On who makes our lives better

This morning I went to Jack-In-The-Box and got a sausage biscuit and some hash browns.  This particular location never closes.  They're open for me, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

I'm not particularly fond of their coffee, though, so I hit my Starbucks at Western Center Boulevard and I-35.  Had a double-espresso.  (Hit that link.  It's a good one.)  The Starbucks doesn't open until 5:30, but the workers had probably been there since 4:00 a.m. 

When I got to work, I looked at all the stuff we're doing for Kroger.  They love it.

I looked at what we're doing for Wal-Mart.  They love us, too.  We're busting our asses for those folks. 

Then I reviewed some stuff we're doing for another company, a company that will remain nameless.  (Don't want to call 'em out by name.  It's not going too well right now.)  If we don't get our shit together soon, they're going to replace us with someone that can keep them happy.  It's all up to us.

I walked through the big project we're doing for Radio Shack.  So far, they love us.

Then I broke open a China shipping container and pulled out a random box.  It's from my buddy Mr. Chen in Xiamen, China.  He provides us with all sorts of metal hardware and display fixtures.  The display dump bin that I pulled out of the container once took 30 minutes to assemble with a drill, a tap and die set, a pop-rivet gun, a rubber mallet and a screwdriver.  After a year's worth of emails, drawing revisions, hardware changes and, well, cussing, Mr. Chen has sent us a display bin that can be assembled in five minutes with nothing but a screwdriver.  I love Mr. Chen like a brother.   

Work, work, work, work. 

Here's something I found at the Cafe Hayek blog today, something on the same subject.  Every day of his life, Don Boudreaux of George Mason University fires off a letter to the editor of some Statist Rag, trying to correct misinformation about how the world really works.  This one was a beauty:

Edward Sage ridicules Charles Koch’s claim – from Mr. Koch’s essay ”Corporate Cronyism Harms America” (Sept. 10) - that “the role of business is to provide products and services that make people’s lives better.” Mr. Sage asks in response: “Since when? This sounds much more like a liberal take on the role of government. As a liberal I’d be over the moon if companies cared primarily about making lives better. Instead, this only happens if it’s the best way to make money” (Letters, Sept. 13).

Mr. Sage uses the word “only” to imply that it’s a mere occasional happenstance that the best way for businesses to make money is to supply goods and services that improve people’s lives. But because no private business (without special privileges granted by government) can force any consumer to buy its products – and because no private business (without special privileges granted by government) can prevent other businesses from competing for consumers’ dollars – no private business (without special privileges granted by government) can survive unless it supplies “products and services that make people’s lives better” (as judged by consumers themselves, of course, rather than by Mr. Sage and his fellow “liberals”).

Businesses do sometimes err. Consumers do sometimes err. But for Mr. Sage not to see that in private markets the profit motive generally drives businesses to seek ceaselessly and frantically for ways to supply outputs that improve people’s lives is for him to be blind to one of the most remarkable and transformative facts of the past two centuries.
Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Well said, sir.  Well said. 
If I ever make a ton of money, and the only honest way I can do this is by keeping a lot of people happy in exchange for their money, I'm going to go to Virginia and take classes from Don Boudreaux. 
It will happen. 

Geoff Neale at the Texas State Libertarian Convention

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Anything that works is better than everything that doesn't." - Geoff Neale

Geoff Neale is now the National Chair of the Libertarian Party

Well done, sir. Well done.

Mission Accomplished, Team Obama !!!


From The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama plans soon to introduce his energy and environment team, which will include Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu as energy secretary and former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner as White House energy adviser.

The team's makeup shows that Mr. Obama plans to put a heavy emphasis on combating climate change and promoting technologies to wean the U.S. off imported oil. He is packaging such priorities as a way to boost employment and help the economy by pouring money into efficiency projects.

.But the next administration will face a range of obstacles on the energy front, from plummeting oil prices and a declining economy to potential rifts among Mr. Obama's own advisers.

In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.

"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe," Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.

Well done, Mr. Chu.  Well done ! 

Words to live by

The Whited Mama sent me these in an email this weekend.  Most of them relate to the difficulty of holding unpopular opinions. 

This last one wasn't in the email, but was on a little pedestal frame that she put on my dresser when I was a kid. 

I do love my Amam.  (Amam = "Mama" backwards.  Long, convoluted Patterson story.) 

Barack Obama has fired more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined !!!

From the comments of the Just One Minute Blog:

Barack Obama has now been responsible for firing more cruise missiles than all other Nobel Peace prize winners combined.


He's still in 2nd place for number of Arab deaths caused (and 3rd place for Muslim deaths) behind Yassir Arafat and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Yeah, I thouht that when a politician got the Nobel, it was for negotiating, or talking, or de-fusing tense situations. 

The pic came from here. 

Bill Clinton attacks Rand Paul and Republicans and gets some of it right

From Bill Estep, of the Lexington Herald-Leader.  This is ex-President Bill Clinton, on Wannabe Senator Rand Paul's radical ideas:

Former President Bill Clinton stumped for fellow Democrat Jack Conway on Monday, delivering a strongly-worded repudiation of Republican Rand Paul and his “radical ideas” for a smaller government.

We might as well start there, with the "radical ideas" for a smaller government.  There is no moderate, prudent, incremental way to get out of a 14 trillion dollar debt.  Screw it, it can't be done. 

Kentucky’s U.S. Senate race is between a practical, progressive moderate who has a plan....

....O God, another Democrat with a plan.  He's also a "moderate".  I'm sick of moderates who reach across the aisle in a bipartisan effort to work with the other side to move the agenda forward and "get something done for the American people".  I wish we could boil our choices down to the extremists in each camp. 

Moderates have almost compromised us out of existence. 

.... versus a guy “with radical ideas and no record to back it up,” Clinton told a few thousand people gathered outside the Administration Building at the University of Kentucky.

Once again, the job is going to require radical ideas.  Radical ideas aren't a defect.  They're a selling point. 

Clinton said Paul would roll back federal protection for people with disabilities....

When time permits, go here to see how much the Americans With Disabilities Act has helped Americans With Disabilities.  (Their employment rate was increasing nicely until our government decided to help 'em out.)

.... while pushing tax cuts for rich people.

This dead horse has been beaten until it's a pulpy mess that even vultures are avoiding.  The top 50% of the earners pay 97% of the taxes.  If taxes are going to be cut significantly, if we're going to get more money out into the productive economy, if we're going to stop politicians from giving your money to their friends, contractors, military suppliers, drug warriors, hangers-on, deadbeats, regulators, worry-warts, global warmists, human barnacles, bureaucrats, slot-fillers, inspectors, teachers who can't teach, African Genital Washers, border guards, obesity police and ethanol subsidizers, then the tax cuts are going to have to go to the people in the top income levels.  It really is that simple.  You can't cut any lower than zero, and the non-rich are already at zero. 

He also mentioned the possibility of cuts to food safety....

These are the people who gave a huge thumbs-up to Oxycontin, but continue to outlaw medical marijuana.  For decades, they advised that you eat 6-11 daily servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta. 

....air traffic control....

Heck yes !  Privatize it ! 

 ....education....

Oh, for the love of God and all things holy.  Is there any dollar amount that will ever be enough?  In the last 25 years we've almost doubled the spending on education, and the needle hasn't budged.  Privatize it tomorrow.  Let a thousand flowers bloom.  See what else works and watch parents flock to it. 

 and workplace training

In the last 9 months, I've probably cycled through 100 Temp Employees.  Almost all of them have been through some kind of workplace training, courtesy of Community Colleges, Job Training Boondoggles, or even Porkulus funds.  One of them, one out of a hundred, could do a halfway decent job of making some numeric signs with Microsoft Word.  I think we can cut Uncle Sam's workplace training programs with no loss of national productivity. 

....among other things. Republicans try to portray Democrats as the party of big government spending while claiming to be the party of restraint, Clinton said.

Well, he got that right.  Until Obama, Reid and Pelosi made them look like skinflint penny pinchers, Republicans spent more than Democrats.  If you're interested, here's something I wrote back in the bright sunshiny period of 2008, back when I actually thought that there was no way ANYONE could EVER outspend George W. Bush.  It's pretty funny to look back on. 

Sheesh.  Obama has made Bush look like Ebeneezer Scrooge. 

Anyway, back to my point....There is no moderate way to get us out of a 14 trillion dollar hole.  Seriously, can you imagine the Republicans shutting down the Department Of Energy?  It's the biggest waste in Washington, but no Republican candidate has mentioned closing it.  Department of Education?  No way.  How about privatizing Social Security, or at least letting us opt out of the program?  Nope.  That's the 3rd rail. 

Republicans spend like there's no tomorrow, usually on a war against drugs or terror or imported wheat or illegal Messicans. 

So please consider the Libertarian Party this November.  We don't want to run anything, we simply want to kill The Beast.  We don't want to lead you, we want you to be left alone.  We want to march on Washington and demand.....nothing. 

And remember what Bill Clinton said, and what has been the case for the last 30 years or so.  If you want a smaller government, voting Republican is a wasted vote. 

Wiener Dog barrel racing

Everybody needs a goal.
Some people want to save the world.
Some people want to train dachsunds to properly do a barrel race.
Mission Accomplished ! ! !

A new goal

I have many, many goals to achieve in my remaining years of life. 

One of them is to make it onto this list.