC is the way to go. 

The Agape Meal is our weekly banquet for the community. Broadway hosts about 175 guests each Thursday with volunteer table hosts and servers for each table of seven guests. The meal is served Thursdays at 6:00 p.m.; tickets are available starting at 4:00 p.m. in the Baptist Center Breezway (west side of church on May St.) until all gone.Ideally volunteers should arrive by 5:30 p.m. for duty assignments (host, server, etc.) and enter through the Main Entrance on St. Louis St.

Hit the link above to read about their clothing ministry, the Room At The Inn program, and everything else they've got going on.  Good people, those Moderate Baptists.... 

I would give a massive chunk to the Libertarian Party Of Texas.  Hell, if I could get just one of the Nixon - Obama Drug War victims out of jail through political means, it would be money well spent.

It would be cool to sponsor a M.D. in some politician-ravaged region through the Doctors Without Borders program. 

That's my list.  It's heavy on political education, mostly because I think political ignorance (which leads to Statism) has created more poverty, hunger and want than anything else on the planet. 

Think of your list.  Jot it down.  Seriously.  Jot it down.  If you've read through all the other stuff and don't write down your list, you've wasted your time. 

Now, go here.  

Since Chinese loans are paying for ObamaCare anyway....

I have a good friend who is working deep, deep in the bowels of the Obamacare website.  What he describes isn't pretty.  The project is so segmented that no one knows where responsibilities begin and end, and there appears to have been little or no coordination of the big picture. 

We ridicule him constantly, of course. 

I got this message from him a few days ago:

So I have a new story to share as part of the continuing saga of building out the Affordable Care Act (sic). 

So, I am on call this week and received a phone call for assistance at 9:00 p.m. 

It was weird because we were working with our west coast subsidiary called (deleted company name). They had a lot of people with heavy accents that I have never met before on the phone.

So I am discussing this with my Senior Director this morning.

(Big Computer Outfit), our parent company has outsourced the programming of the application development of the ACA to Chinese contractors.

So....we have outsourced the framework and database access that holds PHI (Personal Health Information) of all Americans to China.

Yes we can!

This prompted another buddy of mine to respond as follows:

So another country has access to our most intimate healthcare information while the FDA has ordered 23 and Me to halt sales of genetic testing kits to individuals who want to know about their own genetic make-up.  Chinese officials can know I got the crabs in 2009 but I can't find out if my own body is genetically predisposed to getting prostate cancer.  Sounds reasonable. 

 

I really don't know what else to say.  Hell, the Chinese are the ones paying for our government spending orgy anyway, so we're kinda obligated to give them the user names and passwords, right? 

2007 Obama debates 2013 Obama on Civil Liberties !!

Here's an interesting video of what Obama's 2007 teleprompter told him to say vs. the same machine in 2013. 


This document still matters, you know....

We no longer make decisisions

From John Shuey's Facebook page:

The US no longer does decisions. It can neither stop the drug traffic nor legalize it. It can neither win wars nor abandon them, neither make money nor stop spending it, neither stop immigration nor assimilate the immigrants. Washington can beat its thumb with a hammer, and notice that it hurts, but it can't stop beating its thumb. That would take a decision, and Washington doesn't do decisions."

Why I love the war on drugs

I hire a lot of ex-convicts.  Sometimes they are a bargain. 

Think about it.  Imagine a 25-year-old who would be making 50K per year in a just and fair world, based on his intelligence, computer skills, and work ethic.  But suppose he got caught up in the George Bush/Barack Obama War On Drugs because of possession of a trifling amount of a weed, and he now has some prison time on his record. 

He is now lucky to get minimum wage. 

My company pays most people a lot more than minimum, but not for employees that no one else will hire.  We sometimes can hire ex-convict geniuses for 9 bucks an hour. 

If you're willing to put up with employees having to leave work at odd hours to waste time meeting with probation officers, parole officers, government counselors and other bureaucratic pygmies, ex-cons are a bargain. 

It doesn't seem fair, does it?  I get great employees for half-price !!   Thank you Democrats !!!!

So what should be done about my unfair advantage?  Well, a nation that didn't have its head up its collective ass would legalize marijuana use and possession, along with other victimless crimes.  We have 6% of the world's population and 25% of its convicts.  We do love turning our children into Food For The Machine. 

San Francisco is now debating what to do about my discriminatory practices.  Are they going to legalize marijuana in their city?  Make it legal for entrepreneurs to sell plants without a permit?

Oh no.  Nothing like that.  They're going to leave all the current laws in place, but make it illegal for anyone to ask about convictions.  I swear to God, that's the approach they're taking.  Here's a quote from the Coyote Blog:

A legislative proposal in San Francisco seeks to make ex-cons and felons a protected class, along with existing categories of residents like African-Americans, people with disabilities and pregnant women. If passed by city supervisors, landlords and employers would be prohibited from asking applicants about their criminal past. [...]According to The City’s Human Rights Commission, San Francisco has the highest recidivism rate of any big city in California, almost 80 percent. With an influx of new prisoners set to be released because of the state’s budget crisis, supporters argue felons need legal protections before they’re disqualified simply because of their record, which could be decades old and for crimes that have nothing to do with the job they’re hoping to get.

Yep.  They're going to continue ruining lives because, after all, jailers, probation officers, parole officers, counselors, border patrol guards, Narcs, and SWAT teams need jobs.  But they're going to make it illegal to ask about it. 
I love being alive, just for moments like this.  

Worst place for a jingoistic bumpersticker

Lost Your Job Yet? Keep Buying Foreign !

Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, there are better places to make this statement than on a car from Huggins Honda. I'm just sayin'....

Like so many other good things in life, this was at Home Depot.

Cash For Clunkers - Name That Economic Fallacy !

This is from John Stossel's ABC News blog. (The essay, not the picture.)

I've never seen this guy on TV since I don't watch much that isn't Tivo'd, but I'm a fan of his editorials, books, and website. It's sort of like being a fan of Winston Churchill's paintings, or Billy Bob Thornton's music. Here's Stossel on the Cash for Clunkers program:

Because sometimes, one billion isn’t enough.
The Obama Administration’s “Cash for Clunkers” program offers to buy used cars for $3,500 -$4,500 with taxpayer money. The government then destroys the “inefficient” used car. Not surprisingly, a lot of people want to sell their junk cars to the government. So many, in fact, that the $1 billion program has already run out of money.
Now it appears that Congress will ask not just for another billion, but another TWO billion. Look how generous Congress is with your money!

The idea is that by destroying used cars, people will buy new cars, which creates jobs. But this commits the “broken window fallacy”. That $3 billion taken from taxpayers to, essentially, destroy used cars now cannot be put towards college, or a new home, or new clothes, or anything else. Some used cars are no longer available for poor consumers to buy. If the “new car” market is helped by “Cash for Clunkers”, every other market is hurt because that $3 billion cannot be spent on anything else.

Here's Stossel's concise explanation of the Broken Windows fallacy, from an earlier post:

Economists call this the "broken window fallacy." In the 19th century, French economist Frederic Bastiat illustrated it with the story of a boy who breaks a shop window. At first the townspeople lament the loss, but then someone points out that the shopkeeper will have to spend money to replace the window. What the window maker earns, he will soon spend elsewhere. As that money circulates through town, new prosperity will bloom.
The fallacy, of course, lies in the fact that if the window had not been broken, the shopkeeper would have "replaced his worn-out shoes … or added another book to his library." The town gains nothing from the broken window.
This logic is lost on the stimulus promoters. I'm surprised they don't suggest that we prevent recessions by breaking lots of windows.

This is similar to the forklift program we took advantage of at my employer, Jukt Micronics. The government gave us a huge rebate in exchange for trading in our old planet-warming forklifts for new ones that also warm the planet, but not as quickly. That was their logic, anyway.

Which finally gets me to my point. We're dealing with a group of Chicago machine politicians who are looting The Treasury and giving the money to their contributors - in this case, the UAW and the Big 3 auto makers. They use the wholesome, environmentally-friendly bullshit to convince The Sheeple that this isn't a scam.

But isn't it an article of faith in the Mommy Party that we need fewer cars on the road and more use of public transportation?

Instead of the Broken Windows fallacy, that would make it a case of Anarchic Hand Syndrome.

Or perhaps Craniofacial Duplication.

And what if the money to repair the Broken Windows doesn't exist, and has to be printed on the spot? Instead of the Broken Windows fallacy, isn't this the Monopoly Money fallacy?

Anyway, I know something is wrong here, but what is it?

The Broken Windows Fallacy?

Anarchic Hand Syndrome?

Craniofacial Duplication?

or The Monopoly Money Fallacy?

Sometimes things are so wrong, one explanation can't cover it.

Mark Penn, Jack Abramoff, and Anarchic Hand Syndrome

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Penn the Symbol of Clinton's Problems, says E.J. Dionne, who usually writes for The Washington Post.

He's referring to Mark Penn, The Clintons' chief campaign strategist. Mr. Penn has been helping Hillary Clinton oppose a Columbian trade agreement.

The Columbian ambassador has been paying Penn's public relations company to promote the same Columbian trade agreement.

Therefore Penn had to leave the Clinton campaign, although The Clintons seemed happy with his campaign work against the trade agreement, and the Columbians were happy with his work in favor of the trade agreement.

The way I see it, somebody was going to be taking all that Clinton and Columbian money, and it might as well be someone who could give them what they paid for. If we're going to have a system where our politicians are bought and sold like $20 crack whores, we might as well have them pimped out by people who know what they're doing.

This is a borderline example of what I'm now calling Anarchic Hand Syndrome. And I'll not rest until it's referenced in a Political Science textbook, a Thomas Sowell editorial, or linked on Instapundit. Either one will mean guaranteed immortality.

(Go ahead and hit the link above. It's a short post about the right hand having no control over what the left hand is doing, and it's a legit medical condition. And I believe that as long as decision makers are allowed to take money from both sides of an issue, we'll see examples of the same thing in government. You get to pay for tobacco subsidies and anti-smoking campaigns.)

The Mark Penn AHS episode is slightly flawed, or perhaps he's taken it to the next level and we mortals are too dense to perceive his greatness. It's imperfect because Mark Penn represents the right hand. He approved and controlled the contradictory actions of the left hand. And vice-versa. In a textbook example of political Anarchic Hand Syndrome, Mark Penn would have to be two different people independently working at cross-purposes in the same organization.

Greatness walks among us.

The only other example of this type of self-inflicted solo AHS would be Casino lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who lobbied against Indian casinos while lobbying for them in his free time, and got paid by Indians on both sides.

But if you accept the legitimacy of lobbying, you don't have much room to criticize guys like Abramoff and Penn for for using their talents to their highest potential....

Brief addition....the good people at Salon.com are shocked, no, astounded to discover that small campaign donations go into the pockets of expensive consultants.

Anarchic Hand Syndrome

I don't know a thing about Anarchic Hand Syndrome.

I don't even know if it's for real. I was looking around on the Google Trends site, and saw it listed as a hot topic.

Apparently, AHS is a huge inconvenience for anyone who has experienced surgery that separates the two brain hemispheres. After one of these surgeries, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Some people have called it "The Dr. Strangelove Syndrome".










I predict that middle schoolers will soon be using the phrase.




"Jason, why did you hit your sister?"

"I don't know.....Anarchic Hand Syndrome?"

I do know that Anarchic Hand Syndrome is a great metaphor for some of our problems.

For instance.....

We're spending millions subsidizing tobacco farmers and tobacco production.
We're spending millions encouraging people to stop smoking.

The right hand opposes the left hand.

Bill Clinton gave us a great economy for 8 years, due to his support of Free Trade, NAFTA, etc.
His wife, Bruno, is apparently willing to chunk all of that out the window in exchange for votes in Michigan and Ohio.


He builds it up, she's advocates tearing it down. Anarchic Hand Syndrome.

I was in a Family Pathfinders meeting last night (see previous post). This is a government program that tries to help families break the poverty cycle through training, mentoring, etc etc.
The family that my group is trying to help has several financial penalties to overcome. Almost all of these penalties were put in place by....government.

Ladies, Gentlemen, welcome to the world of AHS.

This election cycle will be partially defined by the high cost of health care. Various government agencies will Spend Like Spitzer^TM to study the problem.
On the other hand, the government will also spend a smaller amount of money regulating health care, putting up barriers to entry, restricting the roles of nurses, and allowing the medical schools to produce an artificially low number of M.D.'s each year.

We're going to spend an insane amount of money on a fence to keep desperate Mexicans from entering the U.S. illegally.
We wouldn't dream of helping Mexico fix what's wrong in Mexico, which would probably be cheaper than the dang fence.

I'm sure there are better examples. I'll add them as I stumble over them. But from now on, Dear Whited Sepulchre readers, any time I refer to "Anarchic Hand Syndrome", there will be a link to this post.