China's Strangle Hold on High-Tech Manufacturing

 

Why is China so dominate in high-tech manufacturing?  Is it because of cheap labor?  No.  It is because the West has ceded the Rare Earths market to them, and now they demand that manufacturing gets done in their country. Rare Earth elements are vital in the creation of high-tech electronics from smart phones and computers to defense industry.

The United States and other western powers must rebuild our Rare Earths capabilities, or be held hostage to the whims of the communist government of China.

Here are two videos that lay out the issues:

COVID-19: The New York Problem

I'm not sure exactly what to make of the chart below, but it is very interesting.  This chart shows the total number of reported COVID-19 deaths in all fifty states plus D.C., sorted by population (as of 4/17/20).

As this shows, New York, the fourth most populous state, is an outlier in the country.  And, from what we know, it is particularly New York City where the vast majority of reported deaths have happened.  The next highest number of deaths, New Jersey, NYC's closest neighbor is only 22% of that of New York.  California, the most populous state, is at only 6% that of New York.

Yes, there are sound reasons why New York would have the highest numbers.  While the state is the fourth most populous, New York City (8.2 million) is the most populous city in the country, by far.  The next closest city, Los Angeles is only 49% the size, and not nearly as dense.  But, should New York be this far out of the average?  

Maybe, but lets examine some theoretical possibilities.  Maybe it is because there are so many flights that come to New York from China, where the virus started.  That is why there was so much worry about Washington (state) and California early on, but they are at 4% and 6% of New York deaths.  Maybe everyone else has just done a much better job in limiting the spread of the virus?  I can't believe this is true.

We know, and I covered in a previous post, that the number of deaths have been very liberally counted...I would say over reported.  Could it be that some of the difference is due to a higher level of over-reporting?  Maybe.  As was reported in The Telegraph, Italy now says that only 12% of the deaths reported as caused by COVID-19, were actually caused by the virus.  How much over-reporting in New York?  We can't be sure yet, but let's say, because of the density of  NYC, that their real numbers are up to 25% of reported.  That would be 4282 deaths, still the highest in the country, but seems much more in line.  Regardless of the percentages, I think this whole subject needs to be closely examined...starting now.  This is very important data to have correct when you are making decisions on locking down the economy.

So, what can we do with this data?  Well, if we are going to shut down any economies, maybe we should just do it to New York, and maybe, New York City in particular.   If you break down the number of deaths, you will see that:

• 20 states have under 100 deaths
• 32 states are under 200 deaths
• 43 are under 1000

But maybe this isn't the right metric, due to the relative populations.  So what if we look at Deaths/1M Population?  This is a much better way to view the effect on a given population. If we look at it this way, 43 states are under 100 deaths per million in population.  New York is at 873 per million.  So maybe we lock down the states that are over 100 deaths per million in population?

Regardless of how you look at it, New York is an extreme outlier and we should make it a priority to find out why.  We should also not make policy for the whole country based on New York.  In many types of analysis, you take outliers like this and throw them out because you don't want to make decisions based on the extremes.  If we do have an over-reporting issue in a few states, and those states are locked down when others aren't, I would imagine that they would get their numbers corrected quickly.

As I have said before, and I blame this as much on the Trump administration as on the over-hyping of the media and the Democrats, but I repeat myself (as Andrew Klavan says).  There are not only two choices...SHUT DOWN or WE ALL DIE.  We need much better leadership at all levels than we are getting.  There needs to be more subtly in our response.  This should not be viewed as one size fits all.

#CriticalThinking  #QuestionPower 

EDIT 4/27/20: A new study by MIT economist Jeffery Harris suggests that one of the big causes of such high numbers in NYC may be the subway system.  This article by Reason.com provides an overview of the findings.

US COVID-19 Deaths Surpass Influenza...Or Has It?

So, COVID-19 deaths have exceeded those of what we have been seeing for seasonal influenza...just as the "experts" told us they would.  But, have they really?

It has been admitted that, as Dr. Deborah Birx said in a recent press conference, "...in this country, we've taken a very liberal approach to mortality."  She went on to say,  "There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem. Some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death."  She then concludes that, "The intent is right now if someone dies with COVID-19, we're counting that as a COVID-19 death."

Notice the difference.  If you died with COVID-19, they are counting it as you died from COVID-19.  And, I will remind you, that even with the "very liberal" accounting of COVID-19 deaths, it is still far lower than pneumonia deaths (42,560 in the first 12 weeks of 2020 alone).

But there is also more to this story.  Dr. Birx talks about the virus "causing" you to go to the ICU, but there are reports coming out, like this one on Fox News from Dr. Scott Jensen, that, unlike at other times, doctors are being encouraged to count deaths of nearly any kind as a COVID-19 death if they have been confirmed to have have the virus.  Dr. Jensen said, "If I have a patient died a month ago, had fever, a cough, and died after three days and had maybe been an elderly, fragile individual, and there happened to be an influenza epidemic around our community, I wouldn't put influenza on the death certificate, and I've never been encouraged to do so.  I would put, probably, respiratory arrest would be the top line and the underlying cause disease would be pneumonia, and in the contributing factors I might well put emphysema or congestive heart failure.  But, I would never put influenza down as the underlying cause of death, and yet, that's what we're being asked to do here."

Much has also been made of the bad time that Italy has had with the virus.  In fact the US and other countries have been using numbers from Italy to model the possible spread and lethality of the epidemic.

But, is Italy the proper case to base a model on.  It has been widely discussed that Italy's demographics skew significantly toward the older population, which are the most vulnerable to COVID-19.  As reported in The Telegraph:

According to Prof Walter Ricciardi, scientific adviser to Italy’s minister of health, the country’s mortality rate is far higher due to demographics - the nation has the second oldest population worldwide - and the manner in which hospitals record deaths. 

“The age of our patients in hospitals is substantially older - the median is 67, while in China it was 46,” Prof Ricciardi says. “So essentially the age distribution of our patients is squeezed to an older age and this is substantial in increasing the lethality.” 

But, beyond the demographic issues with Italy, we now learn that Italy too used a very liberal accounting for COVID-19 deaths.  From The Telegraph again:

“The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says. 

Read it again!  "only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus."  12 percent...TWELVE...the number of deaths times 0.12.  Okay, that's significant!

So, what would the chart look like if the US over-reporting was in the same range as Italy?  And remember what Dr. Birx said above, "very liberal."  It would look something like this:

This is much more in-line with what some experts on epidemics were predicting.

The point I will make is that if we are to take such drastic steps...steps that are causing massive unemployment like we have never seen...we have to be more sure of the numbers.  The devastation to the economy in the long-term could likely be much worse than the short-term affects of the coronavirus pandemic.

I am not going offer conjecture on all the reasons for over-estimating the numbers so massively.  I also admit that some number of the cases where COVID-19 was not the cause of death, it may have been a contributing factor.  The point I will make is that if we are to take such drastic steps...steps that are causing massive unemployment like we have never seen...we have to be more sure of the numbers.  The devastation to the economy in the long-term could likely be much worse than the short-term affects of the coronavirus pandemic.

These are the kinds of results you get when you allow "government experts," of any kind, to make extremely consequential decisions for the whole country.  Remember that their initial models that caused the panic to begin with...the ones that launched the police-state lock-downs...were that 2 million Americans could die.  They have continued to back down those predictions, but their prescription has remained the same, and has gotten worse as more and more jurisdictions have inflicted stricter "social distancing" mandates on their citizens.

Fauci, Birix and the other CDC experts are all working from mathematical modeling that, as Fauci admits "are only as good as the assumptions you put into the model."  But, while he claims to not pay too close attention to the models, these were the numbers that have been reported that caused panic and were, at least in the early days, used to justify the lock-downs.

But these experts are only expert in one, narrow area.  They are not economists...they don't have any real concern for economic realities.  Their concern has always been expressed about "overwhelming the healthcare system."  In addition, the experts in charge...the ones who have the current levers of power...are allowed to ignore other, contradicting expert opinions, like Stanford University epidemiologist John Ioannidis and others.  Some say that "flattening the curve" only prolongs the problem, and therefore the economic affects, by delaying the acquisition of "herd immunity" in the population.  But, they only allow voices that agree with their assessments, even as they are shown to be wrong.

A sample epidemic curve, with and without social distancing. 

Image credit: Johannes Kalliauer/ CC BY-SA 4.0)

 Notice in the diagram above, "flattening the curve" may help the health care system, but it drags the over-all problem out over a much longer time horizon.  This will, therefore cause longer-term negative effects to the economy.  The longer a business is kept from pursuing revenue, the less likely it will be able to survive...the higher the number of long-term unemployed and financial damage.  But, as you can see from the diagram, the total number of deaths is likely to be nearly the same.

While we know that the defense of the "flattening the curve" approach is to guard against overwhelming the healthcare system, have we really critically questioned the assumptions.  Yes, some areas are being hit hard, New York City, in particular, but nothing like what was predicted.  Remember, Governor Anthony Cuomo's exasperated question "What am I going to do with four hundred ventilators when I need thirty thousands?"  Well, it hasn't turned out that they have needed anywhere near that number.  But even if it had been worse than it is, we have the vast majority of the rest of the country with excess healthcare sitting idle with employees being furloughed..  Surely we could have made this work in the short term to get through this faster.

When asked about when we can expect to open the country back up, Dr. Fauci said. "I think reopening it is not going to be like a light switch that you switch on or off.  Because, if you look at throughout the country, it's a large country and the outbreaks are really quite different, depending on where you are."  This seems to make some sense, but the question I have is why did we have to switch the country off all at one time?   As Fauci continued, "New York, New Jersey area is very different from now what we've seen in Washington State and in California, in which there was the threat of a real big spike, but it really didn't occur and is at that low level."

In fact, it is true that areas in the country are very different.  The following chart shows the number of deaths (reportedly) caused by COVID-19 per State as of April 10th.

 So, from this chart, we have to ask, why do we have nearly the entire country on lock-down?  The answer is simple...FEAR.  Fear started and perpetuated by the so-called experts, based on faulty mathematical modeling.  Fear of the disease...but also fear that politicians of all stripes might be held responsible for not doing enough.  Fear that was not tempered in any way by the opinion of other "experts" in the same or other areas.  I've laid out what I think some of the other causes have been in a previous post.

The arguments we keep seeing are based on a false dichotomy.  There are not only two choices: Total shut-down...OR...we're all going to die!  There are many, many choices in between.  As we get through this current scare and come out the other side, I hope, and believe that the economy will rebound.  There is no-doubt pent up demand that is being held back by the lock-down.  But, how many of your favorite businesses will survive it?  How many people will be out of jobs?  The longer this goes, the worse those effects will be.  Let's start reversing this lock-down anywhere we can...NOW.

We cannot retain our liberty if we uncritically accept anything that comes from so-called government experts.

Anatomy of a Panic

UPDATE:  Just to be clear, when I speak of COVID not being as bad as other flu epidemics, I'm talking about the number of deaths.  That is the bottom chart on this page.  And, the vast majority of cases, by the reported numbers, worldwide and in the US, are MILD.  I understand that this does not mean fun.

While the statistics, and some very distinguished experts are saying that COV-19 is not as bad as other, seasonal flu epidemics...that the recovery rate is good...that those at risk of death are basically the same as any other flu seasons (the elderly and those with preexisting medical conditions), why does it seem like politicians, companies, schools, sports teams, etc. are completely in support of the extreme measure of shutting down the economy?  That HAS TO MEAN that it really is bad, right?

Well in my opinion, NO!  How, then, did this happen?  Here’s how I see it:

RATINGS:  The 24/7 news media loves this stuff.  They live for panics, catastrophes, and other mayhem, because it brings them big ratings.  It makes the individual reporters and talking heads feel important.  We have seen this many times before, and they don’t care who they hurt, as long as they get their ratings.  That’s the start of it.

This is not all of media, of course.  Many in media are just like many in the general public, unfortunately, they just uncritically pass along what they are being told.  What makes even most of these followers so bad, though, is that they have to play up what they are repeating, by using grim tones, and looking very serious...for their own ratings.

POLITICS: It is an election year.  The press HATES President Trump.  That’s the next part.  They have been using this issue, like other panics (real or manufactured), to blame it on Trump.  To claim that he is not properly responding to the latest likely apocalypse.  You know, like they tried to blame Hurricane Katrina on President Bush.

Then Trump’s political rivals chime in...they have to make the panic big so they can make the blame big.  The most important thing to politicians is getting their power...and they, like the press, don’t care who they hurt.

Now the lower tiers of politicians have to get into the act to prove that they are on top of things.  So Governors, County Executives, and Mayors, all have to go on TV to show that they are taking proper actions. They don’t want anyone to blame them for improper response, you know, just in case any of this is true.

Then other institutions...universities, and the schools, heaven forbid one of their students gets the virus, even though it’s milder than other forms of flu for the vast majority of people.  They would be crucified by the parents.

SNOWBALL EFFECT:  Now, the momentum is large enough that, even though the epidemic is already on the down swing in China, where it began...even though the statistics show it’s not that bad, compared to other common outbreaks...it’s too late.  The snowball is rolling down hill too fast to stop it now.  Now cities are canceling parades...sports leagues are canceling seasons...businesses are canceling all travel and expanding work from home.  Because they don’t want to be seen as uncaring or ineffectual.

The majority of people are now fully invested in the narrative.  They call for government to "save them."  They want more and more strict actions to make sure they don't get this horrible "novel virus."  And the snowball grows...and the snowball moves faster...and the snowball destroys what's in its path.

PERSPECTIVE: Is COVID-19 a pandemic?  Yes, of course it is.  But that just means that it has spread around the world, not that it is the zombie apocalypse.  Have people died?  Yes, unfortunately.  But this happens EVERY flu season.  Can the virus become particularly nasty? Yes...like many strains of Influenza.  Should you wash your hands and avoid other sick people?  Of course.  Should we even take unusual actions to protect the most vulnerable, like those in nursing homes, and those with other high-risk factors?  Yes, those people should take precautions and probably practice an appropriate amount of isolation.

But should we panic?  Absolutely not.  This thing is way overblown.  Hospitals are becoming
overwhelmed, not by a horrible pestilence, but by panicked overreaction.

How can I say this?  Because the numbers are clear.  Looking at the numbers being published from all over the world, the vast majority of those who get the virus have MILD symptoms (94.57%) to those with SERIOUS/CRITICAL (5.43%).  Similar in the US (MILD-97.53%; SERIOUS/CRITICAL-2.47%).  But, I hear what some of you are saying..."What about Italy, smart guy?  It is horrible over there.  We could be just weeks...or days behind them."  Italy is having a bad time of it, but they have the oldest population on the oldest continent in the world.  This is the most vulnerable group.   Italy (MILD-94.38%; SERIOUS/CRITICAL-5.62%)

There are, at the writing of this post, 99,908 active cases in the US.  2,463 are SERIOUS/CRITICAL.  This is across the whole country.  In general, Serious means hospitalized...Critical means in the ICU.  We are not given the percentages between these categories.

Certainly there are higher concentrations of active cases in more populous areas, like New York City.  But at 2,436  SERIOUS/CRITICAL cases in the whole country, how is it that the US Healthcare System is in danger of being overwhelmed?  In fact, hospitals around the country are furloughing people because of the lock-down.  They just don't have the patients.  If some hospitals are overwhelmed, is it from serious cases, or from panicked people clogging the ERs because they have some kind of symptoms and have been scared by the hype.  Would they have even called their doctor this time last year for the same symptoms?  We're not being told those statistics, but refer back to 97.53% MILD from above.

Do some searching on the Internet.  You will find dire predictions from past flu seasons also.  You will also find isolated areas where a hospital or two were being overwhelmed.  But we never locked down the country...even with past "novel viruses."

Businesses will lose billions of dollars.  The stock market is tanked.  Jobs are already being lost...because, like every few years, there’s a new virus strain.  This one just happened to take off quickly in a region of China, and we are at peak media frenzy.

Additionally, this:

"British scientist Neil Ferguson ignited the world’s drastic response to the novel Wuhan coronavirus when he published the bombshell report predicting 2.2 million Americans and more than half a million Brits would be killed. After both the U.S. and U.K. governments effectively shut down their citizens and economies, Ferguson is walking back his doomsday scenarios."

"But after tens of thousands of restaurants, bars, and businesses closed, Ferguson is now retracting his modeling, saying he feels “reasonably confident” our health care system can cope when the predicted peak of the epidemic arrives in a few weeks. Testifying before the U.K.’s parliamentary select committee on science and technology on Wednesday, Ferguson said he now predicts U.K. deaths from the disease will not exceed 20,000, and could be much lower."

You may disagree, but that’s how I see it. Just my opinion.  That and four bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  But, I just don't see a lot of critical thinking around this subject.  Those experts who are making the case for more reasonable response and lack of panic are being drowned out by the noise.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." ~ Agent K, Men In Black

COVID-19 in Perspective

I have been making the case that the COVID-19 Pandemic should be kept in perspective with other epidemics.  I spent some time looking at statistics and here's what I've found.

While many people are claiming that COVID-19 is particularly devastating, if you compare it to Influenza, it clearly is not even close.  I pulled the current statistics for COVID-19 here, and downloaded a table from the CDC here to get the summary in the tables below.

As these statistics show, Influenza causes way more deaths every year in the US than COVID-19 has any signs of showing so far.  In fact the COVID-19 death rate in the US is currently only about 0.15 deaths per 100,000 in population.  This compared to Influenza in just the first 10 weeks of 2020 where the rate is 1.31 per 100,000.

Additionally, if you look at death rates for Influenza in 2018, you see that these rates jumped all the way up to 4.43 per 100,000.  With 14,510 deaths that year, it was nearly as high as the current COVID-ID deaths world-wide.  I doubt that many outside the health field even remember that 2018 was a particularly bad year for the flu.

While it is relatively early in the COVID-19 cycle, the numbers seem quite low in comparison.  Remember, the 2020 Influenza  deaths are for only the first ten weeks of the year, where the COVID numbers are total for this outbreak.

We are, at the time of this writing, in week 13 of 2020.  The COVID numbers will surely go up...but so will the Influenza numbers.  According to the CDC table, the Influenza deaths start dropping off rather quickly from here...bottoming out at about week 21 - 23.  Many expect COVID-19 to follow a similar trajectory. Chart below shows Influenza deaths.  Notice the large spike in 2018.

With numbers like these, does it make sense to be taking the extreme measures we now are seeing?  Steps that by all accounts, Republican and Democrats agree, will certainly cause significant damage to the economy. Estimates are that the recession could be significantly worse than we had in 2008, with 20% unemployment, and cost over $1T in government bailouts.  What happens next year, or the year after when another bad flu season comes along?  Can we afford these kinds of actions from our overzealous politicians?

This data was easily found.  It is from reputable sources.  Don't take my word, look for yourselves.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ~  Benjamin Franklin

Cult of the State

I was just accused of being a cultist on a social media thread because I stated that I did not believe Jesus advocated the taking of people's money, by threat of force, and giving it to others as a proxy for the individuals taking care of the poor themselves.  Yes.  This is what we have come to.  People truly believing that the nameless, faceless, feckless mass of government bureaucrats are God's instruments on earth and without them, we would certainly all die.   And I am a cultist?

No, the true cultists are those who look to the State for their sustenance, comfort, and security.  Those who believe that without the all-mighty State, all forms of modern life are impossible.  Who excuse the State's misdeeds and criminal activity as necessary for our safety.  These cultists are so blind that they believe that the ever-broadening violations of our God-given and Constitutionally-codified rights actually somehow secure our liberty.  And the funny thing is, these same Statists would certainly look down their noses in disdain or pity at the citizens of countries like North Korea for believing that their leader is a god.

Look, don't many religious cults start with a twisting of the basic tenets of their religion?  Then, they build up individuals and groups of people as divine representatives.  Their leaders or dogma must not be questioned.  There is no thought or debate over these things, only calls of "heretic" for those who dare oppose the divine order.

How are these rabid Statists any different?  They have allowed the basic tenets of our republic, the Constitution and founding documents, to be twisted and tortured in ways that defy logic to accrue more and more power to the deified State.  While they may grumble about certain government representatives or individual agencies, they may never question the over-all necessity for government to sustain our "way of life."  I have yet to see one of these people answer objections with thoughtful, objective apologetics for their view.  You are only met with name calling...kook, racist, idiot, cultist...or changing of the subject. Many times I have prompted them to speak to just one specific point in my argument and tell me how I am wrong...They never do.

Then, to make the deification of the State complete, the true believers co-opt religion to justify their worship and eradicate any last resistance of the sheeple.  They twist sacred scriptures to make you believe that it is unrighteous to question the truth of their dogma.

In particular, Statists use the Bible to attempt to justify the theft by government of more-and-more of your wealth.  They say Jesus advocated taking care of the poor, the sick and the orphans...and indeed he did.  Since they have been so indoctrinated in the Cult of State, though, they can't imagine how this can mean anything other than forced redistribution of wealth.  In his book Biblical Economics, theologian R. C. Sproul, probably a cultist himself, I guess, begs to differ with the Statists:

"I am convinced that political and economic policies involving the forced redistribution of wealth via government intervention are neither right nor safe. Such policies are both unethical and ineffective…. On the surface it would seem that socialists are on God's side. Unfortunately, their programs and their means foster greater poverty even though their hearts remain loyal to eliminating poverty. The tragic fallacy that invades socialist thinking is that there is a necessary, causal connection between the wealth of the wealthy and the poverty of the poor. Socialists assume that one man's wealth is based on another man's poverty; therefore, to stop poverty and help the poor man, we must have socialism."

The evidence is overwhelming that the government is a failure at caring for the poor.  Trillions of dollars spent on the so-called "War on Poverty" and we have millions and millions of people who are  generationally dependent government hand-outs.  I am convinced that it is counter-productive and irresponsible to trust government with caring for the poor.  In his book Rollback, Dr. Thomas E.  Woods points this out about our so-called Welfare system:

"Another way to approach it is to recall that at least two-thirds of the money assigned to government welfare budgets is eaten up by bureaucracy. Taken by itself, this would mean it would take three dollars in taxes for one dollar to reach the poor. But we must add to this the well-founded estimate of James Payne that the combined public and private costs of taxation amount to 65 cents of every dollar taxed. When we include this factor, we find the cost of government delivery of one dollar to the poor to be five dollars."

Is this good stewardship of the wealth with which we have been blessed?  How would the master of the Parable of the Talents view this?  Even the foolish servant only buried the talents.  He did not waste them on some crooked scheme that had a long and continuous history of waste and failure.  Especially in view of the fact that the government has no money.  It continues to amass huge, crushing debts that will be pushed off to future generations not yet born to pay for its wonderful largess to the poor.

In his article Rendering Unto Caesar: Was Jesus a Socialist,  Lawrence W. Reed provides this summary after an exhaustive study of the Bible:

In Jesus's teachings and in many other parts of the New Testament, Christians — indeed, all people — are advised to be of "generous spirit," to care for one's family, to help the poor, to assist widows and orphans, to exhibit kindness and to maintain the highest character. How all that gets translated into the dirty business of coercive, vote-buying, politically driven redistribution schemes is a problem for prevaricators with agendas. It's not a problem for scholars of what the Bible actually says and doesn't say. 

Search your conscience. Consider the evidence. Be mindful of facts. Ask yourself: When it comes to helping the poor, would Jesus prefer that you give your money freely to the Salvation Army or at gunpoint to the welfare department? 

Jesus was no dummy. He was not interested in the public professions of charitableness in which the legalistic and hypocritical Pharisees were fond of engaging. He dismissed their self-serving, cheap talk. He knew it was often insincere, rarely indicative of how they conducted their personal affairs, and always a dead end with plenty of snares and delusions along the way. It would hardly make sense for him to champion the poor by supporting policies that undermine the process of wealth creation necessary to help them. In the final analysis, he would never endorse a scheme that doesn't work and is rooted in envy or theft. In spite of the attempts of many modern-day progressives to make him into a welfare-state redistributionist, Jesus was nothing of the sort.

I am all for helping the truly needy.  I am all for defending the defenseless.  I just don't think Jesus will credit it as righteousness to steal your neighbor's wealth, through government force, to give it to the poor.  And, if we are going to look to the Bible, let's look at the whole of scripture:

" For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat." - 2 Thessalonians 3:10

"Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." 1 Timothy 5:8

They never want to talk about these passages.

Related Links:
The Ten Commandments of the Federal Government
Godless Socialists
The Sin of Redistribution

Consider the Humble Pencil

In 1958, Leonard E. Read published an article titled,
I, Pencil: My Family Tree as told to Leonard E. Read.  This short story very succinctly describes what Read calls the "miracle of ...millions of tiny know-hows" that go into producing something as simple as a pencil. It has become a classic amongst proponents of free markets.  The actual article can be read here.

What is this miraculous process?  There is the harvesting of the cedar wood used to make the body of the pencil and all of the tools, transportation, housing and food for workers, etc. that are required for this seemingly simple task.  The graphite that is mined in Ceylon (present day Sri Lanka), mixed with clay from Mississippi, acid, tallow and other ingredients to make the "lead" of the pencil, with all of the background tools processes, and requirements. Not to mention the rubber for the eraser, the metal for the ferrule, and the lacquer to paint the wood.

All-in-all, millions of people, all with their own skills and knowledge, their know-hows, are involved in the production of something as mundane as a pencil.  

"I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple."

How can a pencil represent such an important concept as to be important to our very liberty?  It is in understanding the concept that the process of making something so simple takes so many millions of voluntary interactions between people spread across the world.  That all of these processes could never be planned, let alone controlled by one person, group or even government...and this one of the simplest of items.  How then can the central planners of government think they can control whole industries?  Economies?  The climate?  They cannot.

"Once government has had a monopoly of a creative activity such, for instance, as the delivery of the mails, most individuals will believe that the mails could not be efficiently delivered by men acting freely. And here is the reason: Each one acknowledges that he himself doesn't know how to do all the things incident to mail delivery. He also recognizes that no other individual could do it. These assumptions are correct. No individual possesses enough know-how to perform a nation's mail delivery any more than any individual possesses enough know-how to make a pencil. Now, in the absence of faith in free people—in the unawareness that millions of tiny know-hows would naturally and miraculously form and cooperate to satisfy this necessity—the individual cannot help but reach the erroneous conclusion that mail can be delivered only by governmental 'master-minding.'"

But, since 1958, it has been more than proven that the government is grossly inept at delivering the mail.  Companies like FedEx, UPS and others have proven that private firms can bring innovation and efficiencies to the process and allows them to turn a tidy profit.  The US Postal Service would have been defunct years ago if it weren't subsidized by taxpayers.  And this is just one of thousands of areas where government is completely inept.  Yet we continue to believe that they know best.  We continue to allow them to control us.  And this, more than anything else, threatens our liberty.

The video below is a great six minute coverage of all of the concepts from the article...with great graphics in living color.  Enjoy.

Selfish People Suck!

I am personally sick-and-tired of all the selfishness in the United States.  So many today care only about their own comfort and desires, with no concern whatsoever about those around them or their community at large.

Who are these selfish people of whom I speak?  All those who believe that just by the fact of their existence, somebody owes them.  Those who think that just because they live, they have the right to make claims against the fruits of my labor; who have no qualms about having others confiscate what I have earned for my family and my future by threat of force and violence.

People who have not done what I have had to do to get where I am...who haven't gone in debt to get the education they need to find a good paying job...who didn't walk over a mile to where they could hitch a ride to school for this training...those who haven't been careful to make decisions along the way to get the experience they need to advance...who still think they have a right to my labor so that they can have cable TV, a cell phone, cigarettes and beer...these are some of the selfish people of whom I speak. These are the members of the entitlement class.

The other selfish group are those who care only about their own power and position...the ruling class elites.  This group wields the weapons of force to confiscate the fruits of my labor to buy the votes of the entitlement class.  They care little for either the producer or the entitled.  They will do whatever they must to accrue more and more power unto themselves...even to the point of paying for their lust on the backs of generations yet unborn.  They don't care if their policies of ever increasing and irresponsible spending cause future calamity for society, as long as they get the control they crave now.

It is not the producer, who works to provide for himself and his family, who asks nothing of anyone else, who is selfish.  It is not selfish to want to keep hold of what you have worked for...this is a foundational principle upon which our country was based.  The producer does not mind chipping in for basic services that make modern life possible, but they should not be expected to pay for a hugely bloated bureaucracy that seems geared toward squeezing more and more of the juice from the fruits of his labor every year.  He should not be forced to pay for those too short-sighted...or just plain lazy to take care of themselves and their own families.

Whatever the producers pay seems never to be enough for the entitled and the elite.  We are supposed to be happy to endure another tax, or fee hike, "It's for the common good," they say.  And after all, "it's only a few more dollars, what's the big deal?"  But, it's the cumulative effect of a few dollars for this tax, and that tax and the other fee, year after year that has brought the burden on the producer to be more than 50% of most people's income...and still it is not enough.  We are told that we shouldn't be so selfish.  The hubris! The unmitigated gall! No, it is not we, the productive class, who are selfish.  It is the entitled and elite.  Without the producers the whole system collapses under it's own weight...and there are less and less producers and more and more...parasites every year.

This is what I mean about being sick-and-tired...this is who I mean when I say,

Selfish People Suck!

Default is Last Resort...Not First!

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned." from Section 4 of the 14th Amendment.

Believing that not raising the debt ceiling equals default means that you must believe that every penny the government is now spending is absolutely necessary...that not one penny can be cut.  The 14th Amendment spells out that the legally incurred debt of the United States cannot be questioned...in other words, it is a debt and must be paid.  Defaulting on debt, therefore is the last resort...after all other measures have been exhausted.  In this current "crisis," however, no other measures are being even considered or negotiated by our imperial dictator.

Before we default on debt, we should...must...cut other spending to the point where we can service our current debt.  We can reduce or eliminate discretionary spending.  We could eliminate departments of government that are inefficient, out-dated, corrupt, or unconstitutional...which is most of them.  We can stop maintaining national parks...national public radio.  We can pull out of the United Nations and eliminate that obligation.  We can eliminate federal funding for food stamps, welfare, and socialized medicine.  We can do very many other things that do not affect the rightful and constitutional operation of what is meant to be a very limited Federal government.  But we cannot constitutionally default on our debt.

If the President of the United States willfully defaults on our legal debt, he should be immediately removed from office and possibly imprisoned for breaking federal law.  If our Congress allows him to default, the States, from whom the Federal government gets it's power, must rise up and recall and replace them with those who will live up to the oath of defending the Constitution.

REPEAL THE 17th AMENDMENT!

ENFORCE THE 10th AMENDMENT!

Debt Limit and Default

President Obama is a liar and if HE CAUSES a default, he should immediately be removed from office. Representative Tom McClintock (R- CA) lays out the case that not only does failure to raise the debt limit not equal default, that it would have to be a conscience decision of the President, against the laws of the land, for the country to default.

We must destroy the Imperial Presidency in this country, along with the elitism of the Senate.  We must take back power to the States and the People and return these offices to their constitutionally proscribed limits.

REPEAL THE 17th AMENDMENT!

ENFORCE THE 10th AMENDMENT!

You're not exempt from the math

This is a very simple and unemotional explanation on why Obamacare sucks.  Dave Ramsey does a great job explaining that regardless of how people may want there to be some kind of magic that will allow this monstrosity of a law to work as we were promised it would...you can't escape the simple math of the situation.

Govt Shutdown - Report from Out Here: Day 4

DAY 4:

I saw something this morning that really surprised me...a school bus....with kids on it.  Yes, I found out the schools are still open.  Huh...how can that be?

I talked to a neighbor and they told me that there would be school on Monday too...that will be day seven of the shut down and they still haven't closed the schools.  Once again, I'm amazed.  How can we hope to educate our youth without the ever present Federal bureaucracy?

Well, probably the same way we always do...at the State, county and local school district level.  The US Department of Education does nothing to educate children.  They only get in the way of the local school boards and skim money from the tax roles that could be better used to pay teachers and improve schools.  The US Department of Education has only been in existence since 1979, and in that time the US has steadily slipped in test scores and is now ranked 17th in the world for education.  A lot of good that $68 billion a year does for us.

And remember, like every other department and program, the money for the Department of Education...including the money it gives out in grants...comes from the people of the States.  First, they skim their sizable share off the top, and then they use what's left to bribe States and local schools to operate in the way the central planners think best.

Hmmm...one more reason we don't need an all-intrusive Federal leviathan.  Hey, I'm thinking we really do need to keep this shut down going!

Govt Shutdown - Report from Out Here

DAY 1:
Well, the government shut down and I looked around my neighborhood...drove through the area...Traffic lights were still working...businesses still operating...People were going about their lives as if nothing has changed. How can this be? I thought if we had a government shut down, it was the end of the world as we know it. I'll have to wait a few days...maybe weeks...and check again. I'm sure the world will have come to a crashing halt by then.

DAY 2:
Beginning of day two of the shutdown...or "Slimdown" as some are beginning to call it. Still, the lights are on...the Internet is operational (thank you Al Gore, LOL)...and life, for the VAST MAJORITY of us, continues as normal...Hmmm.

I propose that we insist that this continues for at least one month. That way, we can see the real effect of less government in our lives. At the end of that month, I suggest that we could discontinue most of what we have done without during the experimental period...permanently. And, I think, that is what government fears most and why they are so shrill in their predictions of doom...they fear you...we the people will realize that we *CAN* do with much less of them.

May I also suggest that this is the time for the State legislatures to stand up to their responsibilities.  In our Federal system, the States are *NOT* subjects of the central government in Washington...but rather sovereign entities who have entered a pact with other states to form a federation to their mutual benefits. Each State should look after the welfare of their own citizens and businesses with jealous zeal, not allowing anyone to cause them harm or limit their freedom...even the Federal government.  If the shenanigans in D.C. can truly have such a huge impact on the economy of the entire country, I stand with James Madison who declared in the Virginia Resolutions that the States "are duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil."

It is time for the States to reverse the usurpation of their sovereign powers and insist that we return to the principles of the United States Constitution which is the bedrock document on which all other Federal law rests.  If roads need built in a State...the state should not send their money to the Federal government and beg to have it returned to build the road.  Likewise, if a State's people are in need, it is for that State to see to these needs...not to allow their own treasure to be used to control them so that some central politburo can decide how best to meet the needs.

The Federal government is rotten to the core...hopelessly corrupt.  It is time for the States to stand to their feet, reclaim their power, interpose and place the checks on the Federal government that the Constitution intends.

North Korea: The Mouse That Roared?

In 1959, a film starring Peter Sellers, called The Mouse That Roared, was released.  The Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) describes the plot like this:

"An impoverished backward nation declares a war on the United States of America, hoping to lose, but things don't go according to plan. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose and accept foreign aid. They send an invasion force to New York (armed with longbows) which arrives during a nuclear drill that has cleared the streets."

This reminds me of current day North Korea.  North Korea is a country devastated by years of corrupt, centralized, communist control of the economy.  The CIA World Fact Book estimates the entire GDP of the country is only $40 Billion.  It further describes their economy:

North Korea, one of the world's most centrally directed and least open economies, faces chronic economic problems. Industrial capital stock is nearly beyond repair as a result of years of under-investment,  shortages of spare parts, and poor maintenance. Large-scale military spending draws off resources needed for investment and civilian consumption. Industrial and power output have stagnated for years at a fraction of pre-1990 levels. Frequent weather-related crop failures aggravated chronic food shortages caused by on-going systemic problems, including a lack of arable land, collective farming practices, poor soil quality, insufficient fertilization, and persistent shortages of tractors and fuel. Large-scale international food aid deliveries as well as aid from China has allowed the people of North Korea to escape widespread starvation since famine threatened in 1995, but the population continues to suffer from prolonged malnutrition and poor living conditions. 

This is a country on the verge of collapse...if it weren't for foreign aid, they would have already collapsed and starved.

There is no way they can believe that they can actually prevail in a military contest against the South...let alone the United States.  In 1990, I remember the media telling us all how dangerous Iraq was.  We were told that they had the fourth largest standing-army in the world...the largest tank force...and they knew how to wage desert warfare.  The war was, in effect, over in 100 hours.  And, at least Iraq had oil money.  North Korea has no chance what-so-ever.  Even if they do have a nuclear weapon...it is probably only one, or two.  Then they have to be able to deliver it and set it off.  I think chances are better than even that, as in the movie, the bomb could be nothing but a dud.

It would not surprise me if Kim Jong Un's current saber rattling and bluster is nothing more than a scheme to get foreign countries to make concessions, in the form of pay-offs, as an attempt to keep his regime in power. I cannot think of any other possible reason for such foolhardy brinkmanship by North Korea other than hoping to get bought off for "peace."

While I don't think we should take any threat of nuclear attack lightly...I also can't quite take these clowns completely seriously either.  What will their price be?  $40 Billion and Starbucks franchise rights?  Maybe a McDoanlds in Pyongyang?  Whatever it is, we cannot pay it...we cannot allow ourselves to be shaken down by this ridiculous boy dictator.

The best thing for a roaring mouse is a simple mouse trap.

The More Things Change...

It's as true today as it was then...people don't know history...they are clueless about how the economy works...and don't know or care about the consequences of the way they vote.  People STILL believe that the Great Depression was a failure of the Free Market.  Why?  Because those really at fault, government, told them so.  But Friedman tells a different story:

"So the Great Depression was not produced by a failure of business.  On the contrary, it was produced by a failure of government...and a failure of government in an area in which responsibility had been assigned to government since the founding of this country...We have learned from that failure.  The Federal Reserve will not fail in the same way again.  This time it will fail in a different way.  This time it has been failing, not by producing a Great Depression, but by producing an inflation.  Because just as you will hear the story that it was business that was responsible for the depression, so you will today  hear the story that it is labor and management that are responsible for inflation.  It is the same kind of a myth."

The inflation he is speaking of here is in the 1970s when interest rates were in the double-digits and much of the American manufacturing base, such as steel, collapsed.  President Gerald Ford ran on a W.I.N. platform, which stood for Whip Inflation Now.  It was a time of what was being called "hyper-inflation," and it was devastating to our economy.

Today, we are on the verge of another devastation to our economy.  The Federal Reserve is printing more and more money.  This causes the value of the dollar to drop, and therefore, prices to raise...this is inflation.  But who is to blame.  Once again, Friedman tells it like it is:

"Inflation is made in one place, and one place only...Washington D.C.  And in Washington D.C., the chief source...immediate source of inflation...is a Greek temple on Constitution Avenue, which houses the Federal Reserve Board.  An accomplice, and a major accomplice of course, sits in the halls of Congress in Washington.  They are a major accomplice because you tell 'em to be.  The American people have been telling Congress for many years, 'Spend more money on us, please.'  But they've been telling us, 'Don't raise our taxes.'  Congress has been listening.  It's been spending more money on you, but, on the other hand, its been very unwilling to raise taxes.  As a result, its imposed inflation as a tax. That's one tax you don't have to vote for...but you have to pay."

I fear, though, that things are building to be even worse.  With the debt as high as it is, many in government today seem to have no problem both causing inflation and increasing taxes.

Watch the whole video.  It's an interesting history lesson, one that is very relevant for today.

Ashamed?

http://www.cato.org/blog/sequestration-cuts-perspective

On his March 21st show, Rush Limbaugh made the following statement: "Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country." Audio can be found here.

Rush lists as his reason for shame the way we are having "our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it's being." The latest insult to our intelligence for which Rush has gotten so incensed is the maelstrom that is being whipped up over the so-called sequestration cuts to the budget.  As Rush said, it is only "44 billion dollars...that's the total amount of money that will not be spent that was scheduled to be spent this year.  And, in truth, we're gonna spend more this year than we spent last year...There is no real cut below a base-line of zero."  But we are to believe that any cuts at all to the planned spending of our bloated bureaucracy will cause a collapse of all of our necessary government services.  It's as if the line from the movie Ghost Busters is about to come true:

"What he means is Old Testament...real wrath of God type stuff...Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!...Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...The dead rising from the grave!...Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! "

All this over a $44 B cut to the baseline budget.  As Larry Kudlow states, "According to the CBO, budget outlays will come down by $44 billion, or one-quarter of 1 percent of GDP (GDP is $15.8 trillion). What's more, that $44 billion outlay reduction is only 1.25 percent of the $3.6 trillion government budget."  And remember, that is 1.25% of the proposed increased budget over last year...so no real cuts.  Kudlow also observed that:

"Federal outlays as a share of GDP peaked at 25.2 percent in fiscal-year 2009, fell to 24.1 percent in 2011, and came in at 22.8 percent in 2012. The long-term historical norm is about 19 percent, so spending is still way too high. But some progress has been made. And if the GOP sticks to its guns and implements the current sequester, a lot more progress will be made, opening the door to a stronger economy."

"In other words, lower spending and limited government are the exact right medicine for free-market prosperity. The sequester cuts are pro-growth. Finish the job, please."

So, should this make Rush ashamed of his country?  Well, it makes me ashamed.  I love this country and what it has stood for in the history of the world.  But there are many things I am ashamed of when it comes to the current state of our country.  I am ashamed that as a whole, through our votes and indifference, we have allowed our country to come under the control of unscrupulous, power hungry statists.  I'm ashamed that the majority of citizens have given up on the founding principles that made this the freest and most prosperous country in the world.  More than that, they don't even know what those principles are, other than a few platitudes, and worse, don't care.

I am ashamed that after once being the most prosperous, productive and innovative country on the face of the planet, we have become a debtor nation, owing more in debt than the entire GDP of our economy.  That we have fallen behind in education and manufacturing. And that those on the government dole nearly exceeds those who make their own way.  I am ashamed that we seem to have become a country of spoiled, irresponsible children with an entitlement mentality who would rather pass their debt to posterity than give up their government freebies.

I am ashamed that after so much progress has been made since the struggles of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, so many have abandoned Dr. King's dream that people would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."  Too many people follow the purveyors of multiculturalism and class warfare who seek to divide and weaken us...benefiting only the purveyors themselves.  I am ashamed that so many voted for a presidential candidate with no qualifications for the job, an unknown and questionable background with very anti-American associations only because of the color of his skin, or because they believed he would deliver the goodies...like free cell phones.

I'm ashamed that our First Amendment rights are under assault from political correctness....that our Second Amendment rights are being attacked so viciously by the Progressive statists...and most people just shrug and say, "What are you gonna do?"  I'm ashamed that no one can seem to recognize any more that if the government can take rights from those you don't like...they can take them from you.

 Yes, I am ashamed of many aspects of the current state of affairs in this great country.  I am ashamed and afraid that my generation and my parent's generation may have allowed the erosion of our liberties to come to a point where they cannot be reclaimed.  That we may be witness to the final demise of the great American experiment in freedom.

What about you?

Aftermath

I'm a bit too shell shocked to go into any real analysis of the election, so I just wanted to get down some of my general thoughts:

• This is now the second presidential election in a row where the Republican party decided it was best to run a "nice" campaign.  They are so kowtowed by the threats of being called racist, that they would not deal directly and firmly with Obama's history and record.  They allowed the Democrats to continue to distort facts with very little response.  This is a complete lack of leadership and the Republican party deserved to lose.
• It seems to me that we have now become a country, as a whole, who is willing to follow Europe down the socialist debt hole toward insolvency.   Alexis de Tocqueville  is credited with saying, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”  We seem to have reached this point.  We no longer ask what we can do for our country, but want only to know what our country can do for us.  We seem to be willing to sell our legacy for free health care, food stamps and Obama phones.
• The nation has reached a state of shallowness and vapidity from which I fear only truly hard times will shake us.  I saw polling information that said something like 43% of those responding to exit polling said that President Obama's handling of the hurricane Sandy disaster was "very important" to their decision.  This is absolutely astounding...and more than a little distressing...to me.  That someone could, after four years of broken promises, failed policy and nonexistent leadership, see the President acting "presidential" in a brief, staged photo-op after a storm and think that made him a good president is incomprehensible.  The fact that the response of the Federal government has been less than stellar since then means nothing to the Obama groupies with stars in their eyes.
• Half the country seems to be hopelessly invested in class warfare...just like the Russian people were before the communist revolution...or the Germans before the Nazi take over.  This has caused them to draw stark, black and white lines in their minds.  Corporations are always evil and Unions are always good.  Democrats always acts for the good of the people and tell the truth...Republicans are selfish liars who only care about what's best for them and their Corporate overlords.  The rich have stolen everything they have from the poor. They are blind to the fact that absolute power corrupts, absolutely...regardless of party, occupation or income.  They are easily fooled by 20 second sound bites and focus-group tested tag lines.
•  Facts and details mean nothing to many people.  They will not hear the truth that the largess they vote themselves is financed by trillions of dollars of indebtedness to our enemies.  They will not see that the policies of their chosen representatives have caused the financial woes we have been experiencing.   No discussion of corruption...no discussion of the rule of law moves them.  They mock, scoff at and ignore anything that does not agree with the approved party line...and this is on both sides of the political divide.  When confronted with hard issues, they do not answer them...they will only excuse, obfuscate or ignore them...but never deal with them.  If all else fails, they just blame Bush.
• There are no statesmen left...only power hungry politicians. 
• The Republicans are only marginally better than the Democrats...but we were unwilling to move even incrementally toward smaller, less intrusive government.
• I fear for our future.

Debt Limit Looming...Again!

In July of 2011, I did a post with two videos arguing against raising the Federal debt ceiling.  Well, of course they did it...they raised the ceiling.  At that time, we were about to come up against a $14.2 trillion debt limit.  We were told we had to raise the debt ceiling or we would be in default...a lie.  Now, less than a year and a half later, Newsmax,com reports that, "The Obama administration said on Wednesday that the nation would hit the legal limit on its debt near the year's end..."  That's right, now the Central Spending Machine is only "$235 billion below the $16.4 trillion statutory ceiling on the amount it can borrow."  The Debt now exceeds the GDP of the entire country at just over $15 trillion.

In an October 2011 post, when we were a mere $14 trillion in debt, I tried to put the National Debt in Perspective.  In that post I said:

"In 2010, The US government spent more than $413 Billion on interest payments alone. This is more than was spent on The Department of Health and Human Services…The Departments of Transportation, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Homeland Security, Agriculture, Commerce…hold on, I’m almost done…The Department of Treasury, Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration …COMBINED. Just to service current debt. And, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the interest payments on the debt are projected to be $1.1 Trillion a year by 2021, a mere 10 years from now."

I also pointed out that then it would have taken 384 years to pay off the debt if government stopped spending any other money and just paid $100,000,000 a day on the debt.  That time frame has increased by 65 years to 449 years...in a year and a half.

Let me remind you that candidate Obama said of President Bush's addition of $4 trillion to the debt in eight years, "That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."  Which I agreed with.  Now Obama will have raised the debt by more than $6 trillion in four years.

The Debt ceiling has been raised 10 times in the last decade, from $5.9 trillion to $16.4 trillion. And now, the Treasury is already calling for another hike, "As we saw last summer, it is important that the debt limit is raised in a timely manner," said Treasury Assistant Secretary Matthew Rutherford.  

Our credit rating has already fallen.  Our spending is out of control.  We cannot continue to raise the debt ceiling.  We cannot continue to pass results of the current government's irresponsibility down to our children, grandchildren ..and great, great grandchildren.  We need to take responsibility.  We need people who do not allow their votes to be bought with government hand-outs.  We need serious adult leadership in government.  We need to reduce the size and scope of government...and we can't put it off.

Obamanomics

Andrew Klaven provides another humorous and irreverent look at Obama's policies and understanding...or rather lack of understanding of how the economy works.

Klaven refers to James R, Otteson's article, An Audacious Promise: The Moral Case for Capitalism for The Manhattan Institute.   In this article, Otteson points out that while Obama said that "the market" or capitalism "doesn't work. It has never worked," this flies in the face of historical facts:

"Since 1800, the world’s population has increased sixfold; yet despite this enormous increase, real income per person has increased approximately 16-fold. That is a truly amazing achievement. In America, the increase is even more dramatic: in 1800, the total population in America was 5.3 million, life expectancy was 39, and the real gross domestic product per capita was $1,343 (in 2010 dollars); in 2011, our population was 308 million, our life expectancy was 78, and our GDP per capita was $48,800. Thus even while the population increased 58-fold, our life expectancy doubled, and our GDP per capita increased almost 36-fold. Such growth is unprecedented in the history of humankind. Considering that worldwide per-capita real income for the previous 99.9 percent of human existence averaged consistently around $1 per day, that is extraordinary. "

"What explains it? It would seem that it is due principally to the complex of institutions usually included under the term “capitalism,” since the main thing that changed between 200 years ago and the previous 100,000 years of human history was the introduction and embrace of so-called capitalist institutions—particularly, private property and markets."

The article goes on to show that, contrary to socialist propaganda, capitalism is actually the system that benefits the most people and is, in fact, the moral choice.  Some of his key points are:

• "(M)arkets allow us to 'serve' one another even when we do not love one another—even when we do not know of one another’s existence."
• "(V)oluntary exchanges that take place in the free-enterprise system are positive-sum, not zero-sum—meaning not that one person benefits only at another’s expense but rather that all parties to the transaction benefit."
• "Even if we do not all get rich at the same rate, we all still get richer."
• Rescuing hundreds of millions of people from grinding poverty is, however, nothing to sneeze at—and nothing to take for granted."

Otteson admitts that, "Capitalism is not perfect."  But, he points out that, "The benefits of the free-enterprise society are enormous and unprecedented; they have meant the difference between life and death for hundreds of millions of people and have afforded a dignity to populations that are otherwise forgotten. We should wish to extend these benefits rather than to curtail them."

"It would be all too easy for us, among the wealthiest people who have ever lived, in one of the richest places on earth, to disdain the institutions that have enabled us to escape the strictures of poverty and disrespect that have plagued humanity for the vast majority of its existence. Our crime today, however, would lie not in our inequalities but rather in our refusal to uphold the institutions that give humanity the only hope it has ever known of rising out of its natural state of destitution. The great and precious blessings of freedom and prosperity that we Americans have enjoyed, and that some, but not enough, others around the world have also experienced, deserve nothing less."

Do you really want a president who is so completely ignorant of how the economy really works?  I don't.

Enjoy the video, but don't miss it's point.