Qui Tacet Consentire
The Pew Research center is reporting a rapidly changing political landscape. The latest research of political party identification indicates that as of April 2009, 33% of the people identified themselves as Dems, 22 % as Pubs and 39% as Indies. If one adds the above percentages the total would be 94% which leaves nearly 10% who are either apolitical or are the traditional 10% who just never goes along with the rest of the people. The Pew Research Center is one of the most respected polling organizations around and is generally viewed as being apolitical so the above political identification trend data probably reflects a great deal of reality. However, just as Will Rogers repeated the famous retort that “there are lies, damn lies, and statistics”, polling and the resulting published data and analysis can be manipulated just as easily as statistical data and analysis. That is to say, polling results should be viewed with a great deal of suspicion, and by all means, one should never accept polling data from any political entity as truthful because such political polling is the AK-47 of political combat. In general, one should always be skeptical of any polling data, even data from the Pew Research Center. Here is anther reason why. I always refuse to participate in polling because I don’t think it is anyone’s business what I think, notwithstanding my natural resistance to being manipulated by some existential psychology major who has crafted leading and deceitful questions for me to answer along with God-only-knows-what other modern polling tomfoolery. In other words, I take the Don Vito Corleone instruction to Sonny very seriously, "Never tell anybody outside the family what you're thinking." And besides, when they hold elections in a democracy, they will find out rather quickly what the electorate is thinking. If I, and others like me, refuse to participate in polling, how is that situation accounted for in the polling data? For example, lets say 30% of the people contacted were just like me and refuse to be polled. Lets also conjecture that of that 30% that refused to be polled, 70% now consider themselves Independents. How is this data factoid accounted for in the Poll analysis and final published data? There is an even a darker side to political polling. The Flim Flam politicians that sponsor polling are trying to find out what is trending in the general population so that they can craft positions and expenditures to gain advantage over other politicians. In other words, the politician is only concerned about the expediency of the moment and the polling is the time-honored way of gaining political Intel in order to do so. Polling is not required if a Politician presents their political philosophy and positions and then debates the advantage of their candidacy in today’s circumstance. Why should anyone trust a Politician’s position that always twists and turns with expediency that polling has enabled? Here is even a greater problem with polling. People read and digest polling data and the ensuing debate in the media provides for a feeling that the people are being heard. Nothing could be further from the truth because those who design the polling are establishing the agenda and resulting conversation. In other words, the national political conversation is not the spontaneous voice of the people, it is instead, contrived dialog designed and manufactured by those in power in order to control popular political thought and remain in power. I believe most people understand what is going on but there is a general feeling of hopelessness because the political system as outlined in the Constitution is not working and so the great silent majority remain just that, silent. I believe the silent majority remains silent not out of apathy, but they are silent because most of us believe we have no real say in our Government and there is no way for our voice to be heard. I believe this is why people are rapidly changing their political identification as Independent rather than Dem or Pub because there is no real difference between the two national parties and the two political parties are corrupt to the extent they only view the electorate and citizens as vehicles to maintain personal power and so care little about what the public really thinks. The current Professional Politicians populating the national political Parties are people only interested in obtaining and remaining in power and they can hardly be described as patriots worthy of a vote or affirmation. Herein lies the problem, Qui Tacet Consentire. (Who is silent gives consent.)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
We're Going To Save Money
We’re Going To Save Money
No Matter How Much It Costs
For those of you who have spent a fair amount of your life in a corporate or company work environment, the above statement should bring forth fond memories of past work-place follies. You know what I’m talking about here, don’t you? Come on now. Think back to when a big meeting was called at your respective workplace and the Harvard Business School trained suits would do a stand-up about how the latest management brain-fart would save the Company, reap huge profits, and probably save the free world from tyranny in the bargain. Wow, a delicious Chris Matthews type shiver runs down my leg just thinking about it again. Do you remember how we would go back to our workstations with the soaring buzzword laced rhetoric ringing in our ears as we bent our intellectual backs to the company wheel in order to make happen what the suits and management said needed to be done. After a fair amount of management-induced enthusiasm had worn off, reality began to kick in when the graybeards of the company begin to question the wisdom of the new program or policy. The graybeards actually had numbers to show that the new “thing” would cost five times any conceivable return on investment, wreck the engineering department, and make it impossible for the field salespeople to operate. The usual response from the suits and management, after concerns were expressed, was to label the graybeards as dinosaurs and accuse them, and everyone else associated with them, of being obstructionists and an unnecessary impediment to business progress. One of two things usually happened at this point. (1) Mouths would snap shut for fear of losing one’s job and the employees would work around the new thing in order for business to remain profitable thereby saving one’s job in spite of the suits and management new directives. Of course, this course of action by the employees was accompanied by sincere sounding lip service to management’s cause while doing what was necessary to keep the company ship afloat. (2) Even though the responsible employees knew that the suits and management new directives would wreck the company, they would follow the directives right down to the last crossed “T” and dotted “I”. This course of action would come to be called “Malicious Compliance” because it would eventually demonstrate to management that they had their collective heads stuck up somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine while avoiding being labeled an obstructionists and impeding management directives. All in all, this method of responding is a rather intellectual and oblique way for mere employees to support management. I keep hoping that a merciful and benevolent God will some day point his finger down at the Harvard and Yale business schools and cause great sinkholes to swallow them up before the country is driven into final ruin. But I digress. I got to thinking about this saving money at all costs while observing the goings on in Washington these days. You know, “Cap and Trade’, “Health Care for All”, “Government Motors”, “Financial Collapse”, etc., because most of these programs have been presented as absolutely necessary in order to save money and the country from ruin even though we all know that these programs are in reality “Trojan Horses” that provide a fortuitous way for the Government to expand their power in order to implement great social change. I guess people will never learn that it is impossible for the Government to make business decisions because Government is a Political entity that can only make political decisions. When the graybeards challenge the wisdom of the programs by pointing out that there is no way on this beautiful blue planet that these programs can save money, they, along with all of their associates, are labeled obstructionists and even worse. It looks like responsible graybeard citizens, and those who are of like political persuasion, are beginning to react with a “Malicious Compliance” course of action in order to let reality demonstrate to a swooning public that these current Government actions will be the cause of their eventual loss of freedom and wealth.
No Matter How Much It Costs
For those of you who have spent a fair amount of your life in a corporate or company work environment, the above statement should bring forth fond memories of past work-place follies. You know what I’m talking about here, don’t you? Come on now. Think back to when a big meeting was called at your respective workplace and the Harvard Business School trained suits would do a stand-up about how the latest management brain-fart would save the Company, reap huge profits, and probably save the free world from tyranny in the bargain. Wow, a delicious Chris Matthews type shiver runs down my leg just thinking about it again. Do you remember how we would go back to our workstations with the soaring buzzword laced rhetoric ringing in our ears as we bent our intellectual backs to the company wheel in order to make happen what the suits and management said needed to be done. After a fair amount of management-induced enthusiasm had worn off, reality began to kick in when the graybeards of the company begin to question the wisdom of the new program or policy. The graybeards actually had numbers to show that the new “thing” would cost five times any conceivable return on investment, wreck the engineering department, and make it impossible for the field salespeople to operate. The usual response from the suits and management, after concerns were expressed, was to label the graybeards as dinosaurs and accuse them, and everyone else associated with them, of being obstructionists and an unnecessary impediment to business progress. One of two things usually happened at this point. (1) Mouths would snap shut for fear of losing one’s job and the employees would work around the new thing in order for business to remain profitable thereby saving one’s job in spite of the suits and management new directives. Of course, this course of action by the employees was accompanied by sincere sounding lip service to management’s cause while doing what was necessary to keep the company ship afloat. (2) Even though the responsible employees knew that the suits and management new directives would wreck the company, they would follow the directives right down to the last crossed “T” and dotted “I”. This course of action would come to be called “Malicious Compliance” because it would eventually demonstrate to management that they had their collective heads stuck up somewhere where the sun doesn’t shine while avoiding being labeled an obstructionists and impeding management directives. All in all, this method of responding is a rather intellectual and oblique way for mere employees to support management. I keep hoping that a merciful and benevolent God will some day point his finger down at the Harvard and Yale business schools and cause great sinkholes to swallow them up before the country is driven into final ruin. But I digress. I got to thinking about this saving money at all costs while observing the goings on in Washington these days. You know, “Cap and Trade’, “Health Care for All”, “Government Motors”, “Financial Collapse”, etc., because most of these programs have been presented as absolutely necessary in order to save money and the country from ruin even though we all know that these programs are in reality “Trojan Horses” that provide a fortuitous way for the Government to expand their power in order to implement great social change. I guess people will never learn that it is impossible for the Government to make business decisions because Government is a Political entity that can only make political decisions. When the graybeards challenge the wisdom of the programs by pointing out that there is no way on this beautiful blue planet that these programs can save money, they, along with all of their associates, are labeled obstructionists and even worse. It looks like responsible graybeard citizens, and those who are of like political persuasion, are beginning to react with a “Malicious Compliance” course of action in order to let reality demonstrate to a swooning public that these current Government actions will be the cause of their eventual loss of freedom and wealth.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Governor Sarah Palin
Governor Sarah Palin
Did you see her? Did you see Governor Palin in chest waders pulling a net full of fish? This all-American woman who can fell a moose with a high-power rifle, work a fish net (can you just imagine Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt or Michelle Obama pulling a fish net?), run a huge state as Governor, deal with lying cheating politicians, and all with a kid on her hip, and yet, still find time to look like a woman. Sarah Palin reminds me of the original All-American woman, the quintessential pioneer woman of the plains, multi-tasking with her husband to help build a home and family in the wilderness. You would think an original like Sarah Palin would be celebrated by press and mainstream media, but think again, how Governor Palin has been treated by the mainstream media and the agents of personal destruction is a total embarrassment for this magnificent country. For example, the following is just one example of the multitude of nastiness that has been written about Sarah Palin. This particular piece was written by Paul Lewis Hackett and published in the Daily Kos on 12 Sept 2008, to wit:
“The message (would be) simple and the professionals can refine it but essentially it should contain these elements: Sarah Palin? Can't keep her solemn oath of devotion to her husband and had sex with his employee. Sarah Palin? Accidentally got pregnant at age 43 and the tax payers of Alaska have to pay for the care of her disabled child. Sarah Palin? Unable to teach her 16 year old daughter right from wrong and now another teenager is pregnant. Sarah Palin? Can you trust Sarah Palin and her values with America's future?”
If you have been reading my pieces posted on Bangingthedrum, you will remember that I have fearlessly made two predictions in the past:
1. The economy will tank during the late summer period of 2009 when the cascade of job losses and funny money begin to have their full impact.
2. The Educated Idiots in Washington will complete their mastery over the home of the brave and the land of the free when they enact a National Sales Tax either in the form of a VAT Tax or one taken at the cash register.
I will make a 3rd prediction and this one concerns Sarah Palin. I believe that Palin will run for the office of President in 2012 and do it after organizing a new political party that will probably be called “The Independent Party”. Think about it. Most people are coming around to the notion that there is really no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties because most of the politicians associated with the two major parties are in reality Professional Politicians only interested in personal power. The Pew Research Center indicates that people identify themselves with the political parties in roughly the following manner: 1/3 Democratic, 1/3 Republican and 1/3 Independent. This make up of political identification has been rapidly changing lately. It is now approximately ¼ Democratic, ¼ Republican and ½ Independent. Now when you consider that the conservative base of the Republican Party and the Blue Dog Democrats are basically of the same political persuasion and the fact that these political elements are becoming increasingly “out of step” with their party leadership, I believe you have the same opportunity available now as when the Wigs morphed into the Republican Party due to the issue of slavery. The issue now is Constitutional America or Socialist America. I believe that these political elements would probably jump at the opportunity to be associated with an a new political party that represents basic American Constitutional values and if they joined with those identified as Independents, you would have a new Political Party with a considerable majority. All in all, a rare opportunity for a patriot with vision and the will to go down the road less traveled. Sure sounds like Sarah Palin to me. Well, let’s just sit back and see what happens.
Did you see her? Did you see Governor Palin in chest waders pulling a net full of fish? This all-American woman who can fell a moose with a high-power rifle, work a fish net (can you just imagine Jackie Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt or Michelle Obama pulling a fish net?), run a huge state as Governor, deal with lying cheating politicians, and all with a kid on her hip, and yet, still find time to look like a woman. Sarah Palin reminds me of the original All-American woman, the quintessential pioneer woman of the plains, multi-tasking with her husband to help build a home and family in the wilderness. You would think an original like Sarah Palin would be celebrated by press and mainstream media, but think again, how Governor Palin has been treated by the mainstream media and the agents of personal destruction is a total embarrassment for this magnificent country. For example, the following is just one example of the multitude of nastiness that has been written about Sarah Palin. This particular piece was written by Paul Lewis Hackett and published in the Daily Kos on 12 Sept 2008, to wit:
“The message (would be) simple and the professionals can refine it but essentially it should contain these elements: Sarah Palin? Can't keep her solemn oath of devotion to her husband and had sex with his employee. Sarah Palin? Accidentally got pregnant at age 43 and the tax payers of Alaska have to pay for the care of her disabled child. Sarah Palin? Unable to teach her 16 year old daughter right from wrong and now another teenager is pregnant. Sarah Palin? Can you trust Sarah Palin and her values with America's future?”
If you have been reading my pieces posted on Bangingthedrum, you will remember that I have fearlessly made two predictions in the past:
1. The economy will tank during the late summer period of 2009 when the cascade of job losses and funny money begin to have their full impact.
2. The Educated Idiots in Washington will complete their mastery over the home of the brave and the land of the free when they enact a National Sales Tax either in the form of a VAT Tax or one taken at the cash register.
I will make a 3rd prediction and this one concerns Sarah Palin. I believe that Palin will run for the office of President in 2012 and do it after organizing a new political party that will probably be called “The Independent Party”. Think about it. Most people are coming around to the notion that there is really no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties because most of the politicians associated with the two major parties are in reality Professional Politicians only interested in personal power. The Pew Research Center indicates that people identify themselves with the political parties in roughly the following manner: 1/3 Democratic, 1/3 Republican and 1/3 Independent. This make up of political identification has been rapidly changing lately. It is now approximately ¼ Democratic, ¼ Republican and ½ Independent. Now when you consider that the conservative base of the Republican Party and the Blue Dog Democrats are basically of the same political persuasion and the fact that these political elements are becoming increasingly “out of step” with their party leadership, I believe you have the same opportunity available now as when the Wigs morphed into the Republican Party due to the issue of slavery. The issue now is Constitutional America or Socialist America. I believe that these political elements would probably jump at the opportunity to be associated with an a new political party that represents basic American Constitutional values and if they joined with those identified as Independents, you would have a new Political Party with a considerable majority. All in all, a rare opportunity for a patriot with vision and the will to go down the road less traveled. Sure sounds like Sarah Palin to me. Well, let’s just sit back and see what happens.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Right and Wrong
Right and Wrong
Right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust, fair and unfair, biased and unbiased; these are just a few of the arguments that each of us try to resolve on a daily basis as we make necessary personal decisions about what to do, how to do it, and react and adjust to circumstances beyond our personal control. The problem is, of course, each of us makes a subjective judgment about what is right or wrong within our particular circumstances based on our personal experiences, education, social pressure, state of comfort or discomfort, ad infinitum, and these differences in personal circumstances leads each of us to have a different opinion of what is, right or wrong. This leads us to the notion of Relativism that argues that ethical truths (right and wrong) in society depends upon the individuals and groups holding them (ethical truths) versus a steady Moral Compass that argues that ethical truths (right and wrong) in society are an unequivocal moral standard that is indifferent to subjective circumstances. Here is the problem with these two notions. Relativism can justify any social behavior and a Moral Compass cannot allow for changing circumstances. For example, racial discrimination against white people is allowable today in order to balance out the past racial discrimination against black people, i.e., relativism argues it’s Right to racially discriminate against white people in order to correct the Wrong of past racial discrimination against black people. As you can see, it’s no longer the unequivocal notion that racial discrimination is always wrong regardless of when, were or whom, it’s relative to the circumstances of blacks being racially discriminated against in the past that makes it Right to racially discriminate against white people today. How about an even easier example of relativism? Within a civil society it is wrong to kill another human but relative to a time of war it is right (or at least not wrong) to kill another human who is an enemy combatant. A Moral Compass can argue that it is unequivocally wrong to racially discriminate, and if everyone agrees with that ethical truth, all is well within the body social. But what happens when circumstances are such that racial discrimination is practiced as an ethical truth (right)? For example, the Germans practiced eugenics in order to produce the Master Race. This practice of eugenics to create the Master Race was an extension of the theory of evolution that held that survival of the fittest justified the mass murder of Jews and others thought to be inferior races. If you are a Jew or another of a race that the Germans sought to eliminate, is it right to racially discriminate against Germans by killing Germans until the Germans stopped killing Jews? In this circumstance, a Moral Compass that unequivocally says racial discrimination is wrong would be an objective ethical guidance that lacks a subjective equilibrium, and as such, would be an impractical and deadly compass for a moral people. On balance, I believe that a Moral Compass is a greater problem than Relativism. I say this because the unequivocal right and wrong that a Moral Compass promotes can be misused for nefarious purposes by those in power and authority, and indeed has been misused throughout the history of mankind, i.e., right and wrong are only subjective metaphors that twist and turn with expediency rather than a real social construct that offers eternal moral guidance. Further, an unequivocal right or wrong relieves the individual of the necessity of subjectively deciding what is right or wrong within a civil society and thereby does not serve the cause of individual liberty. All of this cogitation about right and wrong is really about what is going on today in our country and society. I believe that to try to assign right or wrong, good or bad, etc., to the Bernie Madoffs, Flim Flam Politicians, greed, dishonesty, and on and on, offers no solution or true understanding of problems facing us today. That is to say it is the essence of democracy to judge, decide and vote on the basis of individual liberty and justice and not on a notion of right or wrong. In so doing, correct decisions and judgments will be rendered and collective society will be served.
Right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust, fair and unfair, biased and unbiased; these are just a few of the arguments that each of us try to resolve on a daily basis as we make necessary personal decisions about what to do, how to do it, and react and adjust to circumstances beyond our personal control. The problem is, of course, each of us makes a subjective judgment about what is right or wrong within our particular circumstances based on our personal experiences, education, social pressure, state of comfort or discomfort, ad infinitum, and these differences in personal circumstances leads each of us to have a different opinion of what is, right or wrong. This leads us to the notion of Relativism that argues that ethical truths (right and wrong) in society depends upon the individuals and groups holding them (ethical truths) versus a steady Moral Compass that argues that ethical truths (right and wrong) in society are an unequivocal moral standard that is indifferent to subjective circumstances. Here is the problem with these two notions. Relativism can justify any social behavior and a Moral Compass cannot allow for changing circumstances. For example, racial discrimination against white people is allowable today in order to balance out the past racial discrimination against black people, i.e., relativism argues it’s Right to racially discriminate against white people in order to correct the Wrong of past racial discrimination against black people. As you can see, it’s no longer the unequivocal notion that racial discrimination is always wrong regardless of when, were or whom, it’s relative to the circumstances of blacks being racially discriminated against in the past that makes it Right to racially discriminate against white people today. How about an even easier example of relativism? Within a civil society it is wrong to kill another human but relative to a time of war it is right (or at least not wrong) to kill another human who is an enemy combatant. A Moral Compass can argue that it is unequivocally wrong to racially discriminate, and if everyone agrees with that ethical truth, all is well within the body social. But what happens when circumstances are such that racial discrimination is practiced as an ethical truth (right)? For example, the Germans practiced eugenics in order to produce the Master Race. This practice of eugenics to create the Master Race was an extension of the theory of evolution that held that survival of the fittest justified the mass murder of Jews and others thought to be inferior races. If you are a Jew or another of a race that the Germans sought to eliminate, is it right to racially discriminate against Germans by killing Germans until the Germans stopped killing Jews? In this circumstance, a Moral Compass that unequivocally says racial discrimination is wrong would be an objective ethical guidance that lacks a subjective equilibrium, and as such, would be an impractical and deadly compass for a moral people. On balance, I believe that a Moral Compass is a greater problem than Relativism. I say this because the unequivocal right and wrong that a Moral Compass promotes can be misused for nefarious purposes by those in power and authority, and indeed has been misused throughout the history of mankind, i.e., right and wrong are only subjective metaphors that twist and turn with expediency rather than a real social construct that offers eternal moral guidance. Further, an unequivocal right or wrong relieves the individual of the necessity of subjectively deciding what is right or wrong within a civil society and thereby does not serve the cause of individual liberty. All of this cogitation about right and wrong is really about what is going on today in our country and society. I believe that to try to assign right or wrong, good or bad, etc., to the Bernie Madoffs, Flim Flam Politicians, greed, dishonesty, and on and on, offers no solution or true understanding of problems facing us today. That is to say it is the essence of democracy to judge, decide and vote on the basis of individual liberty and justice and not on a notion of right or wrong. In so doing, correct decisions and judgments will be rendered and collective society will be served.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Seadog Rhapsody
Seadog Rhapsody
The restrained movements of the boat on anchor and the first light of dawn beginning to filter through the forward hatch are combining to gently nudge consciousness into existence after a sound night’s sleep. There is something about sleeping on a boat that is securely anchored in a snug harbor, it promotes a restful sleep that can’t be had in a landlocked bed held firmly in place by gravity. Some have speculated that the gentle rocking of the boat at anchor mimics the gentle movements we experienced while warm and secure in our sweet mother’s womb and this is why sleeping on a boat is so restful. Some may find it hard to believe that a rough and ready sailor sleeping on an anchored boat could earn a lovely metaphor like being all warm and secure in your mother’s womb, but stranger things have happened, you know, like really smart people giving Bernie Madoff all of their money. Slowly your eyes begin to adjust to the brightening environment, and now fully awake, it’s time for the rituals of awaking to begin, you know, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, sloughing your tongue around a foul mouth that still has the telltale remains of last’s night feasting and drinking, stretching muscles back into shape, the pure pleasure of reaching down and scratching your, well, you know what I’m talking about here. It’s time to swing the legs out of the rack and onto the deck and test the old trusty lower limbs to see if they can still answer the call to walk about fully upright like a proper bipedal. Speaking of answering the call, you hurry to the head and find sweet relief after a full night of not once getting up to satisfy a more urgent than sweet relief. You slide open the main deck hatch and expose the morning sky and the fresh sea air. Sweet Jesus, that smells good. You stick your head up and look around to survey your surrounding and the sounds of seabirds begin to fill the air, especially the gulls. The gulls are laughing like a madman mocking the sane people. Off to the galley, fill the on- stove coffee percolator with water and coffee grounds, you know, the one that still has a small glass bulb on top so that you can watch the coffee get darker and darker until its “just right.” One of the last pure pleasures in life is smelling coffee brewing in an honest to God on-stove percolator that has really hot coffee bubbling up into that little glass bulb so that you can watch it, and watch it, and build up the anticipation of sipping your first cup of really hot steaming coffee. It is absolute nirvana to smell hot percolating coffee and fresh sea air all mixed in together. With the treasured hot cup of coffee clutched firmly in your hands, you enjoy the beginning of a new day while sitting in the cockpit of the boat and contently watching the world come alive after a hard day’s night. Well enough of the finer things in life, it’s time to ready the boat for some serious sailing east so that the Bahamas banks can be made at “Memory Rock” before the brand new day can turn into night again. Go below, secure everything that can become loose in high seas, secure the hatches, set the battery switch to “battery 1”, turn on all navigational instruments including the GPS, turn on VHF radio and set to the international hailing and emergency channel 16. Hurry back up topside, don life vest, place engine control to neutral, fire up the Yanmar diesel, check the exhaust to make sure the engine water pump is pumping cooling water out the exhaust port, check the charts for tides, verify a waxing tide by reading the current going by the boat, go forward and haul the “delta” and “danforth” anchors and be quick about it before the boat follows the current into some other boats at anchor. Hurry to the helm, engage the engine and head for the channel while avoiding boats at anchor and constantly reading depth because there are many places where you can run aground while navigating the harbor to the channel. Locate the green channel buoy and make way while keeping the green buoy to starboard and the red marker buoy to port. Now, very carefully make your way against the strong current out to sea between the red/green channel buoys and finally into blue water and good seas. It’s always very comforting to watch the water depth go from 6 to 7 feet and start dropping off to 10, then 50, and eventually to over 100 feet. The seas don’t become orderly until you can get into at least a 100-foot of water depth. Adjust the GPS to the proper chart and visit the NOAA weather channel on the VHF radio one last time to verify favorable weather, wind and wave. Confirm that a 10-15 knot wind is making headway from the southwest and set an initial compass course to 120° magnetic. Carefully observe the wind vane on top of the main mast and determine that you have a starboard wind that will allow a starboard reach. A beam reach is a very favorable point of sail and you will have it this day with seas running about 3 to 5 feet and a slowly building swell out of confused seas while still in the lee of the land. You should never cross the gulf steam with a north wind blowing because the gulf stream flows northward and a wind from the north will blow against the current and generate very bad waves that will increasingly become steep and treacherous. These kind of seas are the cause of many a boat to founder while trying to make way across the gulf stream when a spirited north wind is blowing. A direct course to Memory Rock is 99° magnetic but you must calculate the amount of drift northward the gulf stream current (4-6 knots) will have on the course of the boat, depending, of course, on the speed of the boat, i.e., the slower the boat, the more time in the gulf stream current and the more northward you will be taken instead of the east heading of the boat at 99° magnetic. So you will set a heading of 120° to allow for a northward drift and carefully monitor your GPS course in route to make the necessary corrections in order to arrive at memory rock at the end of the day instead of someplace where you don’t want to be. Having steadied the boat on a 120° heading, throttle back the engine enough to make head way straight into the wind and come starboard until the wind is straight onto the bow. Engage the autohelm to maintain the boat heading into the wind and carefully make your way on top deck to the mainmast to change the main sail furling ratchet from “ratchet” to “free” which will allow the main sail to be pulled from the furling inside the mainmast once the outhaul line is unblocked from the line clutch. Set the boomvang to 2 inches for a beam reach while at the mainmast in order to set the proper sail twist for a reach, and carefully make your way back to the helm in order to avoid falling into the sea. If you are the only one on the boat and you fall into the sea, you will become another unexplained missing at sea incident. Back at the helm, unblock the mainmast furling line from the line clutches and wrap the main sail outhaul line 3 wraps clockwise around the starboard winch, insert a winch handle and grind away on the winch until the mainsail is fully extended from the mainmast. Secure the mainsail outhaul line. Unsecure both the starboard and port headsail sheet lines and unsecure the headsail furling line. Because the wind is to starboard, the headsail will fill to port so wrap the port headsail sheet line three wraps around the port aft winch and while holding the headsail furling line with just enough pressure to make a firm wrap around the headsail furling hub, insert a winch handle into the port aft winch and grind away until the headsail (jib) is fully extended. Secure the jib sheet to the port aft winch and secure the furling line. Now disengage the engine by placing the throttle into the neutral position and pressing the engine “Stop” button to turnoff the engine. Place the engine throttle into the reverse position in order to stop the propeller from turning while the boat is underway which will cause a drag that will slow the boat speed through the water. Disengage the autohelm and bring the boat heading port back into a 120° heading and engage the autohelm to maintain a heading of 120°. Slowly ease the jib port sheet line until the headsail fills, and while watching the telltales on the jib sail, adjust the headsail point of entry into the wind until most of the telltales are streaming aft. Secure the port jib sheet line to the port aft winch. Locate the mainsail sheet line and wrap 3 turns clockwise around the starboard forward winch and while holding fast to the line, unblock the mainsail sheet line from the line clutch and slowly ease the mainsail port to take the wind. While watching the mainsail leach telltales, adjust the mainsail point of entry to the wind until the telltales are streaming aft. Secure the mainsail sheet line with the clutch block and remove the line from the winch. Locate the mainsail outhaul line and wrap 3 turns clockwise around the winch and while holding fast to the outhaul line unblock the line from the clutch block. Slowly ease the outhaul line until the draft of the mainsail is about 12 to 14 inches windward from the mainsail boom and secure the outhaul line with the clutch block. Disengage the auto helm and take control of the helm by taking manual control of the rudder. Keep adjusting sails until you can obtain maximum boat speed while balancing the helm. The boat is now taking a fine 15° list to port while making 5-6 knots on a starboard beam reach with a freshening wind blowing a fine mist of salt water that tastes great when you lick your lips. The boat is making a beautiful wake and cutting into the waves nicely as you make you way on a 120°heading. Surely God must be a sailor.
The restrained movements of the boat on anchor and the first light of dawn beginning to filter through the forward hatch are combining to gently nudge consciousness into existence after a sound night’s sleep. There is something about sleeping on a boat that is securely anchored in a snug harbor, it promotes a restful sleep that can’t be had in a landlocked bed held firmly in place by gravity. Some have speculated that the gentle rocking of the boat at anchor mimics the gentle movements we experienced while warm and secure in our sweet mother’s womb and this is why sleeping on a boat is so restful. Some may find it hard to believe that a rough and ready sailor sleeping on an anchored boat could earn a lovely metaphor like being all warm and secure in your mother’s womb, but stranger things have happened, you know, like really smart people giving Bernie Madoff all of their money. Slowly your eyes begin to adjust to the brightening environment, and now fully awake, it’s time for the rituals of awaking to begin, you know, rubbing the sleep from your eyes, sloughing your tongue around a foul mouth that still has the telltale remains of last’s night feasting and drinking, stretching muscles back into shape, the pure pleasure of reaching down and scratching your, well, you know what I’m talking about here. It’s time to swing the legs out of the rack and onto the deck and test the old trusty lower limbs to see if they can still answer the call to walk about fully upright like a proper bipedal. Speaking of answering the call, you hurry to the head and find sweet relief after a full night of not once getting up to satisfy a more urgent than sweet relief. You slide open the main deck hatch and expose the morning sky and the fresh sea air. Sweet Jesus, that smells good. You stick your head up and look around to survey your surrounding and the sounds of seabirds begin to fill the air, especially the gulls. The gulls are laughing like a madman mocking the sane people. Off to the galley, fill the on- stove coffee percolator with water and coffee grounds, you know, the one that still has a small glass bulb on top so that you can watch the coffee get darker and darker until its “just right.” One of the last pure pleasures in life is smelling coffee brewing in an honest to God on-stove percolator that has really hot coffee bubbling up into that little glass bulb so that you can watch it, and watch it, and build up the anticipation of sipping your first cup of really hot steaming coffee. It is absolute nirvana to smell hot percolating coffee and fresh sea air all mixed in together. With the treasured hot cup of coffee clutched firmly in your hands, you enjoy the beginning of a new day while sitting in the cockpit of the boat and contently watching the world come alive after a hard day’s night. Well enough of the finer things in life, it’s time to ready the boat for some serious sailing east so that the Bahamas banks can be made at “Memory Rock” before the brand new day can turn into night again. Go below, secure everything that can become loose in high seas, secure the hatches, set the battery switch to “battery 1”, turn on all navigational instruments including the GPS, turn on VHF radio and set to the international hailing and emergency channel 16. Hurry back up topside, don life vest, place engine control to neutral, fire up the Yanmar diesel, check the exhaust to make sure the engine water pump is pumping cooling water out the exhaust port, check the charts for tides, verify a waxing tide by reading the current going by the boat, go forward and haul the “delta” and “danforth” anchors and be quick about it before the boat follows the current into some other boats at anchor. Hurry to the helm, engage the engine and head for the channel while avoiding boats at anchor and constantly reading depth because there are many places where you can run aground while navigating the harbor to the channel. Locate the green channel buoy and make way while keeping the green buoy to starboard and the red marker buoy to port. Now, very carefully make your way against the strong current out to sea between the red/green channel buoys and finally into blue water and good seas. It’s always very comforting to watch the water depth go from 6 to 7 feet and start dropping off to 10, then 50, and eventually to over 100 feet. The seas don’t become orderly until you can get into at least a 100-foot of water depth. Adjust the GPS to the proper chart and visit the NOAA weather channel on the VHF radio one last time to verify favorable weather, wind and wave. Confirm that a 10-15 knot wind is making headway from the southwest and set an initial compass course to 120° magnetic. Carefully observe the wind vane on top of the main mast and determine that you have a starboard wind that will allow a starboard reach. A beam reach is a very favorable point of sail and you will have it this day with seas running about 3 to 5 feet and a slowly building swell out of confused seas while still in the lee of the land. You should never cross the gulf steam with a north wind blowing because the gulf stream flows northward and a wind from the north will blow against the current and generate very bad waves that will increasingly become steep and treacherous. These kind of seas are the cause of many a boat to founder while trying to make way across the gulf stream when a spirited north wind is blowing. A direct course to Memory Rock is 99° magnetic but you must calculate the amount of drift northward the gulf stream current (4-6 knots) will have on the course of the boat, depending, of course, on the speed of the boat, i.e., the slower the boat, the more time in the gulf stream current and the more northward you will be taken instead of the east heading of the boat at 99° magnetic. So you will set a heading of 120° to allow for a northward drift and carefully monitor your GPS course in route to make the necessary corrections in order to arrive at memory rock at the end of the day instead of someplace where you don’t want to be. Having steadied the boat on a 120° heading, throttle back the engine enough to make head way straight into the wind and come starboard until the wind is straight onto the bow. Engage the autohelm to maintain the boat heading into the wind and carefully make your way on top deck to the mainmast to change the main sail furling ratchet from “ratchet” to “free” which will allow the main sail to be pulled from the furling inside the mainmast once the outhaul line is unblocked from the line clutch. Set the boomvang to 2 inches for a beam reach while at the mainmast in order to set the proper sail twist for a reach, and carefully make your way back to the helm in order to avoid falling into the sea. If you are the only one on the boat and you fall into the sea, you will become another unexplained missing at sea incident. Back at the helm, unblock the mainmast furling line from the line clutches and wrap the main sail outhaul line 3 wraps clockwise around the starboard winch, insert a winch handle and grind away on the winch until the mainsail is fully extended from the mainmast. Secure the mainsail outhaul line. Unsecure both the starboard and port headsail sheet lines and unsecure the headsail furling line. Because the wind is to starboard, the headsail will fill to port so wrap the port headsail sheet line three wraps around the port aft winch and while holding the headsail furling line with just enough pressure to make a firm wrap around the headsail furling hub, insert a winch handle into the port aft winch and grind away until the headsail (jib) is fully extended. Secure the jib sheet to the port aft winch and secure the furling line. Now disengage the engine by placing the throttle into the neutral position and pressing the engine “Stop” button to turnoff the engine. Place the engine throttle into the reverse position in order to stop the propeller from turning while the boat is underway which will cause a drag that will slow the boat speed through the water. Disengage the autohelm and bring the boat heading port back into a 120° heading and engage the autohelm to maintain a heading of 120°. Slowly ease the jib port sheet line until the headsail fills, and while watching the telltales on the jib sail, adjust the headsail point of entry into the wind until most of the telltales are streaming aft. Secure the port jib sheet line to the port aft winch. Locate the mainsail sheet line and wrap 3 turns clockwise around the starboard forward winch and while holding fast to the line, unblock the mainsail sheet line from the line clutch and slowly ease the mainsail port to take the wind. While watching the mainsail leach telltales, adjust the mainsail point of entry to the wind until the telltales are streaming aft. Secure the mainsail sheet line with the clutch block and remove the line from the winch. Locate the mainsail outhaul line and wrap 3 turns clockwise around the winch and while holding fast to the outhaul line unblock the line from the clutch block. Slowly ease the outhaul line until the draft of the mainsail is about 12 to 14 inches windward from the mainsail boom and secure the outhaul line with the clutch block. Disengage the auto helm and take control of the helm by taking manual control of the rudder. Keep adjusting sails until you can obtain maximum boat speed while balancing the helm. The boat is now taking a fine 15° list to port while making 5-6 knots on a starboard beam reach with a freshening wind blowing a fine mist of salt water that tastes great when you lick your lips. The boat is making a beautiful wake and cutting into the waves nicely as you make you way on a 120°heading. Surely God must be a sailor.
Friday, June 19, 2009
President Barack Hussein Obama (BHO)
President Barack Hussein Obama
(BHO)
A Tiger would be more successful if it looked like a Labrador Retriever.
(BHO)
A Tiger would be more successful if it looked like a Labrador Retriever.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
In God We Trust, All Others Cash
In God We Trust,
All Others Cash
Most people believe when Jesus cleared the Temple of Money Changers it was because of the despicable business the Moneychangers were doing within the confines of the holy Temple. However, most scholars agree that the primary reason that the Moneychangers were tossed from the Temple was that they were causing such a ruckus doing business that it was impossible to do the church’s work. But, of course, there was more to this episode than simply eliminating noise and commotion because when Jesus cast the Moneychangers out he said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Why would Jesus say that the Moneychangers were turning the Temple into a house of thieves if the Moneychangers were only causing a disturbance? Well, it seems that the Moneychangers had a monopoly on creating a certain coin that was used by worshipers in the Temple and the Moneychangers used this monopoly to charge interest on the coin (money) they created and in so doing had become quite wealthy making money off of money. Wait a minute. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Of course it does because the United States Federal Reserve Banks, the United States Federal Reserve, AIG, Financial Institutions and endless others in today’s modern economies, does exactly the same thing, i.e., they create money and then charge interest on it when other people or entities use it. This begs the question; why did the charging of interest for the use of money motivate Jesus to call the Moneychangers thieves? The answer to this question is much easier than it would seem because throughout the history of civilization the charging of interest for the use of money was considered a grave sin and an abomination. Anyone who engaged in such a despicable business of making money off of money was shunned as being not worthy of any honorable standing in the community. I will leave it to each reader’s conjecture that perhaps this dishonorable practice of making money off of money is where a particular racial discrimination got its start and still exists throughout much of the world today because it was, in general, been only one race of people that thought it was not dishonorable to engage in the business of charging interest on the use of money. The fact that this race of people were nearly the exclusive practitioners of this business of making money off of money can go far in explaining how this age old scourge of discrimination got it’s start. Well that was then, and this is now. I will wager that most people consider the charging of interest for the use of money is only another way of making a profit and therefore this profit making is Capitalism in operation, i.e., if it’s Capitalism, then it cannot be a dishonorable thing to do nowadays as it was in days gone by. Well perhaps. I won’t bore you with a standard definition of Capitalism but basically one invests their real money into a privately or Corporate held business and that business then does business well enough to make a profit that is returned to the investors. The investor now has a capital gain in addition to the original capital invested and the investor can now use the capital gain to invest in new businesses, and viola, a vibrant economy. The profit earned from doing real business was earned by creating something of real value that the business sold, so therefore, the capital gain achieved is real money because was created by the real bussiness creating something of real value. You see, here’s the thing about making money off of money, it’s not a real business. You might turn a profit from making money off of money but in so doing, nothing was added to the economy because no real business was done to earn the profit and create real money. The money made off of money is not real money because nothing of value is the basis for the profit money. And it follows if the economy is awash in “not real” money, money will lose its value to the point where the economy will eventually fail. The only way an economy can continue that is constituted with “not real” money is for continuous inflation to occur and constant inflation is indeed the characteristic of the modern American economy. The political trick is to keep inflation as low as possible in order to continue the economy for as long as possible, but it will eventually fail for some future generation. This, of course, gets us to the subject of credit. Credit is the modern, new and improved, way of making money off of money, but the results are the same; the money made from extending credit is not real money and the economy will eventually fail. You can see first hand what credit can do when multiplied by “leveraging”, credit default swaps, and endless other ingenious ways of making money off of money but, of course, the money made is not real money and this “not real” money is what is causing the current financial crisis. Oh well, In God we trust, all others cash.
All Others Cash
Most people believe when Jesus cleared the Temple of Money Changers it was because of the despicable business the Moneychangers were doing within the confines of the holy Temple. However, most scholars agree that the primary reason that the Moneychangers were tossed from the Temple was that they were causing such a ruckus doing business that it was impossible to do the church’s work. But, of course, there was more to this episode than simply eliminating noise and commotion because when Jesus cast the Moneychangers out he said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” Why would Jesus say that the Moneychangers were turning the Temple into a house of thieves if the Moneychangers were only causing a disturbance? Well, it seems that the Moneychangers had a monopoly on creating a certain coin that was used by worshipers in the Temple and the Moneychangers used this monopoly to charge interest on the coin (money) they created and in so doing had become quite wealthy making money off of money. Wait a minute. Does this sound vaguely familiar? Of course it does because the United States Federal Reserve Banks, the United States Federal Reserve, AIG, Financial Institutions and endless others in today’s modern economies, does exactly the same thing, i.e., they create money and then charge interest on it when other people or entities use it. This begs the question; why did the charging of interest for the use of money motivate Jesus to call the Moneychangers thieves? The answer to this question is much easier than it would seem because throughout the history of civilization the charging of interest for the use of money was considered a grave sin and an abomination. Anyone who engaged in such a despicable business of making money off of money was shunned as being not worthy of any honorable standing in the community. I will leave it to each reader’s conjecture that perhaps this dishonorable practice of making money off of money is where a particular racial discrimination got its start and still exists throughout much of the world today because it was, in general, been only one race of people that thought it was not dishonorable to engage in the business of charging interest on the use of money. The fact that this race of people were nearly the exclusive practitioners of this business of making money off of money can go far in explaining how this age old scourge of discrimination got it’s start. Well that was then, and this is now. I will wager that most people consider the charging of interest for the use of money is only another way of making a profit and therefore this profit making is Capitalism in operation, i.e., if it’s Capitalism, then it cannot be a dishonorable thing to do nowadays as it was in days gone by. Well perhaps. I won’t bore you with a standard definition of Capitalism but basically one invests their real money into a privately or Corporate held business and that business then does business well enough to make a profit that is returned to the investors. The investor now has a capital gain in addition to the original capital invested and the investor can now use the capital gain to invest in new businesses, and viola, a vibrant economy. The profit earned from doing real business was earned by creating something of real value that the business sold, so therefore, the capital gain achieved is real money because was created by the real bussiness creating something of real value. You see, here’s the thing about making money off of money, it’s not a real business. You might turn a profit from making money off of money but in so doing, nothing was added to the economy because no real business was done to earn the profit and create real money. The money made off of money is not real money because nothing of value is the basis for the profit money. And it follows if the economy is awash in “not real” money, money will lose its value to the point where the economy will eventually fail. The only way an economy can continue that is constituted with “not real” money is for continuous inflation to occur and constant inflation is indeed the characteristic of the modern American economy. The political trick is to keep inflation as low as possible in order to continue the economy for as long as possible, but it will eventually fail for some future generation. This, of course, gets us to the subject of credit. Credit is the modern, new and improved, way of making money off of money, but the results are the same; the money made from extending credit is not real money and the economy will eventually fail. You can see first hand what credit can do when multiplied by “leveraging”, credit default swaps, and endless other ingenious ways of making money off of money but, of course, the money made is not real money and this “not real” money is what is causing the current financial crisis. Oh well, In God we trust, all others cash.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Rust Never Sleeps & Weeds Don't Rest
Rust Never Sleeps &
Weeds Don't Rest
If you awoke soon enough from your nocturnal regimen this morning you might have been treated to the sight of Rosy-Fingered Dawn pulling herself up over the eastern sky while dragging Old Sol behind to begin lighting up the world. It’s a reassuring sight. So, while all warm and fuzzy in your queen size cocoon, you rub the sleep and crud from your rested eyes and turn to see if the world is still out there. Sure enough, Old Sol is beginning to light up the world so that the struggling masses can pursue labor’s rewards and assure lazy-butts still in bed that the world is also, still there, bathed anew in fresh light and ready to go. Some apprehension about what a new day might bring is very understandable because, after all, just before hitting the sheets, you were treated to your nightly ration of murder, mayhem, avarice, natural and man-made calamity, guesses about tomorrow’s weather, without which, you would find it impossible to function without such prior knowledge of impending climatic conditions, and all brought to you by your favorite and smiling Nightly Television News Team. Small wonder then that a rational person would greet a new day with some apprehension about what might be coming their way after bearing eyewitness to such routine calamitous television events. I guess one of the realizations that increasing age brings is that it’s wise not to get too excited about what’s going on around you because, quite frankly, there is very little you can do about it anyway so what’s the point in getting all riled up and becoming personally concerned? In other words, with gray hair and sagging butts comes the knowledge that rust never sleeps and weeds never rest. This is as it has always been and will always be. The only difference is today’s modern world inundates us with nonstop information that for the most part is about the decay (Rust) of human nobility and the uncivilized (Weeds) louts causing mayhem so that the beautiful and gracious is most often drowned out by the raucous clamor of information flow. This situation contributes to a general feeling of depression and can lead to drink and dour demeanors. How about some good news? I have tried the following two things and they have always worked without fail to brighten ones day and change a dour demeanor into a pleasant and comfortable disposition. Of course, you could always stay in bed all day and avoid all contact, but most of us are not quite ready for that situation yet so I encourage you to try my two remedies because they cost nothing and are quite effective. The first one is quite easy and only requires the use of a single finger to switch channels on the television whenever the news comes on and to never pick up your reading glasses to read a newspaper. I know, it sounds extreme, but turning off television news and never reading a newspaper really works and besides if something really important is going on you will know about it soon enough from friends and neighbors. I am almost embarrassed to disclose the second remedy because it will sound like one of those feel-good, up with people things. I have run this experiment many times and the results are always the same, so try it, you’ll like it. Whenever you are out walking about, always smile at the stranger you pass. Now don’t flash a great big smile, just a small smile acknowledging the person that you are passing and what will happen next will surprise you like it has surprised me every time. The person you smiled at will more than likely smile back at you, and in addition, most likely will say, “good morning” or some other pleasantry in return. Presto! Dour attitude destroyed and outlook much improved and the prospect for an agreeable and profitable day is now at your doorstep. We all know rust never sleeps and weeds don't rest but we really can do without the constant reminder of their nefarious activities that can change our precious life into a frightened drag. To hell with that.
Weeds Don't Rest
If you awoke soon enough from your nocturnal regimen this morning you might have been treated to the sight of Rosy-Fingered Dawn pulling herself up over the eastern sky while dragging Old Sol behind to begin lighting up the world. It’s a reassuring sight. So, while all warm and fuzzy in your queen size cocoon, you rub the sleep and crud from your rested eyes and turn to see if the world is still out there. Sure enough, Old Sol is beginning to light up the world so that the struggling masses can pursue labor’s rewards and assure lazy-butts still in bed that the world is also, still there, bathed anew in fresh light and ready to go. Some apprehension about what a new day might bring is very understandable because, after all, just before hitting the sheets, you were treated to your nightly ration of murder, mayhem, avarice, natural and man-made calamity, guesses about tomorrow’s weather, without which, you would find it impossible to function without such prior knowledge of impending climatic conditions, and all brought to you by your favorite and smiling Nightly Television News Team. Small wonder then that a rational person would greet a new day with some apprehension about what might be coming their way after bearing eyewitness to such routine calamitous television events. I guess one of the realizations that increasing age brings is that it’s wise not to get too excited about what’s going on around you because, quite frankly, there is very little you can do about it anyway so what’s the point in getting all riled up and becoming personally concerned? In other words, with gray hair and sagging butts comes the knowledge that rust never sleeps and weeds never rest. This is as it has always been and will always be. The only difference is today’s modern world inundates us with nonstop information that for the most part is about the decay (Rust) of human nobility and the uncivilized (Weeds) louts causing mayhem so that the beautiful and gracious is most often drowned out by the raucous clamor of information flow. This situation contributes to a general feeling of depression and can lead to drink and dour demeanors. How about some good news? I have tried the following two things and they have always worked without fail to brighten ones day and change a dour demeanor into a pleasant and comfortable disposition. Of course, you could always stay in bed all day and avoid all contact, but most of us are not quite ready for that situation yet so I encourage you to try my two remedies because they cost nothing and are quite effective. The first one is quite easy and only requires the use of a single finger to switch channels on the television whenever the news comes on and to never pick up your reading glasses to read a newspaper. I know, it sounds extreme, but turning off television news and never reading a newspaper really works and besides if something really important is going on you will know about it soon enough from friends and neighbors. I am almost embarrassed to disclose the second remedy because it will sound like one of those feel-good, up with people things. I have run this experiment many times and the results are always the same, so try it, you’ll like it. Whenever you are out walking about, always smile at the stranger you pass. Now don’t flash a great big smile, just a small smile acknowledging the person that you are passing and what will happen next will surprise you like it has surprised me every time. The person you smiled at will more than likely smile back at you, and in addition, most likely will say, “good morning” or some other pleasantry in return. Presto! Dour attitude destroyed and outlook much improved and the prospect for an agreeable and profitable day is now at your doorstep. We all know rust never sleeps and weeds don't rest but we really can do without the constant reminder of their nefarious activities that can change our precious life into a frightened drag. To hell with that.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
E Pluribus Unum
E Pluribus Unum
I would like to advance a thought on a subject that perhaps we haven’t given much purchase to as we look at what going on in our world today and try to make sense of it all. If we step back and try to list all of the things, from our perspective, that has been going wrong and identify all of the current and potential problems that our country has to face, the list would be as varied in number and subject as there are people making up the lists. This would be so because we all bring a different perspective to the table when we advance an opinion about what constitutes a right or wrong, or, what is a problem or not a problem. Having said all of that, it becomes obvious that personal perspective (e.g., a teenager view versus a senior citizen’s view) is the bottom-up method of constructing a society perspective about what is right or wrong, and, what is a problem or not a problem. For example: a Muslim society, Christian society, Secular society and a Spiritual society would each look and behave differently because each society is a composite of all the people that make-up those societies and each society in general would be reflective of the beliefs and values of the people in common. If you again step back, and look at what has just been said, I think we all would agree that what we are discussing here is the culture of a given society. The subject of culture is the subject I alluded to in the beginning of this discussion. For the record, let’s give Webster’s definition of the most pertinent meaning of culture from an Anthropology perspective, to wit: the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of humans beginnings and transmitted from one generation to another. It has always been an opinion of mine that culture is the single most important factor when trying to understand what is happening and why it is happening to us. Bearing in mind, of course, that culture is never static. Culture is dynamic and is always changing because it is made up of continuously changing people. I believe that culture is the only way of understanding what is going on in our society because most of what goes on is simply reflective of what our changing culture now believes and values. For example, rampant greed is understandable if the culture has changed from a spiritual society governed by beliefs in a higher order morality about honesty, fairness, truthfulness, etc., into a secular culture that is now governed by the notion that materialistic things are more important than spiritual things and therefore society has come to believe that “Greed is Good.” So condemning greed as the culprit that is ruining our country offers no way of correcting the offense of greed because greed is only a symptom of what a changing culture has spawned. The only way that greed can be brought to bay is a culture change from a Secular society that believes materialistic things are paramount into some different kind of society that comes to believe that materialistic things are not paramount and therefore, “Greed is Bad.” If we are to correct what we think is wrong and is a problem for our society then we must first understand what caused our culture to change in the first place. I will advance, for your consideration, four events I believe caused the greatest changes in our society that has in turn changed our culture and spawned so many of what many of our citizens think are our troubles and problems of today. Bear in mind that all of the citizens might not think that that our culture has changed for the worst, because after all, this is our new culture and this culture reflects the new values and beliefs of the majority. I believe the pace of change quickened in our culture as a result of the great depression and is the first of four great events that changed our culture the most. The great depression was the event that caused people to vow that they would never again deprive their families of the materialistic necessities of life and so began that transformation into a more materialistic society. The second great event that occurred was World War II. World War II facilitated the actual liberation of women by unshackling females from home and family and thereby into equal and full citizens. The actual equality of women that WWII facilitated began the transformation into a more liberal society. The third great event was the creation of civil rights by inclusion of civil rights into the Constitution. The civil rights codified into law and practice transformed guaranteed society rights into guaranteed individual rights and thus began the transformation of a homogeneous society into an individual and special interest society. The fourth, and I think the event of utmost importance, was society’s acceptance of the notion of diversity rather than the guiding principal of E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). This event completed the transformation from a homogeneous and “melting pot” society that allowed for a unified culture into a discontinuous society with no unified culture at all. The notion of diversity has promoted the acceptance of subcultures (drug culture, race culture, science culture, this culture and that culture and has resulted in no viable culture at all. The point being that some of the things that facilitated the making of a great country, like basic honesty, truthfulness and fairness were products of a unified culture and these cultural traits made business easy and profitable, human relations civil, and in general, made for a just and fair society without the necessity of endless laws and courts to enforce what was willing enabled by the force of culture. Finally, the current fractured culture we now have will continue to change as events dictate and the troubles and problems attendant to our current situation will remain unresolved because they are a product of our culture. However, there are a large number of people, particularly the young, who believe in the culture we now have and nothing short of a great event will change things in a meaningful way regardless of how some of the citizens think. But never ever forget, it is now and forever, The Culture.
I would like to advance a thought on a subject that perhaps we haven’t given much purchase to as we look at what going on in our world today and try to make sense of it all. If we step back and try to list all of the things, from our perspective, that has been going wrong and identify all of the current and potential problems that our country has to face, the list would be as varied in number and subject as there are people making up the lists. This would be so because we all bring a different perspective to the table when we advance an opinion about what constitutes a right or wrong, or, what is a problem or not a problem. Having said all of that, it becomes obvious that personal perspective (e.g., a teenager view versus a senior citizen’s view) is the bottom-up method of constructing a society perspective about what is right or wrong, and, what is a problem or not a problem. For example: a Muslim society, Christian society, Secular society and a Spiritual society would each look and behave differently because each society is a composite of all the people that make-up those societies and each society in general would be reflective of the beliefs and values of the people in common. If you again step back, and look at what has just been said, I think we all would agree that what we are discussing here is the culture of a given society. The subject of culture is the subject I alluded to in the beginning of this discussion. For the record, let’s give Webster’s definition of the most pertinent meaning of culture from an Anthropology perspective, to wit: the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of humans beginnings and transmitted from one generation to another. It has always been an opinion of mine that culture is the single most important factor when trying to understand what is happening and why it is happening to us. Bearing in mind, of course, that culture is never static. Culture is dynamic and is always changing because it is made up of continuously changing people. I believe that culture is the only way of understanding what is going on in our society because most of what goes on is simply reflective of what our changing culture now believes and values. For example, rampant greed is understandable if the culture has changed from a spiritual society governed by beliefs in a higher order morality about honesty, fairness, truthfulness, etc., into a secular culture that is now governed by the notion that materialistic things are more important than spiritual things and therefore society has come to believe that “Greed is Good.” So condemning greed as the culprit that is ruining our country offers no way of correcting the offense of greed because greed is only a symptom of what a changing culture has spawned. The only way that greed can be brought to bay is a culture change from a Secular society that believes materialistic things are paramount into some different kind of society that comes to believe that materialistic things are not paramount and therefore, “Greed is Bad.” If we are to correct what we think is wrong and is a problem for our society then we must first understand what caused our culture to change in the first place. I will advance, for your consideration, four events I believe caused the greatest changes in our society that has in turn changed our culture and spawned so many of what many of our citizens think are our troubles and problems of today. Bear in mind that all of the citizens might not think that that our culture has changed for the worst, because after all, this is our new culture and this culture reflects the new values and beliefs of the majority. I believe the pace of change quickened in our culture as a result of the great depression and is the first of four great events that changed our culture the most. The great depression was the event that caused people to vow that they would never again deprive their families of the materialistic necessities of life and so began that transformation into a more materialistic society. The second great event that occurred was World War II. World War II facilitated the actual liberation of women by unshackling females from home and family and thereby into equal and full citizens. The actual equality of women that WWII facilitated began the transformation into a more liberal society. The third great event was the creation of civil rights by inclusion of civil rights into the Constitution. The civil rights codified into law and practice transformed guaranteed society rights into guaranteed individual rights and thus began the transformation of a homogeneous society into an individual and special interest society. The fourth, and I think the event of utmost importance, was society’s acceptance of the notion of diversity rather than the guiding principal of E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one). This event completed the transformation from a homogeneous and “melting pot” society that allowed for a unified culture into a discontinuous society with no unified culture at all. The notion of diversity has promoted the acceptance of subcultures (drug culture, race culture, science culture, this culture and that culture and has resulted in no viable culture at all. The point being that some of the things that facilitated the making of a great country, like basic honesty, truthfulness and fairness were products of a unified culture and these cultural traits made business easy and profitable, human relations civil, and in general, made for a just and fair society without the necessity of endless laws and courts to enforce what was willing enabled by the force of culture. Finally, the current fractured culture we now have will continue to change as events dictate and the troubles and problems attendant to our current situation will remain unresolved because they are a product of our culture. However, there are a large number of people, particularly the young, who believe in the culture we now have and nothing short of a great event will change things in a meaningful way regardless of how some of the citizens think. But never ever forget, it is now and forever, The Culture.
Friday, May 29, 2009
God and Guns
God and Guns
Do you remember back in April 2008 when the Presidential Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) confided to his urbane buddies in California about the small town residents in Pennsylvania? Here is the quote, “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.” I think most people took his remarks as an anti-gun statement as well as confirmation of an elitist attitude. My take on the quote was that it reminded me of an old time aristocratic English explorer sitting comfortably in a massive leather chair within the privileged confines of an exclusive Explorer’s Club, and while sipping gin with the other fellow aristocrats, explained the social workings of a primitive tribe he had discovered while exploring some far-off land. I say that because the quote certainly has an “us and them” quality about it, you know, he did not describe the small town Pennsylvanians as “my fellow Americans”, he instead described “them” in an antiseptic and diagnostic manner. But I digress. Well regardless of my take on the quote, most people took the remark as an anti-gun statement and of course any political statement about guns brings us at once to the Bill of Rights and the second amendment of the Constitution, to wit, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Please indulge me now. I ask you to carefully reread the amendment and do not fixate on the right to keep and bear Arms. My point being that the second amendment is not about the right to keep and bear Arms, it is instead about the right of the free people of this country to form and maintain a Militia. I think the argument about the second amendment has been purposely transformed from one of the people’s right to form and maintain a Militia to one about the right to keep and bear Arms. In other words, how can you have a Militia if the citizens do not have a right to keep and bear Arms? Think about it. A Militia is an ad hoc formation of citizens (not a professional standing army) that relies on the necessity of a citizen to be armed in order for the Militia to be able to viably respond to threats to community or freedom. The political Gun control people are really concerned about the right of the citizens to form and maintain a Militia and if they can criminalize the keeping and bearing of arms, then the people cannot have a viable Militia. And when you think about it, the right to keep and bear Arms must mean Arms equal to that of the Government or again, a Militia cannot be viable. For example, if it was finally decided that citizens could be armed but the authorized weapon could not exceed a 22 caliber single shot pistol, then you have effectively disarmed the Militia. Additionally, arguments about assault rifles, machine guns, etc., is really only another way for the Federal Government to effectively usurp the right to form and maintain a viable citizen Militia by limiting the type of Arms they (the citizens) can keep and bear. Further arguments about the ability to hunt and personal protection, while worthy arguments, are not at all germane to the Militia right. And please, don’t buy into the baloney that the National Guard is the Militia. The National Guard is indeed National and an official and Federal Government funded auxiliary arm of the standing United States Army, not a citizen Militia. My previous piece, “The War of 1787” stated that the anti-federalists insisted on the bill of rights as a protection from a strong central Government’s ability to usurp the individual rights of citizens and the second amendment attests to the importance of the amendment concerning citizen Militias and the maintenance of a free state to ensure those freedoms. Why did the founding fathers attach so much importance to the right of citizens to form and maintain a Militia? As usual, the Federalist Papers is the reference the founding fathers promulgated to explain the language of the Constitution and one can find discussions about Militias in Federalist Papers numbers 24, 26, 28, 29, 47,53, 56 and 69. Of these, Federalist Paper number 47 by Madison is the most illuminating of all. I quote from that paper, “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” It really never occurred to the founding fathers that a free people could ever be denied the means of procuring and maintaining their freedoms when the laws of the Republic failed to do so because free people have an inherent right as free people to be fully armed in order to form and maintain militias to ensure their freedoms. The second amendment was expressly crafted to ensure the people had the armed means to resist a usurping Federal Government bent on complete authority over the people, to wit, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.” If anyone feels that armed militias have no place in a modern society, then by all means take your case to the people and obtain the consent of the people to amend the Constitution accordingly.
Do you remember back in April 2008 when the Presidential Candidate, Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) confided to his urbane buddies in California about the small town residents in Pennsylvania? Here is the quote, “It’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant, or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.” I think most people took his remarks as an anti-gun statement as well as confirmation of an elitist attitude. My take on the quote was that it reminded me of an old time aristocratic English explorer sitting comfortably in a massive leather chair within the privileged confines of an exclusive Explorer’s Club, and while sipping gin with the other fellow aristocrats, explained the social workings of a primitive tribe he had discovered while exploring some far-off land. I say that because the quote certainly has an “us and them” quality about it, you know, he did not describe the small town Pennsylvanians as “my fellow Americans”, he instead described “them” in an antiseptic and diagnostic manner. But I digress. Well regardless of my take on the quote, most people took the remark as an anti-gun statement and of course any political statement about guns brings us at once to the Bill of Rights and the second amendment of the Constitution, to wit, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Please indulge me now. I ask you to carefully reread the amendment and do not fixate on the right to keep and bear Arms. My point being that the second amendment is not about the right to keep and bear Arms, it is instead about the right of the free people of this country to form and maintain a Militia. I think the argument about the second amendment has been purposely transformed from one of the people’s right to form and maintain a Militia to one about the right to keep and bear Arms. In other words, how can you have a Militia if the citizens do not have a right to keep and bear Arms? Think about it. A Militia is an ad hoc formation of citizens (not a professional standing army) that relies on the necessity of a citizen to be armed in order for the Militia to be able to viably respond to threats to community or freedom. The political Gun control people are really concerned about the right of the citizens to form and maintain a Militia and if they can criminalize the keeping and bearing of arms, then the people cannot have a viable Militia. And when you think about it, the right to keep and bear Arms must mean Arms equal to that of the Government or again, a Militia cannot be viable. For example, if it was finally decided that citizens could be armed but the authorized weapon could not exceed a 22 caliber single shot pistol, then you have effectively disarmed the Militia. Additionally, arguments about assault rifles, machine guns, etc., is really only another way for the Federal Government to effectively usurp the right to form and maintain a viable citizen Militia by limiting the type of Arms they (the citizens) can keep and bear. Further arguments about the ability to hunt and personal protection, while worthy arguments, are not at all germane to the Militia right. And please, don’t buy into the baloney that the National Guard is the Militia. The National Guard is indeed National and an official and Federal Government funded auxiliary arm of the standing United States Army, not a citizen Militia. My previous piece, “The War of 1787” stated that the anti-federalists insisted on the bill of rights as a protection from a strong central Government’s ability to usurp the individual rights of citizens and the second amendment attests to the importance of the amendment concerning citizen Militias and the maintenance of a free state to ensure those freedoms. Why did the founding fathers attach so much importance to the right of citizens to form and maintain a Militia? As usual, the Federalist Papers is the reference the founding fathers promulgated to explain the language of the Constitution and one can find discussions about Militias in Federalist Papers numbers 24, 26, 28, 29, 47,53, 56 and 69. Of these, Federalist Paper number 47 by Madison is the most illuminating of all. I quote from that paper, “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.” It really never occurred to the founding fathers that a free people could ever be denied the means of procuring and maintaining their freedoms when the laws of the Republic failed to do so because free people have an inherent right as free people to be fully armed in order to form and maintain militias to ensure their freedoms. The second amendment was expressly crafted to ensure the people had the armed means to resist a usurping Federal Government bent on complete authority over the people, to wit, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state.” If anyone feels that armed militias have no place in a modern society, then by all means take your case to the people and obtain the consent of the people to amend the Constitution accordingly.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Political Parties
Political Parties
Has this ever happened to you? One day you look at something that has always been a part of your world and suddenly you discover, hey, why I am still using this? For example, a short time ago I looked at my landline telephone and then at my cell phone and said; why do I have my old telephone hanging on the wall when I have a personal telephone in my pocket? All I ever get from the old telephone is unsolicited calls from the FOP and roofing contractors, so why am I still paying for this thing? So I discontinued the telephone service that has been a part of my life for over #?X!** years and I have not missed the old ring-a-ding thing at all. There are a number of other things like the telephone that could be used to make the point, but I think we all understand that we make similar changes every day as circumstances allow and dictate. The point being that time marches on and technology, modern circumstances, personal preferences, etc., all play a role in changing what we need in the modern world to either get along or make life easier. After I wrote the previous piece, “The Decline and Fall of the GOP”, I suddenly thought, who needs political parties in this day and age anyway? Think about it. What is the purpose of a political party in a Democratic Republic? Perhaps in the old days a political party could provide a needed service to the electorate by distilling a political philosophy into every day terms that could be more readily understood by the people. The party could then promote a doctrine that reflected the stated political philosophy and take positions that a citizen could either support or oppose. Well that was then and this is now and the fact is that people nowadays have much more educational opportunities than was available in the good old days and we all should be wiser about all things political as a result. Also, in the good old days, communications was either by word-of-mouth or newspapers, but today we are completely overwhelmed by information coming in from every direction, constantly. So there is no reason on this beautiful blue planet why anyone should not be informed as to what is going on in the world and this knowledge should provide us with all of the wherewithal required to make informed judgments and vote accordingly. So why do we still need political parties telling us what they want us to hear? As a matter of fact, the two party system now entrenched in our political system is more interested in providing misinformation and spin in order to stay in power rather than actually providing an objective political service to the electorate. What the hell, we might as well call a rose a rose; the ruling political parties are corrupt and you cannot believe one word they say. So I say; we don’t need no stinking political parties anymore, let them go the way of the telephone! Let’s all become Independents and trust our own judgments rather than let the self-serving political parties lead us to where they want us to go. Enabling technologies and modern times provides us all with the means to be completely independent, and for goodness sakes, now is the time to do so. This is something we can actually do, and by so doing, it (become Independents) could well be the first meaningful step by the people to take back control of our country. Think about it. I can’t imagine a more freedom-enhancing situation than having a completely Independent electorate guiding the country.
Has this ever happened to you? One day you look at something that has always been a part of your world and suddenly you discover, hey, why I am still using this? For example, a short time ago I looked at my landline telephone and then at my cell phone and said; why do I have my old telephone hanging on the wall when I have a personal telephone in my pocket? All I ever get from the old telephone is unsolicited calls from the FOP and roofing contractors, so why am I still paying for this thing? So I discontinued the telephone service that has been a part of my life for over #?X!** years and I have not missed the old ring-a-ding thing at all. There are a number of other things like the telephone that could be used to make the point, but I think we all understand that we make similar changes every day as circumstances allow and dictate. The point being that time marches on and technology, modern circumstances, personal preferences, etc., all play a role in changing what we need in the modern world to either get along or make life easier. After I wrote the previous piece, “The Decline and Fall of the GOP”, I suddenly thought, who needs political parties in this day and age anyway? Think about it. What is the purpose of a political party in a Democratic Republic? Perhaps in the old days a political party could provide a needed service to the electorate by distilling a political philosophy into every day terms that could be more readily understood by the people. The party could then promote a doctrine that reflected the stated political philosophy and take positions that a citizen could either support or oppose. Well that was then and this is now and the fact is that people nowadays have much more educational opportunities than was available in the good old days and we all should be wiser about all things political as a result. Also, in the good old days, communications was either by word-of-mouth or newspapers, but today we are completely overwhelmed by information coming in from every direction, constantly. So there is no reason on this beautiful blue planet why anyone should not be informed as to what is going on in the world and this knowledge should provide us with all of the wherewithal required to make informed judgments and vote accordingly. So why do we still need political parties telling us what they want us to hear? As a matter of fact, the two party system now entrenched in our political system is more interested in providing misinformation and spin in order to stay in power rather than actually providing an objective political service to the electorate. What the hell, we might as well call a rose a rose; the ruling political parties are corrupt and you cannot believe one word they say. So I say; we don’t need no stinking political parties anymore, let them go the way of the telephone! Let’s all become Independents and trust our own judgments rather than let the self-serving political parties lead us to where they want us to go. Enabling technologies and modern times provides us all with the means to be completely independent, and for goodness sakes, now is the time to do so. This is something we can actually do, and by so doing, it (become Independents) could well be the first meaningful step by the people to take back control of our country. Think about it. I can’t imagine a more freedom-enhancing situation than having a completely Independent electorate guiding the country.
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Decline and Fall of the GOP
The Decline and Fall of the GOP
Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan). Well of course times are a-changin’, nothing in this universe is ever static and the fact that the affairs of mice and men are still a-changin’ in our time is just as inevitable as death, taxes and Oprah giving advice to the eager. Listening to Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom Ridge, John McCain and others mix it up over the future of the Republican Party (GOP) is about as boring as watching paint peel and listening to rusty wheels squeak, but as often is the case, the boring stuff can be the most important stuff in the grand scheme of things. Squeaking wheels and peeling paint aside, the mutterings of the aforementioned could well be the death rattle of the Grand Old Party and the possible demise of this very important force in American Body Politic should be the cause for serious introspection by the body citizenry. Let us not forget that the Republican Party grew into a National political force from the ashes of the Whigs when the Whigs as a national political party could not agree to support or oppose slavery, and as a result, fractured into obscurity as a national political force. Notable people, such as Abraham Lincoln, switched to the Republican Party from the Whigs because the Republican Party opposed slavery while the Whigs that supported slavery switched to the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the southern political contingent. Rank and file Whigs that opposed slavery switched to the Republican Party and became aligned with the northern political contingent. And so the stage for the great Civil war was set, rather boring stuff, huh? For the life of me, I can never understand the bloc support by the Black Community for the Democratic Party when it was the Republican Party, and not the Democratic Party, that supported the abolition of slavery, and indeed, as late as 1964, it was the Republicans that provided the support needed to pass the Civil Rights act when the Dixiecrats (southern Democrats) as well as other Democrats opposed the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But I digress. When discussing the decline and fall of important social entities, like the GOP, people often return to the seminal work of Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776) to make sense of it all. I too returned to that work and found what I was looking for and I will quote the passage of interest: “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principal of decay;” This quote about ancient Rome suffering from the effects of “Immoderate Greatness” could certainly apply to the GOP and indeed the USA as our power and influence on the world stage has been without peer and our immoderate greatness propelled a prosperity that was the envy of all. But alas, “Prosperity ripened the principal of decay”, describes the great engine of social change because decay always follows closely on the heels of unbridled success. Few could argue that decay has not set in where prosperity once ruled the day, not only for the GOP, but for the USA as well. Lets look at the GOP and the total success it enjoyed when it inherited a balanced budget and surpluses “as far as the eye can see” from President Bill Clinton in the year 2000. Not only did the GOP inherit a sound economy (for the moment), the GOP gained a massive political advantage granted by an electorate that had grown weary of silly peccadilloes and the secret dealings of a cult Government. What did the GOP do with its “Immoderate Greatness”? It totally focused on the maintenance of personal as well as party political power and spent the country into ruin while propelling us deeper into a bigger and bigger socialist style Government of entitlements and rights. The prosperity that can ruin a country can also decay a Political Party into obscurity as quickly as it can ruin an individual indulging in excess. The sound economy for the moment that the GOP inherited from President Bill Clinton was in reality a ticking time-bomb because the GOP as well as the Dems had a hand in passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) act in 1999 that repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall act. The passage of the GLB act set the stage for the financial disaster that has befallen us today by, in general, virtually eliminating regulation of lending and banking and that lack of prudent regulation allowed greed to take flight and ruin citizen and countries alike. Another insight can be gained about the effect of the GLB act on our current financial disaster from the historians Arnold Toynbee and James Burke. Toynbee and Burke argue that ancient Rome was doomed from the start because its economy was basically a “Raubwirtschaft” or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. When GLB was passed, it accelerated our decent into a consuming economy fueled by making money off of money. Making money off of money is the new and improved modern way of managing a plunder economy that simply loots existing resources gained from things of real value and multiplies (substitute the modern financial term of leveraging here) the real value into an inflated value that cannot sustain a real economy. In short, our modern 70% consumer economy is based on plunder looted from existing resources and was enabled by passage of the GLB act that the GOP and Dems can both take credit for. But again, I digress. I believe the GOP is doomed and I say, good riddance. All in all, what a dumb and stupid end for the Grand Old Party that rose into prominence by championing the abolishment of the scourge of slavery. I hope one day soon to say that the Democratic Party is also doomed and we all can say, good riddance. With each passing day, more and more citizens are finally waking up to the fact that a periodic revolution at the ballot box is no longer possible with the corrupt entrenched two-party system that we now have. Realizing this situation is accelerating the identification of being an Independent rather than Republican or Democrat and we can only hope our enlightened youth will step into the void with some new leadership some day soon.
Times They Are A-Changin’ (Bob Dylan). Well of course times are a-changin’, nothing in this universe is ever static and the fact that the affairs of mice and men are still a-changin’ in our time is just as inevitable as death, taxes and Oprah giving advice to the eager. Listening to Colin Powell, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom Ridge, John McCain and others mix it up over the future of the Republican Party (GOP) is about as boring as watching paint peel and listening to rusty wheels squeak, but as often is the case, the boring stuff can be the most important stuff in the grand scheme of things. Squeaking wheels and peeling paint aside, the mutterings of the aforementioned could well be the death rattle of the Grand Old Party and the possible demise of this very important force in American Body Politic should be the cause for serious introspection by the body citizenry. Let us not forget that the Republican Party grew into a National political force from the ashes of the Whigs when the Whigs as a national political party could not agree to support or oppose slavery, and as a result, fractured into obscurity as a national political force. Notable people, such as Abraham Lincoln, switched to the Republican Party from the Whigs because the Republican Party opposed slavery while the Whigs that supported slavery switched to the Democratic Party and aligned themselves with the southern political contingent. Rank and file Whigs that opposed slavery switched to the Republican Party and became aligned with the northern political contingent. And so the stage for the great Civil war was set, rather boring stuff, huh? For the life of me, I can never understand the bloc support by the Black Community for the Democratic Party when it was the Republican Party, and not the Democratic Party, that supported the abolition of slavery, and indeed, as late as 1964, it was the Republicans that provided the support needed to pass the Civil Rights act when the Dixiecrats (southern Democrats) as well as other Democrats opposed the passage of the Civil Rights Act. But I digress. When discussing the decline and fall of important social entities, like the GOP, people often return to the seminal work of Edward Gibbon (The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776) to make sense of it all. I too returned to that work and found what I was looking for and I will quote the passage of interest: “The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principal of decay;” This quote about ancient Rome suffering from the effects of “Immoderate Greatness” could certainly apply to the GOP and indeed the USA as our power and influence on the world stage has been without peer and our immoderate greatness propelled a prosperity that was the envy of all. But alas, “Prosperity ripened the principal of decay”, describes the great engine of social change because decay always follows closely on the heels of unbridled success. Few could argue that decay has not set in where prosperity once ruled the day, not only for the GOP, but for the USA as well. Lets look at the GOP and the total success it enjoyed when it inherited a balanced budget and surpluses “as far as the eye can see” from President Bill Clinton in the year 2000. Not only did the GOP inherit a sound economy (for the moment), the GOP gained a massive political advantage granted by an electorate that had grown weary of silly peccadilloes and the secret dealings of a cult Government. What did the GOP do with its “Immoderate Greatness”? It totally focused on the maintenance of personal as well as party political power and spent the country into ruin while propelling us deeper into a bigger and bigger socialist style Government of entitlements and rights. The prosperity that can ruin a country can also decay a Political Party into obscurity as quickly as it can ruin an individual indulging in excess. The sound economy for the moment that the GOP inherited from President Bill Clinton was in reality a ticking time-bomb because the GOP as well as the Dems had a hand in passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) act in 1999 that repealed part of the 1933 Glass-Steagall act. The passage of the GLB act set the stage for the financial disaster that has befallen us today by, in general, virtually eliminating regulation of lending and banking and that lack of prudent regulation allowed greed to take flight and ruin citizen and countries alike. Another insight can be gained about the effect of the GLB act on our current financial disaster from the historians Arnold Toynbee and James Burke. Toynbee and Burke argue that ancient Rome was doomed from the start because its economy was basically a “Raubwirtschaft” or plunder economy based on looting existing resources rather than producing anything new. When GLB was passed, it accelerated our decent into a consuming economy fueled by making money off of money. Making money off of money is the new and improved modern way of managing a plunder economy that simply loots existing resources gained from things of real value and multiplies (substitute the modern financial term of leveraging here) the real value into an inflated value that cannot sustain a real economy. In short, our modern 70% consumer economy is based on plunder looted from existing resources and was enabled by passage of the GLB act that the GOP and Dems can both take credit for. But again, I digress. I believe the GOP is doomed and I say, good riddance. All in all, what a dumb and stupid end for the Grand Old Party that rose into prominence by championing the abolishment of the scourge of slavery. I hope one day soon to say that the Democratic Party is also doomed and we all can say, good riddance. With each passing day, more and more citizens are finally waking up to the fact that a periodic revolution at the ballot box is no longer possible with the corrupt entrenched two-party system that we now have. Realizing this situation is accelerating the identification of being an Independent rather than Republican or Democrat and we can only hope our enlightened youth will step into the void with some new leadership some day soon.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Rock In Tree
Rock In Tree
Lets say that your television set crapped out, and in desperation for something else to do, you meandered down to Brown County Indiana. Further, after stopping at the Dairy Queen for a “Death by Chocolate” blizzard, a local yokel directed you towards the very small town of Needmore Indiana (wouldn’t you just love to find out how the town of Needmore Indiana got it’s name?), because, he said, there was evidence that aliens from outer space had visited the area and proof of the outer space visit could be found in the Yellowwood State Forest. Well now, vegetating in front of a TV is one thing, but looking at a potential full-scale adventure is quite another, and so with eager anticipation radiating from your gullible big-city face, you ask the knowledgeable Hoosier for directions to where you could find the evidence for the out-of-this-world event. After much arm waving about this crook in the road and that turn-off next to the scum-covered pond, and, oh by the way, what out for ticks (don’t wear white clothing) you are directed to a country gravel road in the middle of no place, where, no doubt, the Owls make love to the Chickens in the dark of night. And so fortified with an ice-cold brewski, you put on your hiking boots and prepare to hike to a most unusual place, a place where few have even heard about and fewer still have even bothered to go. If you have a GPS, you’re in luck. Punch in the following coordinates, 39°, 12.204 North and 086°, 21.995 West. Take your time in getting to the GPS point because the forest is about the way it was before there was even a people called Hoosiers milling about in the area and so there is much to see as you walk in the privileged area. Perhaps you will notice that the flora and critters haven’t changed all that much since the time when the last continental Glacier ground to a halt on this very spot and before the stout Hoosiers began to chop down the old growth trees in an attempt to eke out a living in these parts. If you would have gotten to the designated GPS coordinates a couple of years ago, you would have found a mighty 80 foot Oak tree on the banks of Plum Creek (or Plum Crick as the indigenous folk call it), and if you looked up, you would have seen a 400 pound boulder wedged in a branch fork about 30 feet up. No doubt you have noticed that I mentioned that if you would have gotten to this place a couple of years ago, you would have seen what is pictured above, because a mighty storm racked the area a awhile back and felled the once mighty and storied tree with the terrestrial interloper still locked in it’s branches. The tree fell with the pictured stone still firmly wedged in its fork and it now lies on the forest floor instead of reaching for the sky with its strange burden trying to pull it down. But wait, there’s more. There are a number of trees that are still standing around in the same area that have big rocks in their branches. Here are the GPS coordinates for two more of them: N39, 14.986, W086, 18.492 and N39, 14.984, W086, 18.560. I have went to these places and seen the strange sight of boulders in the tree tops with my own eyes and have speculated, along with many others, as to how heavy rocks could find themselves, up in a tree. Many experts have speculated about how the rocks defied gravity and lodged themselves in the tops of trees, but in reality, no one knows. There are two prominent theories concerning this mystery and they are, (1) drunken IU students put the heavy stones in the trees by some unknown means and they did so because it seemed the thing to do at the time with the added benefit of confounding the local Hoosiers by doing so, (2) a UFO visited the area and put the stones up in the trees. I personally think that theory (1) is the most plausible theory because I have seen the many implausible and mysterious things that drunken IU students have done in the past. As far as the UFO theory, think about it. Why would a people smart enough to build space ships that can motor about the cosmos find it necessary to go to Needmore Indiana in order to place rocks in the tops of trees? Would they do so to confound Hoosiers? I think not, because there are many lesser things that confound Hoosiers, e.g., Hoosiers are still confounded about the change to daylight saving time, so placing heavy rocks up in the trees would not seem a worthy endeavor by an advanced race of greenies. But there is something else about these rocks in the trees. Rocks do not belong in the top of a tree; they belong on the ground with all of the other rocks. As I looked up at the trees this obvious truth became apparent because like the rocks stuck up in a tree, there are those among us that are also stuck in a place where we do not belong. Some call these out-of-place people Contrarians, because they always seem out of place with their contrary opinions and counter arguments. In these days and times, I feel more and more like a Rock in a Tree.
Lets say that your television set crapped out, and in desperation for something else to do, you meandered down to Brown County Indiana. Further, after stopping at the Dairy Queen for a “Death by Chocolate” blizzard, a local yokel directed you towards the very small town of Needmore Indiana (wouldn’t you just love to find out how the town of Needmore Indiana got it’s name?), because, he said, there was evidence that aliens from outer space had visited the area and proof of the outer space visit could be found in the Yellowwood State Forest. Well now, vegetating in front of a TV is one thing, but looking at a potential full-scale adventure is quite another, and so with eager anticipation radiating from your gullible big-city face, you ask the knowledgeable Hoosier for directions to where you could find the evidence for the out-of-this-world event. After much arm waving about this crook in the road and that turn-off next to the scum-covered pond, and, oh by the way, what out for ticks (don’t wear white clothing) you are directed to a country gravel road in the middle of no place, where, no doubt, the Owls make love to the Chickens in the dark of night. And so fortified with an ice-cold brewski, you put on your hiking boots and prepare to hike to a most unusual place, a place where few have even heard about and fewer still have even bothered to go. If you have a GPS, you’re in luck. Punch in the following coordinates, 39°, 12.204 North and 086°, 21.995 West. Take your time in getting to the GPS point because the forest is about the way it was before there was even a people called Hoosiers milling about in the area and so there is much to see as you walk in the privileged area. Perhaps you will notice that the flora and critters haven’t changed all that much since the time when the last continental Glacier ground to a halt on this very spot and before the stout Hoosiers began to chop down the old growth trees in an attempt to eke out a living in these parts. If you would have gotten to the designated GPS coordinates a couple of years ago, you would have found a mighty 80 foot Oak tree on the banks of Plum Creek (or Plum Crick as the indigenous folk call it), and if you looked up, you would have seen a 400 pound boulder wedged in a branch fork about 30 feet up. No doubt you have noticed that I mentioned that if you would have gotten to this place a couple of years ago, you would have seen what is pictured above, because a mighty storm racked the area a awhile back and felled the once mighty and storied tree with the terrestrial interloper still locked in it’s branches. The tree fell with the pictured stone still firmly wedged in its fork and it now lies on the forest floor instead of reaching for the sky with its strange burden trying to pull it down. But wait, there’s more. There are a number of trees that are still standing around in the same area that have big rocks in their branches. Here are the GPS coordinates for two more of them: N39, 14.986, W086, 18.492 and N39, 14.984, W086, 18.560. I have went to these places and seen the strange sight of boulders in the tree tops with my own eyes and have speculated, along with many others, as to how heavy rocks could find themselves, up in a tree. Many experts have speculated about how the rocks defied gravity and lodged themselves in the tops of trees, but in reality, no one knows. There are two prominent theories concerning this mystery and they are, (1) drunken IU students put the heavy stones in the trees by some unknown means and they did so because it seemed the thing to do at the time with the added benefit of confounding the local Hoosiers by doing so, (2) a UFO visited the area and put the stones up in the trees. I personally think that theory (1) is the most plausible theory because I have seen the many implausible and mysterious things that drunken IU students have done in the past. As far as the UFO theory, think about it. Why would a people smart enough to build space ships that can motor about the cosmos find it necessary to go to Needmore Indiana in order to place rocks in the tops of trees? Would they do so to confound Hoosiers? I think not, because there are many lesser things that confound Hoosiers, e.g., Hoosiers are still confounded about the change to daylight saving time, so placing heavy rocks up in the trees would not seem a worthy endeavor by an advanced race of greenies. But there is something else about these rocks in the trees. Rocks do not belong in the top of a tree; they belong on the ground with all of the other rocks. As I looked up at the trees this obvious truth became apparent because like the rocks stuck up in a tree, there are those among us that are also stuck in a place where we do not belong. Some call these out-of-place people Contrarians, because they always seem out of place with their contrary opinions and counter arguments. In these days and times, I feel more and more like a Rock in a Tree.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Reconstructing America
RECONSTRUCTING AMERICA
Think back to when you were, lets say, 20 years old. Come on now, put your feet up on the old La-Z-Boy recliner and let your mind meander back to the days when you were an indestructible know-it-all that had all of the answers to all of life’s vexing problems. Perhaps a strong libation or two would help the recall process along, notwithstanding that the tasty chemical depressant might even help dull the edge of age-related embellishment of the actual facts and sharpen the honesty of the recollection as well. Are you back to the glory years yet? Ok, don’t dwell on that fantastic red headed babe you almost got next to or the muscled-up incredibly suave and debonair hunk that danced with you at the sock-hop, focus instead on what you thought life had in store for you. You know, perhaps you would be an airline pilot, with all of the prestige of flying happy people to and fro on vacation or powerful people to incredibly important business meetings that relied on your fantastic cool flying skill to save the day. Or perhaps, you would become a world famous female Medical Doctor that due to your incredible knowledge and expertise would not only cure the sick and balm the hurt, you would pave the way to expand the horizons of all females of great character to reach beyond the glass ceiling and fulfill their complete potential. Of course, there is the possibility that you were one of those who didn’t have a clue as to what you would become down the line, but you should had at least some sort of fuzzy vision of where you thought life would eventually take you. So the moment of truth has arrived, now that you have gotten “further down the line”, did you end up where you thought would be after gravity has taken its toll and too many brewskis have made their indelible mark? I would be willing to wager General Motors Corporation’s future that where you are now is probably not where you thought or hoped you would be when the blush of youth was on your cheeks. On thing for sure, how you and I got to where we are was not the result of some incredibly complex conspiracy by unknown people or entities. Instead, our life’s journey was facilitated and enabled by our heredity, parental training, formal education, personality, culture, society and the countless decisions made by us and others that affected the course of our journey into geezerdom. I like to think that our country, America, is very much like a singular citizen because, after all, a country is little more than the sum of its collective people. So the journey of our country into maturity (as reflected by our evolving culture) is no doubt similar to that of a singular citizen making his or her way towards maturity, aided and abetted by life’s circumstance and happenstance, i.e., the country’s journey into maturity is not as a result of an incredibly complex conspiracy by unknown people or entities, it is the result of the same forces that enables and facilitates its least indivisible part. Suffice to say, where our country is now is probably not what the founding fathers envisioned and codified into the Constitution when the blush of youth was on our country as well. When our country was young and vigorous, our culture reflected our youth by being a personally responsible and self-reliant people that resulted in a “Can-do” society that could do anything it believed in. The Constitution was the country’s holy foundation that enabled our youthful sprit to soar and was not subject to interpretation by the shifting winds of whim or fancy that has so transformed the holy document into what it has become today. Somewhere along the line, we have been transformed from a personally responsible and self-reliant people into a timid and hesitant people that can no longer build a highway system or pursue the cause of simple justice and has perpetrated an entitlement culture that now spreads responsibility for everything to everyone. (I will bet that if a scholarly study was done, it would be determined that the speed of a country’s decent into mediocrity is proportional to the number of lawyers it has.) The present day entitlement culture is now a fact and the likelihood of a return to our youthful culture and Constitutional foundations is as unlikely as an individual’s unwinding the years back into youth. So hang-on American, the reconstruction of America is in full force and the youth of today will inherit a American quite unlike what was envisioned in her youthful days.
Think back to when you were, lets say, 20 years old. Come on now, put your feet up on the old La-Z-Boy recliner and let your mind meander back to the days when you were an indestructible know-it-all that had all of the answers to all of life’s vexing problems. Perhaps a strong libation or two would help the recall process along, notwithstanding that the tasty chemical depressant might even help dull the edge of age-related embellishment of the actual facts and sharpen the honesty of the recollection as well. Are you back to the glory years yet? Ok, don’t dwell on that fantastic red headed babe you almost got next to or the muscled-up incredibly suave and debonair hunk that danced with you at the sock-hop, focus instead on what you thought life had in store for you. You know, perhaps you would be an airline pilot, with all of the prestige of flying happy people to and fro on vacation or powerful people to incredibly important business meetings that relied on your fantastic cool flying skill to save the day. Or perhaps, you would become a world famous female Medical Doctor that due to your incredible knowledge and expertise would not only cure the sick and balm the hurt, you would pave the way to expand the horizons of all females of great character to reach beyond the glass ceiling and fulfill their complete potential. Of course, there is the possibility that you were one of those who didn’t have a clue as to what you would become down the line, but you should had at least some sort of fuzzy vision of where you thought life would eventually take you. So the moment of truth has arrived, now that you have gotten “further down the line”, did you end up where you thought would be after gravity has taken its toll and too many brewskis have made their indelible mark? I would be willing to wager General Motors Corporation’s future that where you are now is probably not where you thought or hoped you would be when the blush of youth was on your cheeks. On thing for sure, how you and I got to where we are was not the result of some incredibly complex conspiracy by unknown people or entities. Instead, our life’s journey was facilitated and enabled by our heredity, parental training, formal education, personality, culture, society and the countless decisions made by us and others that affected the course of our journey into geezerdom. I like to think that our country, America, is very much like a singular citizen because, after all, a country is little more than the sum of its collective people. So the journey of our country into maturity (as reflected by our evolving culture) is no doubt similar to that of a singular citizen making his or her way towards maturity, aided and abetted by life’s circumstance and happenstance, i.e., the country’s journey into maturity is not as a result of an incredibly complex conspiracy by unknown people or entities, it is the result of the same forces that enables and facilitates its least indivisible part. Suffice to say, where our country is now is probably not what the founding fathers envisioned and codified into the Constitution when the blush of youth was on our country as well. When our country was young and vigorous, our culture reflected our youth by being a personally responsible and self-reliant people that resulted in a “Can-do” society that could do anything it believed in. The Constitution was the country’s holy foundation that enabled our youthful sprit to soar and was not subject to interpretation by the shifting winds of whim or fancy that has so transformed the holy document into what it has become today. Somewhere along the line, we have been transformed from a personally responsible and self-reliant people into a timid and hesitant people that can no longer build a highway system or pursue the cause of simple justice and has perpetrated an entitlement culture that now spreads responsibility for everything to everyone. (I will bet that if a scholarly study was done, it would be determined that the speed of a country’s decent into mediocrity is proportional to the number of lawyers it has.) The present day entitlement culture is now a fact and the likelihood of a return to our youthful culture and Constitutional foundations is as unlikely as an individual’s unwinding the years back into youth. So hang-on American, the reconstruction of America is in full force and the youth of today will inherit a American quite unlike what was envisioned in her youthful days.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Car Business
Car Business
On 5 December 2008 the first of several Congressional hearings about the automobile industry was conducted. The televised hearing was typical Congressional theater that had pompous Congressional finger-wavers in full throat about the awful Automobile CEOs who dared to come to the peoples Washington DC in their Corporate jets to beg for public money to survive. There were several things that struck me as important during the hearings. The first thing that struck me during all of the bashing of the domestic automobile industry was what was not addressed. There was never any analysis of how the foreign automobile makers had managed to capture so much of our domestic market other than foreign car makers all made far superior cars and the management of the foreign car makers were as close to Greek Gods as one could possibly get. Not once was it pointed out that most of the imported cars had an average of 19% VAT advantage over American cars. Here is how it works. Value Added Tax (VAT) countries like the EU, China, Canada and Mexico are rebated their VAT when their product is exported to a non-VAT country, like the USA. The typical VAT on a complex product, like an automobile, can be as much as 10%. So when a foreign VAT manufacturer exports to the USA, it enjoys a 10% discount that reduces the production cost, and therefore, the price of the car for sale in the USA. But wait, there is more. When a non-VAT country, like the USA, imports into a VAT country, a VAT of 10% is added to the import price at the border, voila, a typical 19% disadvantage to the USA when trying to sell cars on the foreign market (the foreign car maker gets 10% back while the USA gets tagged 10% when trying to sell in the foreign country, a 19 to 20% total disadvantage to the USA manufacturer.) This has nothing to do with quality, style or gas consumption, it a clear unfair trade practice. Another advantage foreign car companies get when they build a factory here in the USA is that the states fall all over themselves giving tax abatements, infrastructure, and God only knows what else that permits a Toyota to build a very modern, new and highly efficient manufacturing facility to compete with GM that has 90 year old inefficient plants that pay all kinds of taxes and is never in line for tax abatements. I could list many other disadvantages that our domestic manufacturing has to endure at the hands of our Government, but I think you get the idea. The most striking thing about the hearing was the universal condemnation that was heaped upon the domestic automakers for paying good wages and benefits to the employees. Think about it, our elected Government representatives, berating GM, Ford and Chrysler for being so dumb as to pay good wages and benefits to our citizens that are not in line with third world wages. What was not discussed at the hearing was the fact that current labor costs, inflated or not over foreign costs, contribute about 10% of the price of a automobile manufactured and sold in the USA (go online and conduct the research, it’s true, labor makes up about 10% of the price of a domestic car). Think about it, if one cut the labor costs to zero, there would still be a 10% disadvantage to the domestic car manufacturer’s due to VAT alone. This wage comparison thing got me to thinking about Henry Ford and how he managed to put together his magnificent company that brought personal freedom to all of America’s citizens by manufacturing affordable and reliable automobiles to the masses. Back when Henry Ford got going with his assembly line, the labor on the line was very hard and Henry could not hire people fast enough because of the attrition rate of people quitting. It was reported that for every 1,000 people working, Henry had to hire 960 more just to keep up with the attrition. The current rate of pay was $2.38 per day with no such thing as benefits other the benefit of having a wage-paying job. On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford announced to the nation that he was implementing a new minimum wage of $5.00 per day in addition to a profit-sharing plan for his employees. Henry was hailed as a friend of the worker and branded as an outright socialist. The result of the unilateral wage increase was that the company’s profits doubled in the next year. Henry Ford said of his wage increase, “The payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.” One has to wonder why we must continuously learn the same lessons over and over again like paying Coolie wages does not result in a viable business, regardless what brilliant and enlightened Government people think. One other thing Henry Ford got right. He said that another reason he arbitrarily raised wages was so that he could sell more cars as a result of people having enough money to buy a car. Brilliant. Lets do the math, when we all are making Coolie wages, how are we going to buy a $25,000 automobile, notwithstanding sending our kids to College and paying the ever increasing taxes? Brothers and Sisters, wages and benefits paid to our laboring autoworkers is not the reason for the current problems in our domestic automobile business.
On 5 December 2008 the first of several Congressional hearings about the automobile industry was conducted. The televised hearing was typical Congressional theater that had pompous Congressional finger-wavers in full throat about the awful Automobile CEOs who dared to come to the peoples Washington DC in their Corporate jets to beg for public money to survive. There were several things that struck me as important during the hearings. The first thing that struck me during all of the bashing of the domestic automobile industry was what was not addressed. There was never any analysis of how the foreign automobile makers had managed to capture so much of our domestic market other than foreign car makers all made far superior cars and the management of the foreign car makers were as close to Greek Gods as one could possibly get. Not once was it pointed out that most of the imported cars had an average of 19% VAT advantage over American cars. Here is how it works. Value Added Tax (VAT) countries like the EU, China, Canada and Mexico are rebated their VAT when their product is exported to a non-VAT country, like the USA. The typical VAT on a complex product, like an automobile, can be as much as 10%. So when a foreign VAT manufacturer exports to the USA, it enjoys a 10% discount that reduces the production cost, and therefore, the price of the car for sale in the USA. But wait, there is more. When a non-VAT country, like the USA, imports into a VAT country, a VAT of 10% is added to the import price at the border, voila, a typical 19% disadvantage to the USA when trying to sell cars on the foreign market (the foreign car maker gets 10% back while the USA gets tagged 10% when trying to sell in the foreign country, a 19 to 20% total disadvantage to the USA manufacturer.) This has nothing to do with quality, style or gas consumption, it a clear unfair trade practice. Another advantage foreign car companies get when they build a factory here in the USA is that the states fall all over themselves giving tax abatements, infrastructure, and God only knows what else that permits a Toyota to build a very modern, new and highly efficient manufacturing facility to compete with GM that has 90 year old inefficient plants that pay all kinds of taxes and is never in line for tax abatements. I could list many other disadvantages that our domestic manufacturing has to endure at the hands of our Government, but I think you get the idea. The most striking thing about the hearing was the universal condemnation that was heaped upon the domestic automakers for paying good wages and benefits to the employees. Think about it, our elected Government representatives, berating GM, Ford and Chrysler for being so dumb as to pay good wages and benefits to our citizens that are not in line with third world wages. What was not discussed at the hearing was the fact that current labor costs, inflated or not over foreign costs, contribute about 10% of the price of a automobile manufactured and sold in the USA (go online and conduct the research, it’s true, labor makes up about 10% of the price of a domestic car). Think about it, if one cut the labor costs to zero, there would still be a 10% disadvantage to the domestic car manufacturer’s due to VAT alone. This wage comparison thing got me to thinking about Henry Ford and how he managed to put together his magnificent company that brought personal freedom to all of America’s citizens by manufacturing affordable and reliable automobiles to the masses. Back when Henry Ford got going with his assembly line, the labor on the line was very hard and Henry could not hire people fast enough because of the attrition rate of people quitting. It was reported that for every 1,000 people working, Henry had to hire 960 more just to keep up with the attrition. The current rate of pay was $2.38 per day with no such thing as benefits other the benefit of having a wage-paying job. On January 5, 1914, Henry Ford announced to the nation that he was implementing a new minimum wage of $5.00 per day in addition to a profit-sharing plan for his employees. Henry was hailed as a friend of the worker and branded as an outright socialist. The result of the unilateral wage increase was that the company’s profits doubled in the next year. Henry Ford said of his wage increase, “The payment of five dollars a day for an eight-hour day was one of the finest cost-cutting moves we ever made.” One has to wonder why we must continuously learn the same lessons over and over again like paying Coolie wages does not result in a viable business, regardless what brilliant and enlightened Government people think. One other thing Henry Ford got right. He said that another reason he arbitrarily raised wages was so that he could sell more cars as a result of people having enough money to buy a car. Brilliant. Lets do the math, when we all are making Coolie wages, how are we going to buy a $25,000 automobile, notwithstanding sending our kids to College and paying the ever increasing taxes? Brothers and Sisters, wages and benefits paid to our laboring autoworkers is not the reason for the current problems in our domestic automobile business.
Monday, April 6, 2009
It's A Matter of Trust
It’s A Matter of Trust
Trust what I say
And do what you’re told
And surely all your dirt will turn into gold.
(Van Morrison, from the song, “The Mystery”)
Never trust a skinny Chef or fat Banker.
Never trust a sickly Doctor or poor Lawyer.
Never trust a loud musician or rich artist.
Never trust an eloquent Politician or tight-lipped executive.
Never trust a farmer in a business suit or a preacher in blue jeans.
Never trust an indispensable man or a man for all seasons.
Never trust a stampeding mob or solitary man.
Never trust a swaggering Captain or a man who kills animals for sport.
Never trust a man who is obsessed with his looks or a woman who cares little about grooming.
Never trust a man who considers himself a citizen of the world or a man fearful of life beyond his family.
Never trust a multinational business or a church with a worldwide reach.
Never trust a man who does not drink or a woman who does not cry.
Never trust a free lunch or 15% interest.
Always trust the wife who says, it really matters little or the husband who says, I’ll take care of it, somehow, someway.
Always trust the little girl with bouncing curls and giggling gate as she throws her arms around your neck and says, give me a kiss, grandpa.
Always trust the little boy with flashing sneakers and a dirty tee shirt and says, let’s shoot some baskets, grandpa.
Always trust an angry man and a vengeful woman.
Always trust your heart in matters of love and your gut in matters of finance.
A final quote:
“The world’s cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”
Trust what I say
And do what you’re told
And surely all your dirt will turn into gold.
(Van Morrison, from the song, “The Mystery”)
Never trust a skinny Chef or fat Banker.
Never trust a sickly Doctor or poor Lawyer.
Never trust a loud musician or rich artist.
Never trust an eloquent Politician or tight-lipped executive.
Never trust a farmer in a business suit or a preacher in blue jeans.
Never trust an indispensable man or a man for all seasons.
Never trust a stampeding mob or solitary man.
Never trust a swaggering Captain or a man who kills animals for sport.
Never trust a man who is obsessed with his looks or a woman who cares little about grooming.
Never trust a man who considers himself a citizen of the world or a man fearful of life beyond his family.
Never trust a multinational business or a church with a worldwide reach.
Never trust a man who does not drink or a woman who does not cry.
Never trust a free lunch or 15% interest.
Always trust the wife who says, it really matters little or the husband who says, I’ll take care of it, somehow, someway.
Always trust the little girl with bouncing curls and giggling gate as she throws her arms around your neck and says, give me a kiss, grandpa.
Always trust the little boy with flashing sneakers and a dirty tee shirt and says, let’s shoot some baskets, grandpa.
Always trust an angry man and a vengeful woman.
Always trust your heart in matters of love and your gut in matters of finance.
A final quote:
“The world’s cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Bend Down
Bend Down
Bend down. Bend down low and hear my lament:
Who will cry out and care for the forgotten when the fog of crisis blinds and frightens virtuous fools and unscrupulous mavens alike? The virtuous fools, who are now blinded and bewildered by the fog of crisis now becoming reality, are those who swooned and stampeded like ignorant children into believing that an effortless Nirvana awaited us all, if only we just believe. Yes, those virtuous fools who feasted upon “feel-good” ideas and soaring rhetoric that promised a new world of enlightenment that would educate the ignorant, bring wealth to the poor, justice to the downtrodden, healing to the sick and respect from the world at large, and all to be gained by just believing. The virtuous fools cannot cry out and care for the forgotten because they still believe in the carefully constructed hooey that was designed to bring power to those who strive to remake us into something that we are not. Could it be, Pogo, that we have met the virtuous fools and the virtuous fools are us? The unscrupulous mavens, who only worship greed and lust for power, are only freighted by the unfolding crisis because they must blindly hurry in the resulting fog to find a way to turn a profit and retain power from the very mess that they created and they care not one wit about the forgotten. And who are the forgotten and what is the crisis? The forgotten are our progeny, our children and grandchildren, who will inherit a broken country that renders freedom meaningless. The crisis that I am speaking of is unfolding before our very eyes and is the changing of our democratic Republic into a broken third-world wreck by the Educated Idiots (or the French, Idiot Savants, if you prefer) in the form of BHO and Company who are heel-bent to remake our country into some kind of Socialist thing and remake the world for good measure. My lament is that our innocent children and grandchildren will not benefit, as we did, from the careful husbandry of our magnificent country by those who preceded us that not only blessed us with freedom, wealth and unlimited opportunity, but also instilled within us, a sense of morality that was the envy of the world.
Fall down. Fall down and hear my despair:
The wrecking of our country will occur not from bullets or bombs rained down upon us by despots or fanatics, the wreckage will be perpetrated by the Educated Idiots we ourselves place into Governance over us. The cascading financial debacle, perpetrated by greed and lust for power, will be used by the Educated Idiots as a fortuitous vehicle to purposely debauch our money into worthless pieces of paper and thereby make us all beholding to the Government instead of ourselves for our livelihood and well being. What an inglorious legacy for such a glorious country.
Bend down. Bend down low and hear my lament:
Who will cry out and care for the forgotten when the fog of crisis blinds and frightens virtuous fools and unscrupulous mavens alike? The virtuous fools, who are now blinded and bewildered by the fog of crisis now becoming reality, are those who swooned and stampeded like ignorant children into believing that an effortless Nirvana awaited us all, if only we just believe. Yes, those virtuous fools who feasted upon “feel-good” ideas and soaring rhetoric that promised a new world of enlightenment that would educate the ignorant, bring wealth to the poor, justice to the downtrodden, healing to the sick and respect from the world at large, and all to be gained by just believing. The virtuous fools cannot cry out and care for the forgotten because they still believe in the carefully constructed hooey that was designed to bring power to those who strive to remake us into something that we are not. Could it be, Pogo, that we have met the virtuous fools and the virtuous fools are us? The unscrupulous mavens, who only worship greed and lust for power, are only freighted by the unfolding crisis because they must blindly hurry in the resulting fog to find a way to turn a profit and retain power from the very mess that they created and they care not one wit about the forgotten. And who are the forgotten and what is the crisis? The forgotten are our progeny, our children and grandchildren, who will inherit a broken country that renders freedom meaningless. The crisis that I am speaking of is unfolding before our very eyes and is the changing of our democratic Republic into a broken third-world wreck by the Educated Idiots (or the French, Idiot Savants, if you prefer) in the form of BHO and Company who are heel-bent to remake our country into some kind of Socialist thing and remake the world for good measure. My lament is that our innocent children and grandchildren will not benefit, as we did, from the careful husbandry of our magnificent country by those who preceded us that not only blessed us with freedom, wealth and unlimited opportunity, but also instilled within us, a sense of morality that was the envy of the world.
Fall down. Fall down and hear my despair:
The wrecking of our country will occur not from bullets or bombs rained down upon us by despots or fanatics, the wreckage will be perpetrated by the Educated Idiots we ourselves place into Governance over us. The cascading financial debacle, perpetrated by greed and lust for power, will be used by the Educated Idiots as a fortuitous vehicle to purposely debauch our money into worthless pieces of paper and thereby make us all beholding to the Government instead of ourselves for our livelihood and well being. What an inglorious legacy for such a glorious country.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Catharsis
Catharsis
Catharsis: 3. Psychiatry. Psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable behavior.
The other day I was wheeling my Japanese chariot down to the local Wally World to get some cheap stuff and enrich the Chinese economy. I pulled up to an intersection that was a four way stop and because the car to my left had gotten to the intersection a tad earlier than me, I waited my turn until the car on the left cleared the intersection. As the car on the left started to pull into the intersection, I noticed that a car coming from in front of me was speeding into the intersection. It at once became obvious that the oncoming car was not going to stop. The car on my left slammed on the brakes and the oncoming car almost lost control as it tried to avoid the crash. A crash was narrowly adverted, primarily because the car on my left was manned by a defensive driver and had stopped in time to avoid the smash. The oncoming car slid to a halt and the driver began to yell and scream obscenities at the car on the left. The outraged driver then got out of his car and began to make menacing advances to the person in the car on the left. He said he was going to kill the @$%#*@# that had gotten in his way. In other words, the oncoming driver had no intention of stopping at the intersection and was going to cause harm to anyone that got in his way. The menacing driver eventually got back into his car and with a departing third finger salute to everyone present, gunned his car, and went speeding back on his way. I will wager AIG’s contribution to Obama’s election campaign that you have witnessed something similar to what I have just described in that there are some people who believe they are not required to live by the rules like everyone else. In fact, the stop sign running, and other uncivil persons, can only flaunt society’s rules and get by with it because most of us do live by the rules. In other words, if we all did not behave in a civil manner, we all would be engaged in constant confrontation with everyone else, uncivil slugs included. The outcome at the intersection would have been quite different if no one bothered to obey the stop sign. Chaos and personal confrontation would most likely result and a lot of people would probably get hurt. The uncivil slugs in our society would not be able to enjoy the same carefree life afforded to them by virtue of everyone else behaving in a civil manner and obeying society’s rules. Rather simple stuff we all learned in kindergarten, right? All of this got me to thinking about a paragraph I had read awhile back about this rather simple subject, and after a search, I found what I was looking for. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote the paragraph in question and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I shared it with you.
“A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the needs of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse is the code of politeness and fine manners.”
For some reason or another, the escalading lack of civility (including the lack of politeness and fine manners) that the intersection incident dramatized, has rapidly become the norm rather than the exception in our society. Most of the readers of this piece, who happen to have sprouted a fine crop of gray hair, can fondly remember our earlier days when people went to great lengths to be polite, non-confrontational and civil to one another. I bet that you, as well as I, have speculated about the reason why this decent into uncivil social behavior began in the first place and when it all got started in the second place. I searched my memory about when this change began to occur and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the uncivil change in social behavior happened to coincide with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At first blush, the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to correct the perceived injustice that some members of society were suffering at the hands of other members of society. Indeed, a noble cause. However, opposition to the legislating of new rights that was not in the Constitution cautioned that the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to legislate morality. Indeed, the Civil Rights Act was passed under, of all things, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to circumvent limitations on congressional power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause. A clear case of the end justifying the means because what a tortured streach of reasoning that the blocking of commerce between the states could occcur because of various kinds of social discrimination that the Civil Rights Act would correct. Of course the dissenters were sweep away with a wave of an enlightened hand that reasoned that the Civil Rights Act would be a necessary Catharsis that would allow pent-up emotions about a wide range of perceived social injustices to be released after the socially downtrodden saw that it was now against the law to perpetrate all such social injustices. After the Catharsis that the Civil Rights Act enabled, voila, peace and tranquility within the body social. (Brothers and Sisters, this was the beginning of (Gasp) Political Correctness.) However, upon the second blush of cynical reality, the Civil Rights Act was, after all, an attempt to legislate morality even though morality is indeed the exclusive property of the body social, regardless if the enlightened think so or not. Consider the possibility that the Civil Rights Act formalized by law what a free civil society normally does, thus, removing the obligation from society to teach its young about the importance of politeness and civility in social behavior because the law now tends to such things. So feel free to socially misbehave all you want unless a cop stops you for violating another person’s legislated civil rights, that is. You can socially misbehave regardless of what society thinks or requires because your uncivil social behavior is merely a sanctioned Catharsis occurring. What an outstanding example of unintended consequences causing a counterproductive effect. What a cornucopia of opportunity for the scumbag lawyers.
Catharsis: 3. Psychiatry. Psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of pent-up, socially unacceptable behavior.
The other day I was wheeling my Japanese chariot down to the local Wally World to get some cheap stuff and enrich the Chinese economy. I pulled up to an intersection that was a four way stop and because the car to my left had gotten to the intersection a tad earlier than me, I waited my turn until the car on the left cleared the intersection. As the car on the left started to pull into the intersection, I noticed that a car coming from in front of me was speeding into the intersection. It at once became obvious that the oncoming car was not going to stop. The car on my left slammed on the brakes and the oncoming car almost lost control as it tried to avoid the crash. A crash was narrowly adverted, primarily because the car on my left was manned by a defensive driver and had stopped in time to avoid the smash. The oncoming car slid to a halt and the driver began to yell and scream obscenities at the car on the left. The outraged driver then got out of his car and began to make menacing advances to the person in the car on the left. He said he was going to kill the @$%#*@# that had gotten in his way. In other words, the oncoming driver had no intention of stopping at the intersection and was going to cause harm to anyone that got in his way. The menacing driver eventually got back into his car and with a departing third finger salute to everyone present, gunned his car, and went speeding back on his way. I will wager AIG’s contribution to Obama’s election campaign that you have witnessed something similar to what I have just described in that there are some people who believe they are not required to live by the rules like everyone else. In fact, the stop sign running, and other uncivil persons, can only flaunt society’s rules and get by with it because most of us do live by the rules. In other words, if we all did not behave in a civil manner, we all would be engaged in constant confrontation with everyone else, uncivil slugs included. The outcome at the intersection would have been quite different if no one bothered to obey the stop sign. Chaos and personal confrontation would most likely result and a lot of people would probably get hurt. The uncivil slugs in our society would not be able to enjoy the same carefree life afforded to them by virtue of everyone else behaving in a civil manner and obeying society’s rules. Rather simple stuff we all learned in kindergarten, right? All of this got me to thinking about a paragraph I had read awhile back about this rather simple subject, and after a search, I found what I was looking for. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote the paragraph in question and I thought you wouldn’t mind if I shared it with you.
“A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the needs of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. The moderate distance which they at last discover to be the only tolerable condition of intercourse is the code of politeness and fine manners.”
For some reason or another, the escalading lack of civility (including the lack of politeness and fine manners) that the intersection incident dramatized, has rapidly become the norm rather than the exception in our society. Most of the readers of this piece, who happen to have sprouted a fine crop of gray hair, can fondly remember our earlier days when people went to great lengths to be polite, non-confrontational and civil to one another. I bet that you, as well as I, have speculated about the reason why this decent into uncivil social behavior began in the first place and when it all got started in the second place. I searched my memory about when this change began to occur and imagine my surprise when I discovered that the uncivil change in social behavior happened to coincide with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. At first blush, the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to correct the perceived injustice that some members of society were suffering at the hands of other members of society. Indeed, a noble cause. However, opposition to the legislating of new rights that was not in the Constitution cautioned that the Civil Rights Act was an attempt to legislate morality. Indeed, the Civil Rights Act was passed under, of all things, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to circumvent limitations on congressional power to enforce the Equal Protection Clause. A clear case of the end justifying the means because what a tortured streach of reasoning that the blocking of commerce between the states could occcur because of various kinds of social discrimination that the Civil Rights Act would correct. Of course the dissenters were sweep away with a wave of an enlightened hand that reasoned that the Civil Rights Act would be a necessary Catharsis that would allow pent-up emotions about a wide range of perceived social injustices to be released after the socially downtrodden saw that it was now against the law to perpetrate all such social injustices. After the Catharsis that the Civil Rights Act enabled, voila, peace and tranquility within the body social. (Brothers and Sisters, this was the beginning of (Gasp) Political Correctness.) However, upon the second blush of cynical reality, the Civil Rights Act was, after all, an attempt to legislate morality even though morality is indeed the exclusive property of the body social, regardless if the enlightened think so or not. Consider the possibility that the Civil Rights Act formalized by law what a free civil society normally does, thus, removing the obligation from society to teach its young about the importance of politeness and civility in social behavior because the law now tends to such things. So feel free to socially misbehave all you want unless a cop stops you for violating another person’s legislated civil rights, that is. You can socially misbehave regardless of what society thinks or requires because your uncivil social behavior is merely a sanctioned Catharsis occurring. What an outstanding example of unintended consequences causing a counterproductive effect. What a cornucopia of opportunity for the scumbag lawyers.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Stimulus
Stimulus
A drunk once confided to me: The reason God created booze and brewski was so that ugly people could enjoy sex too. I really don’t know why the fellow directed his observation about ugly drunk people in my direction but I did think at length about what he apparently said in humor. You know things like, if God wanted to ensure that the planet would always be fully populated, creating booze and brewski would be an easy way to do it. You know, a sort of Divine Stimulus Program. Nevertheless, I did curtail my alcohol consumption several-fold to test the drunk’s hypothesis and to lose some weight, what the sunshine boys call a Win, Win situation. On second thought, given that the hypothesis might indeed be correct, then perhaps it could end up being a Lose, Win situation. All of this brings to mind the famous quotation attributed to Sir Winston Churchill when Lady Astor accused him of being drunk, to wit the grand man was reported to have said, “Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly." But I digress. The Divine Stimulus Program to keep the planet populated got me to thinking about the Washington (Divine) Stimulus Program, you know, the one where the Government is creating money and the created money will somehow be injected into the economy which will then “stimulate” demand, which will then stimulate the economy to produce more goods, services, etc., which will stimulate the creation of jobs, which will stimulate the payment of money for labor (physical and intellectual), the payment of money for labor will then stimulate more demand for goods and services and, voila, a functioning and viable free market economy where only ruin and wreckage had once prevailed. Yeah, right. In days gone by, I was a Program Manager and I used to pitch my programs to get money in order to execute the program. The pitch was usually a view-graft presentation showing all of the elements of the program and how it would all come together, on time and within budget. Usually somewhere in the presentation things would inevitably get a little hazy on how a key element would occur (like requiring a technology that did not yet exist) and this is the place where a miracle would need to take place to make the program successful. Well in reality there are no such things as miracles and the so-called Government stimulus program requires a miracle somewhere in there to make it successful, and here is the reason why. First, there are two basic kinds of economies, a Top Down Economy (managed economy, e.g., USSR) and a Bottom Up Economy (free market economy, e.g., USA), with many variations in between. The USA has a free market economy even though with each passing day it becomes more and more a managed economy. The government intervening into a free market place by throwing artificial money into the system (the stimulus program, with more about artificial money later) transforms the functioning of the free market because the intervention is an attempt to manage the economy rather than let the free market place manage the economy. Just like you can’t really pay off a credit card with a credit card, you really can’t manage a free market place by intervening in it. If you attempt to manage a free market, you can only further disrupt the functioning of the economy. This counterproductive situation should be patently obvious even to Flim Flam Politicians. Let’s talk about money. Money is a wonderful invention by man to facilitate the functioning of an economy. Without money, we would be reduced to barter, and we all understand that an economy based upon barter would leave us stuck in the Stone Age. Real money is the medium of exchange (gold, paper certificate, ones & zeros, etc.) that we all agree has the same value as our labor, goods or property. Money relies exclusively upon the faith and trust of the people that money is as valuable as their hard work, property and productive enterprise. Real money can only be produced by productive enterprise because only real money represents real value. The Government cannot produce real money, only productive enterprise can produce real money and only real money is viable in a free market place because it alone represents real value. Government can only produce artificial money because it (the Government) is not engaged in productive enterprise in a free market economy. If the Government produces (prints or borrows) artificial money, that artificial money can only dilute the value of real money (inflation) because it (artificial money) was not produced by productive enterprise. Unless a miracle occurs, throwing artificial money into a free market economy cannot possibly grow the economy because the artificial money does not represent real value and the intervention is doomed to eventual failure. The only possible way to restart the economy and cause it to grow is to create the conditions favorable to productive enterprise. This can be done by a moratorium on business taxes, eliminate capital gains tax, provide incentives for business to do business here rather than outsourcing factories and jobs to more favorable locations. The most important change that must occur before any long term improvement can occur is that our economy must change from a 70% consumer driven Gross National Product (GNP) to a more sustainable productive enterprise GNP. So here is the situation that this Government Stimulus Intervention leaves us stuck in. We will all get drunk on artificial money, but in the morning we will be sober, and the economy will still be ugly.
A drunk once confided to me: The reason God created booze and brewski was so that ugly people could enjoy sex too. I really don’t know why the fellow directed his observation about ugly drunk people in my direction but I did think at length about what he apparently said in humor. You know things like, if God wanted to ensure that the planet would always be fully populated, creating booze and brewski would be an easy way to do it. You know, a sort of Divine Stimulus Program. Nevertheless, I did curtail my alcohol consumption several-fold to test the drunk’s hypothesis and to lose some weight, what the sunshine boys call a Win, Win situation. On second thought, given that the hypothesis might indeed be correct, then perhaps it could end up being a Lose, Win situation. All of this brings to mind the famous quotation attributed to Sir Winston Churchill when Lady Astor accused him of being drunk, to wit the grand man was reported to have said, “Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly." But I digress. The Divine Stimulus Program to keep the planet populated got me to thinking about the Washington (Divine) Stimulus Program, you know, the one where the Government is creating money and the created money will somehow be injected into the economy which will then “stimulate” demand, which will then stimulate the economy to produce more goods, services, etc., which will stimulate the creation of jobs, which will stimulate the payment of money for labor (physical and intellectual), the payment of money for labor will then stimulate more demand for goods and services and, voila, a functioning and viable free market economy where only ruin and wreckage had once prevailed. Yeah, right. In days gone by, I was a Program Manager and I used to pitch my programs to get money in order to execute the program. The pitch was usually a view-graft presentation showing all of the elements of the program and how it would all come together, on time and within budget. Usually somewhere in the presentation things would inevitably get a little hazy on how a key element would occur (like requiring a technology that did not yet exist) and this is the place where a miracle would need to take place to make the program successful. Well in reality there are no such things as miracles and the so-called Government stimulus program requires a miracle somewhere in there to make it successful, and here is the reason why. First, there are two basic kinds of economies, a Top Down Economy (managed economy, e.g., USSR) and a Bottom Up Economy (free market economy, e.g., USA), with many variations in between. The USA has a free market economy even though with each passing day it becomes more and more a managed economy. The government intervening into a free market place by throwing artificial money into the system (the stimulus program, with more about artificial money later) transforms the functioning of the free market because the intervention is an attempt to manage the economy rather than let the free market place manage the economy. Just like you can’t really pay off a credit card with a credit card, you really can’t manage a free market place by intervening in it. If you attempt to manage a free market, you can only further disrupt the functioning of the economy. This counterproductive situation should be patently obvious even to Flim Flam Politicians. Let’s talk about money. Money is a wonderful invention by man to facilitate the functioning of an economy. Without money, we would be reduced to barter, and we all understand that an economy based upon barter would leave us stuck in the Stone Age. Real money is the medium of exchange (gold, paper certificate, ones & zeros, etc.) that we all agree has the same value as our labor, goods or property. Money relies exclusively upon the faith and trust of the people that money is as valuable as their hard work, property and productive enterprise. Real money can only be produced by productive enterprise because only real money represents real value. The Government cannot produce real money, only productive enterprise can produce real money and only real money is viable in a free market place because it alone represents real value. Government can only produce artificial money because it (the Government) is not engaged in productive enterprise in a free market economy. If the Government produces (prints or borrows) artificial money, that artificial money can only dilute the value of real money (inflation) because it (artificial money) was not produced by productive enterprise. Unless a miracle occurs, throwing artificial money into a free market economy cannot possibly grow the economy because the artificial money does not represent real value and the intervention is doomed to eventual failure. The only possible way to restart the economy and cause it to grow is to create the conditions favorable to productive enterprise. This can be done by a moratorium on business taxes, eliminate capital gains tax, provide incentives for business to do business here rather than outsourcing factories and jobs to more favorable locations. The most important change that must occur before any long term improvement can occur is that our economy must change from a 70% consumer driven Gross National Product (GNP) to a more sustainable productive enterprise GNP. So here is the situation that this Government Stimulus Intervention leaves us stuck in. We will all get drunk on artificial money, but in the morning we will be sober, and the economy will still be ugly.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Dark Side of Knowledge
The Dark Side of Knowledge
Let’s take a walk. Let’s take a walk down my favorite walking trail that is a converted railroad bed (The Monon). Instead of mighty steel monsters belching billows of fearsome black smoke while clamoring up and down gleaming rails that caused the earth to shake and quiver as they made their way to and fro, the railroad legacy is now a rail free path with a grown-up canopy of trees and flora complete with busy critters that hardly takes notice of Nike clad feet softly treading to and fro in search of exercise and solace instead of forgotten steam engines straining for commerce and schedule. If you happen to get on the trail in the early morning, most of the indigenous critters you see are fully engaged in their business and are not in the least alarmed with the passage of fashion conscious bipedal critters aimlessly meandering to and fro along the trail. More likely than not, you will hear the absolutely beautiful clear notes of Red Cardinals birds singing away to the absolute delight of the walking and jogging bipedal creatures. I always like to think that the Red Cardinal birds are singing their beautiful song for my pleasure but I know in reality that they (the Red Cardinals) are instead sending out a warning to others of their kind to stay the hell away from their territory. Knowing this reality is the dark side of knowledge. I would rather believe that the songs the birds were singing were because the birds were happy and the singing was a declaration to all who could hear that the world is a beautiful place that merited the gorgeous notes being sprayed into the wind. I would rather believe this because it enriches my soul. But the knowledge of why they (the birds) are really singing only enriches my mind. Sometimes it is much better to have one’s soul enriched rather than having one’s mind enriched. There are many examples of the dark side of knowledge other than the whimsical example above. Take, for example, the knowledge of evolution as first detailed by Charles Darwin in his seminal book, On the Origin of Species. This knowledge of the evolution of life into more complex life, and the notion that survival of the fittest is the basis for the natural selection of those chosen to evolve, was all the intellectual rage in the time of Hitler and this knowledge became the basis for his book, “Mein Kampf”. Mein Kampf would become the political foundation for the Nazi movement that promoted the practice of eugenics to help create the master (German) race because it was believed that natural selection for evolution by survival of the fittest was as applicable to human races as it was to lower animal species. Therefore, to the Nazis, the German people were the fittest of all of the human races and elimination of inferior races and undesirable humans was only the fittest humans being naturally selected in accordance with the natural selection process described by Darwin. All of this knowledge of evolution and natural selection by survival of the fittest became the basis and justification for the murdering and killing of millions and millions of innocent people by the Nazis and German people in order to evolve into the “Master Race.” Again, the dark side of knowledge. A more contemporary example of the dark side of knowledge is the economic collapse that we are currently undergoing. Nefarious people, driven by greed, have used the knowledge of economics, finance and human behavior to concoct ruinous financial instruments in order to gain monetary advantage over others. Rather than to use knowledge to benefit all, the dark side of knowledge drove supposedly honorable people to ruin million and millions of innocent people. Other knowledge, such as how to split the atom and release the power of the universe, was first used to build a bomb in order to kill people rather than use the knowledge for a benign purpose. In this case, the dark side of knowledge may well doom us all.
Let’s take a walk. Let’s take a walk down my favorite walking trail that is a converted railroad bed (The Monon). Instead of mighty steel monsters belching billows of fearsome black smoke while clamoring up and down gleaming rails that caused the earth to shake and quiver as they made their way to and fro, the railroad legacy is now a rail free path with a grown-up canopy of trees and flora complete with busy critters that hardly takes notice of Nike clad feet softly treading to and fro in search of exercise and solace instead of forgotten steam engines straining for commerce and schedule. If you happen to get on the trail in the early morning, most of the indigenous critters you see are fully engaged in their business and are not in the least alarmed with the passage of fashion conscious bipedal critters aimlessly meandering to and fro along the trail. More likely than not, you will hear the absolutely beautiful clear notes of Red Cardinals birds singing away to the absolute delight of the walking and jogging bipedal creatures. I always like to think that the Red Cardinal birds are singing their beautiful song for my pleasure but I know in reality that they (the Red Cardinals) are instead sending out a warning to others of their kind to stay the hell away from their territory. Knowing this reality is the dark side of knowledge. I would rather believe that the songs the birds were singing were because the birds were happy and the singing was a declaration to all who could hear that the world is a beautiful place that merited the gorgeous notes being sprayed into the wind. I would rather believe this because it enriches my soul. But the knowledge of why they (the birds) are really singing only enriches my mind. Sometimes it is much better to have one’s soul enriched rather than having one’s mind enriched. There are many examples of the dark side of knowledge other than the whimsical example above. Take, for example, the knowledge of evolution as first detailed by Charles Darwin in his seminal book, On the Origin of Species. This knowledge of the evolution of life into more complex life, and the notion that survival of the fittest is the basis for the natural selection of those chosen to evolve, was all the intellectual rage in the time of Hitler and this knowledge became the basis for his book, “Mein Kampf”. Mein Kampf would become the political foundation for the Nazi movement that promoted the practice of eugenics to help create the master (German) race because it was believed that natural selection for evolution by survival of the fittest was as applicable to human races as it was to lower animal species. Therefore, to the Nazis, the German people were the fittest of all of the human races and elimination of inferior races and undesirable humans was only the fittest humans being naturally selected in accordance with the natural selection process described by Darwin. All of this knowledge of evolution and natural selection by survival of the fittest became the basis and justification for the murdering and killing of millions and millions of innocent people by the Nazis and German people in order to evolve into the “Master Race.” Again, the dark side of knowledge. A more contemporary example of the dark side of knowledge is the economic collapse that we are currently undergoing. Nefarious people, driven by greed, have used the knowledge of economics, finance and human behavior to concoct ruinous financial instruments in order to gain monetary advantage over others. Rather than to use knowledge to benefit all, the dark side of knowledge drove supposedly honorable people to ruin million and millions of innocent people. Other knowledge, such as how to split the atom and release the power of the universe, was first used to build a bomb in order to kill people rather than use the knowledge for a benign purpose. In this case, the dark side of knowledge may well doom us all.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The War of 1787
The War of 1787
On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified and we became a unified nation as a Republic (not a Democracy or Federation). There were deep divisions among the citizens at the time pertaining to what type of government the new nation would embrace. There was a sizable faction that argued that only a Federation of States could preserve the freedoms and rights of the individual citizens and were vehemently opposed to a Republic because they felt that a Republic would foster a strong central (federal) government that soon would abridge the rights and privileges of free men and the sovereignty of the states. Those who were opposed to a Republic being formed were collectively known as the “Anti-Federalists”. The Federalist Papers were published as a means to answer the concerns of the Anti-Federalists and were authored by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. The Federalist papers codified in print the reasoning and thought of those who championed a Republic and the papers in fact became the foundation for the subsequent Constitution of the United States. The Anti-Federalists lost and the Federalists won and so the first battle was fought, won and lost, in a war that is continuing to this day. The first battle was a political battle fought by the Anti-Federalists (Federation form of Government) and the Federalists (Republic form of Government) and even though the Federalists won the battle, they have not yet won the war. Indeed, the first political battle sowed the seeds for a much larger battle that resulted in an armed conflict that nearly tore this nation apart. That battle was called The Civil War. Make no mistake about it, the civil war was fought to succeed from the Republic and form a Confederation of the several states. Slavery was only one of many issues that sparked the conflict, not the fundamental reason for it. Other issues could have just as well started the inevitable war that was started by ratifying a Constitution for a Republic instead of a Federation. Things such as taxes, individual freedoms, unfair trade, ad infinitum, would eventually produce a fracturing of the Union just as well as the just abolishment of slavery. The right to enslave another human being or any other thing held dear to those in certain states would be allowed in a Federation that the central Government of a Republic would not permit. Even though Slavery was an abomination that had to be outlawed, the seeds for the Civil War were sowed in the political battle fought during the founding of our nation, not the issue of slavery of itself. The Constitutional Convention that produced the Constitution attempted to address the concerns of individual freedoms and states sovereignty that was championed by the Anti-Federalists by immediately including, by amendment, a bill of rights codified in Amendments I-X (1-10) of the Constitution (The Bill of Rights). Of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the tenth is the most important (The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.) and has been thoroughly trashed by the Supreme Court to become meaningless ink stains upon an ignored treasure. One could say that the concerns of the Anti-Federalists have been realized in our day by the continuous erosion of individual rights as well as anything that resembles the sovereignty of the states (States Rights). The war has continued on with political battles being fought and won by the Federalists in the form of Presidents Wilson, Lincoln and Roosevelt that has enabled the Federal Government to become ever more stronger and stronger by being involved in every aspect of a citizens life and in the operation of every state. And now comes this President, Barack Hussein Obama. Just as the Civil War, WWI, The Depression and WWII provided the means to advance a stronger central federal government, the current economic crisis (see the Obama’s White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel’s quote, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”) will present President Obama and Company with the golden opportunity to nearly complete the transition to a Socialist government by using the laws of the Republic and a swooning electorate to do so. I really don’t think the war will be ended by the new battle being waged by the overreaching of President Obama but I do believe a new battle is shaping up as the citizens finally become aware what is happening. I can only hope it will be a political battle and not another armed conflict that will distinguish the upcoming battle. Just like the Anti-Federalists feared would happen is happening as our individual rights and freedoms are vanishing right along side the loss of States Rights because of a central federal government that grows ever stronger with each passing day and crisis.
On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified and we became a unified nation as a Republic (not a Democracy or Federation). There were deep divisions among the citizens at the time pertaining to what type of government the new nation would embrace. There was a sizable faction that argued that only a Federation of States could preserve the freedoms and rights of the individual citizens and were vehemently opposed to a Republic because they felt that a Republic would foster a strong central (federal) government that soon would abridge the rights and privileges of free men and the sovereignty of the states. Those who were opposed to a Republic being formed were collectively known as the “Anti-Federalists”. The Federalist Papers were published as a means to answer the concerns of the Anti-Federalists and were authored by Hamilton, Madison and Jay. The Federalist papers codified in print the reasoning and thought of those who championed a Republic and the papers in fact became the foundation for the subsequent Constitution of the United States. The Anti-Federalists lost and the Federalists won and so the first battle was fought, won and lost, in a war that is continuing to this day. The first battle was a political battle fought by the Anti-Federalists (Federation form of Government) and the Federalists (Republic form of Government) and even though the Federalists won the battle, they have not yet won the war. Indeed, the first political battle sowed the seeds for a much larger battle that resulted in an armed conflict that nearly tore this nation apart. That battle was called The Civil War. Make no mistake about it, the civil war was fought to succeed from the Republic and form a Confederation of the several states. Slavery was only one of many issues that sparked the conflict, not the fundamental reason for it. Other issues could have just as well started the inevitable war that was started by ratifying a Constitution for a Republic instead of a Federation. Things such as taxes, individual freedoms, unfair trade, ad infinitum, would eventually produce a fracturing of the Union just as well as the just abolishment of slavery. The right to enslave another human being or any other thing held dear to those in certain states would be allowed in a Federation that the central Government of a Republic would not permit. Even though Slavery was an abomination that had to be outlawed, the seeds for the Civil War were sowed in the political battle fought during the founding of our nation, not the issue of slavery of itself. The Constitutional Convention that produced the Constitution attempted to address the concerns of individual freedoms and states sovereignty that was championed by the Anti-Federalists by immediately including, by amendment, a bill of rights codified in Amendments I-X (1-10) of the Constitution (The Bill of Rights). Of the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the tenth is the most important (The Powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.) and has been thoroughly trashed by the Supreme Court to become meaningless ink stains upon an ignored treasure. One could say that the concerns of the Anti-Federalists have been realized in our day by the continuous erosion of individual rights as well as anything that resembles the sovereignty of the states (States Rights). The war has continued on with political battles being fought and won by the Federalists in the form of Presidents Wilson, Lincoln and Roosevelt that has enabled the Federal Government to become ever more stronger and stronger by being involved in every aspect of a citizens life and in the operation of every state. And now comes this President, Barack Hussein Obama. Just as the Civil War, WWI, The Depression and WWII provided the means to advance a stronger central federal government, the current economic crisis (see the Obama’s White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel’s quote, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before”) will present President Obama and Company with the golden opportunity to nearly complete the transition to a Socialist government by using the laws of the Republic and a swooning electorate to do so. I really don’t think the war will be ended by the new battle being waged by the overreaching of President Obama but I do believe a new battle is shaping up as the citizens finally become aware what is happening. I can only hope it will be a political battle and not another armed conflict that will distinguish the upcoming battle. Just like the Anti-Federalists feared would happen is happening as our individual rights and freedoms are vanishing right along side the loss of States Rights because of a central federal government that grows ever stronger with each passing day and crisis.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
National Sales Tax
National Sales Tax
Here is a reasonable guess about how BHO and Company is going to get us to approve a National Sales Tax. First, you need to revisit my piece, “Prepare To Be Nudged” because you will recall that part of the science on how to get people to make the decisions you want them to make is to create the proper “Choice Architecture” in order to assure that the decision taken will be the targeted decision. The choice architecture must be constructed to not only limit the choices that will be available to make but it (choice architecture) must also guide the decision maker to the targeted decision because it seems to be the most reasonable and fair choice. You can rely on Professor Cass R. Sunstein to know how to create a choice architecture to enable BHO and Company to get the swooning citizens to support a National Sales Tax. Here is how you construct the choice architecture and how it will be done. Below is a chart on who paid what portion of the personal income tax in collected 2006 (AGI= Adjusted Gross Income):
Percentile by AGI........................ Percentage of Tax Paid
Top 1%................................................ 39.89%
Top 5% ...............................................60.14%
Top 10% ............................................70.79%
Top 25%............................................ 86.27%
Top 50%............................................ 97.01%
Bottom 50%...................................... 2.99%
First you propose to raise taxes on the wealthy (top 25% who already pay almost 90% of personal income taxes). This BHO has already done. When it is pointed out that excessive tax on the Government designated wealthy will not only run the risk of killing the golden goose, it is unfair as hell as well to keep punishing the productive of our society and rewarding those who contribute little. Notwithstanding that the bottom 50% are the very ones who receive the most from the Government after the Government takes it from others. It seems only reasonable that in a Democracy, all should contribute, right? Voila, a National Sales Tax by acclamation. Only the Dems could pull this off because they are the designated Party of the People.
Here is a reasonable guess about how BHO and Company is going to get us to approve a National Sales Tax. First, you need to revisit my piece, “Prepare To Be Nudged” because you will recall that part of the science on how to get people to make the decisions you want them to make is to create the proper “Choice Architecture” in order to assure that the decision taken will be the targeted decision. The choice architecture must be constructed to not only limit the choices that will be available to make but it (choice architecture) must also guide the decision maker to the targeted decision because it seems to be the most reasonable and fair choice. You can rely on Professor Cass R. Sunstein to know how to create a choice architecture to enable BHO and Company to get the swooning citizens to support a National Sales Tax. Here is how you construct the choice architecture and how it will be done. Below is a chart on who paid what portion of the personal income tax in collected 2006 (AGI= Adjusted Gross Income):
Percentile by AGI........................ Percentage of Tax Paid
Top 1%................................................ 39.89%
Top 5% ...............................................60.14%
Top 10% ............................................70.79%
Top 25%............................................ 86.27%
Top 50%............................................ 97.01%
Bottom 50%...................................... 2.99%
First you propose to raise taxes on the wealthy (top 25% who already pay almost 90% of personal income taxes). This BHO has already done. When it is pointed out that excessive tax on the Government designated wealthy will not only run the risk of killing the golden goose, it is unfair as hell as well to keep punishing the productive of our society and rewarding those who contribute little. Notwithstanding that the bottom 50% are the very ones who receive the most from the Government after the Government takes it from others. It seems only reasonable that in a Democracy, all should contribute, right? Voila, a National Sales Tax by acclamation. Only the Dems could pull this off because they are the designated Party of the People.
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