We the People...

Steps to a Better New Year

2012-01-01T13:06:00.000-08:00

A new year has begun, bright and shiny and full of promise...if we make it so.

There is a lot to be learned from the past year, and years prior, as we forge ahead. Let's review some of the most egregious economic errors of the recent past and what we might do as individuals to solve the problems that have arisen as a result.

Firstly: It's about time we start to demand responsibility from our elected officials...especially those who directly represent us in legislative branches of government. Our constitution set up the US Congress to be the most powerful entity in the land. Our Founders did this for a very good reason...congress was designed to be large and have many members therefore requiring a great deal of debate before creating laws and regulations. This was intended to make certain such laws would be limited in their impact and power, and balanced in their effect.

The Executive branch was meant to be the weakest of branches as that branch would be limited in size...normally the President and cabinet. The intent was to minimize the power of a small group of individuals, as throughout history the failure to restrict the power of a small cadre had always produced dictatorships.

Over the last few decades, and increasingly so in the last few years, our Congress has voluntarily handed over power, a bit at a time, to the Executive branch. In the last few years that branch has added literally thousands of new "laws" in the form of regulations mainly over the businesses which power our economy. In response the economy has been forced into reducing production and employment, all done by proxies of the Executive branch of government, most of whom are unelected, with no input from the people's representatives in the legislature.

It is past time for our congressional members to step up to their responsibilities and shut down this abuse of power. But we have to demand it or it won't be done. With House elections coming up, this issue should be a measuring stick for judging the candidates...will they shirk their duties, or step up to the plate and act as responsible adults?

Secondly: to move our economy forward we must demand truth and accountability from our elected, and unelected, officials. While hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost each month, the federal government has been busy redefining what "jobs" are and the number of such jobs (how can jobs be "lost" if they don't exist...oddly they did exist a few years ago). This has enabled them to make vague claims of an "improving" economic picture so as to hide their incompetence. When the media talking heads tell us that losing 380,000 jobs is "good" because we might have lost 400,000 jobs...let them know we are not idiots and they shouldn't be a party to such pure nonsense. Then let your elected representatives know as well.

The above is simply one example of the communications we receive from a government trying to maintain and increase its power. Don't be afraid to openly repudiate such garbage and to demand the truth. Remember...they work for us...they are our employees.

Thirdly: we have to start thinking critically. We are inundated daily with nonsense and pure propaganda, and normally either ignore or absorb such messages without analysis. This "information" is designed to sway us in a direction that will benefit the messenger instead of society.

For example; probably the most important thing we can do at this time to put our economy on track and guarantee our future is to push for aggressive policies that will quickly increase the energy supply available to our economy...energy being the cornerstone of production and wealth creation. Uncapping sealed oil fields, building the proposed pipeline, and clearing the huge backlog of permits that the EPA has stalled for political reasons would be a start. In the past, simply threatening these actions has caused world oil prices to drop in half, or greater, and has been a huge boon to the US economy. So why has our government refused to even threaten such steps?

Our government officials are literally petrified by the environmental movement working hand-in-hand with leftist radicals and foreign oil companies. This weird lobbying and protesting block has become the most powerful political force in WA DC and they will not go down without a fight. Their tactics include creating phony environmental and economic think tanks and "research centers" which inundate us with constant propaganda.

A perfect example being a recent "finding" by an economic think tank, actually founded and paid for by a large Brazilian oil firm, "warning" US citizens that the currently proposed pipeline project would actually decrease US supply, therefore increasing the price of gas. Such strange violations of economic law is the bread and butter of foreign corporations using "front groups" to help support lobbying efforts against US business and consumer interests.

If our elected representatives learn we are aware of such shenanigans, and are willing to belittle and denounce such in public, they will begin to grow fearful of us...their employers...instead of radicals, protestors, and foreign monied interests.

But we need to make it happen. Get the email addresses of your state and federal law makers...send them polite, but firm, messages on these issues...and politely demand they work for us instead of special interests, lobbyists, and foreign corporations. If we, the people, don't control our futures...those with hidden agendas will...and it will not be a good thing for our children and generations to come.

Global Warming...the movement explained

2011-10-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

I recently attended a relaxed and informal meeting of learned and critical-thinking folks whom congregate now and again to discuss random subjects of interest. These gatherings are noted for their free-flowing nature, along with the disposal of a good volume of fine Bourbon which is conducive to that nature. The last meeting led the group to the topic of the Global Warming movement and why it exists.

To really understand the subject one has to get into some history...and we were fortunate to have a dabbler in "Paleo-Climatology" to help us. In this discipline, scientists have focused on the last BILLION years of the earth's history...that's a whole bunch of years. Evidence leads us to believe that climate cycles during this period lasted some 200 MILLION years each. During these climate swings, the planet would go from being a virtual ice-ball to being a semi-tropical paradise in which plants and animals thrived, and indeed evolved into giants.

The last period of tropical climate began to ebb some 70 MILLION years back during the Cenozoic period. The cooling trend that followed advanced in 3 major steps about 36 MILLION, 15 MILLION, and 3 MILLION years ago. That brings us to the last 1 MILLION years.

The vast majority of that time period found the planet locked securely in a series of small ice-ages, all subject to the overall 200 MILLION year cycle. Interestingly, global temperatures varied somewhat radically during this period. They went up...they went down...they went all around. Ice sheets receded, then advanced, then receded and advanced some more. The last major leap was about 11,600 years ago...a tiny drop in the bucket in time...and ended the worst of the last small ice-age abruptly. Planetary temperature went up better than 20 degrees F in about 50 years. It's an attribute to our egos as humans that we refer to that ice-age as the "great" ice-age...when in reality it was a minor blip within the 200 MILLION year cycle....but hey...our ancestors had to live through it so we think it significant.

The causes of all this jumping up and down in temperature are numerous and mainly theoretical. Scientists are pretty certain that plate tectonics play a major role in global climate, and as the continents have drifted, bumped, broken apart again, etc, these land masses affected not only planetary winds but ocean currents and "metamorphic degassing." In essence, there are hundreds of live volcanoes active at this time...all due to the fact that the earth's crust is flimsy and floating on the 99.9% of the plant which is still liquid rock. That thin, flaky, crust could break apart at any moment and everything on the surface would be vaporized...leaving no trace of our passing whatsoever.

Now you see why these conversations require Bourbon.

Other inputs include such juicy items of conversation as: weathering of silicates, organic carbon weathering, burial of organic carbons, and of course the cycles of solar output. Astrophysicists tend to put more emphasis on solar cycles and the earth's orbit; affected by cycles of precession, eccentricity, and obliquity. Geologists tend to emphasize plate tectonics.

Since that point some 11,600 years ago, the planet has gone through literally hundreds of mini-climate cycles. There was an overall cooling trend from about 1500 AD into the 1850's known as the "little ice age." Prior to that was a short warming trend with a high about 1000 AD. That time actually shows similar characteristics to our current climate. As a whole, scientists believe we will be emerging (hopefully) from a long cycle of ice-ages to a tropical state over the next 100 MILLION years. Obviously you shouldn't run right out and buy a new swim suit...a bit premature perhaps.

That brings us to the modern day and "the movement." Since the 1880's scientists have pondered planetary climate changes, and every decade or so one group or another has announced that the planet is either warming or cooling. The vagaries of weather, and regional climate cycles, have made it impossible to actually nail down where we are in any one particular mini-cycle...even with the technology available today.

Since the early part of the 20th Century however, climate change has become a political tool. An ironic note is that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was the moving force behind the modern global warming movement. When she became PM one of her first moves was to create the Hadly Center for Climate Prediction in order to help create a "crisis" that would help her fight the National Union of Mineworkers as an opposing political powerhouse.

She had a number of related problems: the UK needed to have more nuclear plants in order to move forward with growing and modernizing nuclear forces. She also needed to break the union. Nuclear power was costing 4 times what coal power cost, so she needed something scary and emotional to support her push for nuclear power plants. She had the Hadly Center create a series of predictions showing climate warming, also claiming CO2 from human activity to be a major cause, and to issue a warning to start closing mines and building nuke plants.

Then the laws of unintended consequences stepped in. The potpourri of Marxist and Malthusian radicals throughout the world took note. If "global warming" could be used to fight unions and close coal mines, why couldn't it be used to bring down industry, business, and capitalism all together? No reason at all, of course.

Greenpeace jumped on board...commissioning a survey (1992) of 400 climatologists to prove that global warming was caused by industrial societies. Only 15 of the scientists even agreed there was global warming, so the study was swept aside. The movement seemed to be stuck in "park."

But governments began to make some calculations. If they could push for restrictions on US businesses, they could gain a competitive advantage in manufacturing and energy production. Thus was born an outburst of "protocols" and "treaties" meant publicly to control CO2 emissions while actually meant to handcuff the US and a handful of other industrial giants. A mass movement to fund academics who would "prove" global warming became a government tool to push the agenda. The movement took on a life of its own fueled by billions in grants. Universities made disagreement by academics punishable by firing. Government agencies sprang up to support the movement...and then to simply support their own funding.

Human beings, the psychologist in the group reminded us, have a strong penchant for controlling their lives through controlling their environment. Since the beginnings of the species, people have fallen for shamans and charlatans who promised to help them do so. Everything from throwing virgins into volcanoes (which he reminded us was a terrible waste of virgins...the Bourbon was kicking in by now) to selling us "carbon credits" could be pawned off on folks afraid of change. You just had to package the change as a "crisis."

As a result of such packaging, by numerous special interests and radical groups, the US has suspended a great number of industries and manufacturers. We have ended, or curtailed, most energy exploration and production, and spent billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars on wasteful studies and academic exercises. This orgy of "environmentalism" is largely traceable to an ongoing effort to crush the evils of modernity, take us back to the Malthusian dream of a pre-industrial society, "bring down" capitalism, and more recently to make a profit thru fear-mongering. The special interest groups pushing "Cap and Trade" and carbon credits are set up to make billions of dollars without actually doing or providing anything except paperwork...a scam of absolute brilliance.

I recounted to the group a speech given at a climate change conference. The speaker, a radical environmentalist, told the audience the best solution would be to reduce the world's population to 2 million "care takers" who would monitor and care for the planet. He received a standing ovation from half the folks in the hall...mainly college students.

These enthusiastic "idiots" obviously assumed they, and their families, would magically be among the 2 million superior humans who would be chosen to live while euthanizing the other 6 billion of us. I hated to tell them the 2 million survivors would be the best-armed, most psychotic and anti-social SOB's on the planet...and that neither they nor the speaker qualified. They also, quite obviously, weren't thinking about who would supply them with ipods and tennis shoes when productive folks were gone. It was a display of total, abject, stupidity.

So we have two histories to observe in accounting for the phenomenon known as the global warming movement; the geophysical history of the planet, and the political history of the movement and the associated movements that use it. Combined they give us a bottom line from which we can determine whether climate change is an issue we should concern ourselves with.

Things we now know:

1) The planet is constantly changing...will always change..and there is no "normal" condition.
2) Humans have a tendency to panic over matters of which they are completely ignorant...and then do foolish things like wasting virgins.
3) The planet could possibly warm, or cool, by a degree or two over the next hundred years. The average temperature at the south pole will remain about 70 degrees F below zero. Our great-great-great-great grandchildren will figure out how to deal with this "change" the same way we have dealt with it over the last 11,600 years.
4) If you want to lose sleep over something...worry about your job...worry about being one of the 6 billion who get euthanized...worry about the crust breaking up and getting vaporized by lava.
5) Good Bourbon is proof that God exists and loves us.
6) The global warming movement is made up of opportunists, anti-social radicals, and absolute nut-cases, all of whom use it to advance their whacked agendas...and that is why it really exists.

That should clear it up...let's have another shot of that Bourbon.

The Joys of Redistribution

2011-10-10T21:56:00.000-07:00

Why, some of my students have asked me, is the idea of "redistribution of wealth" looked down on by economists as a whole? Isn't "justice" and "fairness" important? What could be wrong with that?

To get them to start thinking, rather than to simply quote economic laws, I tell a story...set up a scenario so to speak...using the village model.

Imagine a village of 100 families. Years back they began to come together, perhaps around a water source, and created their community. Every family produces something of value which they can trade with their neighbors, allowing a degree of specialization and efficiency.

Some of them are farmers...one family makes shoes...some weave clothing, and some make tools and farm implements. The village is in balance as long as each family creates enough product to trade for the amount of product they need from others.

Now we come to an important concept: the wealth of the village is the total of accrued production. In other words; every family is making "stuff" and growing "stuff" and a year's worth of that "stuff" is the annual gross domestic product of the village. Some of that stuff is consumed over the year, such as food, but some of it lasts for years or even decades. As long as everyone is producing as much, or more, than they consume, the wealth of the village grows. This growth in wealth benefits everyone in the village...it keeps prices down, and creates surpluses which are likely to be distributed to those who fall on hard times.

Now suppose we have two families whose chosen work is to grow chickens and eggs. There is a demand for both. Eggs are more quickly and more cheaply produced, as they don't have to be fed, matured, and slaughtered to be eaten. But they don't provide as much food value as a chicken either. Therefore, both families must calculate the best balance for production...how many eggs do they allow to hatch and grow into fryers? What mix would give them optimum profit?

This is a very normal business decision made every day by business owners world wide. Let's suppose family "A" elects to buy extra chicken feed and to allow 1000 eggs each year to be hatched and grown into chickens. They are taking a risk, and spending additional funds, on the gamble that they will make profit on the chickens despite the additional costs and the loss of income from the eggs.

Now let's suppose family "B" decides to concentrate on eggs and raise only 100 chickens. As it turns out, at year's end, family "A" has made the optimum decision and they are able to trade their combination of chickens and eggs for three times what family "B" is able to make on their chickens and eggs. So family "A" is suddenly more wealthy than family "B" as they have contributed more protein and more value to the village.

Members of family "B" are not happy...they are in the same business as family "A" but have made one-third the income. Grumblers in the village begin to promote the idea of "redistribution"...it's unfair, they say, that family "B" has worked in the same business as "A" but made so little comparative income. Eventually the grumblers convince the majority of people in the village to call for a new rule...and they force family "A" to give up some of their income to family "B" in a gesture of "redistributive justice."

So why is that wrong? It's not an ethical question...it's an economic one. Family "A" now has the same choice to make as they made the prior year. Do they spend extra money on feed...spend extra time for chickens to hatch and mature...slaughter the chickens...and take on all of that risk and expense if their profits are going to be taken from them?

Here's where Marxist style theories always fall apart...at the point where human nature steps in. People do not adhere to theories written in books...they act in their own self interest. Family "A" decides the risk isn't worth it...so they elect to grow only 100 chickens the next year. The result...they will make less income, but it won't be taken away from them so they'll break even. The village will not have the 900 chickens as a food source. They will have more eggs instead, but the market proved that the chickens provided more value and protein than eggs alone.

So the village is poorer...it loses wealth. An economist, or any experienced business owner, would not be surprised...but many neophytes are shocked by the news. "But why?" they ask. "The only thing that happened was some wealth was transferred from one family to another. How could that possibly result in everyone being worse off?"

The simple village model explains the "why" clearly and simply. The real world is more complex of course, but human nature, and the willingness to balance risk with possible reward, will always win out...in any culture...any time...any place. That's why the rules of economics are in place. And not just models, but history, proves them to be true.

Making Sense of "Trillions"

2011-07-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I can remember when Presidents asked Congress to raise the national debt level by "millions of dollars"....and we all gasped, gulped, and swallowed the bitter pill. Little did we know we would look back at those times in envy.

Now we have the different branches of our federal government arguing over trillions of dollars. We've become so accustomed to the new magnitude that when someone mentions cutting a few billion dollars in waste, we tend to wonder why the bother...it's only a few billion.

It's all rather impossible to grasp actually, and so like frogs in a slowly warming pot we don't see disaster coming as the temperature of our debt gets hotter and hotter. To get a grasp on what all of the budget arguments actually mean let's break it all down into something we can understand and connect to...dollars per individual head of household.

Based on the US Census, we can make a nice round estimate of about 100,000,000 head of household working folk in the US for the next decade. That's easy to work with....a trillion dollars means $10,000 per taxpayer. It's much easier to picture what "trillion" means when it's broken down to our individual share.

Let's start by looking at current debt: long term debt first...it's the scariest...it's like your mortgage so to speak. At this time it's over 120 trillion dollars...or 1.2 million dollars for each wage earner. Of course you have an entire lifetime to pay this debt off...so what the heck. You can rest easy...unless of course you realize that this long-term debt is bound to grow. Your share is going to end up to be a lot more.

Short term debt, much like a credit card debt, is now over 15 trillion dollars. Oh good...that's only about $150,000 for your share....of course that's due this year...and it's on top of your annual payment on the long-term debt. Starting to get queasy yet?

Well breathe easy...the Republicans in congress are fighting for a reduction in expenses that will cut your share of the annual short-term debt...by nearly $1,000. That means your payment will only be $149,000. Oh hurrah, hurrah...

But wait...the Dems are furious and want to "compromise" with their more fiscally conservative bretheren. They are reminding us their compromise also cuts expenses...but after taking into account the differences in accounting jargon...their "cuts" come to only about $100.

Just so you keep this straight: your "mortgage" debt is $1,200,000....your "credit card" debt is $150,000...and congress is offering to reduce your overall debt by $100. Goodness sakes, joy almighty, and hallelujah...where do I sign up?

Obviously...we'd rather have our debt cut by $1,000...but would that save your family from bankruptcy and ruin? Not hardly! Remember...these numbers are not imaginary...this is not simply an exercise to help comprehend what the national debt argument is all about. This is money you ACTUALLY OWE! Of course you can pretend it's not real....

I've tried...doesn't seem to be helping.

Ignoring the Fundamentals

2011-05-01T19:45:00.000-07:00

Production equals Wealth....Wealth equals Production.

Probably the most basic law of economics is the definition of wealth; that the combined production, investment, and savings of a nation is defined as being that nation's wealth.

Production begins with taking raw materials; by drilling, mining, or harvesting; then transporting, processing, distributing, and using in manufacturing those materials until they become products for consumption.

A simple example; someone pulls minerals out of the earth, someone moves them, someone extracts and purifies them, someone combines them to make a metal, then someone uses that metal to make something useful. Bingo...wealth has been created!

Every worker contributes something to the overall wealth of the nation. In early times a person could create wealth by, say, raising chickens. Then they could trade eggs or chickens to someone else for shoes or some other good. When it becomes awkward to trade a cow, for example, for a basket of eggs, the concept of money comes into being. Money is simply an artificial means of representing production in a handy to carry around and easy to spend manner.

As long as money represented chickens, cows, shoes, and other production...all was good. A person could earn more money by being more productive. As everyone became more productive, usually with the help of technology, more and more stuff became available and prices stabilized or dropped...with more stuff to share, everyone enjoyed growing prosperity and a higher standard of living. Such a deal!

But there's always a catch. As societies grow, production becomes stalled without a proper legal system to adjudicate disputes, or a system of transportation to move goods, or organized security against outside threats. The organizing of community solutions to these issues is called "government" and at basic levels this actually increases overall production. Thus the costs of government are absorbed by the increased productivity. The people who work in government can be paid by productive workers, what we call the private sector, because the money actually represents productive capacity. Therefore, all is still in balance.

This evolutionary process, however, always goes awry. Never in history has government stopped growing and leveled out at a point where added value equals increased productivity...never! It simply seems to fly in the face of human nature to stop growing government, no matter how obvious it is that it is a foolish thing to do.

So what happens....the amount of "money" has to change to meet the demands of the growing number of non-producing workers who want to purchase goods. Productivity increases as technology continues to increase capacity to produce, and a growing population increases the labor pool available for production, and so begins a balancing act. As long as money supply and productivity stay in balance everything appears to be okay to most folks. But this only encourages more government growth.

Eventually it all turns downhill...prices begin to go up as more purchasers with more money begin to bid for a constantly dwindling supply of goods. The people, and their leaders, have learned to ignore the fundamentals.

"Well heck," says some soothsayer..."we'll just become an information economy...we don't have to produce as much as we want to consume." But pretty soon folks realize they can't eat information, wear information, or live in information. Someone has to produce food, clothing, and housing.

So the next step...sell the information to some nation that will grow food and make stuff. For a short time, as long as that information has some value, this seems to work. At least it covers up the truth to those not paying attention.

Then, when the value of the information drops, the nation asks productive nations to accept "notes"...in affect they buy products on credit. If acceptable to the productive nation, the one with the too large government finds itself creating and growing an ever increasing debt cycle. The issue could be resolved of course...the borrower could simply stop borrowing and begin to push production...partly through pulling out all the stops, so to speak, and getting people to stop trading in information and start producing stuff. Partly through reducing the government work force and having those people get into production. If things go well, and spending discipline holds, the nation could work its way out of debt and begin growing wealth once again.

Unfortunately...this scenario hasn't happened as often as logic might lead one to believe. In fact, once nations reach a certain level of wealth some strange things begin to happen. Some of these strange happenings are universal, as documented by the historian Sir John Glubb in his paper "Fate of Empires." Whether the Greek empire, the Persian Empire, the Ancient Egyptians, or the Roman Empire...all successful civilizations eventually become self-loathing, self-absorbed, soft, spoiled, and end up committing cultural suicide. They are not brought down by invading barbarians...at least not until they have destroyed themselves from within.

There are key milestones each fading nation goes through; a loss of will to commit to warfare to protect themselves being one. The population reaches a point where they delude themselves into believing they are "superior" and "intellectual" and therefore morally above the making of war and taking of lives. This delusion defies logic and historical precedent...but it continues to take place. It is reminscent of the man who refuses to have anything to do with weaponry...even though he knows full well his family could helplessly fall victim to marauding criminals. He would "morally" prefer his family be slaughtered than to take up arms...seems unimaginable, but it is quite common in decaying societies.

Another delusion is the concept of cultural "guilt" for being successful. This drives populations to demand an end to productive activities...often times in the guise of protecting nature. Farm land goes fallow, mines close, oil wells are sealed...the spigot of all wealth production is turned off in a macabre acceptance of self destruction. Again, the delusion of being morally superior plays an important part.

The same moral delusion forms the basis of "group benevolence"...the concept that everyone must be cared for to the full extent of a nation's wealth. This leads to people choosing to become unproductive, then the treasury of the nation is drained until no one can be taken care of, including those who produce.

The end result; the people refuse to draw natural resources from around them, and refuse to produce the goods and services necessary to thrive. At the same time, they enrich politicians who promise to "share the wealth" with the people...even though there is no longer wealth to share. Eventually the people take to the streets...violence ensues...and the nation falls into tyranny. It is now inevitable that the nation will become easy pickings for an outside force.

Not that we should worry here in our warm, safe homes in our cozy western countries. All of that bad stuff only happens to civilizations past; that expanded government too much, who spend themselves into debt, and whose people become enamored of movie stars, phony politicians, and pop singers in place of military heroes, economists, and business leaders.

Certainly couldn't happen here...not in America!

Hey...I promise to keep my eyes and ears open and let you know if it does.

Some Scary Numbers for the New Year

2011-02-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

An interesting collection of statistics, indicators of future inflation, have been collected and printed below; along with the sources of those statistics.

Why, one may ask, are we concerned with forecasting the possibility of an inflationary cycle? There are a number of sound reasons. From a personal standpoint, we should consider how we invest our savings when inflationary or deflationary cycles are on the horizon. Inflation is simply a devaluation of currency, so normal savings, basically consisting of currency, will lose value...perhaps rapidly. On the other hand, investing in commodities, instead of currency, can pay off big.

Our business institutions must be able to plan and budget for the future; inflationary pressure will force them to adjust payroll, prices, and expenses. The very survival of the business may depend on how accurately they forecast and how quickly they adjust.

In extreme instances, such as what happened in Zimbabwe in recent years, currency becomes totally valueless and society returns to the barter system to survive. In more "normal" inflationary periods, the middle class simply loses its wealth slowly and steadily while lower income earners are completely crushed and forced into abject poverty. Wealth is no longer available for investment and production, so unemployment skyrockets and products become scarce, which quickly adds to the inflationary pressure (lack of goods increases price).

One might then ask, viewing the statistics below, why we are not yet seeing significant inflation already? We see that commodities are becoming more expensive rapidly...so why is it not obviously reflected in the retail markets?

Mainly we are currently being "saved" by businesses willing to liquidate inventory at past prices, and to hold down new pricing by laying off workers and increasing the work load of remaining workers without additional compensation. They are struggling to survive, and whether they make it or not, they end up dumping product onto the market at prices reflecting the costs of production from the past. If they do survive, however, and have to regenerate inventory at some point to keep surviving, they will discover that the price of materials is going up. No one in the supply chain can stay in business long by charging less than the cost of replacement...they have been trying to do so, but the end of such frugality is growing nigh.

Along with the pressures of rising commodities prices, we can see from the chart that employment in the public sector is growing and government spending is going up. These are both highly inflationary moves, both flood the market with currency while producing no goods to balance out the increase in money. The necessary increase in taxes takes additional currency from producers, which again reduces production and again increases the number of dollars chasing after a reduced volume of goods and services. This artificial increase in money supply, and reduction in products, drives costs up the demand curve...result...inflation.

So, not to sound alarmist, but all the science of economics tells us that without some dramatic changes in the market place, inflation is on the way. Take some time to consider your personal situation and plan ahead.

Sources:

(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA; (8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury

	January 2009	January 2010	*% chg*	^Source
Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S.	$1.83	$3.104	69.6%	¹
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel)	$43.48	$99.02	127.7%	²
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel)	$38.74	$91.38	135.9%	²
Gold: London (per troy oz.)	$853.25	$1,369.50	60.5%	²
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL	$3.56	$6.33	78.1%	²
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL	$9.66	$13.75	42.3%	²
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob	$13.37	$35.39	164.7%	²
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall	7.6%	9.4%	23.7%	³
Unemployment rate, blacks	12.6%	15.8%	25.4%	³
Number of unemployed	11,616,000	14,485,000	24.7%	³
Number of fed. employees, ex. military (curr = 12/10 prelim)	2,779,000	2,840,000	2.2%	³
Real median household income (2008 v 2009)	$50,112	$49,777	*-0.7%*	⁴
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10)	31,983,716	43,200,878	35.1%	⁵
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10)	7,526,598	9,193,838	22.2%	⁶
Number of long-term unemployed	2,600,000	6,400,000	146.2%	³
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 v 2009)	13.2%	14.3%	8.3%	⁴
People in poverty in U.S. (2008 v 2009)	39,800,000	43,600,000	9.5%	⁴
U.S. rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings	5	9	n/a	¹⁰
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10)	29.9	23.5	-21.4%	¹¹
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date)	140	164	17.1%	¹²
U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate	89.76	82.03	-8.6%	²
U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	1,575.1	1,865.7	18.4%	¹³
U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim)	8,310.9	8,852.3	6.5%	¹³
National debt, in trillions	$10.627	$14.052	32.2%	¹⁴

Where is Obviousman when you need him?

2010-06-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

I once had a favorite comic strip featuring "Obviousman" a super-hero who told off relatively stupid people when they did and said stupid things. I miss him...and we really do need such a super-hero today. We're surrounded by opportunities for him to share his wisdom.

Let's list some of the more blatant current examples:

1) Alvin Greene, a complete political unknown who didn't even actually run for the office, just won the democratic primary in the South Carolina senate race. The democratic party is going berserk, partially because they know he can't possibly win in the general election, but mainly because they can't understand how he won the primary. The guy answers interview questions as if in a complete daze, is facing felony charges, and has no support or financial backing.

Crackpot theories range from "he is a Republican plant" to "mass hypnosis" to computer hackers "rigging the votes." The reality is far too obvious for these clowns: their voters are ignorant and don't care who they vote for as long as the letter D appears by their names.

These folks were made ignorant by intent. For decades the hacks have done everything in their power to dumb down the electorate. They push massive tax bills through congress with labels like the "Childrens' Health Protection Act" or the "Economic Stimulus and Jobs Act" and get away with it thanks to their ignorant and complacent voting base. They give themselves and their friends millions of taxpayer dollars and tell the electorate the other party is the party of corruption. They destroy business and jobs so that they can become relatively more wealthy and satisfy their lust for power. Then they go to rallies and tell the mob they are "one with the working man."

Why did Alvin Greene win the election? Obviousman answer to the dense politicos: your voters are stupid...just like you have encouraged and trained them to be. It's finally come back to bite you...but don't worry, most of the time it works in your favor.

2) While some 80% of the population supports Arizona's right to defend its citizens by enforcing federal anti-immigration laws, the loonier groups on the left are going crazy. They will not believe that few support their view and can only imagine the public support for Arizona as "racism."

In the last few weeks, drug cartel militants with soviet bloc automatic weapons have been in firefights with police officers in central Arizona. Families have been murdered or beaten by cartel thugs wanting to use their property for drug storage. Ranchers have been murdered, police officers killed or wounded, and squads of black-hooded men with fully automatic weapons are becoming common place. Captured weapons are being traced back to FARC...the communist insurgency army in Colombia...and to the ex-governments of Nicaragua and defunct communist insurgents in El Salvador.

Uhhhhhh...why does anyone wonder why the citizens of Arizona are a bit on edge and want to defend themselves and their families? Does Obviousman really have to jump to the rescue here??? Well...okay!

Obviousman answer: Arizona is being invaded by an army of hardcore criminals and psychotic killers. The people of Arizona have figured out this is not a desirable situation! It's embarrassing this question is even being asked.

3) Pundits say the US is having an "energy crisis" and must spend trillions of dollars and put an estimated 20 million people out of work while turning the US into a third world, impoverished nation, to solve the problem. They point out that solar and wind power now generate only about the same energy as a single productive oil well...therefore we must gut the economy for the next decade or two in order to reach the point where they supply as much energy as 4 or 5 oil wells.

Huh? What?

The US has over 2 TRILLION barrels of oil reserves, nearly 3 times that of the middle east, which can be reached via drilling on land (no oil spills in the ocean). Our oil shale deposits could power our needs for the next 200 years. We're sitting on trillions of cubic feet of natural gas.

So here's the question: how could anyone believe the pundits and government hacks who tell us we're on the brink of disaster and have to regress to the great depression in order to "save" ourselves?

Obviousman answer: See question 1) above...same answer. Sorry...it simply doesn't get any more obvious.

Another Memorial Day

2010-05-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Growing up in a military family, Memorial Day weekend was always a time for reflection and remembrance, for attending services and ceremonies, and not a weekend for a trip to the beach or a mini-vacation. As I've gotten older, I've settled into habits that reflect the ideals of my upbringing.

Over the last few Memorial Day weekends, my habit has been to watch the exemplary Band of Brothers video set from beginning to end. This ten-hour film highlights some of the more important events in the history of E Company, 506th Regiment, of the 101st Airborne as they fought in Europe. It is a wonderful adaptation of the Stephen Ambrose history of the unit and should be watched by every American at least once.

Understanding the historical perspective of what these men went through is important, probably more so than the focus on the military history itself. They were raised during the great depression, and from childhood heard politicians drone on about the progressive wonders coming about in Europe thanks to the Fascists in Italy and the Socialists in Germany. Movie stars, celebrities, media people, and the progressive political machine in the US adored and parroted these "sophisticated and progressive" Europeans. They went so far as to identify with them with statements like "we are the American Fascists, and they are the European Progressives."

Not surprisingly, this morsel of history has been erased from our public school textbooks...and from our national memory for the great part.

In the years of training and bitter fighting, these men had become hardened to the soft psychosis of such nonsense. They had seen the truth behind the facade of populist propaganda. They understood the ugly reality. They had suffered, been wounded, watched friends die, and been forced to kill human beings all in order to save the "sophisticated and progressive" Europeans from...themselves!

Their frustration and anger changed them forever, and it changed the America they returned to. There was a moment, when the handful of men still left in Easy were on a deuce-and-a-half driving by a long column of surrendered German troops, that comes to mind. A private who had been with the company from the beginning stands and screams at a German General.

After getting the General's attention, with a list of expletives, he shouts "you son-of-a bitch...you've forced us to interrupt our lives and travel half way around the world. You ignorant, servile, scum."

He had been forced to come to grips with a great and brutally frank truth that historians often ignore, and are far too politically correct...or polite...to come right out and say. The German people were servile...they were ignorant...they did what they were told. Tens of millions openly embraced it. There were myriad reasons of course...a certain amount of brainwashing was involved...but they were susceptible to it...as were the Italian people, and the populace of Japan. Not all of them, of course. There was resistance, some questioned, but doubts and doubters were brushed aside by the popularity of the political moment.

After the destruction of their societies, some awoke with the realization they had indeed been "ignorant, servile, scum." Many of those became evangelical in their desire to make certain it never happened again. I have met some of them, and they are sincerely tortured human beings seeking redemption in their own ways. But so many never "got it" and never understood how they had been used. Some insisted they were right for the rest of their lives.

It's all about human nature. It's not a result of race or nationality...it's about what makes us tick. History is a looped track...it keeps repeating itself over and over again because human nature never changes. Socialism and Fascism are just labels. Hitler, Mussolini, and other dictators were little more than figureheads. They were evil...and their ideas were evil...but they were just points in time on the ever-repeating loop. There are more names to replace them...more labels on the same movements to lure the foolish, the greedy, and the weak.

That "greatest generation" of Americans who sacrificed so much, halted an immediate threat...but only that threat. Sadly such threats never go away...and never will. There is no "war to end all wars." There is no "lasting peace"...only constant diligence and the willingness to sacrifice again and again and again. Thank God we find, in every generation, men and women carrying greatness within them. Thank God they stand up and put on the uniform and serve.

But the endless loop goes on. Today we see the mindless mob mentality supporting "causes" that are simply new faces of tyranny. We see a global movement to destroy free markets and personal freedoms in the guise of "saving the planet." The movement is headed by obvious demagogues, and yet millions believe they are worthy of worship and adoration. These same fools completely buy into the inane mindset of the global warming religion (don't remind them Hitler was a fanatical environmentalist who preached the same blather about CO2 and social engineering in Mein Kampf).

Millions more take to the streets in "sophisticated" European nations, demanding government bend to their personal wills in matters of religion, or welfare, or shorter work weeks, extravagant pensions, and other socialist inspired give-away programs. In the US the same mind set drives hordes of fools who want their way...free health care, free college, free food and housing, instant citizenship for aliens...now!...despite the destruction of prosperity and the price to be paid by the majority; who want only to be left alone to live their lives.

The same human foibles which drove the socialists to power in Germany are driving the new movements of "social justice" and "fairness" and "saving the planet" and all the other hackneyed propaganda terms now popular in the culture of the "ignorant, servile, scum" and those who wish to manipulate them.

Yep...I've said it. History tells us the truth...no matter how much the teacher's unions or the progressive media propagandists try to hide it from us. Those who riot in the streets today are really no different than those who rioted in the streets in the 20's and 30's. The only reason we don't yet use the labels the frustrated private in Easy Company used is that we haven't yet had to face the harsh reality of what these naive fools truly represent.

So we politely point out that they "simply have a different point of view" and that "everyone has a right to their opinion." True...they do. But remember what happened to those who tried to voice their opinions against such tyranny in the past. When someone screams you are a "racist" because you believe in border security, or that you are a "denier" because you prefer scientific discussion over global warming fanaticism, they are doing exactly what was done to "deniers" of "change" and "social justice" in Germany in the 1930's.

Since I too apparently have a right to my opinion...at least for the time being...I'll choose to not "go along" with the pop culture ideologies that would empower a small number of "elites" to decide the future of humanity. They had their chance...many times...in the past, and hundreds of millions suffered and died as a result. These people are evil...simply and bluntly put...and want what they want and are willing to take it by guile or by force.

That they are on the move again...and gaining strength...does not mean the sacrifices made by the men of Easy Company, and all of the heroes of our past and present, were made in vain. It simply proves that struggle is eternal, and eternal vigilance is required of free people if they wish to remain free. Today, on Memorial Day 2010, we take the time to honor those who have fought the battles of the past, and are still fighting today, and to dedicate ourselves to the belief that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

By doing so, we truly honor the meaning of the day.

When Stupid Becomes an Epidemic

2010-05-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

We all know a few stupid people...and I don't mean someone who simply causes frictions and arguments, or someone who is disabled or handicapped...I mean someone who is far too lazy to think, spouts off constantly, and may even rave on about how smart they are to anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

There will always be foolish people...but there can come a time when society itself begins to encourage, train, protect, and even import truly stupid people because someone in society benefits from their presence. Unfortunately, this happens regularly in democracies, as elected officials can benefit greatly from a voting block of people who are easily persuaded into complacence.

Politicians learn to not only depend on such folks to stay elected, they can even use them as "muscle" or to create crisis situations which call out for "martial law" or other misuses of government power. We have seen this in countries all over the globe over the last century or so. It's become standard practice for demagogues and would-be tyrants.

The process begins with the practice of alleviating risk...a degree of which is actually good for society in general, but it does slowly start to erode the ability of people to think fast, make decisions, and see the world realistically.

My most important education as a child was to live for some years in the wilderness. I had to learn, very quickly, that there was no 9-1-1 number to call...no one to help me if I screwed up...and that I could die if I made even one simple mistake. Once you come near death a couple of times...and escape by pure luck more than skill...you learn to focus rather intently on your current surroundings and situation. You learn to be realistic, to be centered, and to eliminate stupid ideas from your inventory.

Our public education system, unfortunately, has managed to erase a lot of risk from life...even to the extent of removing the risk of being a "loser" in a sporting event. Everyone's a winner after all. They reward the simple act of staying in school as an accomplishment, and stress image and self-love over substance in most every subject.

When I was young, one of my acquaintances left a candy bar in his sleeping bag with him one night...and was killed by a black bear intent on getting to it. In the wilderness you either win or lose...for real...and a teacher telling you you're special isn't going to save you from a stupid mistake.

My father, who had grown up living off the land during the depression, often times alone in the wilderness, once told me, "there is no such thing as an accident in the woods...there is only stupid, because accidents are the result of mistakes, and making mistakes is simply stupid."

There is no real excuse for perfectly normal, average, folks like myself to be stupid. Everyone makes mistakes...some dumber than others...but being stupid is on a whole different level. Politicians create laws and institutions which encourage stupidity, and discourage discourse or discussion, being the enemies of stupidity, in order to create permanent voting blocks.

To maintain these voting blocks, they must keep the people within ignorant. It also helps to keep them angry, paranoid, and desperate. The use of emotions is the bedrock of managing stupidity.

It's important to make sure people have the basic needs of life, but not too much as they would then begin to think "outside the box" of obedience. They have to be paranoid...they should believe they can't succeed outside of the box because "the man will just keep me down" or some other rationale. They remain desperate as they are constantly living from paycheck to paycheck, or welfare check to welfare check. Angry, because they are told by the politicians that "rich, white republicans/democrats are pulling the strings" and keeping you from the life "you deserve."

There's a key phrase...does any intelligent person actually believe they "deserve" anything? Or do they believe they can "earn" things? Do they demand respect, because a teacher told them they "deserve" it, or do they work hard in order to earn respect?

Obviously these strategies work...sometimes it takes decades to really bear the fruit of these stupification programs...but they do eventually create increasingly stupid blocks of voters and supporters of "causes." This is invaluable for the politician who needs to increase their political power, or to rob society of its wealth for their own benefit, or to create a support base for permanent re-election.

So when a politician says you "deserve" something...they believe you are among the stupid. When they tell you that "it won't cost you a penny as long as you don't make $250,000 a year or more"...they think you are stupid.

When a politician explains you have a "right" to other people's labor or property...such as "giving" you health care paid for by others...they are assuming you are too stupid to think about that statement before cheering.

And when you find yourself marching in protests...waving signs like the one in the photo...you can be sure the politician was right. The guy in the photo is amazingly stupid...almost beyond description stupid...but like most truly stupid people, he is incapable of knowing it. He is desperate, paranoid, and arrogantly angry at those who refuse to be stupid along with him.

The Professor

Management Styles that don't work...and why government uses them.

2010-04-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

____________________________________________

My last article exposed some of the completely unnecessary micro-management functions, by as yet non-existent government agencies, written into the health care "reform" bill. Now I'll give some insight into why such things matter.

After the many decades I've spent working with and consulting to hundreds of business firms, I have seen just about every management "style" that probably exists. One style, which is apparent in a surprising number of small firms, is something I call the Delusional/Paranoid (D/P) style.

This management style is a direct reflection of the business owner's psychological state of mind...and it comes in many degrees, from the moderate to the extreme. The key elements are based first in the delusion that the manager is simply smarter than others, and that others must be monitored constantly or they will not be able to function at an acceptable level.

This is not surprising, or shocking, as the business owner is the one who has put everything at risk in starting a business. It's natural they worry about things "going right." Most managers are concerned with quality control, what their employees are doing when at work, and other issues of work quality...but the D/P manager just takes it a bit further than most.

I have seen situations where employees are grossly underutilized. As soon as they finish a project, they have to wait for the boss to approve it before moving onto another project. They may spend 15 minutes making a part...then wait an hour for approval...then spend another 15 minutes on the next part, and the cycle continues.

There was one example, a boss unable to trust anyone else to inspect parts...even though he had a nearly 0% rejection rate, that he worked as a full-time parts inspector rather than running the business. He did that work after the plant closed every evening...literally putting in 14 to 16 hour days.

The problem was that his micro-management was a "cost item" and not a revenue item. The time he spent on the floor inspecting parts did not contribute to the value of the product, and he could not charge for it, so there was no offsetting revenue to balance the expense. In essence, he worked all day for free.

The second element is the degree of paranoia the owner has in regards to employees and others. In extreme cases, the manager is certain employees are stealing, though there is no proof, or that they are conspiring to ruin the business, to steal ideas and technology, or to break out and start a competitive firm.

Now, of course, all of those things have happened and are possible. But the D/P manager, again, takes these fears to the extreme. Once again, oversight and micro-management is the response. And again the time and effort put into this oversight is an expense not balanced by added value.

Obviously every business will expend some degree of effort on monitoring employees and managing the work place. But these functions are direct expenses, and do not directly add to the value of the product so cannot be charged against the customer. The bottom line, for a business firm to grow beyond a certain very base level managers need to learn to train, trust, and to delegate or they will simply not be able to handle more than a few employees. Those who learn these skills can grow their firms into larger firms and eventually into public corporations.

So there is a direct relationship: the more time and effort spent on micro-management, the more the costs go up without increasing product, and the more expensive the product becomes per unit. Eventually the company languishes or goes broke.

I have seen similar styles in small divisions of large firms, where a local manager overdoes management of a sales force...leading to high turnover in the ranks due to frustration and loss of profit as costs go up without contributing to value. On the other hand, I've seen award-winning sales crews where managers watch from a distance, giving sales people "permission to excel" and guidance only when asked. Those sales managers grow value instead of expense.

Here's the bottom line: all management function comes at a cost. A certain degree of management is a necessary cost, but a management heavy firm loses money and the over-abundance of management is an expense that does not contribute to production. Therefore, the product costs more...there's less of it...and the customers pay more and make do with less. Unless, of course, there is competition...then the firm closes its doors as the customers move on.

This simple rule is true for a small business, a large firm, or an entire industry. The health care "industry" in the US, for example, is actually a term for the conglomeration of hundreds of thousands of small and large firms...from huge corporations to private practices. All of these firms put out a product, for which they have to charge us, the consumer, to cover their costs. One of those costs is management.

The health care bill is absolutely flooded with new micro-management requirements...not by the owners of these firms...but by government bureaucrats who will contribute nothing to the value of the products and services being delivered. This is simply a laundry list of new expense items...and the government will not be paying them.

These new expenses will run into the trillions of dollars...literally...and they will be passed on to the consumer, until the consumer is simply unable to pay. Then, services and products will simply become scarce, prices will rise dramatically, and the consumer will learn to live without...because there will be no competition. Every health care provider will have to expense the micro-management from government...no one will be exempt, so, as in a monopoly market, the prices will skyrocket as products become scarce.

When politicians tell you that health care is "unaffordable" now...or that the bill will "make it more affordable" or "balance the budget" they are either flat out lying to you or they are incredibly foolish individuals. Anyone who has ever run a business, or done a household budget for that matter, can look at the reality of the situation and understand that.

Of course, many elected officials are Delusional/Paranoids. Looking at it from their viewpoint...we're way too stupid to figure out what's happening to us and they don't dare tell us the truth...as we couldn't handle it...and they certainly can't give us choices. That might confuse us and screw up everything.

Maybe it's time for a little turnover in employees...and guess what...we're the employers. This coming November seems a good time to start!

The Professor

Digging Into the Health Care Bill

2010-04-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

__________

I keep being told about the "details" of the "Health Care" bill, recently rammed through Congress, by folks who have never even tried to read the bill. Doesn't matter, they obstinately assure me, they know what's in it. It must be that ESP thing...I never knew so many people had that psychic skill.

As I don't have such perception...I have been reading the thing...not an easy task due to it's rambling and obfuscatory nature. I've managed to identify a few thousand reports that physicians and others in the industry will have to file with various agencies and commissions...none of which yet exist. And I'm only a third of the way through the monster.

Not surprisingly, the budget office of the congress forecast the cost of the bill based on benefits estimated will be paid out. They did no forecasting of the costs of providers having to hire admin personnel to fill out and file the millions of pieces of paper demanded by government micro-managers. The real costs of the legislation will likely run not 1.4 trillion, but in the tens of trillions. We will have to pay that.

The money, of course, doesn't exist and won't...so the system will crash and leave the industry in shambles. But enough bright and cheery talk...let's look at some items actually spelled out in the bill...such as a list of new agencies that don't yet exist. Here's a start:

1. Grant program for consumer assistance offices (Section 1002, p. 37)
2. Grant program for states to monitor premium increases (Section 1003, p. 42)
3. Committee to review administrative simplification standards (Section 1104, p. 71)
4. Demonstration program for state wellness programs (Section 1201, p. 93)
5. Grant program to establish state Exchanges (Section 1311(a), p. 130)
6. State American Health Benefit Exchanges (Section 1311(b), p. 131)
7. Exchange grants to establish consumer navigator programs (Section 1311(i), p. 150)
8. Grant program for state cooperatives (Section 1322, p. 169)
9. Advisory board for state cooperatives (Section 1322(b)(3), p. 173)
10. Private purchasing council for state cooperatives (Section 1322(d), p. 177)
11. State basic health plan programs (Section 1331, p. 201)
12. State-based reinsurance program (Section 1341, p. 226)
13. Program of risk corridors for individual and small group markets (Section 1342, p. 233)
14. Program to determine eligibility for Exchange participation (Section 1411, p. 267)
15. Program for advance determination of tax credit eligibility (Section 1412, p. 288)
16. Grant program to implement health IT enrollment standards (Section 1561, p. 370)
17 Federal Coordinated Health Care Office for dual eligible beneficiaries (Section 2602, p. 512)
18. Medicaid quality measurement program (Section 2701, p. 518)
19. Medicaid health home program for people with chronic conditions, and grants for planning same (Section 2703, p. 524)
20 Medicaid demonstration project to evaluate bundled payments (Section 2704, p. 532)
21. Medicaid demonstration project for global payment system (Section 2705, p. 536)
22. Medicaid demonstration project for accountable care organizations (Section 2706, p. 538)
23. Medicaid demonstration project for emergency psychiatric care (Section 2707, p. 540)
24. Grant program for delivery of services to individuals with postpartum depression (Section 2952(b), p. 591)
25. State allotments for grants to promote personal responsibility education programs (Section 2953, p. 596)
26. Medicare value-based purchasing program (Section 3001(a), p. 613)
27. Medicare value-based purchasing demonstration program for critical access hospitals (Section 3001(b), p. 637)
28. Medicare value-based purchasing program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 3006(a), p. 666)
29. Medicare value-based purchasing program for home health agencies Section 3006(b), p. 668)
30. Interagency Working Group on Health Care Quality (Section 3012, p. 688)
31. Grant program to develop health care quality measures (Section 3013, p. 693)
32. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Section 3021, p. 712)
33. Medicare shared savings program (Section 3022, p. 728)
34. Medicare pilot program on payment bundling (Section 3023, p. 739)
35. Independence at home medical practice demonstration program (Section 3024, p. 752)
36. Program for use of patient safety organizations to reduce hospital readmission rates (Section 3025(b), p. 775)
37. Community-based care transitions program (Section 3026, p. 776)
38. Demonstration project for payment of complex diagnostic laboratory tests (Section 3113, p. 800)
39. Medicare hospice concurrent care demonstration project (Section 3140, p. 850)
40. Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 982)
41. Consumer Advisory Council for Independent Payment Advisory Board (Section 3403, p. 1027)
42. Grant program for technical assistance to providers implementing health quality practices (Section 3501, p. 1043)
43. Grant program to establish interdisciplinary health teams (Section 3502, p. 1048)
44. Grant program to implement medication therapy management (Section 3503, p. 1055)
45. Grant program to support emergency care pilot programs (Section 3504, p. 1061)
46. Grant program to promote universal access to trauma services (Section 3505(b), p. 1081)
47. Grant program to develop and promote shared decision-making aids (Section 3506, p. 1088)
48. Grant program to support implementation of shared decision-making (Section 3506, p. 1091)
49. Grant program to integrate quality improvement in clinical education (Section 3508, p. 1095)
50. Health and Human Services Coordinating Committee on Women's Health (Section 3509(a), p. 1098)
51. Centers for Disease Control Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(b), p. 1102)
52. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(e), p. 1105)
53. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(f), p. 1106)
54. Food and Drug Administration Office of Women's Health (Section 3509(g), p. 1109)
55. National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Section 4001, p. 1114)
56. Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health (Section 4001(f), p. 1117)
57. Prevention and Public Health Fund (Section 4002, p. 1121)
58. Community Preventive Services Task Force (Section 4003(b), p. 1126)
59. Grant program to support school-based health centers (Section 4101, p. 1135)
60. Grant program to promote research-based dental caries disease management (Section 4102, p. 1147)
61. Grant program for States to prevent chronic disease in Medicaid beneficiaries (Section 4108, p. 1174)
62. Community transformation grants (Section 4201, p. 1182)
63. Grant program to provide public health interventions (Section 4202, p 1188)
64. Demonstration program of grants to improve child immunization rates (Section 4204(b), p. 1200)
65. Pilot program for risk-factor assessments provided through community health centers (Section 4206, p. 1215)
66. Grant program to increase epidemiology and laboratory capacity Section 4304, p. 1233)
67. Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (Section 4305, p. 1238)
68. National Health Care Workforce Commission (Section 5101, p. 1256)
69. Grant program to plan health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(c), p. 1275)
70. Grant program to implement health care workforce development activities (Section 5102(d), p. 1279)
71. Pediatric specialty loan repayment program (Section 5203, p. 1295)
72. Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program (Section 5204, p. 1300)
73. Allied Health Loan Forgiveness Program (Section 5205, p. 1305)
74. Grant program to provide mid-career training for health professionals (Section 5206, p. 1307)
75. Grant program to fund nurse-managed health clinics (Section 5208, p. 1310)
76. Grant program to support primary care training programs (Section 5301, p. 1315)
77. Grant program to fund training for direct care workers (Section 5302, p. 1322)
78. Grant program to develop dental training programs (Section 5303, p. 1325)
79. Demonstration program to increase access to dental health care in underserved communities (Section 5304, p. 1331)
80. Grant program to promote geriatric education centers (Section 5305, p. 1334)
81. Grant program to promote health professionals entering geriatrics Section 5305, p. 1339)
82. Grant program to promote training in mental and behavioral health (Section 5306, p. 1344)
83. Grant program to promote nurse retention programs (Section 5309, p. 1354)
84. Student loan forgiveness for nursing school faculty (Section 5311(b), p. 1360)
85. Grant program to promote positive health behaviors and outcomes (Section 5313, p. 1364)
86. Public Health Sciences Track for medical students (Section 5315, p. 1372)
87. Primary Care Extension Program to educate providers (Section 5405, p. 1404)
88. Grant program for demonstration projects to address health workforce shortage needs (Section 5507, p. 1442)
89. Grant program for demonstration projects to develop training programs for home health aides (Section 5507, p. 1447)
90 Grant program to establish new primary care residency programs (Section 5508(a), p. 1458)
91. Program of payments to teaching health centers that sponsor medical residency training (Section 5508(c), p. 1462)
92. Graduate nurse education demonstration program (Section 5509, p. 1472)
93. Grant program to establish demonstration projects for community- based mental health settings (Section 5604, p. 1486)
94. Commission on Key National Indicators (Section 5605, p. 1489)
95. Quality assurance and performance improvement program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6102, p. 1554)
96. Special focus facility program for skilled nursing facilities (Section 6103(a)(3), p. 1561)
97. Special focus facility program for nursing facilities (Section 6103(b)(3), p. 1568)
98. National independent monitor pilot program for skilled nursing facilities and nursing facilities (Section 6112, p. 1589)
99. Demonstration projects for nursing facilities involved in the culture change movement (Section 6114, p. 1597)
100. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1619)
101. Standing methodology committee for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1629)
102. Board of Governors for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (Section 6301, p. 1638)
103. Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (Section 6301(e), p. 1656)
104. Elder Justice Coordinating Council (Section 6703, p. 1773)
105. Advisory Board on Elder Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation (Section 6703, p. 1776)
106. Grant program to create elder abuse forensic centers (Section 6703, p. 1783)
107. Grant program to promote continuing education for long-term care staffers (Section 6703, p. 1787)
108. Grant program to improve management practices and training (Section 6703, p. 1788)109. Grant program to subsidize costs of electronic health records (Section 6703, p. 1791)
110. Grant program to promote adult protective services (Section 6703, p. 1796)
111. Grant program to conduct elder abuse detection and prevention (Section 6703, p. 1798)
112. Grant program to support long-term care ombudsmen (Section 6703, p. 1800)
113. National Training Institute for long-term care surveyors (Section 6703, p. 1806)
114 Grant program to fund State surveys of long-term care residences (Section 6703, p. 1809)
115. CLASS Independence Fund (Section 8002, p. 1926)
116. CLASS Independence Fund Board of Trustees (Section 8002,p. 1927)
117. CLASS Independence Advisory Council (Section 8002, p. 1931)
118. Personal Care Attendants Workforce Advisory Panel (Section 8002(c, p. 1938)
119 Multi-state health plans offered by Office of Personnel Management (Section 10104(p), p. 2086)
120. Advisory board for multi-state health plans (Section 10104(p), p. 2094)
121. Pregnancy Assistance Fund (Section 10212, p. 2164)
122. Value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers (Section 10301, p. 2176)
123. Demonstration project for payment adjustments to home health services (Section 10315, p. 2200)
124. Pilot program for care of individuals in environmental emergency declaration areas (Section 10323, p. 2223)
125. Grant program to screen at-risk individuals for environmental health conditions (Section 10323(b), p. 2231)
126. Pilot programs to implement value-based purchasing (Section 10326, p. 2242)
127. Grant program to support community-based collaborative care networks (Section 10333, p. 2265)
128. Centers for Disease Control Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
129. Health Resources and Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
130. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
131. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
132. Food and Drug Administration Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
133. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Minority Health (Section 10334, p. 2272)
134. Grant program to promote small business wellness programs (Section 10408, p 2285)
135. Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2289)
136. Cures Acceleration Network Review Board (Section 10409, p. 2291)
137. Grant program for Cures Acceleration Network (Section 10409, p. 2297)
138. Grant program to promote centers of excellence for depression (Section 10410, p. 2304)
139. Advisory committee for young women's breast health awareness education campaign (Section 10413, p. 2322)
140. Grant program to provide assistance to provide information to young women with breast cancer (Section 10413, p. 2326)
141. Interagency Access to Health Care in Alaska Task Force (Section 10501, p. 2329)
142. Grant program to train nurse practitioners as primary care providers (Section 10501(e), p. 2332)
143. Grant program for community-based diabetes prevention (Section 10501(g), p. 2337)
144. Grant program for providers who treat a high percentage of medically underserved populations (Section 10501(k), p. 2343)
145. Grant program to recruit students to practice in underserved communities (Section 10501(l), p. 2344)
146. Community Health Center Fund (Section 10503, p. 2355)
147. Demonstration project to provide access to health care for the uninsured at reduced fees (Section 10504, p. 2357)
148. Demonstration program to explore alternatives to tort litigation (Section 10607, p. 2369)
149. Indian Health demonstration program for chronic shortages of health professionals (S. 1790, Section 112, p. 24)*
150. Office of Indian Men's Health (S. 1790, Section 136, p. 71)*
151. Indian Country modular component facilities demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 146, p. 108)*
152. Indian mobile health stations demonstration program (S. 1790, Section 147, p. 111)*
153. Office of Direct Service Tribes (S. 1790, Section 172, p. 151)*
154. Indian Health Service mental health technician training program S. 1790, Section 181, p. 173)*
155. Indian Health Service program for treatment of child sexual abuse victims (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 192)*
156. Indian Health Service program for treatment of domestic violence and sexual abuse (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 194)*
157. Indian youth telemental health demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 204)*
158. Indian youth life skills demonstration project (S. 1790, Section 181, p. 220)*
159. Indian Health Service Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Treatment (S. 1790, Section 199B, p. 258)*

*Section 10221, page 2173 of H.R. 3590 deems that S. 1790 shall be deemed as passed with certain amendments.

WOW! Remember this is just a start. I haven't finished the thing yet...just skimming through the big sections. Heaven knows what macabre things will come to light as lawmakers attempt to roll this obscenity out...which could take at least a decade anyway.

So welcome to the new age of Hope and Change...sorry if you don't recognize it as having anything to do with Hope...but it does prove that change isn't always a good thing.

Global Warming Alert...Planetary Emergency Redefined

2010-03-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

_______________________________________

This headline news flash from the Al Gore network just in:

"GLOBAL WARMING DOES NOT MEAN THE EARTH IS BECOMING WARMER"

Yes my friends...Al Gore, due to public opinion polls indicating fewer than one quarter of the American voters now feel Global Warming is even an issue, has redefined the argument to more closely match the mood of the people.

We refer to this as "dancing around the truth." But who are we to criticize? After all we're not "climate experts" like Al.

The record breaking cold spells of this winter likely haven't helped his public relations efforts, and even some mainstream media pundits have been critical of his past prognostications.

In response, Al has begun to clear up our confusion by explaining that Global Warming doesn't necessarily mean the globe is warming. He has dropped the Global Warming label in favor of the Climate Change label...a preemptive public relations strike...and is now reaching a new level of confusing rhetoric.

It isn't so much warming we have to worry about, he states, the main issue is that weather will become "chaotic."

HUH?

Oh my God! This means the weather of our childhoods, when it was 72 degrees every day, with a light wind out of the south, and every night about 2 AM there would be half an hour of light rain (so we wouldn't have to water our lawns) is now a thing of the past.

Weather will now be "chaotic"; meaning completely out of control...and different every day. Experts predict we can now expect a number of new and devastating phenomenon to occur. One of these will frequently come about in the vicinity of the equator and will be called either hurricanes or typhoons. These devastating "storms", a general term invented to put a label on new chaotic weather patterns, will be birthed over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and make their way towards land.

They will hit land with high winds, waves, and something called "heavy rains" resulting in damage to homes and buildings and possible "flooding" (a new term meaning an excess of natural water from rainfall).

As if that's not bad enough; the American mid-west will be officially referred to as "Tornado Alley" in order to emphasize to residents the seriousness of another predicted phenomenon which will be called a "tornado." This is a unique, and brand new type of "storm" capable of striking quickly and without warning and destroying homes and property...focusing on trailer parks specifically...and the people in "Tornado Alley" must be prepared.

Gore is advising the construction of "tornado shelters" or "storm cellars" where residents may flee and feel somewhat safe from the chaos above. The invention of the "storm cellar" may well be remembered as one of Gore's greatest contributions to society, along with his invention of the internet.

In other areas we may well experience the "heavy rain" attacks which will cause the aforementioned "flooding". Experts predict these "floods" may become an annual occurrence in low-lying areas they are now referring to as "flood plains." The devastating results of these "floods" will include hours of incredibly predictable television news coverage by reporters in yellow rain-slickers.

On the flip-side...regions of the globe may experience too little rainfall, resulting in an effect which will be labeled "drought" followed by "famine"...for some unexplained reason this will be particularly notable in regions ruled by tin-pot dictators and other socialist types.

The only way we can circumvent this coming devastation is to give all of our money, what we have left that is, to Al Gore, in the form of "carbon credits" and to the US government, in the form of "energy" taxes. These two actions should halt the evils of capitalism and bring to an end the terrors of abundant food, shelter, clothing, and other material goods. The weather will again be brought under control of our all-seeing and ever-wise bureaucrats in Washington DC (bless them all...for they will save us).

So be prepared America! Chaos is coming...and with it a burgeoning industry in "weather forecasting", thermometers, barometers, batteries, canned food, candles, Coleman stoves, and rain-gear (clothing to protect one from the new chaos). May God be with us...

The Professor (from his "storm cellar")

The Real Plan for our Health Care Industry

2010-03-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

It's down to the wire; that deadline set by the leaders of the Democratic party, and the truth about the health care nationalization legislation is finally coming to light. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are assuring their hard-core leftist followers that this bill is only a "foot in the door" and will be followed by "lots more bills."

And of course it will pass, by hook or by crook. The "Stupak Group" of democrats in the house are playing coy, but they fully intend to cave-in after putting on a show for their constituents. On really controversial portions of the bill the president has made individual promises to use "executive orders" to annul those sections...after which he can simply reverse those orders of course. It's difficult to tell whether the congressional members are stupid enough to believe this stuff...or whether they simply think we're stupid enough to believe it.

I've known since reading the original bills that health care providers all over the country would be forced out of business if the language of the bill was actually implemented. The only question remaining was "are congressional members completely unable to understand basic business and economic principles...or is their intent to put the entire health care industry into chaos and bankruptcy?"

Do they really believe that increasing taxes by the trillions and creating 8,000 more federal agencies will lower the deficit? Of course not...even they are not that dumb...they simply assume we are.

Those aforementioned "public servants" finally cleared it up for me. Thinking themselves safe from prying video cameras, they've recently explained to supporters that the bill is designed to crush the health care establishment. After which the populace will panic and congress can then do anything they wish to establish a government run and controlled system without private competition.

This is brilliant in its own way...fascist...evil...demented...but brilliant. There are, however, a few problems which might pop up with this ambitious plan to destroy our economy, our hospitals and health care establishment, and put tens of millions out of work...

The first problem; we've noticed...and we're not likely to stand still for this.

Right now the voters are doing what has always worked...making phones calls and sending emails by the millions. Most of us, however, have figured out we're being blatantly and rudely ignored. The Democrats have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar; so they are pretending, for a few more days, as if we don't exist.

It's obvious, to those paying attention and who know their history, that this congress has finally superseded every congress of the past to become what is likely the most corrupt in two plus centuries.

Their hope is, of course, that the bill can be signed and the "giveaways" in the bill can be used to placate us...lull us to sleep...before the "takeaways" kick in. That probably won't work. They can fool some of the people all of the time...but that number is shrinking rapidly.

Already tens of thousands of health care providers are rushing to complete early retirement plans. The restrictions and regulations in the bill, once implemented, will make it nearly impossible for a physician to make a profit, nevertheless a decent salary, while operating a practice. They've figured it out, and will minimize their losses by closing shop. We already have a shortage of physicians...in the next year or two the shortage will start to have a real impact on our personal lives.

Already health care insurance firms are desperately attempting to increase revenues so they can hang on when the new requirements kick in. Despite the propaganda in the media, some insurance firms might have large dollar profits, but these are actually very thin percentage profits...which is what actually counts.

Say your company posts a profit of a million dollars...sounds pretty darn good. But when you pay out expenses of 200 million dollars, the tiniest downturn will suck up that million very quickly and leave you bankrupt. That's exactly the plan.

Within months, your health care insurer is going to be severely stressed. When that happens, stockholders will demand liquidation of the firm and closure in order to minimize their losses. The supporters of the bill hope that will not happen until the November 2010 elections are over...then they will have a shot at remaining in office. But they are already popping the champagne corks and gleefully celebrating the end of private enterprise, your privacy, and the upcoming taking of all health care businesses.

By the time we lose our insurance coverage, they hope, the congress will be reseated. The people might be angry, but the people will also be desperate for some type of health care, no matter how bare bones, and for doctors to get back to work.

At that time, ignorant government bureaucrats will be firmly in charge. The people, they assume, will beg to be "saved" and accept anything they are handed. The politicians will have complete and total control of all the evil doctors they despise so much...control of the pharmaceutical companies, the hospitals and clinics, and through this control they will control our very lives...guaranteeing them seats in congress for life and all the power they've ever desired.

Herein lies the second problem; we, the people, are not stupid!

I truly believe the supporters of this bill, and the hundreds of planned follow-up bills and amendments stripping us of our rights and property, truly believe they are intellectually superior to their employers (that's us) as we were so foolish as to put them in power in the first place...and then to trust them with it.

That is a simplistic view: We lead busy lives. We have families and concerns outside the day-to-day workings of the people we hire to represent us. That we hire them, send them to Washington, then tend to forget about them, doesn't necessarily make us stupid. It does make us trusting...at least to some degree.

That it turns out we can't trust them is not a slam on us...it is a slam on them. These folks shouldn't be able to look at themselves in a mirror after the lies, the innuendo, and now the intentional avoidance of our instructions. They should be deeply ashamed of themselves...and they should be very afraid of what we're going to do to them.

This congress has broken every rule, every trust, every barrier that has stood in place for 2oo plus years, and has done so not only blatantly, but apparently while laughing and sneering at us. We still have the power to throw the bums out...so now comes the real test of our citizenship and our own morality...in essence will we remember eight months from now...we will be bold...and will we hold to the sacred promises made by our founders, and by us to our children and grandchildren, to preserve and protect freedom and defend our national honor?

Let's hope so...I certainly believe it will be so...and I pray I'm not wrong.

An Analysis of the Health Care Summit

2010-02-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

I managed to arrange my day so as to be able to view the entirety of the Feb. 25 Health Care Summit attended by members of the House and Senate in WA D.C.

My feeling is that it was a valuable event as the Republicans were able to speak nearly 30% of the air time...more than I would have guessed they would be allowed.

It was the first time the opposition was allowed to discuss the issues involved outside of floor debate, and more importantly, it was the first time any discussion was held open to the public...you and I. For once, legislation was discussed the way it should be...with an audience of employers looking over law-makers' shoulders.

The discussion, however, placed a great deal of weight on a handful of "myths" that surround the issues involved. I thought that some clarity around these myths might help focus the argument and help keep our representatives on the right track. Feel free to scold any of your employees (congressional members) who use one or more of these.

Myth Number One:

Like an old piece of shoe-leather, this myth has hung around for nearly a century, or longer, thanks to constant media repetition of the myth, and the sadly small number of people who actually study Economics or pay attention in class when they do. It is the myth that governments can actually "create" jobs.

To bolster this myth, officials usually refer to nations during times of war. The fact that near 100% employment can be reached during wartime is due to complex issues coming together, not the least of which is that millions of citizens are suddenly "employed" at low wages to fill the trenches, and others are hired with borrowed cash to supply them with weapons and ammo. The economic "boost" of wartime is normally short-lived, as it's heavy on credit, and nations at war too long are often broken completely by economic reality even before being broken militarily. Japan and Germany were prime examples.

In reality, government initially bolsters economic progress by supplying a basic infrastructure that makes a safe business climate possible. Maintaining a national defense, a legal system of laws and courts, law enforcement, and basic public safety measures ensures people can put their efforts into creating products instead of fighting off outlaw bands. All economists agree on this issue.

Most all economists also agree that there is a point of negative return, where collecting money from the private sector and giving it to government begins costing more jobs than the value created. They also agree that large industrial nations such as the US long ago passed the point of negative return.

The current "Stimulus" tax package, the government tells us, is "creating jobs," but the cost per job is now over $260,000. The cost of the worker employed is about one-third of that. At this time, private companies have to layoff three workers to pay for the government hiring one. This is not "creating" jobs...it is a net loss of jobs.

Of course, some of the excess monies are actually paying current government workers...that is the argument...but they were already being paid by other tax revenues so that argument doesn't make much sense. The "black hole" into which money seems to disappear and never return is said to be due to "bureaucratic friction." Whatever one calls it...there has never been an instance in history when taxation of the private sector has resulted in a net job gain. Never! In the long run taxation reduces employment and production...it's simple math.

Part of the reason this myth survives is you can always find an economist, somewhere, who disagrees with the basic premise. You may have to look long and hard, but believe me, government folks have found those few and have put them on the payroll in economic development agencies and in academia. That handful of "rebels" against historical reality will always find a voice on media talk shows and in academic conferences. The 99% of economists who hold to reality are back stage and will rarely get to the podium.

Relation to the Health Care Debate:

Those who keep telling us that the "reform" bill will increase health care coverage are ignoring that coverage is a service and is performed by professionals. This bill greatly taxes those professionals, and those who support them, and will inevitably reduce the numbers who will remain working. This has happened elsewhere and is a proven fact. With health care provider numbers down, you cannot increase services...kind of a "duh" statement I know, but a reality being ignored for convenience sake. The bill is a massive tax bill...and could cost millions of jobs lost before it's over.

Myth Number Two:

The Canadian system has worked just fine...look how "happy" Canadians are with their socialized health care.

First of all...only some Canadians are happy with their system, and tens of thousands come to the US each year for care. Oddly, US citizens are not flooding north for the same. The population of Canada is about 12% of the US population, and they use fees from extractive resources to help pay for government services. The US can't do that...and copying the Canadian model would break the US in short order. A similar situation exists in small countries like Norway and Sweden. The US has more illegal immigrants expecting free health care than the entire populations of most of those nations.

Secondly...the massive bill in the congress doesn't reflect the Canadian system at all. What is envisioned in the bill would make Canada's health care system look amazingly "free market" and incredibly efficient in comparison. Pointing to Canada and trying to relate the two systems is both absurd and dishonest.

Relation to the Health Care Debate:

This argument should be trashed immediately if a real discussion is to be held.

Myth Number Three:

This one was repeated constantly at the Summit: The health care legislation will reduce the budget deficit.

This is probably the most astounding myth of all...it's not really a myth yet as it simply hasn't reached the point of being repeated often enough to become "myth" in the public mind. But they're trying.

There are only three ways to reduce a budget deficit...you stop spending money and reduce your spending while maintaining revenue income...or you increase revenue income more than you are currently spending.

The third way is the ultimate crime against the populace: you increase spending, but increase revenue (taxes) even faster than you increase spending. This is the method outlined in the health care bill. Spending will increase by trillions, but trillions more are slated to be collected in taxes...voila...deficit reduction!

Unfortunately, this third method has gotten us into the fix we're into economically and is not going to repair it. The hard reality is that we can only reduce the deficit by reducing spending. History has shown us that tax reductions can also reduce deficits as normally revenue collections go up when tax reductions increase production and employment overall (creating a larger tax base). Sometimes this can happen even when spending is going up...but won't happen for long.

(Note that this is what ended up creating a problem during the Bush presidency...Congress did cut tax rates, and revenues grew significantly, but then they insisted on spending that money and borrowing more. Whoops!)

Relation to the Health Care Debate:

Higher spending and higher taxes always damage the economy. Employment will suffer, therefor the tax base will be decreased, so taxes will have to be raised again, resulting in more unemployment. The vicious cycle continues until something breaks. The higher you raise taxes to "pay down the deficit" the less revenue will be generated in the long run and the greater will grow the deficit...until you dramatically decrease spending. In this case, by bankrupting something in the system...such as health care. Instead of quality health care for all...you end up with mediocre, or worse, health care for all...fair, but not at all desirable.

There were other myths spoken and alluded to at the Summit. But these were among the more important. Remind your elected officials that these myths are simply not fact...and when they quote them, if they quote them, feel free to correct them immediately. We are not children...and we no longer believe in bedtime stories and fairytales. Don't be afraid to let them know those days are over.

Great Orators of the Democratic Party

2010-02-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

In the Past:

One man with courage makes a majority.
-Andrew Jackson

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
-Franklin Roosevelt

The buck stops here.
-Harry Truman

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
-John Kennedy

And Today:

It depends what your definition of "is" is.
-Bill Clinton

That Obama...I'd like to cut his nuts off.
-Jesse Jackson

Those rumors are false...I believe in the sanctity of marriage.
-John Edwards

I invented the Internet.
-Al Gore

The next person that tells me I'm not religious, I'm going to shove my rosary beads up their ass.
-Joe Biden

America is..is no longer, uh, what it...it, uh, could be, uh, what it once was...uh, and I say to myself, uh, I don't want that future, uh, uh, for my children...
-Barrack Obama

I have campaigned in all 57 states.
-Barrack Obama

You don't need God anymore, you have us Democrats.
-Nancy Pelosi

Every month we don't pass this stimulus bill, 500 million more Americans lose their jobs.
-Nancy Pelosi

In 1929 when the stock market crashed President Roosevelt got right on the television.
-Joe Biden

Multiple Choice Quiz

2010-02-01T09:39:00.000-08:00

After managing to stay awake through the last State of the Union address...which was anything but...I simply didn't have the energy to write a column. Therefore...I am...for your enjoyment playing the "Are You Smarter than a College Student" game and am reprinting one of my multiple choice tests.

The answer key appears after the exam...have fun and see how you stack up against the modern college attendee:

Professorofliberty's Multiple Choice History Exam:

1) In 1968 Robert Kennedy was shot and killed by:
a. Superman
b. Jay Leno
c. Harry Potter
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2) During the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
a. Olga Corbett
b. The Hardy Boys
c. Nancy Drew
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

3) In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by:
a. the Smith family Robinson
b. the Keebler elves
c. a tour bus full of elderly Rotarians
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

4) During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
a. John Lennon
b. The King of Sweden
c. The Pope
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

5) In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed and destroyed by:
a. a Pizza Hut delivery driver
b. Pee Wee Herman
c. a pack of cub scouts
d. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

6) In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and 70 year old Leon Klinghoffer, a wheel chair bound American citizen, was murdered and thrown overboard by:
a. Teenage Ninja Turtles
b. The Smurfs
c. Teletubbies
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

7) In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked and American Robert Stidham was murdered by:
a. The Little Mermaid
b. Charles Lindberg
c. Mother Teresa
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

8) In 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was bombed by:
a. Scooby Doo
b. The Tooth Fairy
c. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

9) In 1993 the World Trade Center in New York was bombed by:
a. Richard Simmons
b. Grandma Moses
c. Mickey Mouse
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

10) In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
a. Johnny Quest
b. Bugs Bunny
c. The WWF
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

11) On 9/11/2001, four airliners were hijacked, the crews brutally murdered, and then the aircraft used to attack civilian targets and the Pentagon. These coordinated attacks were made by:
a. Wiley Coyote and the Acme Company
b. A preschool class in Delaware
c. Nascar
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

12) In 2002 the US began fighting in Afghanistan against:
a. My Little Pony
b. The Lutheran Church
c. The NFL
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

13) In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered on video tape by;
a. Captain Kangaroo and JP Patches
b. Mutt and Jeff
c. Abbott and Costello
d. Muslim male extremists between the ages of 17 and 40

Answer Key: d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d,d

If you were right 13 times...congratulations...you are a normal person with common sense
If you were right 8 to 12 times...you need to catch up on the news a bit
If you were right 3 to 7 times...you are probably under 6 years of age
If you were right 2 times or less...my condolences...you are probably a graduate of UC Berkeley.

The Professor

Letter from Dr. Geoffrey Hunt

2010-01-06T16:39:00.000-08:00

Dr. Hunt is a social and cultural anthropologist and a Senior Research Scientist of the Institute for Scientific Analysis.

Another Failed Presidency

Barack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since Woodrow Wilson. In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies...led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait...they are repudiated, in the vernacular...spat out.

Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.

But Barack Obama is failing...failing big...failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them.

Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame.

But there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in mere months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This is truly unbelievable. What's going on?

Obama doesn't have a narrative...no, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of if fabricated, cleverly disguised, or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us. He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align eactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, and Reagan.

But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, and is historically illiterate and woefully small minded for the size of the task...all contributory of course. It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content...like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper.

Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. his descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.

In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us...financiers, energy producers, bankers, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012:

"For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."

Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state...staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.

Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.

Dr. Geoffrey P. Hunt

A World We Never Want to See

2009-12-22T11:56:00.000-08:00

I recently spent the better part of a day observing a memorial service for four murdered Police Officers from the city of Lakewood, Washington. A few days after that ceremony, two more officers were shot just a few miles away from the first ambush, and one died of his wounds. Only a few weeks before these events, two Seattle officers were ambushed, and one killed, at a stop light.

Perhaps it's because of my background in the history of totalitarian states that I see the attacks on these eight officers as just the beginning of a conflict that may soon confront our entire law enforcement community.

In the 1920's and 1930's Germany was a constitutional republic, like the US, struggling through economic hard times. Like the US today, the German people were divided into a conservative camp...who wished to make their constitution work and to weather the economic storm...and those on the left, who wished to bring about a radical new form of government with little or no resemblance to the old order. They slathered at the idea of "redistributive justice" much as similar types do today.

Though they only received some 30% plus of the national vote, The Socialist Workers Party (the N.A.Z.I.) managed to manipulate their candidate, Adolf Hitler, into the number one seat in the administration. From that position, he was able to eradicate democratic institutions and eventually take total control of the government.

One of the stories of that struggle, largely untold, was that of German police officers and what happened to them.

Like our law enforcement community today, those officers were protectors of their constitution, generally conservative and law-abiding, and sworn to uphold the constitutionally elected government. This created a problem for Herr Hitler and his minions as much of what they needed to do was unconstitutional and even entailed a good deal of violence and murder.

A struggle ensued between these forces...the conservatives in the citizenry, protected largely by the police forces, and those wanting revolution and pushing for the totalitarian control which they felt would empower them personally. That group was in opposition to constitutional law enforcement.

Hitler's followers were the displaced, the less fortunate, criminals of all stripes, malcontents, sadists, and psycopaths. Politicians who use the tactics of class conflict have always taken advantage of such people to create anarchy, to put together street organizations, and to carry out the dirty, but necessary, acts of violence and sedition necessary to create a crisis situation. Such a crisis would give the government the needed excuse to declare martial law, or create new and more powerful law enforcement agencies manned by their lackeys, or even to cancel or suspend elections.

But first, they would have to deal with the old law enforcement community...made up of loyal citizens who would, in the end, refuse to do things like search homes for firearms, or kidnap political targets, or sack and burn blocks of stores and businesses. In fact, these police professionals would try and stop such activities, and in the end they tried to stand firm despite orders from above.

Hitler knew he had to deal with the law enforcement community in Germany...and he did so. He used them against the German people as long as he could, but when officers finally rebelled he had to bring out the thugs. First, of course, he set the stage by denigrating police officers with insults and snide insinuations (recall Obama's remarks about police officers "being stupid"). He appointed staff members with criminal backgrounds, or radicals who shared a dislike for law enforcement personnel.

Knowing what happened then...seeing how today there are groups hailing killers of police officers as heroes while attempting to protect and hide them...when coupled with current political winds makes me wonder about what is to come.

A shocking number of appointees who make up the new administration in WA DC come from criminal backgrounds, even having served prison terms, or "academic" backgrounds where they openly celebrated their hatred of law enforcement personnel. The criminal community has taken notice...and they appear to be emboldened. Many of them, when arrested, smirkingly announce they will not be in prison for long. They threaten the arresting officers, prosecutors, judges, and jury members. They act arrogantly and state confidently that "the tables are turning" and soon they will be in charge and that people in the community will pay.

I recall a photo montage I saw, during the last election cycle, of one hundred mug shots of recently arrested criminals in Chicago...each wearing an Obama t-shirt. A weird coincidence...just like the weird coincidence that recently bills were introduced in Congress giving prison inmates the right to vote? Just like the 9th circuit court in San Francisco overturning state laws barring felons from voting?

The 9th circuit opinion will likely be overturned...a large percentage of that whackey trio's opinions are...but the fact such a off the wall case was even heard at that level is disturbing to citizens and energizing to criminals.

Officers I know well tell me there is a new attitude on the street...a dangerous attitude. And they tell me of rumors of layoffs in their departments, as well as actual salary reductions and increased micro-management by political hacks. A number of states are preparing to start early release programs from prisons, for budgetary reasons of course, and bills are in committee which would give amnesty to all illegal immigrants along with immediate voting rights...and a shocking percentage of those folks are gang or cartel members.

All of this may sound pretty alarmist, after all this is the United States of America, where the vast majority of citizens are solidly behind our law enforcement personnel and for the constitution. But those same conditions existed in Germany in the 1920's!

Law abiding citizens are being bypassed on a number of issues...being ignored on health care and cap and trade...and the millions of phone calls and emails don't seem to slow down the more demagogic members of congress. Will they eventually take the same "ignore the will of the people" stance on maintaining our police departments, or keeping felons in prison, or the issues of giving the vote to illegals and criminals? And will these actions by the most corrupt congress in a century be the gateway to an assault on law enforcement personnel?

To get to us...tyrants have to first get through the "thin blue line" of police officers who protect and serve their communities. I don't believe tyrants can do it. For one thing, our officers don't stand alone. If the time comes I truly believe the American people will rise up and back-up their police. The officers I talk to believe that as well...and they actually represent us more truly than many of our elected officials. If the time comes...I believe it will be the politicos who will back down and leave the field. For that matter...I don't think many of them will be in office after the 2010 elections to make the attempt.

I'm all for easing them all into retirement...before we lose any more of our gallant officers and any more of our constitution.

The Professor

When Agendas Run Amock

2009-12-10T16:29:00.000-08:00

Imagine you are forced into the witness protection program in order to keep your family safe and alive.

You have to change your name. All of your family have to change their names. Literally overnight you are packed off to a new town...you never again can call or see your parents, your siblings, your friends...they're not even allowed to know what happened to you. You can't even receive news of them.

When your parents get old and need your help...you can't be there. You won't even know about it. The slightest security leak, or slip-up, can get you killed. Your entire world is gone and you can never get it back.

That's what it can be like if you serve as a juror on a trial against a well-connected crime figure. The only way you can be an impartial juror, is to have you and your family's safety guaranteed beyond doubt. Otherwise...someone out of the twelve members of that jury will refuse to convict out of fear they or a family member will pay the ultimate price.

Now imagine you are on the jury trying five terrorists who were involved in the 9/11 attacks. If they are convicted, an entire international terrorist organization will dedicate itself to killing you, your immediate family, your extended family, your friends and co-workers, and anyone they might consider whose death would give you pain.

Remember they have millions of fanatical members...people willing to strap on suicide vests and jump on school busses. People willing to fly airplanes into buildings. Can you imagine any way your entire sphere of family and friends can be protected...not just for a few months, or years, but for the next few decades. Because these fanatics will target all of them for as long as it takes. They will never quit.

Now let's be brutally realistic! The defense attornies will "leak" your name and your address to the press within a matter of days. They will do so knowing full well it would destroy any chance the prosecution has of getting a conviction. Within hours of that leak reporters and bloggers will spill that information across the world wide net. You're sitting on the jury...you know what will happen if the terrorists are convicted...what do you do?

Be real honest! Do you truly believe that all twelve of you, no matter how strong the evidence, will convict? Won't there be at least one hold out? Someone so terrified they simply will not budge...and won't the remainder eventually see that the only way out of a hung jury is to go with a not-guilty verdict?

The same issue was raised half a century ago when Nazi war criminals were put on trial. That is why military tribunals were used to dispense justice...and why members of our government have been trying to start the same process for the 9/11 terrorists being held today by the US Military. For years now they have been blocked from moving forward by organizations like the ACLU.

So why did the Obama administration kowtow to such organizations and go an entirely different route? This last week they announced these terrorists would be tried as civilians...and given the full protection of the US Constitution as if they were US citizens. It means they would have to be convicted by a jury of twelve Americans.

There is obviously zero logic at work here...so we have to ask "what are the reasons for this rather radical turn of events and this decision?"

There are a number of possible answers; all of which may be a part of why this move was made. Let's get started by painting the scene:

Everyone understands that the Obama crew has a deeply rooted hatred for Bush and his administration, the military and military people, the CIA, all and any wars, and the entire concept of the war against terror. These terrorists were captured on the battlefield...not properly "arrested"...and were sent to Gitmo instead of a civilian prison where they could have been protected from "abuse" and "torture."

There is nothing more this group of malcontents wants more than to sling mud at all the institutions and persons they hate so deeply. A public trial of these "victims of torture" whereby the terrorists can have a forum to lie and make claims against the US, the military, and US citizens is just too much an opportunity for these whiners in the White House to pass up.

Worse; there is a very real possibility of acquittal on a technicality...such as their not being read their rights when captured on the battlefield...or a hung jury. The failure to find them guilty will be tossed back at the Bush administration...it's all their fault...they should have morandized the prisoners in Afghanistan...they should have built a forensic case on site...created a chain of evidence...etcetera ad nauseam. US citizens will be outraged...and a certain number will put the blame on Bush and his people rather than where it rests.

It's almost as if this was the goal of the ACLU and friends from the first...and perhaps it was. Unfortunately for them, we the people are not quite the fools they take us to be. They spend so much time with the easily manipulated that they fail to see the groundswell of anger already building among normal folks.

Polls show the vast majority of Americans want these war criminals tried in a military tribunal. If Obama's people turn this into a circus, which they will without a doubt, and fail to get convictions and harsh sentences (such as death), this will turn on them...and will probably turn hard.

We may be beginning to see how vengeful idealogues can out-maneuver themselves...I believe they are finally doing so on the health care take-over issue...and how they may just be their own worst enemies. Let's watch what happens... and be ready to remind our friends and acquaintances that "we told you so."

The Professor

Warning Letter from a Law Instructor

2009-12-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

I felt this warning from Michael Connelly, a retired attorney and constitutional law instructor, deserved reprinting. Keep in mind this is his review of HR 3200...which was about half as long and convoluted as the current Senate health care bill. We must be emailing and calling our senators during this vital moment in history and urging them to vote down this travesty.

The Warning:
Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn't have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

This legislation also provides for access by the appointees of the Obama administration to all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. All of this is a direct violation of the specific provisions of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures. You can also forget about the right to privacy. That will have been legislated into oblivion regardless of what the 3rd and 4th Amendments may provide.

If you decide not to have healthcare insurance or if you have private insurance that is not deemed “acceptable" to the "Health Choices Administrator" appointed by Obama there will be a tax imposed on you. It is called a "tax" instead of a fine because of the intent to avoid application of the due process clause of the 5th Amendment.

However, that doesn't work because since there is nothing in the law that allows you to contest or appeal the imposition of the tax, it is definitely depriving someone of property without the "due process of law.”

So, there are three of those pesky amendments that the far left hate so much out the original ten in the Bill of Rights that are effectively nullified by this law. It doesn't stop there though. The 9th Amendment that provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;" The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are preserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Under the provisions of this piece of Congressional handiwork neither the people nor the states are going to have any rights or powers at all in many areas that once were theirs to control.

I could write many more pages about this legislation, but I think you get the idea. This is not about health care; it is about seizing power and limiting rights. Article 6 of the Constitution requires the members of both houses of Congress to "be bound by oath or affirmation" to support the Constitution. If I was a member of Congress I would not be able to vote for this legislation or anything like it without feeling I was violating that sacred oath or affirmation. If I voted for it anyway I would hope the American people would hold me accountable.

For those who might doubt the nature of this threat I suggest they consult the source. Here is a link to the Constitution:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

And another to the Bill of Rights:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

There you can see exactly what we are about to have taken from us.

Michael Connelly
Retired attorney,
Constitutional Law Instructor
Carrollton , Texas

Johnson...McNamara...Obama: the Convergence

2009-11-14T19:35:00.000-08:00

Throughout history; nations, city states, and tribes which chose to fight a conflict by use of a defensive strategy (versus defensive tactics, which are used commonly) inevitably failed in their endeavor and often ceased to exist.

Only rarely has the US elected to try and break the historical deadlock. After early setbacks with the Continental Army, some members of the new Congress urged Washington to take a strictly defensive posture, pulling the army into the wilderness and spending what might have been decades waiting for the British to uproot him.

Washington was far too wise to consider this option, instead he learned from earlier tactical mistakes and doggedly built an army which could go head-to-head against British regulars. He understood far too well the historical precedent...the Brits would simply grow stronger while drying up Washington's base of supply, while his force would lose public support and personnel; eventually becoming little more than a band of renegades.

In the Korean conflict, US forces, after great initial successes and the near collapse of North Korea, were forced into a bloody stalemated war of attrition. Afraid to further provoke the Chinese or the Soviets, the US used enough force to hold the line, but not to bring abut decisive victory. That conflict has never been resolved and still destabilizes the region.

In the Vietnam war, the US administration in the persons of Lyndon Johnson and Robert McNamara made a decision to fight a protracted war of defense as a test of will against the Soviet Union's proxy state, North Vietnam. McNamara was a firm adherent of what is called War Management Theory. Most military professionals adhere to War Fighting Theory...the two are very different schools of thought.

I recall an analysis of the war that included two photos side-by-side. The first was a famous photo of President Lincoln during the Civil War. In the photo, Lincoln is seated at the rear of the room, his tophat on his lap, listening intently as his generals work over a large table covered with maps. He was the observer...doing the people's business by monitoring the experts in warfighting and being there to make final decisions based on their recommendations.

The other photo was of Johnson and McNamara with the chiefs of staff...the top generals in all the armed forces of the nation. In this photo, Johnson and McNamara were leaning over a large map table while the generals sat disgusted and ignored in the background. They had learned not to speak up, as one of the two politicians would normally fly into a rage and ignore what advice the officer wished to convey.

These men's egoes were more important to them than the lives of the men and women serving on the battlefields. Johnson often remarked that generals could not be trusted in issues of war and that he was smarter than the lot of them. McNamara was known to share those feelings...but in his own regard.

Lincoln was by far the more intelligent man. He was wise enough to know his limitations, and though he got testy with his generals from time to time, and replaced those who failed to produce, he bowed to their judgement on matters not political in nature.

Not only was Johnson very different than Lincoln, conceited and bull headed, but he disliked military people and he had bigger fish to fry. He was pushing his Great Society agenda to congress and the people and felt the war would simply get in the way. So McNamara's war management theories seemed to fit his needs at the moment.

Those theories called for a defensive strategy; whereby the goal was not to win the conflict, but to keep from losing. In other words, apply enough force to keep the Communists from completely overrunning the struggling democrary in the south, but not enough to dissuade them from trying. The key, McNamara assured Johnson, was that the Communists would get the hint and give up the idea of conquest after a few years.

This would also signal the Soviets that we were willing to slug it out in Europe as well if that became necessary. It actually convinced the Soviets of very different things of course, but that's another story.

McNamara's theories called for building an innaccessible wall of protection around the south...which to anyone who can read a map seemed like one of the most ludicrous ideas in history...one that the Communists would be unable to efficiently cross. This worked so badly, of course, that Johnson finally bowed to a minimal amount of "active defense" in the form of going after military production in the north through use of airpower.

It went no further than that however. Military leaders were already stretching the limit of McNamara's vision, and the war was getting way too much publicity for Johnson's taste. His big social agenda was going down the tubes thanks to anger over his handling of the war.

Of course we're all aware of how that conflict ended, and of the sacrifices made not only by US personnel but South Vietnamese troops by the millions as well as allied forces from all over the Pacific. Their courage could not save a democracy condemned to extermination by fools in Washington D.C.

Now there is a new photo being passed around. President Obama, VP Biden, and a dozen other civilians sitting around a large table procrastinating over how to proceed in Afghanistan. The media refers to this group as his "war council."

Note that the chiefs of staff are now completely missing; as are the generals on the ground who have been pushing for a decision for half a year. To make matters worse, the professionals in-country have delivered four carefully prepared strategic plans to carry on and eventually win the war...and all have now been rejected by the "war council."

Does Obama want the generals to revise their plans and come back? No...he has announced his council will write his strategic plan for the war.

Now...we'll take a moment to allow you to slam your fist through a wall...or simply sit in front of your computer in stunned silence. Some of you may want to beat your head against your desk or cry...it's up to you...all four might be called for at this point.

Try to look at the bright side...Obama and his people have finally, irrefutably, proven their egomania, their narcissim, and their lack of intelligence beyond any question. No one with the slightest semblance of sense could disagree this may be the most incredibly stupid single decision these people have made to date. Now there can be no doubt of their incompetence.

But there are other issues in play: recall Obama's speech on TV when he broke into regular programming to announce the mass shootings at Fort Hood. For two minutes he spoke about social issues, then inserted some lines about the murders on the base, then finished up with more social issues.

What does this short interlude tell us? One...like Johnson, he has a social agenda that overrides the lives of our men and women who serve in the military. This social agenda is so important that it will eclipse our national security and cut the very foundations of support for our troops before this administration is finished. They have a messianic need to complete this agenda despite what it does to our nation and our people.

We see the results of that agenda being played out in the dithering over strategy in Afghanistan. The war council is not concerned with winning...they are concerned with image and getting out if necessary to save their social plan. If this wasn't true, the President would have simply chosen one of the four options and told our generals to "make it so."

Two...like most failed leaders throughout history...Obama won't learn from history. He wants to take the reins of a general, but doesn't have any interest in knowing anything about the art, history, and science of leading men in battle. Like wanting to run giant corporations, running a war is simply beyond his grasp in the slightest degree...but that doesn't prevent an extreme narcissist from truly believing he will be successful.

Now one might suggest that I'm offbase...that Obama will simply reword one of the Generals' plans in order to take credit for it. That's unlikely...it's the move a publicity hungry, but dogmatic, politician might make. I believe Obama is such a narcissist that he truly believes he and his friends are able to come up with superior plans. This despite their total lack of training, knowledge, or experience in these complex matters...similar to their approach to the world of business.

Whatever move they now make, this administration has set the framework for failure and it will be difficult to break out of that model. Liberals will always find some consolation in such failure...the media can always label it success of course...and if that fails they can still go back to blaming Bush. The long arm of George Bush reaches out constantly, you know,...and it is the one strategy they can use with some level of actual understanding of what they're doing.

The Professor

Patriotic Resistance: A Letter by Thomas Sowell

2009-11-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

We've all heard the screechings from the left that boil down to "we should all support the President...after all, he was elected, time to shut up...unite behind him and move forward blah, blah, blah." It's time to absorb his view of the world and abandon our own.

Kind of like the left united behind George Bush and our troops? You might notice we're still behind our troops...it doesn't matter to us who is in the presidency...we don't change our stripes according to what administration is in office.

The reality is: the day an election is over, the next cycle begins. The elected official is our employee, and it's our duty to review and critique everything our employee does. We are not only free to criticize and attempt to correct his course of action...we are honor bound to do so. I'm re-printing a recent letter by Thomas Sowell, well known and respected Economist and public figure, as he expresses his version of this reality.

I have noted that many elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, called upon America to unite behind Obama.

Well, I want to make it clear to all who will listen that I "AM NOT" uniting behind Obama. However, I promise to give our country the devoted loyalty of a patriot.

I will respect the Office he holds, and I will acknowledge his abilities as an orator and wordsmith and pray for him, BUT that is it.

I have begun today to see what I can do to make sure he is a one-term President!

Why am I doing this? It is because I do not share Obama's vision or value system for America;

I do not share his Abortion beliefs;

I do not share his radical Marxist's concept of re-distributing wealth;

I do not share his stated views on raising taxes on those who make $150,000+ (the ceiling has been changed three times since August);

I do not share his view that America is arrogant;

I do not share his view that America is not a Christian Nation;

I do not share his view that the military should be reduced by 25%;

I do not share his view of amnesty and giving more to illegals than American Citizens who need help;

I do not share his views on homosexuality and his definition of marriage;

I do not share his views that Radical Islam is our friend and Israel is our enemy who should give up any land;

I do not share his spiritual beliefs (at least the ones he has made public);

I do not share his beliefs on how to re-work the healthcare system in America ;

I do not share his Strategic views of the Middle East, and certainly do not share his plan to sit down with terrorist regimes such as Iran .

Bottom line, my America is vastly different from Obama's, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my God to do what is right!

For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility, but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs!

They have not moved toward the center in their beliefs and their philosophies, and they never came together nor compromised their personal beliefs for the betterment of our Country! They have portrayed my America as a land where everything is tolerated except being intolerant!

They have been a vocal and irreverent minority for years;

They have mocked and attacked the very core values so important to the founding and growth of our Country;

They have made every effort to remove the name of God or Jesus Christ from our Society;

They have challenged capital punishment, the right to bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code;

They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech!

Unite behind Obama? Never!

I am sure many of you who read this think that I am going overboard, but I refuse to retreat one more inch in favor of those whom I believe are the embodiment of Evil!

PRESIDENT BUSH made many mistakes during his Presidency, and I am not sure how history will judge him. However, I believe he weighed his decisions in light of the long established Judeo-Christian principles of our Founding Fathers!!!

Majority rules in America , and I will honor the concept; however, I will fight with all of my power to be a voice in opposition to Obama and "his goals for America ."

I am going to be a thorn in the side of those who, if left unchecked, will destroy our country! Any more compromise is more defeat!

I pray that the results of this election will wake up many who have sat on the sidelines and allowed the Socialist-Marxist anti-God crowd to slowly change so much of what has been good in America !

"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." (Thomas Jefferson)

God bless you and God bless our Country!!!

Some Clarification on "Profits" Posting

2009-11-02T11:03:00.000-08:00

A good friend and colleague suggested the post preceeding this one might be somewhat confusing to anyone who has not had to deal with cash flow in a business; versus cash flow at home or in one's personal life. He is right, of course...and I felt it necessary to explore the idea in more clarity.

To remind; I was explaining how a business's cash flow, in different stages of the operating cycle, could distort short-term tax returns in a way that would falsely indicate the business had benefitted from a sudden increase in profit. I brought up the issue due to a government agency that made a public announcement that profits were up across the business sector. They contended that the recession must be over as a result.

Quarterly tax returns tend to show the ups-and-downs of cash flow more dramatically than a yearly tax return, and most businesses have to file quarterly. The longer time period of a full year simply "smooths" out the fluctuations in cash flow and gives a more accurate picture of what the firm is doing. The agency was speaking about quarterly tax returns.

Here is a good visualization of the "operating cycle."

Imagine a circle graphic with a box at 12 o'clock labeled "Cash." There is another box at 3 o'clock labeled "Raw materials", a box at 6 o'clock labeled "Inventory", and one at 9 o'clock labeled "Accounts Receivables." We will go around this circle in a clock-wise direction.

What this graphic represents is the assets the company has at different points of the "operating cycle."
At the beginning of the cycle the company has cash, it might be their own or from a loan, or a combination of both. The company begins by paying out money in the first stage of the cycle to purchase materials. Money going out of the firm would also be for payroll costs and other needs.

A cash flow statement at this point shows the purchase funds coming in, from prior sales and/or as cash from a loan, and then going out, to purchase raw materials. On the tax return, however, we simply see the cost of raw materials as an expense. Loans are not income...anymore than the use of a personal credit card to purchase something for your home is a source of income.

(Admittedly some folks use their credit cards as "income" and that does get them into a whole world of hurt in the long run.)

At this point, we show no income as the company has nothing to sell. In the next stage we see the raw materials being worked into finished goods and the goods being stored as inventory. Again, our tax return will show no income, but will show expenses as we pay for labor. The assets are now all in inventory.

Now imagine this firm's operating cycle is one year in length...perhaps they make toys for the Christmas season. Our quarterly tax returns show large losses in quarters one and two: the first quarter mainly for materials, and the second mainly for labor. This corresponds to the first two stages of the operating cycle.

In the third quarter, or third stage of the cycle, the sales process takes place. We may well be receiving some income now, as some customers will pay cash up front to obtain price breaks, but most of our actual revenue will come back in the fourth stage, the collection cycle. Most of our assets have now been converted to Accounts Receivables...or money owed by purchasers to the firm. This takes place in the third stage of the cycle.

Hopefully, the firm receives its money in the fourth stage of the cycle. In our annual model, that is the fourth quarter.

In a strong economy, we might already be buying more materials and paying for labor in the third and fourth quarters, so the income coming in would be offset by those expenses. We would also have the expense, in the fourth quarter, of the company paying back the loan that began the process. Therefore, we might be showing a profit in those quarters, but it would be largely offset by the new expenses of replacing inventory and the repayment of the loan.

But in a recession, we would be laying off workers in the third and fourth quarters as demand for future product falls off. We would also be purchasing less materials for future production. As a result, expenses are suddenly less than they have been for years.

The result: almost all the annual income comes in during quarters three and four, yet expenses are now reduced. Income minus expenses equals profit...and the profit number will be higher than in the previous year, or operating cycle, as we have reduced expenses. The profit figure will also be far higher than in quarters one and two. To the uninitiated, the quarterly tax returns make it look like this business is suddenly "booming" with cash...so they must be "profitable."

Here's the rub: the firm is producing less product than the prior year...so what do you think will happen during the next sales and collection cycles? If you guessed that sales and profits would go way down...you are right. The "booming" profits in cycles three and four are simply a fluke...and actually foreshadow what will be a dramatic reduction in revenue and profit.

It's like a last, dying gasp. The patient raises his head...speaks one more time...then collapses and is gone.

Which is exactly what could happen to this company and others like it. Almost all companies have some sort of operating cycle...and many are keyed to the holiday season as being the sales and collection parts of the cycle. Even those that are not tied to end of the year sales will show sudden spurts of profit during a recession as they reach the third and fourth stages of their cycles.

So in one respect, the government folks are correct...the quarterly returns show profit. But when the year-end returns come in they will tell a very different story, because all four stages of the cycle will be reflected.

The truest measure of the end of a recession is when employment figures begin to go up...instead of down. There is a dark side to recovery however, that may well be the death knell of many firms. As an economy begins to recover, and demand is forecast for finished goods, firms need to begin buying raw materials and hiring people once again.

Some of them simply won't have the cash to do so without help from a lending institution. Unfortunately, with a tough year behind the borrower, lenders may well decline to offer funding. As other firms get product on the shelves, these less fortunate ones will end up losing their market share and will be forced to shut down...even as a recovery is well under way.

Of course not every business has a long operating cycle...a restaurant brings in fresh foodstuffs in the morning and by evening they convert this material into meals and have collected their money. But the greater part of our economy, and the part that supplies a significant portion of wages that translate to consumer spending, is made up of manufacturing, wholesaling, and distribution firms. All of these are subject to these long operating cycles.

I hope this makes it a bit clearer to those who have asked for such clarification. Though not as scintillating as some of our conversations, it is an eye opener to the true current situation and the lack of business expertise in Washington DC at this time.

Hopefully...they will seek out and find experience and advice before much longer. Heaven knows we need help in the business sector, where jobs are actually produced, a lot more than we need more excuses for even more taxation.

Now that you understand the operating cycle...you can understand how increased taxes simply drain money out of the operating cycle and require the business to make less product and lay off more workers. I don't think our elected officials have figure that one out yet...especially when taxes are so often levied against phantom profits.

The Professor

Tax Man is Excited...Profits? are up...

2009-10-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

The most recent "news" coming out of Washington D.C.'s cadre of new-age economic experts is that the recession is certainly over as corporate profits are up!

Wonderful...and even believable if you know nothing about corporate financials and how they work. Most people don't of course, and shouldn't be expected to ...it's not how they make a living. But economic advisors to the administration should understand exactly what is happening...their ignorance is both shocking and disturbing.

Corporate financials and tax returns are normally filed quarterly, unlike we normal folk who file after the year's over, so corporate financials give us a more up-to-date look at what is happening. But they're not too up-to-date.

Let me explain that contradiction. Most companies have what we call an operating cycle...an ongoing time period between taking in resources and raw materials, combining them with labor and machinery, then stocking finished goods, selling the goods, and eventually collecting for the goods.

This operating cycle might be a matter of days in length...like a restaurant for example...but manufacturers and distributors have to struggle with cycles that are months, or even years, in length.

What this means is that the company buys raw materials and pays for the stuff...racking up huge expenses...then uses labor to transform the stuff...again racking up expenses...yet doesn't show revenue from sales until long after the expenses have been paid out.

Ah-ha...some of you are already saying to yourselves...and you're right. When a company writes off expenses in their 1st quarter, then is forced to lay people off in the 2nd quarter, suddenly expenses go down dramatically. They are no longer buying raw materials and paying for labor...but now the revenues are coming in and the 3rd and 4th quarters look "great" on paper.

Voila! Suddenly profits grow...Not! When you understand business cycles and how they affect the financial statements in the first year or two of a recession, it all makes sense. And you suddenly realize that this "growth" in profits is simply a book keeping anomaly...and the reduction of raw materials and labor expenses indicates a future decline in revenue and profits. This "growth" is not growth...it's a one-time shot...and it's really just on paper! The company's bank accounts could very well be empty as most of the "profits" were pre-spent in quarters one and two and the remainder in quarter three. Very deceptive if you don't know what's happening.

Another question you might be asking...why wouldn't the business try to smooth out the expenses and this one-time profit for tax purposes? Why declare it now?

Firstly, they really can't of course. Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures, or GAAP, really don't allow this and the IRS doesn't care for it either. There is another reason to take the hit this year however...tax rates on business have been increased seriously but don't take full affect until 2010. A company can afford the hit now more easily.

Of course, politicians are drooling...big surprise. "Profits" they exclaim..."why, we must tax those immediately and declare emergency windfall taxes or something to get at that money." Being somewhat ignorant on business financials they don't realize the business cycle and that losses will follow the quarters of profit (or perhaps don't care). Companies cannot afford to spend these paper profits because they really don't exist as we normally think of profits, and they will be soaked up by losses in the following quarters.

"Nonsense," say the politicos...why we're experts in everything. That's simply pro-evil-business propaganda from a highly-paid special interest spokesperson."

Uh....I'm still waiting for the check...haven't received a dime yet.

Unfortunately; some of these businesses, despite these "profits" will be unable to stay afloat. Remember that much of this "profit" has already been spent and the remainder is waiting to be collected by the firm's creditors. Now that the firm is not producing revenue as it did, it may be in long term trouble at this point. If they cannot reduce expenses enough, or come up with enough sales revenue, they may very possibly end up closing their doors and laying off all remaining employees.

Not quite as exciting a picture as the pundits in WA D.C. have been painting...is it? Let's hope future administrations actually bring some business people on board...social workers and community organizers don't seem to get this reality stuff.

The Professor

The Barbarian Explains the Great Depression

2009-10-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Exciting news from the Physics Department

2009-10-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Goodness...the Professor just had to get off politics and economics today because the campus is all abuzz about the Physics Department. It seems they have discovered new sub-atomic particles which could hold some of the answers about the very nature of the universe.

Now, I'm no physicist, so I'll put this exciting news in layman's terms.

As you probably know, molecules consisting of protons and neutrons were once considered the very building blocks of nature, but then scientists began to discover smaller, sub-atomic, particles. The newest, smallest, and most dense of all of these were recently discovered by physicists in California.

They were named "morons" and were not only discovered, but found to be plentiful in the natural world. At our University, physicists have just found and named a new element consisting mostly of morons. It has been named Obermannium, and is the most dense element yet known to man.

Findings at our school's particle accelerator tell us that morons, unlike neutrons or protons which are evenly distributed through all matter, seem to be geographically clustered. For example, the Berkely area of California seems to have an extremely high clustering of morons. More areas of clustering seem to exist around major metropolitan areas, such as Detroit and Boston, but also seem to be common near coastal areas.

Scientists have also decided on a new measure of density, as Obermannium is so much more dense than other matter, which they have simply named the Obermann. The density of a cluster of morons can be labeled using the new term. For example; a large cluster might weigh a killaobermann while a small cluster might be a decaobermann.

Discovery of the moron has also led to the discovery of a rare mineral that appears in very trace amounts. It has been named Oprahzite and seems to attract morons. Oprahzite is unique in its ability to change its mass and weight on a regular basis...growing larger, then smaller, in succession.

Physicists are extremelely excited by the initial disovery of the moron, and be the continued findings to which they have been led by studying this sub-atomic particle. They don't know where this research may take them, but they do know that understanding morons, and that morons exist and always will, should help in understanding the world around us and how it functions.

Glad I could help in my own small way...
The Professor

Nobel Peace Prize a Surprise?

2009-10-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

"Shock" waves were registered on the seismograph of public opinion the other day when the Nobel Peace Prize committee announced Barack Obama was the 2009 winner. I'm not sure why?

It didn't surprise me at all. After all, it follows historical precedent...and history pretty much tells us everything about the present and the future.

If you look back at the prizes awarded over the last century you will find the accolades and "job descriptions" of most recipients were simply stated at "Pacifist."

The vast majority of the winners were also total unknowns...never to be heard from again. There were some notable individuals of course; Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Albert Schweitzer, and a few others who actually dared to challenge convention and put themselves in harm's way. But the majority were simply considered important for their vision of a perfect world without conflict...visions they could do nothing to make come about of course...but gushy and warm visions nonetheless.

Three American presidents have received the award; Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter.

Roosevelt actually threatened to send the Marines into any nation that disturbed the peace...and he did it once or twice...scaring the bad guys into taking on more peaceful demeanors. He actually won the award for this behavior. It was obviously a different committee in 1906.

Wilson won for helping to establish the League of Nations. This was a good indicator where the committee was going...results no longer mattered...only vision. Wilson also dragged America kicking and screaming into a European war that historians are still trying to figure out where our national interest came in. And he threw a couple of hundred thousand Americans into prison for protesting that war...the new progressivism at work.

That's real Peace Prize stuff!

Jimmy Carter was the only presidential winner who took part in something that is still tangible and intact...the Sinai Peace Accords. Good for him, good for everyone for that matter, and he won the award for it. Recently he doesn't seem pleased by this feat however, and appears to wish Israel no longer existed...maybe it's old age.

Underneath the surface desire for peace at any price, the little group of Swedish left wingers who choose the winners seem also intent on rewarding those who help bring down the evil and imperialist American economy...which they probably view as a "war machine." Wilson put us onto the road of Corporatism and wage and price controls which brought us the great depression...sometimes referred to as America's Golden Age by left wing nut jobs world wide.

Carter brought us 25% intereste mortgage rates, 12% inflation, and the greatest unemployment since the depression. Americans found his one term to be more than enough. For some strange reason they did not desire another "Golden Age." But it made him a leftie icon.

Now we see the weird, offwordly, economic theories of Obama's close friends being attempted on a federal level. Not surprisingly the Nobel committee actually commends them for their attacks on the free market...perhaps part of the reason Obama was nominated as a prize recipient only two weeks into his lackluster presidency. Perhaps a huge part.

They've done stranger things. Al Gore shared the prize with the UN's commission on climate change. But he saved the world from turning into a massive oven and exploding messily all over the solar system...and just in time. And Al did it by simply making a video and millions of dollars off feeble-minded celebrities by selling them "carbon credits."

Now most of that UN commission have quit the group in disgust. The group's new motto is "We thought it was Global Warming...but now it's Global Cooling...but it's still Climate Change...and we know you peasants are to blame."

Catchy, eh? But how many carbon credits will it sell?

So should anyone be "shocked" that an American politician with a fuzzy grasp of world history, no understanding of geo-strategy or conflict resolution, who degrades the evil West, with a vision of a weapons-free world full of bunny rabbits and butterflies and no realistic concept of how to get there, should win a Noble Peace prize?

Duuuuhhhhhh...of course not. I actually predicted it would happen at some point. I didn't think it would be so soon...but maybe they wanted to do it before his administration did something so stupid that even the media would notice. And with decisions having to be made in regards to the war on terror and Islamic Fascism...that could be any day now.

The bunnies and butterflies were a nice idea...but I think the Taliban would have gassed the butterflies, then shot and eaten the bunnies. What can you do? Next year you give the Taliban the prize.

The Professor

It's the Barbarian Again...ACORN Attacks!

2009-09-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

All Hail Her Highness

2009-09-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

With all the news regarding the disgusting activities of the criminal class openly operating the ACORN organization, and the politicians who have supported and depended on them for illicit campaign funding, it's easy not to notice news of the royal family.

I'm not speaking of the British royal family of course...I'm speaking of their equivalent here in the U.S.

The Canadian news networks, being somewhat less cowardly than their Yankee counterparts, ran an interesting breakdown of Michelle Obama's staff. I've taken the liberty of reprinting the stats below with salaries, names, and positions:

1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)

2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)

3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)

4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for th e First Lady)

5. $100,000 - Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

6. $90,000 - Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)

8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)

9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)

10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

11.. $64,000 - Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady)

13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)

14. $57,500 - Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)

15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M.. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)

16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)

17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)

18. $43,000 - Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)

19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)

21. $35,000 - Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

22. $35,000 - Ja ckson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)

This does not include part-time travelling companions; a make-up artist and hair-stylist who travel onboard Air Force One with the first lady.

To be fair, though...other first ladies have had permanent paid staff. Most recently, Hillary Clinton had a staff of three...and Laura Bush had a staff of one. I recall someone in the press during the Bush years criticizing Mrs. Bush for wasting the taxpayer's money with her paid staff member. What, oh what, has happened to that journalist...maybe he's mellowed out with age.

Now keep in mind Mrs. Bush was an inferior human being...after all her graduate degree was in Library Science (ugggghhhh...teaching innocent little children to think...what treachery) versus Michelle who's graduate degree is in law (ahhhhh...using the law to force others to do things they don't want to do...how noble). And Laura's husband...ex-military and an ex-CEO...how disgusting; while Michelle's hubby is an ex-street organizer...just like Ghandi...or Lenin...take your choice.

Therefore Laura only needed the one personal secretary. Michelle has just sooooo much going on she really, really, really needs all of that personal attention at our expense. Sorry if that explanation sounds lame...I'm trying to co-opt what the twits in the media are going to say in order to justify this narcissism.

As a matter of fact...does the Queen Mum of Britian have as large a staff as Michelle. If not, she can be consoled with her precious MP3 player filled with Obama speeches.

Sorry if this sounds like a petty issue...I'm just pointing out the difference in attitude from prior first ladies. I suddenly have a renewed respect for Hillary Clinton...not an easy accomplishment, but there you have it.

I look forward to the day when we once again have the family of a public servant in the White House...instead of royalty. I tire of monarchy, and pomposity, so quickly I'm afraid.

The Professor

Barbarian Opinion...the Barbarian is Back!

2009-09-23T00:35:00.001-07:00

Forgetting History...a Presidential Pastime

2009-09-19T12:42:00.000-07:00

On September 17, 1939, the Soviet Union invaded the Kresy, or borderlands, of Poland in what would basically be the extermination of that small nation for decades to come. In the following years the cities of Poland would be systematically destroyed and millions of her citizens would be murdered in a genocidal frenzy to be rid of all things Polish.

Fifty years later, the United States and its CIA would help build the underground freedom movement, known as Solidarity, which would eventually help bring about the fall of the Soviet empire, and with that collapse, the resurrection of Poland as an independent nation.

On the 70 year anniversary of the invasion, while Poles were holding candlelight vigils to remember the dead, and television specials reminded the people of the horrors they had suffered, our President caved in to Russian demands that the US not aid Poland in her future defense.

Some commentators have stated the date, September 17, was chosen in order to insult the Polish people and those who support them...to throw in their faces that their old masters were once again moving toward control of their region and their futures, and that we in the US would turn a blind eye and allow it to happen.

I truly believe that theory to be overly cynical and wrong-headed...though the end result will be as described if we don't change course. No...the date was chosen despite its historical and highly emotional signifigance to the Poles. I truly believe that our President, as well as every person on his staff, his czars, his advisors, and his family, friends, and acquaintances...have again proven their extremely shallow knowledge of history.

Over and over again, they have exercised "new ideas" which have been tried repeatedly in the past and have always failed. They have demonstrated an ignorance of that past, and how it affects the now and the future, that would be embarassing to most 5th graders. In fact, they have shown an outright disdain for the lessons of history...instead putting their faith in theories and platitudes which have been espoused for centuries...and have always resulted in disaster. By ignoring history, they can ignore reality...and pretend that this time...this time...the theories and platitudes will actually work...really they will...

Those who do not understand history will become victims of it! No truer words were ever spoken, and in a few years those of us with open and inquisitive minds will watch this prophecy come true for the naive and shallow folks in the current administration. Unfortunately, they will make many of us victims as well. We already suffer from their inability to understand basic economics, ignoring history there as well while embracing simiplistic slogans and childlike theorems.

Those who understand history, particularly the history of negotiation with Russian leadership, winced painfully as this deal was made. We knew full well that within hours the Russians would be demanding more concessions...and that is exactly what happened. It's what has always happened...why didn't the President's advisors know it would happen again?

Again...naivety and ignorance. I, myself, have negotiated business deals with Russian businessmen. The process always begins with their making unreasonable demands. The wise negotiator makes unreasonable demands in return to block them. It can go back and forth for some time...perhaps years...before they begin to scale back their demands.

The secret to success...remembering that we have far more of what they want than they have of what we want. I strongly believe Obama and his people don't understand this.

Once the initial wall is breached, and they give in to something (you never concede first) they will always follow with the original absurd demands. This can, again, go on for some time. You eventually respond with some small concession...then hold your ground until they concede something larger. Then the process begins again...absurd demands followed once more by your refusal to discuss those issues while insisting they give in on some other small issue.

And thus it goes...if you are wise enough to study history and understand the process. If not...you get railroaded. And the Russians are experts at this. One might note they have responded, not only with new and more outrageous demands, but have wisely "created" concessions which make their opponent believe they won something in return.

In this case, the Russians announced they would no longer consider putting nuclear missile batteries on the Polish border. They hadn't done it...they don't have the funds to do it...and it would be foolish as every missile in the Russian inventory can easily reach Poland now! Duhhhhh.......but just watch...the administration and the media will take the bait and announce they have received this "major concession" from the Russians, thereby averting a horrible conflict.

Who won't believe this blatant nonsense? The Polish people...that's who. They are perfectly aware that Russian tanks are quite capable of crushing Poland again...the Russians would never have used nuclear weapons in the first place. But the hysterical sycophants in America will praise the administration for averting nuclear disaster. Watch and observe...this will be a good measure of who the truly stupid are in our society.

Unfortunately, US foreign policy is now like a textbook on what hasn't worked in the past and never will. The British survived Chamerlain...hopefully we, and the Polish, Georgian, Ukranian, and other eastern European peoples who had hoped to be our allies, will survive this challenge as well.

The Professor

Meet the Barbarian...Exclusive Premier Here...thanks to the Professor

2009-09-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

There's that "F" word again...

2009-09-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Goodness...the professor has been upbraided for using the "F" word...

Fascist...there I go again darn it.

"How," I've been asked, "can you use the "F" word when discussing what our current administration and lackeys are up to?" "Where is your tolerance, you hate-speecher you, and why are you so paranoid about our beloved leader?"

Hmmmmm...has been my response, as they've answered their question with the question itself.

Remember the professor is about logic...no emotion here folks...just putting together batches of information, studying and analyzing that info, and looking at the historical background and precedent. Let's discuss the infamous "F" word in a rational manner and analyze what Fascism is.

The word is the Americanization of "Fascista"...the popular national socialist party in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century (Fascio Autonomo d'Azione rivoluzionaria). At that time the western world was going through a love affair with experimental political systems, mainly as a result of growing populations, the morphing of agricultural workers into industrial workers, growing importance of industry and growing consumer demands, and world-wide unrest as a result of this growth and change.

Bennito Mussolini, who would later lead the Fascistas to victory in national elections, had been an international socialist for over a decade. He came to the conclusion that the Italian people had too much pride in themselves as the descendants of the Romans to ever put their faith into an organization loyal to international interests. He felt the Fascistas were on the inside track to bringing a socialist agenda to Italy.

The internationalists immediately turned their vengeance on him...denouncing the Fascistas as a "right wing" organization. This charge actually did not really stick until World War II forced socialists world-wide to denounce Mussolini's rule. It was most convenient then to state that he had been a right wing zealot all along, despite his socialist writings and leadership.

The National Socialist party which eventually took control in Germany (the N.A.Z.I) was never referred to as a fascist organization until Mussolini was rebranded as a right winger. Then the brand slid effortessly over to the German dictatorship. Confusing? Keep in mind socialists world wide had spent a decade drooling over the recasting of all of Europe in the socialist model, led by Herr Hitler and Il Duce.

Those dreams turned into nightmares of course, as always happens in authoritarian regimes. What saved the world, thank God, was that the two major players for world dominance could not long tolerate competition. So the international socialists, represented by the Soviets, and the national socialists, represented by the Nazis, had to come to violent blows. It became totalitarian state versus totalitarian state for control of land, resources, and human capital.

The real history buffs among you will remember as well, during this time of political upheaval the U.S. was hardly immune from radical ideas from Europe. Mussolini was very fashionable in the U.S. from the first world war especially. Later, Hitler, also became an idol of the radical chic set.

Woodrow Wilson modeled himself as the American reflection of European "stateism" and wrote extensively on behalf of a powerful and centralized government. He decried that Blacks, Jews, and excessively "individualistic" persons should not be allowed to vote. He deputized hundreds of thousands of goons to terrorize his political enemies. These "redshirts" burned down newspaper buildings, the homes of editors and writers, and lynched the more unfortunate.

They were given the authority to arrest, as an internal security organization of the government, and more than a quarter of a million Americans went behind bars in punishment for not supporting the administration. The Wilson gangs arrested more persons in three years than Mussolini and his Fascistas did in a decade.

It was during this time period that Wilson declared himself "the American Fascist" and Mussolini "the Italian Progressive."

The point of this history lesson, of course, is to view current politics in a clearer light. The labels of socialist, progressive, and fascist are truly interchangeable. You will hear gnashing of teeth at this historical truth, of course, as radical idealists will always be mesmerized by labels and always be competing among themselves for the top rung on the radical ladder. Socialists and progressives will call capitalists by the term fascist...and fascists will label the socialists and progressives as communists, and the rest of us will generally be quiet on the issue as we view all of the above as being dangerous NUTS!

Whoops...now I'm using the "N" word as well. Well, bring on the censorship...I deserve it for being a "F........." old "N....."

The Professor

National Endowment for the Arts: Fasionable Fascists

2009-09-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

It was inevitable of course...as the Obama campaign and presidency seems to be more about image than anything else...that the ever-loyal regions of the artsy-fartsy community would eventually be drafted to serve in the battle over thought.

In the last few weeks, the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA, has been putting out emails and having phone conferences for the so-called "cool" community (their words...not mine) and others who are fashionably "with-it". In these conferences, speakers put forth that the "duty" of the artistic community is to support the Obama administration and its goals. Listeners are urged "to show care" in allowing this agenda to be known as the legal ramifications are unclear.

Now keep in mind these folks, and this organization, is paid for by our tax dollars...and Obama's cozy little crew decides how much money they will receive.

No conflict of interest there...

But isn't art supposed to be about art? Isn't it supposed to challenge? To be rebellious? To cause viewers and listeners to think? In other words...to be creative?

Apparently not anymore. This isn't the first time however. Anyone who has studied the history of propaganda knows that governments throughout time have manipulated the art community to push their agendas. Art becomes propaganda when used by government...and the U.S. is almost as guilty as some others.

We really started to use the art community just prior to the first world war. Most of us have seen the posters and recruitment art of that war...showing the "Hun" as a slobbering, mindless, animal bent only on rape and murder? How about some of the posters of the next war...with caricatures of the "Jap" as a slanty-eyed devil wearing massive bi-focals and sporting an incredible overbite? Might one believe that such caricatures made it just a bit easier to ignore the constitution and put Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps?

The difference, of course, is that our government did not normally jail or execute dissenting artists. In other cultures, such pressure and outright violence was part of the norm.

In Germany, the government began steering the vision of art in the early 1930's and controlled more and more output until the end of the war. They did not usually execute or imprison artists who did not fall into line...but those persons did find themselves unable to practice their art, or to sell art, or even to be allowed to take part in conferences or events. Every so often one would suffer "an unfortunate accident" and be seriously injured or killed.

In the Soviet Union, painting the wrong picture didn't just mean you lost your government stipend...it usually led to a Siberian gulag and eventual death...if not immediate execution. During the cultural revolution in China; artists, musicians, actors, and most anyone involved in those areas, were humiliated, imprisoned, sometimes beaten...sometimes to death, by the crowds.

In the U.S. today, artists scream "censorship" if their funds are not increased as much as they'd like them to be. The personal cost of such "dissent" is normally to have the artist laughed at by the rest of the society.

The military recruitment posters the U.S. produced during the second world war held some level of justification...we were in a battle for our lives against monstrous men and regimes. I'm sure there will be NEA folks today crying out similar justification due to the "planetary emergency" or the importance of "remaking America" into a third-world nation. How those goals can be compared to defeating the National Socialists in Germany and the Japanese Imperial war machine I'll never figure out...perhaps I'm not creative enough to see the similarities.

Here's a thought...now that the NEA has taken this fateful step...let's just require them outright to create art on behalf of every administration that comes into office in the foreseeable future.

They can create anti-abortion art when the Republicans are in the majority, pro-union posters when it's the Democrats, and paintings of drowning Polar Bears when the Progressives have the chair. Abandon the pretext of art for art's sake, and keep the grant money coming.

Reform! And our new Shadow Government!

2009-08-27T09:49:00.001-07:00

Delving deeper and deeper into the "Health Care Reform" bill makes me feel almost dirty...unclean. It brings back uncomfortable memories of when I moved about with communists, socialists, and various "revolutionaries" in an attempt to understand their mindsets and to better understand how propaganda worked.

I did this as a teenager...back in the sixties...always fascinated by propaganda of various regimes and movements, of which my father was a scholar and kept a library of such work, and I wanted to see how people related to such brain-washing in real time. After having read Soviet prop-agit magazines and newspapers for years, it was easy to "go undercover" and talk the talk...blending in believably with real radicals.

Some, I soon discovered, were simply lonely, or lacked self-esteem, or were bored upper middle class kids looking for adventure and a sense of faux danger. Others were dangerous individuals...very manipulative, controlling, and lacking any moral compass whatsoever.

The one I recall the best was twice my age, in his mid-thirties at the time, and he led the movement in the region and was commandant of the secret cell. He kept the lists of who would be imprisoned, or executed, once the new socialist regime was established. He was at once vicious, and cowardly...afraid literally of his own shadow and convinced the FBI was behind every corner. I don't think he knew, or could socialize, with anyone over the age of eighteen.

I remember most vividly his 12 year old girl friend...you read that right...who lived with him in his basement apartment. She had been "given" to him by her parents, real nut case left wingers, who wanted her to become a revolutionary woman of the world and to learn at his feet. His sexual liason with this child should have been what worried him about the long-arm of the law...but his real paranoia was that the "secret police" were always stalking him because of his brilliant mind and the danger it posed to capitalist society.

He was a truly disgusting slug of an individual...and it was extremely difficult to pretend to adore him like the other kids did.

Needless to say, the months I spent mingling with these loons, most harmless but some truly psychotic, gave me a pretty solid ability to recognize and follow their progress as society changed and they went "mainstream"...abandoning their battle fatigues for three-piece suits.

One of their most telling traits was a complete paranoia of everything private...private property owners, private businesses, private non-profits, and even privacy itself. They could not tolerate anything or anyone not being monitored by them...as everyone but them had to be evil capitalists...and in their minds the perfect monitoring system was to control agencies and use those agencies to monitor everything and everyone.

Thus, when I started hearing about health care "reform" my propaganda radar started blipping. The word "reform" is a hot button word. Such words are used to alter the listener's perception of reality, to misleed, to cloud the thought process by invoking an emotion, and to discredit the subject of the story. "Reform" insinuates that there must be a criminal or fraudelent behavior to be addressed and someone to be brought to "justice."

Obviously to anyone who has read the health care bill, the writers have no intention of making health care available to all, but have designed an elaborate bureaucracy which will smother any person or organization in the health care field with constant filling out and filing of reports. It's also quite obvious, reading between the lines, that the writers truly believe all involved in the health care field are evil money-grubbing leeches sucking the lives out their patient/victims.

As I read it, I felt as if I were once again in darkened, secret, meetings with the marxist wannabees of my youth...stridently discussing bringing down all of society. The sense of paranoia is strong throughout the document, if you know what you're looking for, as is the near psychotic need to be inside every office, every exam room, and every discussion between patients and their evil health care givers.

Now all of this may make the old Professor sound somewhat over the edge...and without my rather unique education and experience I would not have seen the background of this bill to the extent I do.

So here's a challenge...read the bill yourself. Actually think about the actions the bill is demanding of private individuals and companies...and try to come up with logical reasons why these demands are in the legislation...reasons outside of a paranoid need to control everything not government. Then go one step further, as I've done, and try to find out who...in congress that is...WROTE THE BILL!

This massive tome, you may recall, was rather suddenly introduced to congress seemingly out of nowhere. It is supposedly a house bill...but I have been unable to find anyone, either in congress or on their staffs, WHOM KNOWS WHERE THE BILL CAME FROM!

But look fast...this loophole will be closed soon. I'm not the only one out there who has come to the realization that congress...the folks we hire to write legislation...was not responsible for this document. Soon they will be assigning some poor scapegoats to be the "authors" in order to waylay such accusations (probably a group of staffers who they can afford to let go).

And be prepared to study other bills that suddenly "appear" on the floor of the house. This will not be the last...the nuts have come together again...only this time they are not hiding in basements and raping underage girls. This is time they are hiding in the highest levels of government...and we may be their intended victims.

The Professor

Health Care Reform? Can't afford it!

2009-08-24T16:43:00.000-07:00

With a huge sigh of relief, the Professor has finally finished doing the job of Congress...

Yes...I've read HR 3200, the Health Care Reform legislation as it's come out of the house. Now keep in mind I didn't analyze every paragraph in detail, as the majority of this huge use of paper is taken up in definitions and pointing to other sections of the bill. But I do, finally, have a rough idea of what's going on here.

I'm pretty certain that's a lot more than any of our Congressional members can say at this point, having heard them go on about it to the media. It's a lot more than most folks will ever be able to say, as wading through this claptrap is a mind-numbing experience at best.

Between definitions of every facet of the health care industry, and how every facet has to be changed to meet new federal standards, and requirements for personnel and administration of any company making a medical device, a drug, providing any type of service, and actually...heaven forbid...finding time to practice medicine...I'm amazed they got so much into the thousand plus pages.

Anyone in the health care industry today understands that efficiency in operations is the key to getting costs down and making products and services more affordable. This is why procedures that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars now cost thousands. It's why we can buy generic drugs, that didn't exist a decade ago, at discount stores for under five bucks.

One of the main administrative costs in hospitals, clinics, and practices today is the managment of insurance claims, billing, and invoicing. You've likley noticed, when visiting your own doctor or dentist, that there are more bodies in the front office than there are in treatment rooms. Every doctor needs up to half-a-dozen support staff just to survive anymore.

A great deal of study has gone into making these admin functions more efficient. Something that private business does better than any entity on earth is to figure out how to control costs. Every business owner is aware that every dollar wasted is money from their own pocket.

Government, on the other hand, is extremely good at piling up costs and increasing expenses beyond belief. It's simply the way government functions...the larger the agency, the more the waste and the less it performs for every dollar it sucks in.

The major problem with this health care bill is not philosophical...it's not about losing control of your ability to make decisions with your physician without a counselor being involved...it's about costs! And the costs are stunning...well beyond what anyone has even begun to calculate, because most of those costs will be passed on to the consumer and the provider. And it is a short-fused time bomb!

The bill is more than 1,000 pages...and almost every page...read it yourself if you don't believe me...creates another 2 to 4 forms for the industry to fill out and file with the government.

Some of those forms are required for every patient...some for every patient visit...some are annual, some quarterly, some monthly...most are arbitrary. Most would appear to be on the wish list of some petty bureaucrat who wants to monitor some little tidbit of some business with which they may well have an axe to grind. From diversity forms which will prove the doctor doesn't discriminate against any and all types of victim groups, to forms proving a prescribed drug meets cost-benefit ratios, to forms recording financials and requiring justification for all billings...the burden is unbelievable and crushing in its volume.

It literally seems as if a thousand people contributed to this bill...each certain that his or her set of forms and requirements were absolutely vital to making the health care system work...and none knowing that the other 999 folks were also requiring a report and a form.

Taken as a whole...our health care industry will need a couple of years to hire people to wade through this bill...try and decipher what it means...try to come up with reports and forms to fill all the requirements...and every manufacturer, practice, clinic, and hospital, will have to hire armies of admin personnel to try and keep up with these reports.

You think health care costs are high now? Brother you have no idea what's coming down the pike. This is a tidal wave of bureacratically enforced expenses that will crush any and all who wish to serve the public in health care...and the people who want to receive care as well.

The estimated costs of a couple of trillion dollars if this bill becomes fact...waaaaaaay too low. This could run a hundred times that over the next decade and simply put every provider and vendor out of business.

Anyone want to tell me I'm lying...read the bill. Check out the Library of Congress...it's in our links...and pull up the text for HR 3200. It's a simple thing folks...break the bank and there ain't no more banks. Break the health care system...and where will you go when you need help.

Well...there's always Canada! Maybe they can squeeze out some aspirin and bandaids.

The Professor

Negotiating the Red Herring

2009-08-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

Good negotiators have long used a tool called the "Red Herring" to increase their odds of cutting the best deal for themselves. The device is used to confuse an opponent, waylay their fears, give them the impression you have surrendered something so they should as well; or all of the above.

The Red Herring in the current health care "reform" legislation being argued now in public venues is referred to as "the public option." Recall this is that part of the bill which states the government will create a federally funded and mandated health care insurance plan as an alternative to the private sector which has served us so well (there are actually people who feel this to be a superior alternative to the government giving vouchers or "health care stamps" to folks so they can buy private insurance...thus making use of an existing industry and saving hundreds of billions of dollars in the process.)

The reason for the "public option" and for a government run program of course has nothing to do with supplying health care to the needy among us. It has everything to do with a lust for power, and even the culture of Malthusian Economics with its focus on "scarcity" and eugenics for the sake of the "environment." Oh...the creation of that purposeful misconception however, is not a Red Herring...it's simply a lie!

A Red Herring is a negotiating point you intend to give up before you begin the negotiating. The second thing to strike me, after reading through the entire bill...as overly wordy as it was...was that there was no actual plan for a "public option." There are pages of platitudes...but nothing that would constitute an actual "business plan" to move it forward. That was the first sign to me that it was the Red Herring of the upcoming negotiation.

The first thing which struck me reading the bill; there was no need to spell out the public option! The remainder of the bill is designed very specifically to economically destroy the private health care industry which is the envy of the world. Once the hospitals are going bankrupt, the insurance companies have closed their doors, doctors are taking early retirement, and the nursing shortage becomes acute...the government can declare an "emergency"...much as they did with GM...and simply confiscate the segments of the industry piece-by-piece.

That will be the beginning of a new "public option"...or in this case an "only option."

This is a very smart way of sneaking past the public outrage...the citizens may feel they've won the negotiation, when in fact they have simply played into their opponent's hand. Like a bluff in Poker, abandoning the public option now will keep the players in the game so the government, with the winning hand, can take all. And don't kid yourself...they will.

There is only one problem however, but I'm sure the administration can talk around it. That 20% of the population who actually think government run industry is superior to private, are already screaming the president has failed them. Even the more radical leftists in Congress and the Senate are not understanding the ploy...of course how bright are radical leftists...they actually believe their own absurd hooey (I used to play poker with a bunch of socialists when in undergrad school...it was like taking candy from babies).

That means the Prez will have to either tough it out...and then please them in the end when the industry crashes...or he will have to speak to them and tell them how the plan is going to work. If he does that, however, someone in the media...probably at the Washington Post or Fox, as they are about the only honest media outlets remaining...is going to make those speeches known to all.

Then the public will know they've taken the Red Herring...and they won't like the taste of being lied to again. And the angrier we get...the harder it is for our employees...particularly those in Congress...to pretend they don't work for us.

So watch for the Red Herring...it will come...and when it does remember that this bill in its entirety needs to be scrapped. Actual health care coverage for those who need it and want it is available through simpler and cheaper options...and could be written and passed with everyone's concurrence if the power-mongers will simply step out of the way and let the people get it done.

The Professor

Another Painful "Reality Bites" Issue

2009-08-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Ah yes! The Cash for Clunkers issue just keeps giving...sorry about that...but this program provides such a wonderful learning tool.

Today, let's speak to an economic principle we call "consumer conditioning."

This principle tells us that consumers, like you and I, are actually able to learn and to adjust their buying habits to their own interests. Pretty shocking concept...we do what we feel is best for us...not best for producers or government.

Cash for Clunkers is a perfect example of how to condition consumers. First off, the bait is pretty darn good...up to $4,500 given as a virtual gift to entice one to buy a new car. This is not the sort of gift we take for granted, or just shrug off. WE WANT THE MONEY! AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO WANT THE MONEY!

Therein lies the problem. Car companies and dealers wanted this program to help "kick start" car sales. It did that for the first 4 days until the money ran out. What happened then? Did sales continue? We're they "kick started"?

Well...duh...no! Shoppers came in...found out there was no more money...then went home to wait until more funds were allocated to the program.

Should this have surprised anyone with about a week's worth of business experience?

Of course not! The prospective buyers came in the door wanting their $4,500. When the money wasn't there, they went home. Then sure enough...a week later the funds came through...twice the amount as in the first package.

Oh joy! The dealers are excited...the buyers are again showing up...but this time the dealers are sharing an uneasy feeling. They have begun to realize that consumers are now getting conditioned. In other words...when this money runs out...no one will be coming in the doors. Prospective buyers will sit at home and wait for more money to come in.

It won't matter how adamently the government, or the dealers, or the car makers, insist and advertise that the money is never going to be coming...the consumers will stubbornly wait.

So the government might cave in again...consumer behavior will then be set in concrete. It could be years before folks give up and figure they will just have to pay full price for their new cars. Car sales, in the meantime, will hit all-time lows and will devastate the industry.

The short burst of sales enjoyed by the industry will be just that...a slim ray of sunshine before the industry collapses under this shortsighted promotional gimmick. It's easy to believe government people thinking up this program...it's hard to understand why industry personnel would not have tried to stop the madness before it began. Of course, that lack of awareness could help explain why the industry was having problems in the first place.

But to replace those original sales figures, which were down by a few percentage points, with this uncertain future, shows a lack of business acumen normally seen only in government agencies, and particularly in this administration.

The Professor

Bureaucratic Friction Defined by Clunkers Program

2009-08-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

Having received some feedback on my last post criticizing the Cash for Clunkers program...I just couldn't help myself...

I have to post an "I told you so" post now that phase one of the program has come to completion. After all, this is a classic example of government waste, and one of the more wasteful ones at that. Don't believe me...or understand how it could be? Read on dear reader and see if you don't agree.

Congratulations to the Obama administration and its cadre of economic and business geniuses for so clearly demonstrating how "bureaucratic friction" works. For those non-economists out there, bureaucratic friction is a term for the loss of production in the economy due to the size and inherent innefficiencies of the organizations in the ecomony. Every organization is inherently less than 100% efficient...the larger the organization the greater the loss of efficiency.

One of the major chores facing management is to constantly seek means of decreasing this inherent loss of efficiency. Every human being has a set amount of production they can do in a set period of time...say an eight hour work day. If we start with a measure of ideal production, then start subtracting time spent on other issues, like breaks, we get a very simplistic measure of inneficiency.

The real measure is actually a result of all the frictions faced by the person in a day. The mind simply wanders, work is not scheduled efficiently, the pace and delivery of other persons with whom our subject interacts slows the process...meetings, phone calls, putting out "fires", customer issues, materials and tools issues....any of a vast number of distractions take away from the original estimation of how much this person could actually do in a day.

A really well-run firm, with motivated and happy workers, if accurately measuring their bureaucratic friction, might uncover a loss factor of 20 to 30%. In reality, it would be really difficult to do much better.

We can also look at how money moves in and out of a firm...what we call cash flow. We can uncover certain innefficiencies through this methodology as well. In a private company, we might find that expenditures of $100,000...for example...result in productive activity of $92,000. In essence, we find certain losses inherent in the operation of the company...in this instance an 8% friction loss. Management can attempt to isolate these "leaks" and patch them up. This is a rather straightforward way of measuring how well the firm and its processes are managed.

In a private company, this 8% would likely be considered too high and remedial steps would be taken immediately. If $100 grand was spent, they would want $100 grand of goods to come out the other end. Of course, this ideal is impossible to attain thanks to bureaucratic friction.

In government, it's quite another story. We have to remember that the real goal is not to get value from money spent...it's to get the spenders re-elected. The folks spending our money...and remember it is our money...want only to impress us with the benefits they "give us" or make us feel we have received something for nothing, or will receive it in the near future.

Thus; Cash for Clunkers! The government is "giving" you up to $4,500 to buy a new car. Pretty sweet deal...right?

Well, let's remember they had to take that $4,500 from someone first. "That's okay" you think, "it probably came from some rich guy who won't miss it."

Remember again, that the rich guy would have spent it on something...possibly something you make at your job...and would therefore help guarantee you keep your job. But that's a philosophical argument that can easily be shrugged aside.

Let's look at reality however; this may change your whole outlook! Remember bureaucratic friction....the law of bureacratic friction tells us there must be some loss of revenue due to the inherent friction within an organization. In this case, the US Government agencies which manage the Cash for Clunkers program. How much loss could there be? After all...all they do is give out checks to car buyers...right?

Let's do the math: the first phase of the program cost one billion dollars...that's $1,000,000,000. The number of cars sold, according the news media and the government posts, was under 25,000. Crunch those number and you get...$40,000 per car!

$40,000 per car! That represents bureacratic friction of some 90%. For those who haven't yet caught on...the Obama folks spent $40,000 of your money...gave about $4,000 to somebody else...and kept $36,000 within their agencies as overhead!

Boy...that really helps "kickstart" the economy doesn't it? You might notice that the agencies which kept the $36,000 don't produce anything of value. Therefore your $40 grand was also used to pump up inflation and devalue the dollars you still manage to keep after taxes are deducted from your paycheck.

Such a deal! Still like this program?

Here's the really scary part: Cash for Clunkers is small change...imagine the bureaucratic friction inherent in government taking over some 20% of our free market economy....say perhaps the entire health care industry! You think an operation is expensive now? Wait till these geniuses start to manage things.

We Americans choose to spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to keep ourselves healthy and alive as long as possible. As a people with a certain amount of disposable income, this seems a pretty good choice of what to spend it on. After all, you can't enjoy fancy cars or clothes if you're dead!

Imagine if those hundreds of billions, which now go nearly 100% to giving us better lives, were suddenly "filtered" through a government sieve that removed 90% of the production value of that money? It will be the death of healthcare quality and quantity as we know it.

Where we now pay $40,000 to crush a car...we could eventually spend enormous amounts of money to provide us with all the bandaids and aspirin we'll need for the rest of our suddenly shortened lives...but only if the government run health care system works as efficiently as everything else government does so well.

The Professor

Cash for Clunkers is the biggest Clunker of all!

2009-08-01T16:28:00.000-07:00

The so-called "Cash for Clunkers" legislation is out of money after 4 days and those in congress who know nothing about basic economics are running around like the proverbial chickens with their heads cut off; screaming for more good money to follow the bad.

For those living in a closet, the program was designed to reach a couple of goals;
1) boost sales for the flagging auto industry...a good portion of which the government now owns after stealing majority interest away from the stockholders and pensioners.
2) get more people driving "politically correct" automobiles
3) force lower income people onto public transportation...or if unavailable...out of work and onto the government dole

"Whoa" you say...you never heard about goal number three? Duh...of course not...the manipulative demagogues in DC never spell out their hidden agendas clearly and plainly (hence the term "hidden agenda"). For those folks mentioned above (the closet dwellers) this agenda has been out there for a couple of decades...mother earth is weeping you know, and the enviro-nut types have been pushing everything from housing clusters, to public transport, and even to dramatic population reductions to help the old gal out.

Never mind the "old gal" has been hanging in there for more than 5 billion years and has survived everything the galaxy has thrown at her...THIS is a planetary emergency and drastic measures have to be taken!!! After all, the global temperature might rise by a degree or two in the next couple of hundred years...then again, scientists say it might drop by the same amount. NO MATTER...WE MUST PANIC NOW!

So Cash for Clunkers is just another stupid program to make the salivating nut cases out there think they are fooling us into acting the way they feel we're too stupid to act without them.

For those without an education in Economics...especially if you've fallen for the dealer sound bites about what a wonderful weekend they had and how they sold soooooo many cars the recession should be over lickety-split....allow me to pour a little cold water of reality on the situation.

Let's first create an example; a grocery store. Let's say the manager forecasts the next few weeks are "make it or break it" time and cash flow has to pick up or he'll have to close the doors.

He decides to make a bold move....everything in the store goes on sale 2-for-the-price-of-1 for one week only. As forecasted the store is packed the next week...people especially purchase all they can carry of necessity goods that don't spoil. Toilet paper...light bulbs...detergent...canned goods. The manager is ecstatic.

Then the following week comes along. Sales are suddenly down even more than before. A couple of weeks later, sales are still in the toilet...and the store closes its doors.

What happened? People pre-purchased stuff they knew they would need for the next few months, sometimes longer. They no longer have to go to the store...they have most everything they needed. Fresh goods, they still come in for...but everything else they're stocked up on, and did it at half price...reducing the store's margin below profitable levels.

Just because you pay half the usual price for laundry detergent doesn't mean you'll do laundry twice as often. You just store away the extra and shop less often.

It's the same with autos. If you've got a clunker, you're eventually going to trade it in for a new car...that's the normal option. By incentivizing you to trade it in next week, the dealer gets a deal now...which he would have gotten a few months down the road anyway. So now the deal doesn't come through the door at a later date. The dealer has gained nothing but an earlier sale.

Cars aren't like candy...if you get a great deal on candy you may eat yourself sick...then buy more. You won't go buying extra cars because of a sale...you'll simply buy your car when the sale happens.

Net result...despite the hoopla, no more cars will be sold than would have been sold otherwise. So what is the result? The answer can be found in the legislation...to be specific, that section that spells out the complete and total destruction of the car traded as well as its engine. The idea is to make sure that car is not available to anyone...period...no matter how well it may have still run or how many years it might have served a person needing cheap transportation.

How many cars are purchased for under the $4500 price ceiling this program can pay for a trade-in? Hundreds of thousands every year! They go to students, recent graduates, folks who need a second car for emergencies, military families, those down on their luck who need basic transportation to find and keep a job...most of us have been there. My first car, which I needed to get to my first job, cost a whopping $25 and I sold it a year later still running great.

That market place has taken a nose-dive! People have jacked up the prices for the most basic beater they have in their driveway. Recently I sold an old van, which I was simply tired of paying insurance for, at a price of $500. It wasn't pretty, but ran great, got over 20 mph, and didn't burn an ounce of oil between changes.

The man who bought it was unbelievably grateful...it was perfect for him. He'd just gotten a job as a contractor's assistant and needed something big enough for his tools that was dependable and affordable. It made me feel good to see him so excited and happy to find such a deal.

A person would be crazy now to sell a vehicle like that...it's worth up to $4500 in credit for a brand new car. Why should I care if a usable vehicle would simply be destroyed rather than help someone keep their job and pay their bills?

Any economist will tell you, even at first glance, this legislation is designed to hurt the low-income and struggling members of our society. There are a number of reasons those in power completely support this concept...some mentioned above...others having to do with increasing dependency, and therefore loyalty, to the nanny state.

I know...pretty cynical...this would be the first time in history a government tried to manipulate behaviour...not hardly!

That has been the history of governments for the last couple of thousand years...what a shock the US government is finally beginning to follow historical patterns. A lot of us have apparenty forgotten why our founding fathers established this nation in the first place...how we were supposed to break the historical mode of tyranny.

But how about saving the planet? Poor Mom Earth is still weeping you know! Here's a thought...how much energy goes into building an automobile? Actually, more than a life time of energy that will be saved running it if you're simply increasing the mileage by 5 or so mph.

When you crush a car which might have run another 50,000 miles or more, you're actually throwing away evergy that can be far greater than the savings you would experience with the new car over that 50,000 miles. Add to that the energy used to destroy the car and it's engine, and the toxic chemicals used to freeze the engine, and old Mother Earth is wondering what idiot thought up this scheme.

When the numbers are crunched...big surprise...this program creates more pollution and waste than it saves. Destroying autos that simply have to be replaced by industrial generation is not "green"...it's "brown"...and a very dirty brown at that. This situation does help illustrate how bright the enviro-nuts actually are of course.

This program does put money into the pockets of the middle and upper-middle class...money which the IRS will have to get back from them at some point of course...but people feel good up front. The "green" types will get all fuzzy and warm, there will be some positive publicity from those short-sighted folks in the media, and some folks will get a new car a bit sooner than otherwise....other than those "advantages" I'm still digging hard to find some reason to support this legislation.

I guess too many years in economics and business have just ruined my ability to fantasize a good result out of a stupid government program. Sorry about that...hope I didn't ruin someone's otherwise blissful day...

Go buy a new car...I know it always makes me feel better.

The Professor

A Retired Marine SGM says it all!

2009-06-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

Following Memorial Day weekend, I thought it appropriate to print this letter from J.D. Pendry; a retired Marine Sergeant Major who writes for Random House. He is eloquent, and as taught by the Marines, he seldom beats around the bush!

"The Axis of Idiots"

Jimmy Carter, you are the father of the Islamic Nazi movement. You threw the Shah under the bus, welcomed the Ayatollah home, and then lacked the spine to confront the terrorists when they took our embassy and our people hostage. You're the runner-in-chief.

Bill Clinton, you played ring around the Lewinsky while the terrorists were at war with us. You got us into a fight with them in Somalia and then you ran from it. Your weak-willed responses to the USS Cole and the first Trade Center bombing and our Embassy bombings emboldened the killers. Each time you failed to respond adequately, they grew bolder, until 9/11/2001.

John Kerry, dishonesty is your most prominent attribute. You lied about American Soldiers in Vietnam . Your military service, like your life, is more fiction than fact. You've accused our military of terrorizing women and children in Iraq. You called Iraq the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, the same words you used to describe Vietnam . You're a fake. You want to run from Iraq and abandon the Iraqis to murderers just as you did to the Vietnamese. Iraq, like Vietnam, is another war that you were for, before you were against it.

John Murtha, you said our military was broken. You said we can't win militarily in Iraq . You accused United States Marines of cold-blooded murder without proof and said we should redeploy to Okinawa.

Okinawa? And the Democrats call you their military expert! Are you sure you didn't suffer a traumatic brain injury while you were off building your war hero resume? You're a sad, pitiable, corrupt and washed up politician. You're not a Marine, sir. You wouldn't amount to a good pimple on a real Marine's butt. You're a phony and a disgrace. Run away, John.

Dick Durbin, you accused our Soldiers at Guantanamo of being Nazis, tenders of Soviet style gulags and as bad as the regime of Pol Pot, who murdered two million of his own people after your party abandoned Southeast Asia to the Communists. Now you want to abandon the Iraqis to the same fate. History was not a good teacher for you, was it? Lord help us! See Dick run.

Ted Kennedy, for days on end you held poster-sized pictures from Abu Ghraib in front of any available television camera. Al Jazeera quoted you saying that Iraqi's torture chambers were open under new management. Did you see the news, Teddy? The Islamic Nazis demonstrated another beheading for you. If you truly supported our troops, you'd show the world poster-sized pictures of that atrocity and demand the annihilation of it. Your legislation stripping support from the South Vietnamese led to a communist victory there. You're a bloated, drunken fool bent on repeating the same historical blunder that turned freedom-seeking people over to homicidal, genocidal maniacs. To paraphrase John Murtha, all while sitting on your wide, gin-soaked rear-end in Washington.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Carl Levine, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold, Hillary Clinton, Pat Leahy, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, the Hollywood Leftist morons, et al, ad nauseam: Every time you stand in front of television cameras and broadcast to the Islamic Nazis that we went to war because our President lied, that the war is wrong and our Soldiers are torturers, that we should leave Iraq, you give the Islamic butchers - the same ones that tortured and mutilated American Soldiers - cause to think that we'll run away again, and all they have to do is hang on a little longer.

It is inevitable that we, the infidels, will have to defeat the Islamic jihadists. Better to do it now on their turf, than later on ours after they have gained both strength and momentum.

American news media, the New York Times particularly: Each time you publish stories about national defense secrets and our intelligence gathering methods, you become one united with the sub-human pieces of camel dung that torture and mutilate the bodies of American Soldiers.

You can't strike up the courage to publish cartoons, but you can help Al Qaeda destroy my country. Actually, you are more dangerous to us than Al Qaeda is. Think about that each time you face Mecca to admire your Pulitzer.

You are America's 'AXIS OF IDIOTS.'

Your Collective Stupidity will destroy us. Self-serving politics and terrorist-abetting news scoops are more important to you than our national security or the lives of innocent civilians and Soldiers. It bothers you that defending ourselves gets in the way of your elitist sport of politics and your ignorant editorializing. There is as much blood on your hands as is on the hands of murdering terrorists. Don't ever doubt that. Your frolics will only serve to extend this war as they extended Vietnam. If you want our Soldiers home as you claim, knock off the crap and try supporting your country ahead of supporting your silly political aims and aiding our enemies. Yes, I'm questioning your patriotism. Your loyalty ends with self. I'm also questioning why you're stealing air that decent Americans could be breathing.

You don't deserve the protection of our men and women in uniform. You need to run away from this war, this country. Leave the war to the people who have the will to see it through and the country to people who are willing to defend it. Our country has two enemies: Those who want to destroy us from the outside and those who attempt it from within.

Semper Fi,
J. D. Pendry - Sergeant Major, USMC, Retired

Way to say it Sarge…I always trusted Sergeants more than officers…SGM Pendry reminds me why!

A Memorial Day Message...

2009-05-25T15:10:00.001-07:00

Being Memorial Day, I'm expected to tell a story about American Veterans...something about bravery and courage under fire. But American Vets have shown courage under many types of "fire" and I will be a bit different...telling a different kind of story.

When the forces of Socialism, Fascism, Progressive Corporatism, and Imperialism were beaten back after long and costly fighting in Europe and the Pacific, millions of American men and women came home to a country still touched by all of these evils. These "isms" had grown and prospered in the US from the turn of the century...as they had in Europe and Asia...and had given us the Great Depression and taken root in the media of the day.

These men and women...our parents and grandparents...had seen the damage done to nations when these absurd "utopian dreams" were allowed to run rampant and out of control. Yet there were many in the US who still believed in such "progressive" nonsense.

One of the bravest things these returning, world-wise, Veterans would do was to form a bulwark against the ideas of the nation-state and to take a stand for the individual. They created what would become the modern Conservative movement and they did so by going back to college, opening their own businesses, and by voting their trusted European theatre commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, into the Presidency. He served there for eight years...leaving office in January of 1961 after reducing tax burdens and helping to create a climate where small businesses and individual initiative would thrive.

The speech he made at his leaving is still remembered today...and often quoted out of context or misunderstood...it was his famous "military industrial complex" speech.

When President Eisenhower spoke of the military industrial complex, it was not simply in regard to the defense industry that he was voicing his concern. To those who studied his agenda over the prior eight years, it was obvious he was speaking to the concepts of Corporatism which had dominated American economic planning for the three decades prior to his presidency. It was Progressive Corporatism, coupled with wage and price controls, which had given us the Great Depression and had kept our economy comatose throughout the thirties.

Eisenhower warned us of balance, between the needs of the government and the needs of the individual. To quote:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

But there were more threats to individual liberty seen by this world-wisened man. He spoke also of threats to academic freedom and individual initiative. He spoke in warning tones about the coming age of technological revolution:

"In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government."
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers."

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."

"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

In these words we recognize that this man had an immediate and true grasp of human nature. He understood how academic freedoms could be thrown away, not only in science and technology, but as it turned out, in the social sciences as well. Even as diplomatic a soldier as Dwight Eisenhower had been...he still spoke as a soldier...spoke what was true and what he saw and feared in the future despite the unpopularity and unpleasantness of that truth.

And millions more, soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen...heard and took heed. That was nearly fifty years ago...and their legacy has been more than the winning of battles and the securing of freedom by fire. They secured our freedoms at the ballot boxes and in their homes and their businesses. They did so by serving in their State Legislatures, School Boards, and City Councils.

Now many of them are gone...and far too many Americans have no idea what they stood for and why. Far too many Americans are led by fashion and fad, bending to the will of smooth talking orators, taking their responsibilities to choose leaders not as a sacred and honorable duty, but as a popularity contest and in a party atmosphere.

There was one more warning "Ike" left us with...one of great prescience when viewed against the current administration, this congress, and their economic "policies."

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

This was the wisdom given us by "the greatest generation"...the men and women who lived through the Great Depression...the most terrible war ever imagined...and came out the other end with a renewed respect and love for their nation and for its constitution. They are remembered and honored by many of us. And to those of us who remember; it is our duty to reach out and teach those who don't...to tell about who these Veterans were...not only those who fell in battle, but those who came home and rebuilt an America which had, in many ways, lost its way.

It was an America forged anew by the fires of World War...and recalled to its original purpose and direction by those whose steel was tempered on the battlefields. Let us take a moment on this Memorial Day, 2009, to remember them and all of those who have given so much...and to set ourselve to take up their burden and do our part to preserve the liberty they bought for us at such cost.

The Professor

Amazing Political Statistics

2009-05-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

This Certainly Explains a lot:

Professor Joseph Olson of Hemline University School of Law, St. Paul , Minnesota , points out facts of 2008 Presidential election:

Number of States won by:
Democrats: 19
Republicans: 29

Square miles of land won by:
Democrats: 580,000
Republicans: 2,427,000

Population of counties won by:
Democrats: 127 million
Republicans: 143 million

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Democrats: 13.2
Republicans: 2.1

Professor Olson adds:
"In aggregate, the map of the territory Republican won by Republicans was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.

Democrat territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.

Professor Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal invaders called illegal's and they vote, then we can say goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years.

Pass this along to help everyone realize just how much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our freedom.

A Historical Document worth Reading

2009-05-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

There have always been those in the media who are prone to celebrity worship. It may be part of why some people become part of the media in the first place; the desire to get close to the famous or infamous or to have access to "the powerful" or "the influential." They may simply have a need to be perceived as being part of the "right crowd."

The reasons why some people feel such needs are varied and not really relevant to the end result. Of course there will always be real reporters and journalists in the media as well. The occassional muck-raker, uncovering tales of corruption and impropriety, may seem a personage of the past but is alive and well...more often being printed in books and on the internet than embraced by corporate media.

It's more common to find the sycophants and apologists posing as "hard ball" reporters while using labels, rhetoric, or simple volume, to delude themselves and their audience that they are not who they truly are. In reality, they gush praise and attribute absurd qualities to the subjects of their worship while pretending to be hard-nosed.

It's a historical reality that such sycophants are so easily swayed in their attempts to join in the limelight, that they often make extremely bad judgements as to those whom they worship. They are also quick to cover-up these errors in judgement or to even switch their positions...swearing they were never in camp...nevertheless a rabid camp follower. As soon as a celebrity, whom more clear headed people saw as a fraud all along, is uncovered, these same media vultures will turn and feign disgust with their fallen idol.

In the twentie's and the thirtie's a large number of westerners, both in the US and in Europe held authoritarian government in high regard. The Socialist movements in Europe, the most successful being the Fascistas in Italy and the National Socialists in Germany (the N.A.Z.I) were held up as models of progressive and innovative government.

In the US, the Progressive movement championed the National Socialists of Italy. Woodrow Wilson himself stated that he was the American Fascist as Mr. Mussolini was the Italian Progressive. He drew a direct comparison in his own efforts to control wages and prices in the US, in order to give government control over business, to Benito Mussolini's strong control of business in Italy. Of course, some fifteen years of those controls in the US led us into the Great Depression; a massive recession which strangled the American economy for more than a decade.

A majority of young people who hear me set up this historical background are prone to dismissive eye-rolling and wise-cracks about how history is "old stuff" with no bearing on their world. Such an attitude has always been about, and those of us who study history understand that human nature is not "old stuff"...in fact human nature never changes and never will. Only the names and places change...everything else just repeats over and over again in cycles.

A perfect example of all I just related: for years the western press gushed over Adolf Hitler...hard to believe now isn't it? But they did...and after the war a massive effort was made to erradicate all record of this slobbering love affair with a foreign dictator whom so many had viewed as the coming saviour of the world.

To be fair; though thousands of gushy praise pieces were printed about the German leader, there were also reporters and columnists who wrote of him in alarm...who sensed that there was something dangerous going on in the world. The number of such alarmists grew as Germany flexed her military might and began to subjugate her neighbors.

At that time media communicated through magazines, newspapers, and on the radio. Radio broadcasts were rarely taped and easily forgotten. Newsprint and magazines were normally tossed out or used as fuel...and the archives kept by publishers were purged diligently, after the war, of writings that could be "misconstrued" in their original intent.

This was a shame, of course, as this was history...and history is always valuable...even when embarrassing to certain parties. Very few of these stories survive today; an example being one praise piece on Herr Hitler discovered a few years back in a closet in Britain. It was a November, 1938, edition of a popular British magazine...and when discovered was immediately recognized for its historic importance.

The article on Hitler was immediately photographed and put onto the internet for the use of historians. Almost instantaneously media lawyers in Britain brought civil action to quash it's reproduction and to have the one remaining copy of the magazine returned to parties "owning the copyright." The publishers eventually backed off when the matter threatened to become too sensational to control.

But before that happened, the article was removed from the web, only to return off and on, removed again...jumped around the internet as believers in free-speech sought to keep it in the public domain, and is now once again available to be viewed by the public.

There is a great deal to learn about human nature and the nature of media by reading and comparing this puff-piece on Adolf Hitler with similar puff-pieces done of politicians today. There is a also a good deal to learn about media people by their reactions to the uncovering of this article.

In our nation, we have a constitution which guarantees freedom of speech to the individual...not to corporations and corporate media outlets...which seems to be a constant irritant to those outlets. Part of this is a natural dislike of any type of competition...particularly when the internet is taking over as a news source while newspapers are falling into bankruptcy. But part of this is also due to people in media realizing they are losing control of public opinion...making them as individuals less and less important.

Egos, once incredibly inflated, are being challenged...and the precious celebrities they once depended on to bolster their own images...are being shown in truer light than in the past. History tells us what happens when those individuals are no longer the "flavor of the month" and fall into disfavor. History also shows us, dramatically sometimes...as is the case in this magazine, what ends these folks can go to in order to maintain control of information flow.

To view and read this important historical magazine story yourself...go to:

http://wow.blogs.com/photos/hitler/

In addition to the article itself, there are a number of links to history and opinion regarding the attempted cover up of this article and its posting on the internet.

A letter from Historian Pam Geller

2009-05-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

Pamela Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher. She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School .

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these existbut they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. A perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demanded and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we know could never ever pay back? Why? We Learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine! And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.

Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why they are exceptional, and why they are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers arenot picketing, and school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?).

We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing un-elected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free-fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and the entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.) The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 times ten. We are at war, with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

Now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, dripby drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter is more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now. This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom theydisagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.

And then when he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand (the Great Depression). Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country.

He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and…change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down,called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though .

Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U.S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors…all with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I canhope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong. But, I do not think I am.

Obama Apparently not real "open" on "open-ness"

2009-05-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

Press Release from the US Justice Foundation:

A high-powered team of Los Angeles attorneys representing Barack Obama in his effort to keep his birth certificate, college records and passport documents concealed from the public, has suggested there should be "monetary sanctions" against a lawyer whose clients have brought a complaint alleging Obama doesn't qualify for the Oval Office under the Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen in that post.

The suggestion came in an exchange of e-mails and documents in a case brought by former presidential candidate Alan Keyes and others in California. The case originally sought to have the state's electors ordered to withhold their votes for Obama until his eligibility was established. Since his inauguration, it has been amended to seek a future requirement for a vetting process, in addition to the still-sought unveiling of Obama's records.

In the case, being handled largely by Gary Kreep of the U.S. Justice Foundation, Kreep subpoenaed the records documenting the attendance by Obama, or Barry Soetero (his earlier name), from Occidental College.

The lawyer for the college, Stuart W. Rudnick of Musick, Peeler & Garrett, urgently contacted Fredric D. Woocher of Strumwasser & Woocher.

"This firm is counsel to Occidental College. The College is in receipt of the enclosed subpoena that seeks certain information concerning President-Elect Barack Obama," he wrote via fax. "Inasmuch as the subpoena appears to be valid on its face, the College will have no alternative but to comply with the subpoena absent a court order instructing otherwise."

Within hours, Woocher contacted Kreep regarding the issue, telling him, "It will likely not surprise you to hear that Obama opposes the production of the requested records.”

"In order to avoid the needless expense of our bringing and litigating a Motion to Quash the subpoena, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to agree voluntarily to cancel or withdraw the subpoena"

Woocher warned, "Please be advised, in particular, that in the event we are forced to file a motion to quash and we prevail in that motion, we will seek the full measure of monetary sanctions provided for in the Code of Civil Procedures."

Is it a coincidence that both the Occidental lawyers and the Obama lawyers have addresses at 100 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles? And, that Woocher, selected as a "Southern California Super Lawyer, 2009" practices "political law" (what's "political law?")

There are at least 48 legal cases attempting to gain access to various documents from Obama's past. In this one case, Obama is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hide his bona fides, and using a "Super Lawyer" to do it. You do the math. Obama is spending millions to hide his past from the American People.

Watch this case. Occidental's lawyers say they have to comply with Gary Kreep's subpoena. Watch to see how Obama's lawyers attempt to manipulate the justice system to quash this subpoena.

Brilliant Response from Andrew McCarthy

2009-05-01T11:47:00.002-07:00

Andrew McCarthy was recently formally invited to join a "Task Force" to aid in decision making in regards to terrorists being currently held by the US military. The letter he sent to Attorney General Holder was both brilliant, honest, and courageous taking into consideration the persecution of citizens who disagree or speak out against the administration.

The letter has been copied below and is well worth reading:

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General of the United States
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20530-0001

Dear Attorney General Holder:

This letter is respectfully submitted to inform you that I must decline the invitation to participate in the May 4 roundtable meeting the President’s Task Force on Detention Policy is convening with current and former prosecutors involved in international terrorism cases. An invitation was extended to me by trial lawyers from the Counterterrorism Section, who are members of the Task Force, which you are leading.

The invitation email (of April 14) indicates that the meeting is part of an ongoing effort to identify lawful policies on the detention and disposition of alien enemy combatants—or what the Department now calls “individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.” I admire the lawyers of the Counterterrorism Division, and I do not question their good faith. Nevertheless, it is quite clear—most recently, from your provocative remarks on Wednesday in Germany—that the Obama administration has already settled on a policy of releasing trained jihadists (including releasing some of them into the United States). Whatever the good intentions of the organizers, the meeting will obviously be used by the administration to claim that its policy was arrived at in consultation with current and former government officials experienced in terrorism cases and national security issues. I deeply disagree with this policy, which I believe is a violation of federal law and a betrayal of the president’s first obligation to protect the American people. Under the circumstances, I think the better course is to register my dissent, rather than be used as a prop.

Moreover, in light of public statements by both you and the President, it is dismayingly clear that, under your leadership, the Justice Department takes the position that a lawyer who in good faith offers legal advice to government policy makers—like the government lawyers who offered good faith advice on interrogation policy—may be subject to investigation and prosecution for the content of that advice, in addition to empty but professionally damaging accusations of ethical misconduct. Given that stance, any prudent lawyer would have to hesitate before offering advice to the government.

Beyond that, as elucidated in my writing (including my proposal for a new national security court, which I understand the Task Force has perused), I believe alien enemy combatants should be detained at Guantanamo Bay (or a facility like it) until the conclusion of hostilities. This national defense measure is deeply rooted in the venerable laws of war and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2004 Hamdi case. Yet, as recently as Wednesday, you asserted that, in your considered judgment, such notions violate America’s “commitment to the rule of law.” Indeed, you elaborated, “Nothing symbolizes our [adminstration’s] new course more than our decision to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay…. President Obama believes, and I strongly agree, that Guantanamo has come to represent a time and an approach that we want to put behind us: a disregard for our centuries-long respect for the rule of law[.]” (Emphasis added.)

Given your policy of conducting ruinous criminal and ethics investigations of lawyers over the advice they offer the government, and your specific position that the wartime detention I would endorse is tantamount to a violation of law, it makes little sense for me to attend the Task Force meeting. After all, my choice would be to remain silent or risk jeopardizing myself.For what it may be worth, I will say this much. For eight years, we have had a robust debate in the United States about how to handle alien terrorists captured during a defensive war authorized by Congress after nearly 3000 of our fellow Americans were annihilated. Essentially, there have been two camps. One calls for prosecution in the civilian criminal justice system, the strategy used throughout the 1990s. The other calls for a military justice approach of combatant detention and war-crimes prosecutions by military commission. Because each theory has its downsides, many commentators, myself included, have proposed a third way: a hybrid system, designed for the realities of modern international terrorism—a new system that would address the needs to protect our classified defense secrets and to assure Americans, as well as our allies, that we are detaining the right people.

There are differences in these various proposals. But their proponents, and adherents to both the military and civilian justice approaches, have all agreed on at least one thing: Foreign terrorists trained to execute mass-murder attacks cannot simply be released while the war ensues and Americans are still being targeted. We have already released too many jihadists who, as night follows day, have resumed plotting to kill Americans. Indeed, according to recent reports, a released Guantanamo detainee is now leading Taliban combat operations in Afghanistan, where President Obama has just sent additional American forces.

The Obama campaign smeared Guantanamo Bay as a human rights blight. Consistent with that hyperbolic rhetoric, the President began his administration by promising to close the detention camp within a year. The President did this even though he and you (a) agree Gitmo is a top-flight prison facility, (b) acknowledge that our nation is still at war, and (c) concede that many Gitmo detainees are extremely dangerous terrorists who cannot be tried under civilian court rules. Patently, the commitment to close Guantanamo Bay within a year was made without a plan for what to do with these detainees who cannot be tried. Consequently, the Detention Policy Task Force is not an effort to arrive at the best policy. It is an effort to justify a bad policy that has already been adopted: to wit, the Obama administration policy to release trained terrorists outright if that’s what it takes to close Gitmo by January.

Obviously, I am powerless to stop the administration from releasing top al Qaeda operatives who planned mass-murder attacks against American cities—like Binyam Mohammed (the accomplice of “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla) whom the administration recently transferred to Britain, where he is now at liberty and living on public assistance. I am similarly powerless to stop the administration from admitting into the United States such alien jihadists as the 17 remaining Uighur detainees. According to National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair, the Uighurs will apparently live freely, on American taxpayer assistance, despite the facts that they are affiliated with a terrorist organization and have received terrorist paramilitary training. Under federal immigration law (the 2005 REAL ID Act), those facts render them excludable from the United States. The Uighurs’ impending release is thus a remarkable development given the Obama administration’s propensity to deride its predecessor’s purported insensitivity to the rule of law.

I am, in addition, powerless to stop the President, as he takes these reckless steps, from touting his Detention Policy Task Force as a demonstration of his national security seriousness. But I can decline to participate in the charade.

Finally, let me repeat that I respect and admire the dedication of Justice Department lawyers, whom I have tirelessly defended since I retired in 2003 as a chief assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. It was a unique honor to serve for nearly twenty years as a federal prosecutor, under administrations of both parties. It was as proud a day as I have ever had when the trial team I led was awarded the Attorney General’s Exceptional Service Award in 1996, after we secured the convictions of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his underlings for waging a terrorist war against the United States. I particularly appreciated receiving the award from Attorney General Reno—as I recounted in Willful Blindness, my book about the case, without her steadfastness against opposition from short-sighted government officials who wanted to release him, the “blind sheikh” would never have been indicted, much less convicted and so deservedly sentenced to life-imprisonment. In any event, I’ve always believed defending our nation is a duty of citizenship, not ideology. Thus, my conservative political views aside, I’ve made myself available to liberal and conservative groups, to Democrats and Republicans, who’ve thought tapping my experience would be beneficial. It pains me to decline your invitation, but the attendant circumstances leave no other option.

Very truly yours,

Andrew C. McCarthy

cc: Sylvia T. Kaser and John DePue National Security Division, Counterterrorism Section

Messianic Complexes...good for tyrants...never good for the people

2009-04-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

History is replete with examples of leadership by a fiat of God, or Gods, and one of the foundations of the American belief system is that the RIGHTS of the people come directly from God...they are a natural inheritance...and are not first imbued in a leader.

In more authoritarian cultures, the leader holds all of these rights in his, or her, capacity as a representative of a God, and the people must believe and respect that god-given power. This was true in the monarchies of Europe, where Kings and Queens could not effectively rule until blessed by the religious figures of the day. It was true in tribal societies, where the leader was approved by the Shaman or medicine man of the tribe.

Worship of the God was partially transferred to the human leader...this sanctification endorsed the leader as having the powers of life and death over those being ruled.

Our founding fathers understood the danger of this concept...they had witnessed it their entire lives unlike modern Americans, and though of a religious bent they understood that the only fiat from the almighty was that men and women be allowed to be free. They wished the American people to rule themselves...not to be ruled by others, but to employ some among them to administer to community needs by the use of a minimalist government.

There is, and always will be, however, an emotional need within some to be led...protected...to become part of a nurturing flock...and this need can be found manifested in both religious belief and, in defiance of our constitution, in the belief of the power of a government.

This perception is based upon a fiction. It is one thing to believe that a God is greater than human kind...after all a God is a concept of all-knowing and all-seeing power...but power which an individual can make personal choices in regard. In other words...God may say, "Thou shall not covet they neighbor's wife" but the individual decides for himself whether to covet his neighbor's wife or not. God allows us the right of choosing what path we take. God is not going to strip us of our rights and have us executed. (Of course that's exactly what happens under Sharia law...which is an entirely different conversation...where men make assumptions as to God's will and their power to carry out God's will...this being the ultimate self-delusion.)

It is quite another thing to make the leap into seeing government or people in government, especially in a constitutional republic, as being all powerful. The folks who work in government are the employees of the people...we are their employers...they are workers...nothing more and nothing less.

The American President, referred to by media buffoons as the most powerful man in the world, is literally nothing more than the chief administrator of a large bureaucracy. He has no real power, only responsibilities, which we have granted him, to get certain jobs done.

Despite this very real job description and clarification, which is strictly controlled by our constitution, there will always be those who view presidents as being far more than they can, or should, be. When they ask a president for better jobs or housing; when they cry, sob, and carry on in his presence; when they flock together under his false aura of benevolent power...they are simply playing the part of fools in a rather cheesy drama; a drama ready made for the simple-minded and those with little or no self-image or self-respect.

Even here, in the Unites States where the individual is held up as the ideal, where we respect each person for whom they are and what they can be, there exists this mind-set along with a certain inclination to worship politicians, celebrities, movie stars, athletes and others.

Recently we have been inundated with portraits and doctored photos of elected officials in the US where they are presented in poses reminiscent of biblical scenes. Examples; a statue of the president riding a donkey while palm fronds were strewn before him, or a portrait of the president wearing a crown of thorns, or a photo with a halo emananting behind him...all are examples of a rather weird worship mentality not normally afforded our employees in the political arena.

Respect for a person's accomplishments is one thing...some people set examples for others...hit goals which we admire and we can aspire to reach ourselves. Worship of another human being, one whom we don't really personally know, is normally a sign of something lacking in our own lives...a gap in our own self-image that we desperately need to fill. It's this gap that demagogues and would-be tyrants seek out and try to take advantage of.

Sometimes it's simply for sexual gratification...such as a rock star who sleeps with hundreds of nameless women and girls as he passes through on tour. Sometimes it's for cash...con artists of every type excel in this skill. Sometimes it's for political power...and there have been so many examples throughout history that we could never account for them all.

Even US Presidents have, on occasion, become objects of worship to those desperate for answers. Fortunately, our constitution prevents such politicians from using these human weaknesses to take too much power from the people...and when the politician is gone, the people are normally able to wrest that power back and to put the brakes on their government (such as when the 22nd Amendment was passed after FDR won a fourth term in office...by the way...there are people in our Congress right now who are putting forth a bill to delete the 22nd Amendment for good).

Our founders understood these human emotions and the resulting dynamics and prepared our constitutional system to guard against such disasters; and the resulting tyranny. Unfortunately, there will always be a substantial portion of any population, human nature being what it is and always will be, prone to being victimized by the desire to worship a human being...a human being who is really no more nor less than they themselves.

Times may change...the names and the faces may change...but people will never really change. Understanding this, it is incumbent upon the remainder of us, the majority actually, to rise above the fray of popular opinion and culture and view the world in the context of history and in the harsh light of reality. And in the center of that light...thanks be to a real God...there lies our rule of law and the US Constitution. Let's make sure it stays intact, and remains in the spotlight.

The Professor

Corporatism...it's baaaaak

2009-04-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

In the first decades of the 20th Century the "ism's" of the world were in full flower: Fascism, Socialism, Communism...all were seemingly viable solutions for all of the "problems" of mankind.

Those "problems" were the same then as they are today: lack of order...lack of authority...too many people going in their own directions while unfettered by the wisdom of those who considered themselves "elite". Such lack of "order" created unpredictability, consumerism, individual ownership of assets and finances...oh the horror of it all.

Thank goodness the new "ism's" promised "final solutions" to the rampant growth in personal wealth and the expansion of western culture and capital enterprise. At one point the parties representing these "ism's" actually won elections in the nations of Europe, and in the process made certain future elections might never be allowed to interfere in the promised permanent establishment of order and peace.

Thank goodness they were so successful...if the National Socialists of Italy (the Fascistas) and the National Socialist Workers party of Germany (the N.A.Z.I) had not come to power there could have been dire consequences...such as a world-wide war.

Having dodged that bullet, and with the convenient lack of memory that comes with the passing of time, the people of Europe, and now of the United States, are again fiddling with assorted "ism's" sugar-coated in various guises.

One of these, and one of the least recognized, is a spin of socialism first perfected by the Fascista Party in Italy, then copied in the US and in Germany. Often referred to as "Corporatism" it is a oft-muddied and seldom mentioned concept. Which is a shame, because Corporatism is alive and well and now becoming an obsession with the new US administration.

Most of us familiar with US history can remember military incursions ordered by presidents of the past into places like Nicaragua, early in the century on behalf of the United Fruit company.

We also remember President Eisenshower's dire warning about the "Military-Industrial Complex" and his follow-up statements on Corporatism and Congress. We may also recall President Reagan's warnings about the "unholy alliances between congressional and corporate interests".

Oddly, but not surprisingly to those who understand the conservative viewpoint, the politicians who so loudly championed social programs and "progressive" government were not the ones who warned us of the evils of Corporatism...rather they were, and still are, the cultivators of that system.

The simple explanation as to why that is true is that Corporatism is all about power...about taking power away from the populace and giving it to government. Benito Mussolini managed to create a powerful totalitarian state only because he made trade-offs with a handful of corporations, which wanted to grow and needed the aid of government to do so. Adolph Hitler created alliances with the most powerful industrial leaders of Germany, giving them ownership and control of competitors, vendors, and sub-contractors in exchange for their support. Together they built a massive industrial war machine like none ever before seen.

In the US, beginning around 1913, wage and price controls, regulatory requirements, and subsidies began to gush out of Washington D.C. on behalf of corporate giants like US Steel. The public was subjected to an anti-business propaganda tirade which made is easier for Congress to control commerce in the name of "consumer protection". To escape this assault, companies had to donate generously to re-election campaigns and to fall into line when instructed. All done "for the people" of course.

The culture of Corporatism only deepened as wage and price controls and over-regulation drew the country into the great depression, deepened that depression, and on through the second world war.

It was not until millions of young Americans, who had been raised on the wonders of government and Corporatism, came home from that war that things began to change. They had witnessed, first hand, what those same policies had wrought in Europe and in Asia. They knew the horrors created by centrally-controlled systems run by demagogues and power-hungry politicos, and they knew they had been lied to.

That generation rejected the status quo and a new conservative movement was born in the United States. This movement rejected the concepts of strong government and Corporatism and hailed the individual, the small business, and the constitutional freedoms our system could, and should always, guarantee.

For six decades Corporatism was on the back shelf. Now it is back...bigtime. Our younger citizens don't even know what we speak of...though they are getting to see a new era of Corporatism being born before their eyes. Again they are being inundated with anti-business propaganda. Hatred of business people and free markets is being grown and nurtured in order to create a diversion from the excesses of a failing, but power-hungry, Congress.

Witness the reaction of the Corporate owned media outlets when some of us citizens had the gall to question the new tax policies this last April 15th. We, who "own" the government...who employ politicians...and who have the responsibility to oversee and correct these employees...were soundly chastised, insulted, and vigorously assaulted as we tried to do just that. And who were the assailants? Not surprisingly...they were massive corporations and the sheepish talking heads they call reporters.

Today, insteading of breaking up the Ma Belle's, this same Congress is bailing out failing corporate giants, with our money and despite our protest of their actions, in order to take control of those entities in the board room. In exchange, those corporations are again promising to fund re-election campaigns and to "fall in line" on issues. The Free Market is being taken out of the equation...as is our prerogative to support, or abandon, companies that should be providing products and services instead of pro-government propaganda.

Is it any wonder that the corporate "news" media outlets are so terrified of letting the people speak out. If the people have their way, these giants will collapse and those "reporters" will have to flip burgers for a living.

A classic example: General Electric, despite it's rapid decline in the marketplace, became the parent company of the "news" network MSNBC even though that company was also hemoragging funds. The sole purpose was to make MSNBC a propaganda wing of the company in support of any politician who would promise to support "Cap and Trade" or other "environmental" taxes which would be funnelled directly to GE through their "green" divisions. Those same divisions have accounted for most of GE's losses.

In exchange, GE and MSNBC are loud and generous supporters of anyone willing to hand over our money to keep them from bankruptcy. They are, of course, acting in their own self-interest...something we can accept until they do so by use of bribery, coercion, and in concert with corrupt government officials and politicians...and do so by stealing the money from the people in the guise of environment protection.

Of course the GE example is just skimming the surface of the new Corporatist movement. This thing will take off like a rocket if enough taxes can be brought to bear against you and I. If Corporatism is successful, it will not be only government agencies sucking money and production out of the economy while returning nothing of value, but corporations and business entities will be joining in. No longer will they survive by trading production and value for revenue...they will survive by taking in vast quantities of tax money while giving little or nothing in return. It won't matter if we stop shopping them, or using their services...as they are only required to "be green"...so their products and services will become lower in quality and eventually disappear.

When that happens, it will snowball, and even small firms may be sucked down the drain of failure. Only time...and the Congress...will tell...and only we can stop it, and can only do so if we understand how it is happening and why we let it get this far.

Call it what it is...Moneylaundering

2009-02-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

Moneylaundering: The process of concealing from the public or law enforcement officials the source, transfer, and final use of funds.

Members of the House and the Senate, with the massive "stimulus" bill and the omnibus spending bill, have fully committed themselves to a variety of moneylaundering schemes.

These are not new of course, and such shenanigans have gone on for the last couple of centuries, but they are now, apparently, considered acceptable and have reached massive figures only dreamed of by the crooks and cronies of the past.

The schemes fall into two major categories: 1) the traditional payoffs and bribes paid to companies owned in full or part by those lawmakers or by their family members and 2) what is being referred to on capitol hill in terms like "revolving campaign financing".

The traditional schemes are mostly successful when kept secret; such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pushing through earmark funding in the millions for her husband's business firms (whoops...there goes the secret). Such earmarks number literally in the thousands when the new spending bills are broken down and analyzed.

The second type of scheme, "revolving campaign financing" is far more heinous, if that's even possible, as it directly affects the balance of power between us, the owners of this nation, and the people we have hired to sit on the board (congress). It is, literally, a scheme to take away our ability to monitor...hire...and fire our employees (congress) and the schemers are using our money to pull it off.

It is clever...very deceptive...and possibly the most immoral practice ever put into play by those who are supposed to be representing our interests. This is how it works:

Lawmakers choose their favorite lobbyists, they obtain verification either through past support, or by a wink and a nod, that those lobbyists are ready to fund their re-election campaigns. Then the lawmaker funnels money to the lobbyist as an earmark or part of a "stimulus" package.

Anyone who has ever run for office knows that the majority of effort goes into fundraising. If you're challenging an incumbent, the process is more than tough as the incumbent not only has name recognition, but some historic funding already in place.

Funding can make all the difference in a race. There have been recent house and senate seats narrowly won by darkhorse candidates who outspent their competitors as much as ten-to-one. It doesn't always work, but the combination of being an incumbent, and being outrageously well-funded, provides a near 100% probability of keeping a seat.

What do I mean by outrageously well-funded? One lobbying group, the notorious ACORN, was given more than $2 Billion dollars in the "stimulus" bill. This is an immense amount of money...let's say a 20,000% increase in their budget. Pretty sweet, huh?

(To put that into perspective: that's 2,000 million dollars or $2,000,000,000. If Americans' average annual salary is $50,000...that's 40,000 people's annual salaries. And it's only one lobbyist out of hundreds now receiving funding from Congress.)

ACORN's function is to get selected politicians re-elected. The average congressional campaign is nearing $10 Million at this time. That $2 Billion will fully fund 200 congressional campaigns.

Such a deal...for the incumbents who took part in this sham at least. I can certainly understand why they are "stimulated" by the "stimulus" package.

So congress has taken your money, given it to a third party, who will then give it back to the congress members for their use. This is what we call moneylaundering. "Revolving campaign finance" is a great propaganda term...an attempt to cover-up the actual process...but it doesn't quite cut the mustard in the way the truth does.

So let's call it what it is! It is straight-out moneylaundering!

Unfortunately, if you or I were to practice moneylaundering at our local bank, misleading others as to the source of funds and then converting them to our own use, we would be invited to a long stay at a federal hospitality institution usually referred to as "prison."

Our employees in Congress have become so jaded, or have figured out we're too stupid to pay attention, that they are moneylaundering openly. The next step will be to simply place earmarks or "stimulus" money directly into their personal bank accounts. Why not? They'd probably call that "direct deposit"...we'd be wondering why it wasn't called "embezzlement."

But these petty legal terms are becoming somewhat fluid and we'd be dismissed as being "old fashioned" or "so yesterday."

It's just so hard to keep up with the times...

The Professor

545 People; By Charlie Reese

2009-02-26T16:32:00.001-08:00

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered; if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered; if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because it was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.

No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON?”

2009-02-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

This is a paper presented a few years back by Herb Meyer at a Davos, Switzerland meeting which was attended by most of the CEOs from all the major international corporations -- a very good summary of today’s key trends and a perspective one seldom sees.

Herbert E. Meyer served during the Reagan Administration as Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. In these positions, he managed production of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimates and other top- secret projections for the President and his national security advisers.

Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's highest honor.

THE FOUR MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS TAKING PLACE

Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events. These transformations have profound implications for American business leaders and owners, our culture and on our way of life.

1. THE WAR IN IRAQ
There are three major monotheistic religions in the wo rld: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests, and scholars found a way to settle up and pave the way forward. Religion remained at the center of life, church, and state became separate. Rule of law, idea of economic liberty, individual rights, and human Rights-all these are defining points of modern western civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but didn't take off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and Christianity found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that happened, it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest outpouring of art, literature and music the world has ever known.

Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Moslems around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Moslems (Turks from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates ofVienna. It was in Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took place.

The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward. Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since then, Islam has not found a way to reconcile with the modern world.

Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things. First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity.

Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. These actions are covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That's what our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.

The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons, or dirty bombs. Even with a first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you can't stop every attack. That means our tolerance for political horseplay has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with terrorists or weapons of mass destructions.

Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East. That's why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals and give the moderates a chance to hold power, they might find a way to reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq, it's important to look for any signs that they are modernizing.

For example, women being brought into the work force, and colleges in Afghanistan is good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution is good. People can argue about what the U.S. is doing and how we're doing it, but anything that suggests Islam is finding its way forward is good.

2. THE EMERGENCE OF CHINA
In the last 20 years, China has moved 250 million people from the farms and villages into the cities. Their plan is to move another 300 million in the next 20 years. When you put that many people into the cities, you have to find work for them. That's why China is addicted to manufacturing; they have to put all the relocated people to work.
When we decide to manufacture something in the U.S., it's based on market needs and the opportunity to make a profit. In China, they make the decision because they want the jobs, which is a very different calculation.

While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to low prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic codependency has developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from China, they will explode politically. If China stops selling to us, our economy will take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are subsidizing their economic development; they are subsidizing our economic growth.

Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for raw materials; which drives prices up worldwide. China is also thirsty for oil, which is one reason oil is now at $100 a barrel. By 2020, China will produce more car s than the U.S. China is also buying its way into the oil infrastructure around the world. They are doing it in the open market and paying fair market prices, but millions of barrels of oil that would have gone to the U.S. are now going to China. China's quest to assure it has the oil it needs to fuel its economy is a major factor in world politics and economics. We have our Navy fleets protecting the sea lines, specifically the ability to get the tankers through. It won't be long before the Chinese have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Persian Gulf as well.

The question is, will their aircraft carrier be pointing in the same direction as ours or against us?

3. SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHICS OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION
Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1 In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3.

Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them.

The European countries are currently importing Moslems. Today, the Moslems comprise 10 percent of France and Germany , and the percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates. However, the Moslem populations are not being integrated into the cultures of their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany and France don't support the Iraq war is they fear their Moslem populations will explode on them.

By 2020, more than half of all births in the Netherlands will be non-European. The huge design flaw in the postmodern secular state is that you need a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans simply don't wish to have children, so they are dying. In Japan , the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years.

Because Japan has a very different society than Europe , they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one-out-of-every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old. Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.

Europe and Japan , which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen. Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate, and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant.

The second reason is economic. When the birth rate of a civilization drops below replacement— it is for certain the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend start, the downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and raising children.

The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe , but still represents the same kind of trend.

Western civilization seems to have forgotten what every primitive society understands-you need kids to have a healthy society. Children are huge consumers. Then they grow up to become taxpayers. That's how a society works, but the postmodern secular state seems to have forgotten that. If U.S. birth rates of the past 20 to 30 years had been the same as post-World War II, there would be no Social Security or Medicare problems.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development. After World War II, the U.S. instituted a $600 tax credit per child. The idea was to enable mom and dad to have four children without being troubled by taxes. This led to a baby boom of 22 million kids— a huge consumer market. That turned into a huge tax base. However, to match that incentive in today's dollars would cost $12,000 per child.

China and India do not have declining populations. However, in both countries, there is a preference for boys over girls, and we now have the technology to know which is which before they are born. In China and India, families are aborting the girls. As a result, in each of these countries there are 70 million boys growing up who will never find wives. When nature is left alone, it produces 103 boys for every 100 girls. In some provinces, however, the ratio is 128 boys to every 100 girls.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen. Russia has one-sixth of the earth's land surface and much of its oil. You can't control that much area with such a small population. Immediately to the south, we have China. With 70 million unmarried men, who are a real potential nightmare scenario for Russia.

4. RESTRUCTURING OF AMERICAN BUSINESS
The fourth major transformation involves a fundamental restructuring of American business. Today's business environment is very complex and competitive. To succeed, you have to be the best, which means having the highest quality and lowest cost. Whatever your price point, you must have the best quality and lowest price. To be the best, you have to concentrate on one thing. You can't be all things to all people and be the best.

A generation ago, IBM used to make every part of their computer. Now Intel makes the chips, Microsoft makes the software, and someone else makes the modems, hard drives, monitors, etc. IBM even out sources their call center. Because IBM has all these companies supplying goods and services cheaper and better than they could do it themselves, they can make a better computer at a lower cost. This is called a fracturing of business. When one company can make a better product by relying on others to perform functions the business used to do itself, it creates a complex pyramid of companies that serve and support each other.

This fracturing of American business is now in its second generation. The companies who supply IBM are now doing the same thing - outsourcing many of their core services and production process. As a result, they can make cheaper, better products.Over time, this pyramid continues to get bigger and bigger. Just when you think it can't fracture again, it does.

Even very small businesses can have a large pyramid of corporate entities that perform many of its important functions. One aspect of this trend is that companies end up with fewer employees and more independent contractors. This trend has alsocreated two new words in business, “integrator” and “complementor.” At the top of the pyramid, IBM is the integrator. As you go down the pyramid, Microsoft, Intel and the other companies that support IBM are the omplementors.

However, each of the complementors is itself an integrator for the complementors underneath it. This has several implications, the first of which is that we are now getting false readings on the economy. People who used to be employees are now independent contractors launching their own businesses. There are many people working whose work is not listed as a job. As a result, the economy is perking along better than the numbers are telling us.

Outsourcing also confused the numbers. Suppose a company like General Motors decides to outsource all its employee cafeteria functions to Marriott (which it did). It lays-off hundreds of cafeteria workers, who then get hired right back by Marriott. The only thing that has changed is that these people work for Marriott rather than GM. Yet, the media headlines will scream that America has lost more manufacturing jobs. All that really happened is that these workers are now reclassified as service workers. So the old way of counting jobs contributes to false economic readings.

As yet, we haven't figured out how to make the numbers catch up with the changing realities of the business world. However, he assumes that U.S. workers can quickly and effortlessly convert from one state to another with any given downsizing. Only over the long term, with global equalization of wages, can there be any such state of equilibrium. In the short term, with every 'downsizing' (fracturing), existing US workers are going have to compete for fewer and lower paying jobs, suffering a significant loss in earnings - and purchasing power. This is and will continue to have a wrenching impact on our economic culture – including on our birthrates and willingness to work, which has always been our heritage.

Another implication of this massive restructuring is that because companies are getting rid of units and people that used to work for them, the entity is smaller. As the companies get smaller and more efficient, revenues are going down but profits are going up. As a result, the old notion that revenues are up and we're doing great isn't always the case anymore. Companies are getting smaller but are becoming more efficient and profitable in the process.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOUR TRANSFORMATIONS

1. THE WAR IN IRAQ
In some ways, the war is going very well. Afghanistan and Iraq have the beginnings of a modern government, which is a huge step forward. The Saudis are starting to talk about some good things, while Egypt and Lebanon are beginning to move in a good direction. A series of revolutions have taken place in countries like Ukraine and Georgia. There will be more of these revolutions for an interesting reason. In every revolution, there comes a point where the dictator turns to the general and says, “Fire into the crowd!” If the general fires into the crowd, it stops the revolution. If the general says No, the revolution continues.

Increasingly, the generals are saying “No” because their kids are in the crowd. Thanks to TV and the Internet, the average 18-year old outside the U.S. is very savvy about what is going on in the world, especially in terms of popular culture. There is a huge global consciousness, and young people around the world want to be a part of it. It is increasingly apparent to them that the miserable government where they live is the only thing standing in their way. More and more, it is the well-educated kids, the children of the generals and the elite, who are leading the revolutions.

At the same time, not all is well with the war. The level of violence in Iraq is much worse and doesn't appear to be improving. It's possible that we're asking too much of Islam all at one time. We're trying to jolt them from the 7th century to the 21st century all at once, which may be further than they can go. They might make it and they might not. Nobody knows for sure. The point is, we don't know how the war will turn out. Anyone who says they know is just guessing.
The real place to watch is Iran. If they actually obtain nuclear weapons it will be a terrible situation. There are two ways to deal with it. The first is a military strike, which will be very difficult. The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear development facilities and put them underground. The U.S. has nuclear weapons that can go under the earth and take out those facilities, but we don't want to do that.

The other way is to separate the radical mullahs from the government, which is the most likely course of action. Seventy percent of the Iranian population is under 30. They are Moslem but not Arab. They are mostly pro-Western. Many experts think the U.S. should have dealt with Iran before going to war with Iraq. The problem isn't so much the weapons; it's the people who control them. If Iran has a moderate government, the weapons become less of a concern.
We don't know if we will win the war in Iraq. We could lose or win. What we're looking for is any indicator that Islam is moving into the 21st century and stabilizing.

2. CHINA
It may be that pushing 500 million people from farms and villages into cities is too much too soon. Although it gets almost no publicity, China is experiencing hundreds of demonstrations around the country, which is unprecedented. These are not students in Tiananmen Square. These are average citizens who are angry with the government for building chemical plants and polluting the water they drink and the air they breathe.

The Chinese are a smart and industrious people. They may be able to pull it off and become a very successful economic and military superpower. If so, we will have to learn to live with it. If they want to share the responsibility of keeping the world's oil lanes open, that's a good thing. They currently have eight new nuclear electric power generators under way and 45 on the books to build. Soon, they will leave the U.S. way behind in their ability to generate nuclear power.

What can go wrong with China? For one, you can't move 550 million people into the cities without major problems. Two, China really wants Taiwan, not so much for economic reasons, they just want it. The Chinese know that their system of communism can't survive much longer in the 21st century. The last thing they want to do before they morph into some sort of more capitalistic government is to take over Taiwan.

We may wake up one morning and find they have launched an attack on Taiwan. If so, it will be a mess, both economically and militarily. The U.S. has committed to the military defense of Taiwan. If China attacks Taiwan, will we really go to war against them? If the Chinese generals believe the answer is no, they may attack. If we don't defend Taiwan, every treaty the U.S. has will be worthless. Hopefully, China won't do anything stupid.

3. DEMOGRAPHICS
Europe and Japan are dying because their populations are aging and shrinking. These trends can be reversed if the young people start breeding. However, the birth rates in these areas are so low it will take two generations to turn things around. No economic model exists that permits 50 years to turn things around. Some countries are beginning to offer incentives for people to have bigger families. For example, Italy is offering tax breaks for having children. However, it’s a lifestyle issue versus a tiny amount of money. Europeans aren’t willing to give up their comfortable lifestyles in order to have more children. In general, everyone in Europe just wants it to last a while longer.

Europeans have a real talent for living. They don’t want to work very hard. The average European worker gets 400 more hours of vacation time per year than Americans. They don’t want to work and they don’t want to make any of the changes needed to revive their economies. The summer after 9/11, France lost 15,000 people in a heat wave. In August, the country basically shuts down when everyone goes on vacation. That year, a severe heat wave struck and 15,000 elderly people living in nursing homes and hospitals died. Their children didn’t even leave the beaches to come back and take care of the bodies. Institutions had to scramble to find enough refrigeration units to hold the bodies until people came to claim them. This loss of life was five times bigger than 9/11 in America, yet it didn’t trigger any change in French society.

When birth rates are so low, it creates a tremendous tax burden on the young. Under those circumstances, keeping mom and dad alive is not an attractive option. That’s why euthanasia is becoming so popular in most European countries. The only country that doesn’t permit (and even encourage) euthanasia is Germany, because of all the baggage from World War II.

The European economy is beginning to fracture. Countries like Italy are starting to talk about pulling out of the European Union because it is killing them. When things get bad economically in Europe , they tend to get very nasty politically. The canary in the mine is anti-Semitism. When it goes up, it means trouble is coming. Current levels of anti-Semitism are higher than ever. Germany won’t launch another war, but Europe will likely get shabbier, more dangerous and less pleasant to live in.

Japan has a birth rate of 1.3 and has no intention of bringing in immigrants. By 2020, one-out-of-every five Japanese will be 70 years old. Property values in Japan have dropped every year for the past 14 years. The country is simply shutting down. In the U.S. we also have an aging population. Boomers are starting to retire at a massive rate. These retirements will have several major impacts: Possible massive sell off of large four-bedroom houses and a movement to condos.

It is an enormous drain on the treasury. Boomers vote, and they want their benefits, even if it means putting a crushing tax burden on their kids to get them. Social Security will be a huge problem. As this generation ages, it will start to drain the system. We are the only country in the world where there are no age limits on medical procedures. This is an enormous drain on the health care system. This will also increase the tax burden on the young, which will cause them to delay marriage and having families, which will drive down the birth rate even further.

Although scary, these demographics also present enormous opportunities for products and services tailored to aging populations. There will be tremendous demand for caring for older people, especially those who don’t need nursing homes but need some level of care. Some people will have a business where they take care of three or four people in their homes. The demand for that type of service and for products to physically care for aging people will be huge.

Make sure the demographics of your business are attuned to where the action is. For example, you don’t want to be a baby food company in Europe or Japan. Demographics are much underrated as an indicator of where the opportunities are. Businesses need customers. Go where the customers are.

4. THE RESTRUCTURING OF AMERICAN BUSINESS
The restructuring of American business means we are coming to the end of the age of the employer and employee. With all this fracturing of businesses into different and smaller units, employers can't guarantee jobs anymore because they don't know what their companies will look like next year. Everyone is on their way to becoming an independent contractor.

The new workforce contract will be: Show up at the my office five days a week and do what I want you to do, but you handle your own insurance, benefits, health care and everything else. Husbands and wives are becoming economic units. They take different jobs and work different shifts depending on where they are in their careers and families. They make tradeoffs to put together a compensation package to take care of the family. This used to happen only with highly educated professionals with high incomes. Now it is happening at the level of the factory floor worker. Couples at all levels are designing their compensation packages based on their individual needs. The only way this can work is if everything is portable and flexible, which requires a huge shift in the American economy.

The U.S is in the process of building the world's first 21st century model economy. The only other countries doing this are U.K. and Australia. The model is fast, flexible, highly productive and unstable in that it is always fracturing and re-fracturing. This will increase the economic gap between the U.S. and everybody else, especially Europe and Japan.

At the same time, the military gap is increasing. Other than China, we are the only country that is continuing to put money into their military. Plus, we are the only military getting on-the-ground military experience through our war in Iraq. We know which high-tech weapons are working and which ones aren't. There is almost no one who can take us on economically or militarily.

There has never been a superpower in this position before. On the one hand, this makes the U.S. a magnet for bright and ambitious people. It also makes us a target. We are becoming one of the last holdouts of the traditional Judeo-Christian culture. There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U.S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn't as available in other countries of the world.

Ultimately, it's an issue of culture. The only people who can hurt us are ourselves, by losing our culture. If we give up our Judeo-Christian culture, we become just like the Europeans.

The culture war is the whole ballgame. If we lose it, there isn't another America to pull us out.

To Spot a Demagogue...

2009-02-15T16:36:00.000-08:00

By the Professor...

Webster's defines a "demagogue" as a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.

Demagoguery is defined as "to manipulate, to obscure, to distort with emotionalism and/or prejudice, using rhetoric and propaganda".

I rather prefer H.L. Mencken's quote; "a demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

Of course Mencken's comment is rather insulting to women, as female demagogues are in great abundance in modern times.

Political scientists sometimes define modern demagogues as being government employees or elected officials who attempt to use their positions to coerce, intimidate, legislate with false stated intent, and make other attempts to manipulate the lives and behaviors of those citizens they look down upon as inferior beings. This is a sad, but true, statement on the reality of human behavior; that those who are given responsibility too often become seduced by the power that comes with that responsibility.

But the trick, now that we have defined a demagogue, is to spot them. Some are far too easy...almost as if they are setting themselves up as examples for our discussion.

When the current house speaker, Nancy Pelosi, stated that "every month we don't take action...500 million more Americans lose their jobs" pretty much fills every possible requirement of a demagogic statement. It's obviously untrue; not only because there are only some 300 million Americans total in our population, but for more subtle reasons.

She was attempting to rabble rouse a crowd to support the so-called economic stimulus bill then in Congress. Creating panic and stress, promising disaster, threatening complete and total calamity if the people did not immediately do as she was instructing...all are huge flashing electric signs of demagoguery. The 500 million remark is more a facet of her complete failure to understand numbers in any way, shape, or form.

So some demagoguery is painfully easy to spot. More subtle examples exist in abundance. From lawmakers and bureaucrats we can watch for key phrases:

We can't afford to wait
It's a fact...not a theory
Tax breaks for the rich
We have to change
We have to make (plug in just about anything here) fair
Health care/ housing/ food (plug in any product or service) is a right...not a privilege
Now is the time
Those whom society has left behind
We must take action now
We cannot afford to wait for a discussion of the issues...there is simply no time
The words "fair" or "fairness" used in almost any form or context

These, and many more"hot button" phrases, are constantly dragged out by demagogues. This is done partly to put the listener's brain to sleep, and partly to arouse emotion over rational thought. Rational thought is the demagogue's enemy.

Listening to recent street interviews by news reporters indicates how effective demagoguery truly is. One might recall how a large number of respondents, following the 2008 US national elections, were jubilant in celebration as they were certain that "car payments would now be made by the government," that they "don't have to worry about my mortgage payments anymore", and now "everything is going to go my way." These are the classic examples of people completely seduced by the propaganda of a demagogue.

Of course this propaganda wins elections; and that is why the classic "chicken in every pot" campaign promise will never go out of style. The promise of something for nothing, whether made by a con artist lifting an elderly person's life savings, or a politician doing the same, tends to find plenty of ready and willing victims.

Other signs; a politician speaking out for the taxation of, and control of, any and all means of communications. Government already controls many facets of the communications industry; and many in government want to control everything. The free-flowing Internet is seen as a threat to demagogues and they constantly speak of "taxing" and "regulating" it.

Open media is demagoguery's worst nightmare. The advent of cable television, Internet and satellite radio, and talk radio forums are all seen as aberrations which must be forced by law to be "fair"...fairness, of course, is to be defined by the demagogue.

Demagogues exist in business and other organizations as well. During the allied invasion of Iraq, a number of reporters who were embedded with US troops began to send dispatches back to their home offices praising the actions and discipline of our fighting men and women. Dozens of these reporters were suddenly cut off from home office communications or were actually fired while in-country. Some stayed on in Iraq at their own expense and ended up writing successful books about the conflict. Others ended up being hired by other news organizations in allied countries or competing news organizations. It was a fascinating example of demagoguery in the corporate context.

Why is it important to separate demagogues and demagoguery from the pack? It's because demagoguery is the tool not only of less than scrupulous politicos and other characters, it has always been the starting point from whence ambitious men attempt to steal power away from the people. The demagogue doesn't always successfully become a tyrant...but every tyrant starts off as a demagogue.

The nature of power...

2009-02-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

By the Professor...

When the founding fathers of our nation designed our political system they did so only after long years of study and contemplation. There did not exist at that time the modern American need for instantaneous gratification or demagogic demands for speed in all decisions.

Instead, these wise and thoughtful gentlemen were dedicated to building a form of self-government that would survive the ages. They began by designing a new type of document, one they labeled the "Constitution of These United States". This document was created for one simple purpose...to spell out the limitations of how much power the people should grant to an administrative body...a federal government to stand over and above the separate governments of the states themselves.

Never before in history had the concept been put into practice that the people "owned" the nation and had imbued in themselves all rights due them by the simple fact that they existed. Prior to that time, government granted rights to the people...for the first time the people understood all rights came from a higher power, and were not granted to them by other human beings. The people, instead, had the right to assign certain powers and responsibilities to a government they themselves designed, created, and managed.

The founding fathers spent many years debating the content of the document that would, for all time, clearly spell out what government and those in government could not do to infringe on the natural rights of the people who owned that government. The responsibilities and duties of those employees in the government would be decided largely by future generations and were subject to change.

This dedication to the limitations of governmental powers was a result of first-hand knowledge of what an abusive government could do. These men acknowledged such a thing should never come to pass in a free society such as the one they envisioned.

Our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the constitution, is a testament to their wisdom and their understanding of the nature of power. To more clearly comprehend what the Bill of Rights actually accomplishes we can look at the very nature of power in a society.

Firstly, the power of the individual to make life decisions, to live where they wish to live, to do what they wish to do, is mainly a function of finance. When a person chooses a means to make an income, to trade their time and labor for money, that person also creates the opportunity to make certain life choices.

Tyrants throughout history have clearly understood that one means of obtaining and maintaining power was to control the people's finances. The tighter the controls, the less life choices the people could make, and the more dependent they became on obtaining governmental permissions and on government largess. This control was usually created through taxation, regulation of prices and wages, and regulation of economic activities.

When government creates internal debt, such as our national debt, there is the opportunity for government to further erode the power of the people through increased taxation and the devaluation of the currency. When the government uses that taxation to create dependency, it clearly is usurping the individual's rights and replacing them with governmental regulation. This is a clear form of "power grabbing" whether done maliciously or with an honest intent to provide aid.

Think of it this way; there is only so much economic power available. Consider a full bucket of water. The people hold the bucket, and dole out a little water at a time to their servants...the workers in government, as everyone needs water to survive. At a certain point, there is a balance, where the functions these servants provide and the needs of the people for water are in harmony.

If the doling out continues, however, at some point the people become short of water and are forced to request it from their servants. At this point the ability of the servants to turn on their employers is obvious. This is where power begins to shift, away from the people and toward the government, and this is what our forefathers feared most of all.

Of course this is a simplistic example, but clearly illustrates the concept.

Financial freedom, the ability to create income and spend it as willed, is the first of three legs of the stool...let's call it the stool of freedom for lack of a better term. If any of the three legs are cut short, the stool will topple and our constitutional republic would fall along with it. At that point a government, normally a strong and abusive one, will step in and fill the void left by the loss of the people's freedom.

The second leg of the stool is clearly addressed in the first amendment to the Bill of Rights. We refer to the "freedom of speech" when we discuss this amendment. This amendment limits the ability of government to keep the people from freely informing one another of events. It is literally the freedom to communicate. This amendment not only protects organizations, such as media groups and associations, but protects every individual.

Financial freedom, the ability to amass funds and to build companies, created a situation where the power to communicate did become somewhat concentrated within organs of mass media. The first amendment has been greatly strengthened and power has been brought back into balance by the advent of the internet and such innovations as cable television and talk radio. Of course there are those who are not happy with this return of balance.

When tyrannical governments are studied, it is obvious that control of information, like control of cash flow, is absolutely necessary in order to allow subjugation of the populace.

The third leg of the stool consists of actual physical power; the ability to threaten, or carry out the threat of, violence. The second amendment to the constitution guarantees that the people will always have the ability, in the final extreme, to rebel against a government that is attempting to usurp the power and rights of the people through force or intimidation.

Fortunately, the ability of the people to defend themselves against government abuse, whether in the courts are in the streets, has been enough of a deterrent to keep even the most ambitious of tyrants at bay. History is replete with examples of peoples who enjoyed a certain level of freedoms maintained by being an armed populace. The ancient Greeks, the Saxons, the Israelites, and numerous other cultures required the people to maintain weapons and the ability to use them. For in the final extreme...when all else fails...the ability to force government to back down and revert to its administrative duties, versus the tendency to "rule", lies completely in the hands of an armed citizenry.

Keeping in mind the nature of power opens our eyes to an understanding of the actual motivations and personal desires of some of our elected officials. While many truly wish to serve as our representatives, and sincerely want to do what is right, the siren song of government is always calling to those whose only wish is to increase their personal power...and in doing so decrease the power and the rights that belong to the people.

The Professor